NSO Showcase

Wednesdays at 9:00pm on Classical WETA 90.9FM

Classical WETA's ongoing series featuring performances from the National Symphony Orchestra, hosted by Nicole Lacroix. This special radio series is made possible by WETA's Friends of Classical Music. The National Symphony Orchestra’s radio programs are generously supported in part by The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

Listen to the Latest Broadcast

From Chaos to Serenity

NSOS_Jan_6_2021_Koopman--Gardner_44.mp3

What better symbol for the dawn of 2021 than Chaos? January’s NSO Showcase begins with the sounds of chaos-- French Baroque composer Jean-Féry Rebel’s idea of the big bang. "Le Cahos," the overture to his suite, "Les Elemens," is the first known tone cluster in music history, with all 7 notes of the D Minor scale sounding at once—you have to hear it to believe it! The program continues with psychological chaos—the opium-induced dream of an artist obsessed with a beautiful actress. The protagonist in Hector Berlioz’ "Symphonie fantastique" shares with us a nightmare that takes us from his passionate daydreams, to a ball, to his own execution (you can actually hear his head roll) and even to his macabre wake attended by a variety of ghouls and witches. As the composer Charles Gounod commented: “with Berlioz, every impression, every sensation is extreme; he only knows joy and sorrow as states of delirium.” In real life, Berlioz eventually married the object of his obsession—as you can imagine, the marriage did not live up to the fantasy. But this is a new year, and hope is on the horizon. Dvořák’s magnificent Cello Concerto featuring cellist Nicolas Altstaedt will definitely lift our spirits. Dvořák’s time in America (1892-1895) was productive and inspired, giving us such masterpieces as the “New World Symphony” (voted no.1 in WETA’s recent Classical Countdown), and the “American” String Quartet and Quintet, as well as the Cello Concerto. Brahms, on hearing the concerto famously said: “Why on earth didn’t I know one could write a cello concerto like this?” Dvorak beat him to it, creating one of the most personal works made even more poignant with a musical remembrance of his dying first love.
January’s NSO Showcase features Baroque music expert Ton Koopman conducting Rebel’s "Le Cahos," and Edward Gardner leading the NSO in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Berlioz’ "Symphonie fantastique." All performances were recorded live at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Upcoming Broadcasts

Takaki Kumada

Cherchez la femme

NSO Showcase

Wednesday, February 3, 2021 - 9:00pm

When Hector Berlioz saw Harriet Smithson on stage as Juliet at the Odéon Theater in Paris, he was doubly gob smacked—by Harriet’s acting talent, and by the genius of Shakespeare. His obsession with both Harriet and Shakespeare led him to write one of his masterpieces, Romeo and Juliet, a large-scale choral symphony. National Symphony Orchestra music director, Gianandrea Noseda chose a suite of 5 orchestral movements from Romeo and Juliet for a Valentine’s Day concert at the Kennedy Center.
Berlioz eventually married Harriet Smithson, who inspired both the Symphonie fantastique and Romeo and Juliet, but the union was a failure. Tchaikovsky, too, suffered from an unhappy marriage—the honeymoon lasted just three days before he tried to kill himself. He escaped to a Swiss resort where a former student, the violinist Joseph Kotek, inspired him to write the Violin Concerto in a fury of creativity. Unfortunately, the concerto was deemed “unplayable” for many years, but violinist Akiko Suwanai—at 18, the youngest winner of the 1990 Tchaikovsky Competition-- performs it beautifully with the NSO, Maestro Noseda conducting.
César Franck’s wife, Félicité, disapproved of his evolving style when he wrote the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit, a wild, devil-defying ride through the countryside on a Sabbath, a sonic nightmare replete with church bells and hunting horns, an angry god and angrier demon. Despite Mme. Franck’s doubts, Le Chasseur maudit was a huge success.
Three wives, three masterpieces. Join us on February 3rd at 9 p.m. or streaming all month long on Classical WETA.org.

Featured performances:

Berlioz: Suite from Romeo and Juliet

NSO, Gianandrea Noseda, conductor
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.35

NSO, Gianandrea Noseda, conductor, Akiko Suwanai, violin
César Franck: Le Chasseur maudit

NSO, Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Recent Broadcasts

From Chaos to Serenity

Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - 9:00pm

NSO Showcase Presents

A Thoroughly Modern Messiah

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - 9:00pm

Classical WETA’s NSO Showcase holiday tradition is to bring you Handel’s Messiah each December. Last year we enjoyed the Baroque splendor of a performance led by Jeannette Sorrell. This year, we move in the other direction, proving that Messiah is a supremely versatile masterpiece, whether in original or contemporary garb. In fact, Mozart himself started the fashion of "improving” Messiah.
Last year at the Kennedy Center, Sir Andrew Davis conducted his own re-imagining of this perennial favorite. “My aim,” he said, “is to keep Handel’s notes, harmonies and style intact, but to make use of all the colours available from the modern symphony orchestra in order to underline the mood and meaning of the individual movements.”
To this end, Davis decorated the orchestra with added flutes, clarinets, horns, trombones, organ and a lot of exotic percussion.
The Washington Chorus was joined by soloists Andriana Chuchman, Daniela Mack, Alek Shrader and Sidney Outlaw.
As Washington Classical Review commented: “It all added up to a rather theatrical Messiah...exactly what Handel intended. For all its eccentricities the orchestration gave the big choral finishes of each part of the oratorio some extra oomph.” And, really, who couldn’t use some extra oomph this holiday season?

Sunrise and Fortune

NSO Showcase Season Kick-Off

Wednesday, November 4, 2020 - 9:00pm

What a difference a year makes! Remember the thrill of seeing Gianandrea Noseda conducting the National Symphony Orchestra live? Classical WETA’s first NSO Showcase of this new season brings you that excitement in two audience favorites from last fall at the Kennedy Center--Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra. Both masterworks have fired the popular imagination. Just think of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic sunrise scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey set to the opening fanfare of Also Sprach Zarathustra. And how many times have you heard O Fortuna – the opening chorus from Carmina Burana-- in commercials, movies and TV programs?

There is so much more to this music than these famous memes. In Zarathustra, Richard Strauss sought to interpret musically Nietzsche’s philosophical novel about a prophet who comes down from a mountaintop to teach mankind. Strauss used all the orchestral forces at his disposal including trumpets, organ, 6 horns and a whole panoply of percussion—and he illustrated the various stages of Zarathustra’s life with a variety of styles ranging from the fugue to the Viennese waltz. The 1896 work’s original title reflects the composer’s excitement at the dawn of a new age: “Symphonic Optimism in fin de siècle form, dedicated to the 20th century.”
While Strauss’ Zarathustra looks forward to a brand-new century, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana looks back on the writings of bawdy medieval monks. Its complete title was: "Carmina Burana: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magical images." The opening chorus, O Fortuna, sets the wheel of fortune spinning, with mankind at its mercy. While Zarathustra wrestles with thorny philosophical issues, the monks of Carmina Burana enjoy the earthly delights of spring, the tavern and love. In this performance you’ll hear Gianandrea Noseda leading the National Symphony Orchestra, the Choral Arts Society of Washington, the Children’s Chorus of Washington and soloists in what The Post called, simply, “fun.” And that is a concept we can all enjoy.