Music

"Thank you so much for making these wonderful pieces available! I plan on listening to and sharing them all." --Podcast listener

About The Concert

Since 2006, the Gardner Museum's free classical podcast The Concert has made world-class performances recorded live at the museum available to listeners across the globe.

A new program is posted on the 1st and 15th of every month, so check the website often or subscribe to receive automatic updates. You can also listen to individual musical tracks through our online music library.

Current Episode

Episode 142: The Power of Words
Works for voice and chamber ensemble, and string quartet, performed by Rebel Baroque Orchestra with Derek Lee Ragin, countertenor, and the Borromeo String Quartet.

  • Porpora: “Alto Giove” from Polifemo
  • Handel: “Rompo i lacci” from Flavio
  • Beethoven: String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135, No. 16

For any composer of vocal music, the text is an important and often driving force in determining musical content and structure. We begin this episode with two early examples from opera, Porpora’s gorgeous “Alto Giove” from his opera Polifemo—a beautiful prayer of thanks to Jove—and Handel’s fiery and melismatic “Rompo i lacci” from Flavio. Beethoven’s use of text is subtler, but just as important in his final string quartet, opus 135, number 16. At the beginning of the final movement, Beethoven scrawls a fateful-sounding title across the manuscript: “The Difficult Decision.” Alongside the beginning chords, he poses a question: “Must it be?” The quartet chews over the question for a while in the introduction until, all of a sudden, the key changes to F Major and Beethoven gives us his answer: “Yes, it must!” Historians and musicologists have batted around many theories as to what Beethoven meant by this ambiguous question and answer.

Sharing

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Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank the following individuals and institutions, whose help and support have made this project possible:

  • The musicians, without whose artistry, vision, and support we would not have been able to create this podcast.
  • The Berkman Center for their legal expertise in the complex and fascinating world of digital intellectual property.
  • Liberated Syndication for hosting our podcast.
  • Our talented recording engineer, Tom Stephenson of Emmanuel Recording.

We welcome your comments and suggestions! Email us at podcast@isgm.org.

 

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