Sunday Classics preview: Tonight's musical selections should give you a good idea of Sunday's subject

Jon Vickers lip-syncs Otello's great entrance declaration, "Esultate," from Act I of Verdi's opera, from the 1974 Karajan film.

OTELLO: Rejoice! The pride of the Muslims
is buried in the sea; the glory is ours and the heavens!
First the army, then the hurricane brought victory.
CYPRIOTS: Long live Otello! Long live! Long live!
Victory! Victory! Victory!

by Ken

This is virtually a dead giveaway. That's Ex. 1 above, and here's Ex. 2:


Myung-Whun Chung conducts the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra in the joyous finale of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

The two selections sum up what we're going to be listening to in this week's Sunday Classics post. There's a trick, but only a teeny-tiny one.


YOU SAY YOU WANT MORE "ESULTATE"S? CAN DO!


(1) Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, (2) Mario del Monaco, (3) Jon Vickers,
(4) Plácido Domingo, and (5) Luciano Pavarotti

SUNDAY CLASSICS' MUSICAL STORMS

Preview: Tonight's musical selections should give you a good idea of Sunday's subject (January 13)
The thunderstorm movement from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Otello's "Esultate" from Verdi's Otello
Stormy weather, part 1 (January 15)
Verdi's Otello, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and Berlioz's Les Troyens, plus Lena Horne singing "Stormy Weather"
Preview: Given the resources at his disposal, Vivaldi's musical storms may be the most remarkable of all (January 27)
The three storm movements from Vivaldi's Four Seasons
With the full symphony orchestra you can create a heckuva storm (aka: Musical storms, part 2) (January 29)
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (again), Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, Johann Strauss II's Amid Thunder and Lightning polka, Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt incidental music, Britten's Peter Grimes, and Rossini's Barber of Seville
Preview: En route to more of our musical storms, we encounter perhaps the most eerily wonderful music I know (February 3)
The Preludes to Acts I and II of Wagner's Siegfried
Storms that set three great operatic scenes in motion (aka: Musical storms, part 3) (February 5)
The openings of Wagner's Die Walküre Act I and Siegfried Act III and of Act III of Puccini's La Bohème
Preview: En route to our final operatic storms, we hear two famous tenor tunes sung by a very famous tenor (February 24)
"La donna è mobile," the Quartet, and the Storm Scene from Act III of Rigoletto
Musical storms, part 4: We come to our raging storms from Janáček's Kátya Kabanová and Verdi's Rigoletto (February 26)
The storms from Act III of both operas, with a close-up look at how Verdi created the Rigoletto one -- plus the whole of Act III

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