Theme & Variations introduces a new topic each week, presenting a wide range of music associated with that theme. Drawn from a millennium of Western classical music, the selections are an eclectic mix of familiar favorites and rarities. Theme and Variations is produced locally in Discover Classical's studios by host Joe Law.
Today’s program pays tribute to eco-friendly composers who reuse, reduce, or recycle previously existing music: J. S. Bach, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, John Corigliano, G. F. Handel, Gioacchino Rossini, Igor Stravinsky and Antonio Vivaldi.
This week you will hear four ballet scores adapted from music from earlier composers. The featured music is by J. S. Bach (arr. William Walton), Vincenzo Bellini (arr. Vittorio Rieti), Domenico Scarlatti (arr. Vincenzo Tommasini) and Arthur Sullivan (arr. Charles Mackerras).
It’s time to return to the musical form this program is named for, with variations on operatic themes, along with the (often unfamiliar) operatic themes themselves. The operas are by Vincenzo Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, W. A. Mozart and Gioacchino Rossini; the variations are by Ludwig van Beethoven, Carl Czerny, Franz Liszt, Nicolo Paganini and Anton Reicha.
This week you’re invited to travel back a century for music composed or premiered in 1925. The composers are Ernest Bloch, Jacques Ibert, Paul Hindemith, Erwin Schulhoff, Edgard Varèse, Ralph Vaughan Williams and William Walton.
