by Tobias

There are many ways to organize a classical music show, and I have discovered a new one. Starting with my five-hour show this Tuesday(1/17/17, 6 to 11 a.m.), I intend to play pieces of music in all twenty-four keys, in a fixed order.

Many classical announcers like to focus on composers’ birthdays. This is an artifice, but it’s a good one, because it guarantees variety in the DJ’s programs while bringing some historical background to our musical enjoyment.

My own artifice will mostly be a challenge for me. I wish to provide my usual kinds of programs, full of excellent music and great contrast, but I shall try to do that while adhering to a key sequence. We shall start with music in A major, and then descend from there to A flat, G, G flat (or F sharp) and so on.

I shall have to do a full octave twice, in order to cover both the major and minor of every key. This effort will take a few weeks, because I shall not rely on three-minute pieces for most of the keys.

A good place to start would be Mozart’s scintillating piano concerto in A major, K. 488. Then Beethoven’s next-to-last piano sonata, Op. 110 in A flat major. Then perhaps, Kalinnikov’s marvelous first symphony, a work that successfully straddles the divide between Classical and Romantic music, in G minor. And then one of the best Bach fugues (along with its prelude) in F# major, from the Well-Tempered Clavichord Book I, BWV 858. And so on.

I hope you can join me, on Tuesdays at 6 am. As I choose this music, I shall post it in my playlists. You can keep track of what I’m doing at https://wprb.com/playlists/dj-list/ .