A ten-day music festival featuring in-concert recorded performances by three world class organizations — Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Boston Early Music Festival — will begin airing Monday night, April 20 at 9PM, only on WCRB 99.5 Classical Radio Boston and online.
“ Festival 1750 will allow classical music lovers to remotely experience the incredible feeling of being in a concert hall, every night, listening to great performers playing superb music,” says Anthony Rudel, station manager of WCRB, who created this unique initiative.
“Boston is blessed to have these three world-class organizations, and we are thrilled to share their riches, especially when the concert halls are now dark and audiences have to be at home. It’s part of radio’s magic to allow listeners to imagine another place at another time.”
Festival 1750 is named for the pivotal year when the elaborate vibrancy of baroque masters Bach and Handel began to give way to the grace and elegance of classical composers like Haydn and Mozart.
“It’s the time when the values of the baroque — elaborate, rich, ornate, with lots of symbolism — is eclipsed by the balanced and graceful lines and architecture of classical music,” says WCRB’s Production Director Brian McCreath who also hosts The Bach Hour and has curated Festival 1750.
Many of the works recorded in concert will be heard on broadcast for the first time. Others were culled from the archive of WCRB In Concert, a weekly WCRB program highlighting the wealth of live classical music in Massachusetts. WCRB host and producer Alan McLellan will host Festival 1750.
Included in these programs are Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Handel’s Water Music, two Beethoven Symphonies, and works by Mozart and many other composers of those amazing eras.
“During these challenging times, this is WCRB’s way of saying, ‘here's something for you at the end of every day that is Boston at its best,’” says Rudel. “Close your eyes and be transported.”
