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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.

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.

This Sunday we look back at some of the conductors of the first half of the last century:Toscanini, Koussevitzky, Beecham, Walter, Stock, Stokowski, and others.Fearsome personalities, some of them, and legendary figures on the podium, they brought classical music to the masses via the recording studio and later the airwaves.

Czech composer Antonin Dvorak is best known for his Symphony from the New World, written during his tenure as director of the new National Conservatory in New York. He was a composer of some distinction with a considerable portfolio to his credit before he was tapped for the conservatory job.