Historic Radio and TV Themes NYC Radio Stations WNCN WNYC WQXR

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New York Diary (20-17): WNCN, WNYC, WQXR, Radio Days, Radio and TV Classical Themes

New York City has a glorious Radio (Broadcasting) History. The pictured Radio City Music Hall though was not part of it. It was so named because it is part of the Rockefeller Center, and its neighbor is the even more glorious RCA Building, now occupied by affiliate NBC. Yes, RCA was our estimable tube manufacturer who diversified badly into all sorts of failing ventures, part of parent company GE's incompetence (which extends into today!) RCA's history is fascinating and interwoven with audio of course (good wiki read).

I learned Classical Music by Listening to the Radio on my first system. At that time, the newspapers as well as magazines have the radio schedules for the classical stations (left pic is the NYT), so I could prepare in advance for taping. I chronicled my journey here, (hard to imagine that was written 10 years ago), the relevant section excerpted below.

With the first money I earned as a busboy in NYC, I bought my first stereo system in 1973. A cheap Harman Kardon receiver, horrible speakers, and a cheap Akai cassette deck, no TT. It was rather out of the blue. I never had any classical music experience in my Beijing Opera-suffused childhood, but listening to NYC's wonderful radio stations made me a convert very fast (the defunct WNCN, the perennial WNYC, WQXR; make sure you listen to them, now easily via the internet, wherever you are; I still do!). Lacking money to buy records I just taped the broadcasts. It was a fruitful period. Imagine, discovering for the first time Sibelius' Violin Concerto (still a personal favorite) and Tchaikovsky's violent 4th Symphony (which I have OD'ed on). One year later, when I got more money I bought the Pioneer PL-10 turntable (I still remember the excitement as I lugged it out of the downtown J&R) and started buying records. At the time, Dual and other more expensive TTs were out of budget for me. This TT, which is still with me, therefore holds a special place in my heart.

Everybody knows surgeons listen to music in the OR, but few know that many Pathologists do so when they look at the microscope. Radio was a constant in my office through the eighties. Remember, this was long before the days of portable and personal audio, before computer even.

WNYC (always 93.9) This is NYC's Public Radio, affiliated with NPR. It is now almost all talk (they are good), but at that time had a lot more classical music. It was, and is, always in financial crisis, and listeners have to often go through fund-raisers. One great thing about this station is that they have ticket giveaways. Now it is is an electronic shuffle but during my times we had to call in. The announcer would say something like "...the fifth caller would get a pair of tickets..." At first, I got really lucky and hit the jackpot several times. I remember them! Performances at the BAM (Pina Bausch x 2; Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker/Rosas) and even a CD set of Lully's Atys (Les Arts Florissant/William Christie). Then my luck went out, and soon I left for Hong Kong.

WQXR (then 96.6; now the less desirable 105.9) was better than now. For a bit of interesting history, read WQXR Home of High Fidelity.

WNCN and The Day the Music Died
But the best classical station BY FAR was WNCN (then 104.3). It was run by David Dubal, who had very good programs, My favorite was A Musical Offering, which compared different piano performances of the same work. e.g. with, say, Beethoven's Op.111, he would play a movement played by, say, Bruce Hungerford, Wilhelm Kempff, Claudio Arrau etc. It was enlightening and quite a bit of it is on youtube (this example is on the Pathetique Sonata). I still have his book The Art of The Piano (I think it is a bit US-centric)

When the Station suddenly died, there was a lot of lost people, myself included. Left is the NYT article (you can read the text in this link).

Radio and TV Themes
Many of the Programs of the time have a theme, usually quite beautiful, or elegant, and it took me quite a while to learn what they were. Here is an article (before my time) on Historic WQXR Themes. Some of the programs persisted into the 80's. Steinway Hall has a theme from Bach's Cantata BWV 147, but I think it was a orchestral transcription, without voice.

Basic Repertoire

Bach wrote over 200 Cantatas, so one can understand why some are more popular than others. In the Last Diary (below) I posted some videos of a solo violin in dialogue with a soprano. In Bach's Cantata BWV 147 "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben" (Heart and mouth and deed and life), the same happens at 12:03 (how beautiful!). Don't stop after you listen to that, as it is immediately followed by one of Bach's most famous tunes (till 19:04; used by WQXR as theme for the program Steinway Hall). This performance is from the church Trogen in Switzerland, performed by the Choir and Orchestra of the J. S. Bach Foundation under conductor Rudolf Lutz. Hana Blažiková is the Soprano. The two ladies are wonderful together.

All Beethoven's Symphonies are essential. Each deserves a lifetime of attention. Now I know all of them by heart, but my first exposure to the transcendental Larghetto from Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 was from the theme for WQXR's Symphony Hall. This performance is from one of the best traditionally (not period style) played cycles, the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Bohm. Here it is played slower than usual, but that only allow us more time to savor the luminous playing of the VPO. This movement is still one of my favorites.

Now, I can't remember which program (or which station) it was (I think it was WNCN) that used the Adagio of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathetique as theme. This has always been one of my favorites too. Annie Fischer is the pianist. In this youtube, the third movement plays itself after the slow movement,

Finally, TV programs have themes too. I love the WOR Million Dollar Movie Theme, from Gone with the Wind, composed by Max Steiner.