NPR’s Rob Schmitz speaks with pianist Emanuel Ax about his new podcast “Classical Music Joyful Hour.”
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
All through his decades-long profession, pianist Emanuel Ax has been performing within the nice live performance halls of the world. And now, as a substitute of the stage, he’s stepping behind a microphone to host a brand new podcast with WQXR and Carnegie Corridor. It is known as Classical Music Joyful Hour, and it is half interviews, with visitors like famous person pianist Yuja Wang and musical comedienne Isabel Hagen, and half sport present, with details about well-known composers’ deaths.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, “CLASSICAL MUSIC HAPPY HOUR”)
EMANUEL AX: As Beethoven…
YUJA WANG: May die sooner (laughter).
AX: As Beethoven lay dying with a failing liver, his publishers thought, you understand what he wants (laughter)? You realize what’d he actually admire? A case of wine.
WANG: Wow.
AX: And as a matter of truth, apparently, Beethoven’s final phrases had been, pity, it is come too late.
SCHMITZ: That is Emanuel Ax. Manny, as his pals know him, joins me now. Welcome, Manny.
AX: Thanks. Very good to be with you.
SCHMITZ: It is nice to have you ever. So it is fairly apparent that your podcast may be very completely different from a typical live performance corridor expertise. The place did the thought come from? And why did you assume a podcast was the appropriate format?
AX: Properly, really, the thought type of got here 20 years in the past. My good friend Yo-Yo Ma and I had at all times talked about doing a music “Automobile Discuss” as a result of we had been such…
SCHMITZ: (Laughter).
AX: …Followers of that present. I feel that is type of the way in which it started. He left it to me to type of get some visitors, do some video games, attempt to present the personalities of not solely musicians however individuals who love music, to point out that we’re perhaps a bit of extra relaxed than folks assume we’re.
SCHMITZ: So that you and Yo-Yo Ma, the Click on and Clack of classical music podcasting (laughter).
AX: Sure. However positively the poor man’s Click on and Clack.
SCHMITZ: So quite a lot of the conversations you have been having virtually flip the picture that many individuals have of classical music on its head. One musician who I feel does this rather well in classical music is Yuja Wang, who we heard from within the first clip on this piece. Now, I met Yuja Wang a couple of decade in the past backstage at certainly one of her reveals. I met her mom, and we had a dialog the place her mom advised me about her husband, Yuja Wang’s father, and about how her husband – when Yuja was very younger, her husband, Yuja Wang’s father, saved telling her, you might want to decelerate. Clearly…
AX: (Laughter).
SCHMITZ: …That recommendation didn’t work very nicely. As a result of if anybody who’s listening to this doesn’t know Yuja Wang or just isn’t conversant in her, simply put in Google Yuja Wang and “Flight Of The Bumblebee.”
(SOUNDBITE OF YUJA WANG’S PERFORMANCE OF NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV’S “FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE”)
SCHMITZ: She is among the quickest musicians I’ve ever seen.
AX: Sure.
SCHMITZ: How are musicians like Yuja altering classical music?
AX: Once you meet folks like Yuja, like Yo-Yo, like quite a lot of the those that I’ve on this podcast – whenever you meet them speaking in a extra relaxed manner, you notice that they are very a lot enjoyable and that they do not take themselves so severely, and due to this fact, the viewers should not both.
SCHMITZ: Proper.
AX: Folks at all times assume there are guidelines to listening to music. You realize, you come to a live performance. There’s some form of arcane rule that you simply’re not allowed to applaud. That does not make any sense. You realize, it is not solely counterintuitive, nevertheless it’s traditionally unsuitable.
SCHMITZ: So let me ask you this, Manny. What place do you assume classical music occupies in at the moment’s world? How do you assist somebody fall in love with the music that you have devoted your life to taking part in?
AX: Properly, I want to assume that if we will simply get folks to hear – that is a very powerful factor – not directly or different. You realize, it is very – today, it is very accessible. Yow will discover music anyplace on-line. I feel we simply have to by some means say, that is fascinating, do it. You realize, I keep in mind once we moved to this nation. I used to be, I suppose, 12 years outdated, and I noticed a soccer sport on tv – New York Giants, with Y. A. Tittle being the quarterback. That is – I am certain that is…
SCHMITZ: These had been the times.
AX: …The identify for you. It is type of like me mentioning Beethoven to you. You realize, it is the…
SCHMITZ: (Laughter).
AX: …Similar interval of historical past. However he was the quarterback I first noticed with the Giants. And I keep in mind simply – I did not know a factor. However I received concerned with it simply by it, you understand?
SCHMITZ: Proper.
AX: And I feel it is the identical manner with music. If – in fact, not all people goes to be fascinated, however the those that is likely to be , that is likely to be excited by it, then you definately begin listening, and the extra you hear, the extra you understand. And the factor is, there’s a lot happening at the moment. There are such a lot of selections for youths, rather more than there was, I’d say. All the know-how that is made issues a lot simpler has additionally given us an unimaginable variety of selections. So music is just one of many selections now.
SCHMITZ: So, Manny, let’s return to your podcast. What’s one factor that you simply hope of us take away from listening to it, in addition to all the, you understand, fascinating ways in which well-known composers have died?
AX: Yeah (laughter). Properly, that is solely one of many video games we play. We have got a bunch of different video games. What I am hoping is that the composers I discuss to – John Adams, Gabriela Ortiz, Jeanine Tesori – are additionally seen as people who find themselves thrilling, progressive, enjoyable to be with. So I hope that comes via a bit.
SCHMITZ: That’s Emanuel Ax, host of the podcast Classical Music Joyful Hour from WQXR and Carnegie Corridor. Manny, thanks a lot for becoming a member of us.
AX: Thanks very a lot. Thanks rather a lot for taking the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHNNY GREENWOOD’S “TRIO FOR WILLA”)
Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional data.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts could differ. Transcript textual content could also be revised to right errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org could also be edited after its unique broadcast or publication. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.
