A great source of classical music on the Web

Dan MC writes:

I’m writing to you about the current VFR thread “The challenge of our time,” where I felt your very thoughtful response to your young interlocutor was quite moving and on a much higher plane than the common day to day of political discourse.

I thought I might contribute one bit of very simple practical everyday advice about how to keep one’s head in such alarming times.

There is an excellent all-classical-music radio station that webcasts over the Internet: “All Classical” KBPS FM, 89.9 FM out of Portland, Oregon. You can find them on the web at allclassical.org—and they are a treasure. The station is incredibly well programmed (though with a preference for 18th and 19th century music over earlier periods, which frankly I don’t mind). It is non-profit so there is very little interruption to the music (but with the regrettable inclusion of BBC World News reports in the mornings). They do a tremendous job of introducing listeners to the extraordinary canon of Western art music, and they stick strictly to that mission.

The reason I mention this is that people on your site were discussing how to educate children in the present environment, and this station provides a non-stop, high-quality, free (well, listener-supported) education in one of the West’s most glorious achievements, an ocean of cultural musical treasures which too few people in America take the trouble to access. I have been fortunate enough in life to acquire a moderately competent musical education from my youth, but young people really ought to be immersed in this music on a regular basis. It’s a great source of sanity (in the old Latin sense) and strength. Thanks to the miracle of the Web, a wide expanse of this music can come into one’s home on a regular basis without buying a gigantic CD collection. And it’s brilliantly curated, so you get a broad and deep view.

From a political viewpoint, I think the Western art-music canon from roughly 1500 to 1900 is an arguable prime candidate for the most singularly astonishing group-cultural achievement in human history; in any event it is an enduring source of Western pride and nourishment. The more it is emphasized and sensitively explored by large numbers of people, the better off we’ll all be. Well, as they say, this stuff sells itself.

Support for classical music is a small good thing that all of us can do to help nurture and replenish a culture that is under attack from so many directions. I hope you will agree.

All the best to you.

LA replies:

Thank you for this very useful information.

By the way, I couldn’t help noticing that the frequency of KBPS, 89.9, is the same as that of Columbia University’s student radio station, WKCR. When I was a freshman at Columbia, I hosted a classical music radio show on KCR for a while.

Gintas writes:

I don’t know what it is about the Pacific Northwest. King 98.1 in Seattle is excellent, too. It is commercial, but only the classics, I have never heard a single piece of junk.

Kevin V. writes:

Your commentator writes:

There is an excellent all-classical-music radio station that webcasts over the Internet: “All Classical” KBPS FM, 89.9 FM out of Portland, Oregon.

How true this is. We are very fortunate to have this station, which I listen to every day. They just extended their coverage out to the Oregon Coast, so they are growing, slowly but surely. We also have a very fine Opera company which works with All Classical quite a bit.

Hey, it’s not New York, but, as your commentator says, it’s a shaft of light in a state that, I assure you, is Obama mad.

Kevin

P.S. My mother, who is an immigrant from Northern Ireland and came up from L.A. to be by her grandchildren (my children), remarked the other day after a trip to downtown on how many lesbians there are in this town. They are just everywhere, she said. She then paused, got a thoughtful look and said with a laugh: “Given these Portland men, I can’t say I blame them, though.”

Scott H. writes:

I would also suggest KUSC FM 91.5 for great classical music and Classical Music America.

Bruce B. writes:

We’ve been listening to classical music on NPR for years. We simply turn it off when the music stops and the politics start. “With Heart and Voice” can be a lovely program, though I’ve heard more contemporary, synthesized sound on the program lately. Around Christmas, the broadcast the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s college, “Sunday Baroque,” is a nice program too. Some of the local stations can be listened to over the web.

Many liberals seem to like the beauty of Western art but not the truths expressed through it.

LA replies:

“Many liberals seem to like the beauty of Western art but not the truths expressed through it.”

Great line. That is exactly right. Liberalism keeps the form of truth or tradition, while rejecting its essence, as Fr. Seraphim Rose said. Examples are all around us.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 10, 2008 06:25 PM | Send