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Regular Features
 
Live in Studio 4A
Our showcase for artists invited to perform on the program and talk about their music
The PT 50
Our list of 50 essential classical CDs
Piano Puzzlers
Bruce Adolphe's "name that composer" piano quiz
 
 
 
Music of Ireland
PT piano sleuth Joseph Smith claims, "You don't have to be Irish to wear the green on St. Patrick's Day. You don't even have to be Irish to compose music with Irish themes."

Fantasy on "The Last Rose of Summer"
To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, pianist Joseph Smith plays music by German-Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn who, thanks to the volumes of Irish folk tunes published by Irish poet Thomas Moore in the early 19th-century, became smitten by the British Isles. Moore is best known for his setting of "'Tis the Last Rose of Summer." If not for that poem, Mendelssohn's Fantasy would have been on "The Groves of Blarney," that melody's original title.

  • Browse Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies

  • More on Thomas Moore


    Sir James Galway
     Sir James Galway     		Carrickfergus (RealAudio)
    Sir James Galway (left) plays one of his favorite traditional Irish tune in Studio 4A.

    John Field: Nocturne No. 6 in F
    In Studio 4A, Irish pianist John O'Conor plays music of his fellow countryman, and father of the Nocturne, John Field.

    O'Conor reflects on Field


    In Depth

    Sir James Galway and Jeanne Galway -- Live in Studio 4A

    John O'Conor -- Live in Studio 4A

    The Thistle & Shamrock -- NPR's Celtic music program

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