The Answered Question

Pianist Emanuel Ax previews his performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conductor David Hoose talks with WCRB's Alan McLellan about Brahms'sA German Requiem, and BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons compares the forthright personalities and music of Beethoven and Gunther Schuller.

Previewing a Boston Chamber Music Society All-Dvorák program, Artistic Director Marcus Thompson and violist Dimitri Murrath talk with WCRB's Cathy Fuller, Andris Nelsons previews a Boston Symphony Orchestra program of works by Ravel, Benjamin, and Berlioz, and countertenor Andreas Scholl talks about Bach's cantatas with WCRB's Brian McCreath.

Tenor Ian Bostridge describes his relationship with Franz Schubert'sWinterreise, BSO Choral Director James Burton talks about that newly created position, and violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Alexander Melnikov talk about Beethoven's Sonatas for Violin and Piano.

Pianist and composer Jean-Frédéric Neuburger talks with WCRB's Brian McCreath about Schumann's Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the balance between composing and performing, and conductor Masaaki Suzuki describes the process of working with the young musicians of the Juilliard School and Royal Academy of Music at the Boston Early Music Festival and his 2015 Celebrity Series of Boston program with Bach Collegium Japan.

Conductor Juanjo Mena talks with WCRB's Brian McCreath about a Boston Symphony Orchestra program that includes Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Violin Concerto, as well as Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, and Richard Egarr describes his Handel and Haydn Society program of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3.

Conductor Bramwell Tovey looks at works by Samuel Barber, Terry Riley, and Edward Elgar - all on his January 2017 Boston Symphony Orchestra program - from the perspective of a composer, and, in a 2014 interview, Murray Perahia describes the magnetic pull of music by Robert Schumann.

Three members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra - piccolo player Cynthia Meyers, trumpeter Thomas Rolfs, and trombonist Toby Oft - talk with Ron Della Chiesa and Brian McCreath about their paths to the BSO, what it takes to play in a major orchestra, and the excitement of performing with Music Director Andris Nelsons.

As the year 2017 dawns, legendary singer and songwriter Billy Joel talks with WCRB's Tony Rudel about "Miami 2017," released in 1976 on the albumTurnstiles. Better known as "Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway," the lyrics of the song foreshadow a future New York City engulfed in chaos. In the interview, Billy talks about the creative process of songwriting and what's behind the key moments in "Miami 2017."

Scott Metcalfe of early music ensemble Blue Heron previews "Christmas in 15th Century France and Burgundy," and how the creative process works within a group he describes as "pure democracy."

Harry Christophers, the Artistic Director of Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, talks about H+H's season opening program that includes Bach's Magnificat, and Nashville Symphony Music Director Giancarlo Guerrero describes the experience of leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.