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The Bold and the Beautiful on Between the Keys, July 17th

The Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler is attracted to music where opposites attract and merge as one. "Think about the fusion of boldness and beauty, strength and sensitivity, or power and lyricism," says Distler. "These are contradictory elements, yet when they come together, creative sparks can truly fly."

This week's episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award winning Between the Keys is called "The Bold and the Beautiful," and Distler is particularly excited about its playlist.

"You have Schubert's sublime Andantino Variée for piano duet, which fuses Schubert's rhythmic audacity with his disarming sense of song. A truly bold and beautiful piece that I only recently learned about is called Opalescence, by the British composer Ruth Gipp (1921-1999). I had never heard of this composer, but this is substantial stuff. So is the Seventh Nocturne by Fauré, and I found an extraordinary recording of it by Emille Nauomoff. He's a composer and a pianist who got a lot of attention in the 1980s, but we don't hear about him much; the guy's a stone genius. And for some time I've wanted to feature my dear friend Chester Biscardi's 1986 Piano Sonata, a work in one continuous movement. It's an amazing piece. The ideas seem to fly all over the place in every direction, but the music is quite grounded and cogent in the end. It's compact yet also diverse and multi-layered, like a musical lasagna, perhaps! And we're going to compare three pianists in the same Chopin Mazurka, but you'll have to listen to the program to find out who they are!"

Listen live Tuesday July 17th at 10 PM on WWFM.Org, The Classical Network.