Monthly Archives: November 2010

Winter Basketball Broadcast Schedule

Image: Princetonbasketball.com

The 2010-2011 Princeton Basketball season is upon us! Listen to WPRB and you can catch live broadcasts of Princeton Tigers sports teams.

Pre-game coverage begins 20 minutes beforehand, and most games run approximately two and a half hours after tip-off. Schedule below include the pre-game coverage. For a complete listing of more Princeton Tigers Sports, visit the website.

2010-11 Princeton Men’s Basketball Schedule

All times Eastern. Schedule subject to change.

11-12, 6:40PM vs Rutgers
11-14, 4:40PM at Duke
11-22, 6:40PM at James Madison
11-23, 4:10PM vs. Bucknell
11-24, 4:10PM vs. Presbyterian
11-28, 1:40PM, Siena
11-30, 6:40PM at Lafayette
12-05, 4:40PM, Saint Joseph’s
12-08, 6:40PM at Monmouth
12-12, 1:40PM at Tulsa
12-17, 6:40PM at Wagner
12-22, 3:40PM at Towson
12-29, 9:10PM vs. Northeastern
12-30, 4:40PM vs. Furman
12-30, 7:10PM vs. UCF
01-05, 6:40PM, Marist

Tobias's "Bucket Listen" List:

With apologies, I’m going to be rather mordant today.
This is my “Bucket Listen” list. It’s quite different from a “bucket list.” Here’s how I came to it.

For years I have been convinced that if my life ends in a long, slow illness – you know what I mean – that I will spend a lot of that dwindling time listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. Like most of his symphonies, it’s about life and death, but it is much more about death and dying. The music expresses for me much of the rage at death and acceptance that, I’m sure, will occupy me then. And the music is deep, deep and full of mystery. I love to listen to that Ninth now, but as the end of my life lies before me, it will speak to me that much more.

One day I asked myself, why just the Mahler Ninth? Maybe it’s the bestest music for that time of my life, but there are other choices, other pieces that evoke the great mystery of life. Which pieces of classical music speak just so, to me? And so I started to put together a list.

I made some arbitrary decisions. With the exception of short songs, I want just one piece per composer, and I want to keep the list short. Here’s my first cut at my Bucket Listen List. It’s too long, but I expect to add as well as subtract before I’m done. You may be horrified at all the great, wonderful music I’m leaving out, but remember, I’m trying to be brief, and the chosen music must speak to me of the greatest mysteries. There are some dramatically different ways I could build such a list. I might listen to only J.S. Bach, or only Schubert, or only the Haydn string quartets. Well, here we go, in alphabetical order:

  • John Adams: Harmonielehre.
  • J.S Bach: Concerto for Two Violins.
  • Ludwig von Beethoven: The late bagatelles, Op. 126.
  • Alban Berg: Violin Concerto to the Memory of an Angel.
  • Anton Bruckner: Ninth symphony, maybe just the third movement.
  • Claude Debussy: The Violin Sonata.
  • Henri Duparc: songs: La vague et la cloche, La vie anterieure, Sérénade florentine, L’Invitation au voyage, Extase, Le manoir de Rosemonde.
  • Antonin Dvorak: the Cello Concerto.
  • Vasily Kalinikov: The First symphony.
  • Franz Liszt: Vallee d’Obermann.
  • Gustav Mahler: The Ninth symphony.
  • Wolfgang Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola.
  • Carl Nielsen: The Fourth Symphony, the ‘Inextinguishable’.
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff: Isle of the Dead.
  • Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit.
  • Domenico Scarlatti: early sonata in b minor, K. 27 (L. 449). {As Gilels does it, not Michelangeli-style.}
  • Arnold Schoenberg: The six tiny piano pieces, op. 19
  • Franz Schubert: [] oh, gee…. The unfinished symphony, the Trout, The 4-hands fantasy…
  • Robert Schumann: the six canons for pedal piano, arranged by Debussy for two pianos.
  • Antonio Soler: Fandango (harpsichord)

Too much music for the very end. I’ll want to focus. What can I do without? I intend to work my way through this list in my upcoming  programs at WPRB. These are all great stuff.

Play Anything I DON'T Want:

I have a big birthday coming up in about six months, and it occurred to me that on my birthday week, I could celebrate by programming a special show of classical music. The first idea was to program “anything I want.” But that would be pointless. Every single week, I program whatever I want. What can I do that’s different?

Right now, I have a great idea: I will program music I WOULD NEVER normally program. If you look at my reasons, you’ll see that such a show could be a delight for everyone else, because my betes noirs run against common taste. Here’s my list so far, of classical music I would never program, and why:

  • Pachelbel’s canon. I’m sick of it, in all its forms, and I greatly prefer Pachelbel’s OTHER compositions, such as his fugue on a repeated note. (I hope I can find a good recording of the canon.)
  • Sibelius’s 2nd Symphony: This is a fine work. I’ve just heard it too many times. Well, I can enjoy it one more time, I suppose.
  • Beethoven’s Sixth symphony: I mean, really. Leave it to Disney.
  • Telemann, almost anything. I used to like Telemann until I studied some of his music. He wanders from key to key like Bach does, but while Bach seems to know where he’s going, Telemann seems not to care. Since I’m now aware of what he’s doing, I don’t respect him anymore, even when he sounds nice.
  • Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude: (Sorry, I just think it’s more boring than it is exciting.
  • Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody. (Victor Borge had a routine where he played the two opening phrases, and then stopped, saying “Too rough.”).
  • Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue. I apply Victor Borge’s “too rough” comment even more strongly to the Grosse Fugue. No! I don’t want to program it, not even on this “don’t want” program. Do you like it? It’s yours.
  • The Bach Chaconne from the second French Violin Suite, arranged by Busoni for piano. A retched, retched excess. And I mean retch, not wretch. Or a masterpiece, if you will, suitable for every ham-fisted piano virtuos.
  • Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasia. One of Schubert’s great classics, they say, although, for some reason, I find it to be a rare failure of Schubert’s extraordinary sense of taste.
  • Schoenberg’s Verklaerte Nacht, ruined when it is played by an entire string orchestra. It’s a superb piece of CHAMBER music, for gosh sakes. I hope I can find a good orchestral recording.
  • The first Brahms Piano Quartet, arranged by Schoenberg (aha!) for orchestra. Another superb piece of CHAMBER music, ruined by a great excess of brilliant orchestration.
  • Anything conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

If I have time left over, I might conclude with Mozart’s Eine Kleine NachtWhatever. You know what I mean.

If you’ve listened to my programs, you may have a sense of my taste in Classical Music. If you have suggestions for my special program, please email them to me at masterclassics@wprb.com. Thanks! — Tobias

Wed 11/3, 8PM: Amy Bezunartea live on WPRB

Listen to 103.3 fm WPRB on Wednesday, November 3rd at 8:00 pm ET as Jon Solomon welcomes Kiam recording artist Amy Bezunartea down to the station.

Half of the stellar duo Clint Michigan, Amy is stepping out on her own with the release of “Restaurants & Bars,” which happens to hit stores the day before she makes her WPRB solo debut.

Listen to an mp3 of the song “Doubles” here.

You want a video from Joe’s Pub? Ok. Here ya go.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Q26DxL3NU&fs=1&hl=en_US]

All Schubert, All the Time; for five hours, at least, on November 2, 2010

We recently purchased a WIFI radio that plays streams from the Internet. I can listen to stations of all kinds, all over the world, including, of course, WPRB.
I found a station in Warsaw called ZET Chopin that plays Chopin all the time, a great idea. My wife said, There ought to be a radio station that plays Schubert all the time.
Sadly, there isn’t.
But this Tuesday, 11/2/2010, there will be LOTS and lots of Schubert. He’s an inexaustably wonderful composer. Please join me- Tobias