Should have mentioned this a week ago when it was on, since it won't be after tonight (though the piece will be again in different performances, and probably this one again too.) If you have RealPlayer or the browser plugin and would like to hear one of my two or three favorite pieces out of curiosity, before 2am this morning EST, either open this URL in RealPlayer-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/shows/rpms/radio3/throughnight_tue.rpm
or this URL in your browser-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/throughthenight/pip/sc6xz/
(and click the "Listen to this episode for up to 7 days after broadcast" link.)
It's the Stenhammar quartet (his fourth of six, written around 1904), beginning about 37 minutes (maybe 35, with introduction by the announcer) into the 6-hour night program and lasting - in this performance - about 35 minutes. Dedicatee of the work was Stenhammar's friend Jean Sibelius, who later dedicated to Stenhammar his own 6th symphony, a work with a few similar qualities...
(I started writing a description of it
here years ago, and never finished. The 3rd quartet is another of those favorites, and it's also described on that page.)
I have one commercial recording (there have been a few :) ) of both works, and a few taped broadcasts of each (likewise), one of them (of the 3rd quartet, not the 4th) by the Borodin Quartet, a reasonably well-known group of players (their 2nd "incarnation", I think, not the original- it's a wonderful performance, anyway, better than the commercially released one I have). I obsess *shrug*...
Off to make tea and lie down. Great piece, I hope you have a chance to catch it.
