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We don’t know why Franz Schubert left his Eighth Symphony unfinished 200 years ago. The reasons are probably quite commonplace, but coupled with the composer’s tragic life story the tale has grown greater than the sum of its parts in the public imagination.

Aaron Copland — a city boy — made a name for himself with music evocative of the American West. It’s a romanticized West, of course it is, but we’ll look at one of the first of his “oater-ballets,” Billy the Kid, this Sunday, and we’ll hear a couple of the others in upcoming weeks as well.

The premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was a rare immediate triumph for the composer, ending with the cheers of the audience. We’ll hear Herbert von Karajan’s reading with the Berlin Philharmonic -- one of the great recordings of this iconic work — on this Sunday’s program.

Before Albert Schweitzer was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he was a Bach scholar and concert organist. Dr. Schweitzer’s playing might not quite be up to modern performance standards, but we’ll hear a sample or two, and you can see what you think.

This Sunday we start a project that will continue until sometime next spring; a cycle of the complete symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We begin at the beginning: the Symphony No. 1, written when Mozart was eight years old.

Our cycle of the Mozart symphonies continues this week with the Symphony No. 2 in Bb major. While the First Symphony appears to be largely the genuine effort of a child prodigy, we think Papa Leopold Mozart helped with this one, probably quite a bit.

It’s Russian music, but Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture pairs so well with fireworks that we Americans like to borrow it for our Fourth of July festivities. Before you head out to watch the skyrockets, hear the Czar’s cannons on Mozart’s Attic this Sunday. There’s plenty of time before it gets dark.

Back a hundred or so years ago, before the radio, the phonograph and other such devices, a parlor piano was a source of amusement for some. If two players were available, duets were often played. We’ll look at some of these keyboard duets this week.

Igor Stravinsky’s first two ballets for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, The Firebird and Petrushka, were enthusiastically received by the Parisian audience, but nothing prepared them for The Rite of Spring.

We began the cycle of all the Beethoven piano sonatas on Mozart’s Attic in June of last year with Number 1 in F minor, Opus 2, written in 1795 when Beethoven was a brash young pianist new to the big city of Vienna.