Five O’Clock Favorite

Hosted by
Christa Wessel

Five O’Clock Favorite

Every weekday at 5:00 PM PT

Every weekday at 5:00 PM PT, All Classical Radio and host Christa Wessel invite listeners to be part of the programming. During the Five O’Clock Favorite, you’ll hear a listener-suggested piece of music along with a personal story about their choice. With pieces that are fun and familiar, music for remembrance and reflection, and everything in between, the Five O’Clock Favorite is a perfect way to ease your commute, end your workday, or start off your evening soundtrack on All Classical Radio. 

graphic for five o clock fav

Your Host
Christa Wessel

Weekdays at 5:00, you’ll find me in my happy place on the radio: sharing your Five O’Clock Favorite. This special program is an opportunity for me to celebrate listeners’ memories and favorite pieces of classical music. Our stories connect us to each other, and this daily segment allows us to hear what’s in the hearts of our friends and neighbors. I hope you’ll submit your suggestion for a future Five O’Clock Favorite!

Christa Wessel
woman with glasses sitting on a blue couch, leaning slightly forward — Photo by Christine Dong

Submit your favorite piece:
Suggestions are easiest to honor if they’re 20 minutes or less.

Recent Favorites

Air date: February 1, 2024

We Shall Overcome, Spiritual

Suggested by Pie in Portland, Oregon

I just watched the movie "Harriet," about Harriet Tubman. And while Terrance Blanchard wrote a beautiful score, there are also some wonderful spirituals in that film. On the occasion of the first day of Black History Month, I'd like to suggest we experience a spiritual together.

Air date: January 31, 2024

Fuori del mondo (Out of this World), Ludovico Einaudi

Suggested by Alicia in Hillsboro, Oregon

I heard this piece on Warren Black's show and thought it hauntingly beautiful. It truly did seem to take me out of this world!

Air date: January 30, 2024

Carnival of the Animals: The Swan, Camille Saint-Saens

Suggested by Phoebe in Portland, Oregon

This was on a CD that my family kept in the car when I was a kid. When it played, it made me sort of ache and feel peaceful at the same time. I found out years later that this was my parent's wedding song and that they had even hired a harpist to play it. Because of that, as I look back, I like to think that my childhood reaction to the music was innate... I think that aching-yet-peaceful feeling is probably love. If I ever get hitched, I'll certainly have this played at my wedding, too.

Air date: January 29, 2024

An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise, Peter Maxwell Davies

Suggested by Tony in Portland, Oregon

I love all kinds of music from Bach to Brubeck to Boulez. I have no strong favorites. But for many years I’ve cherished the delightful "An Orkney Wedding With Sunrise" which depicts an all night wedding celebration. The music takes us through the evening festivities, into a drunken nighttime, and onward to a splendid sunrise with a joyful bagpipe! All in 13 minutes. I love that in live performance, the bagpiper enters at the rear of the auditorium and marches down the aisle to the stage.

Air date: January 26, 2024

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, J.S. Bach

Suggested by Bill in Portland, Oregon

I first heard a portion of this over-the-top organ piece played on the Wanamaker Organ at a noon recital at the Macy's in Philadelphia (but back when Macy's was still Wanamaker's). I was seated next to the organist, a tiny woman who could barely reach the top manual. I was 19 (1959) on that first trip to Philadelphia, and it still gives me a thrill to hear all of this from ONE person's hands & feet!

Air date: January 25, 2024

Clair de Lune, Claude Debussy

Suggested by Julia in Ithaca, New York

I'm 59 years old. I don't remember much about my nursery school days, but one thing that has stuck with me clearly for 56 years is that every day, my nursery school teacher - Miss O'Brian - would play a record of Claire de Lune as we children stretched out on our floor mats to take our nap. Maybe she played other things too, but all I remember is Claire de Lune. I still remember lying on my orange mat on the white linoleum floor, listening to the music and feeling so peaceful and happy to be at nursery school and having nap time!

Maybe 20 years ago, when I was visiting my home town in Upstate NY, I saw Miss O'Brian in the grocery store. And I told her how I still had fond memories of hearing Claire de Lune for our nap time. She told me that it had been a favorite piece of music of hers since she was a little girl. It was a lovely connection with her. And one of a many ways that I feel so grateful for having grown up around people who shared their love of music with me as a young person.

To this day, when I hear it, I always feel so warm and happy (and like I want to take a nap) - no matter where I am or what I'm doing.

Air date: January 24, 2024

Lute Concerto in D, Antonio Vivaldi

Suggested by Elaine in Portland, Oregon

When I was about 5 or 6, I got to watch Sesame Street every day. Besides the sketches with the fascinating characters, I enjoyed the snippets of music they’d play, along with a video of some sort. My very favorite was a video of a rose growing out of a crack in a sidewalk in front of a brick wall, in the rain. The music was the first half of the second movement, “Largo" of Vivaldi’s Lute Concerto in D major, and every time I saw this I cried because I thought the rose was crying! To this day this is one of my very favorite works and I still tear up whenever I hear it. While I might cry, it would be great to hear the entire concerto. I love how the first movement is joyful, the second is sad, and the third is joyful again! The concerto (as well as this Sesame Street video) is a lovely metaphor for finding beauty and joy in the midst of a world that isn’t always happy, or perhaps of a life well lived, full of joyous moments as well as melancholy ones.

Air date: January 23, 2024

Peer Gynt: Morning Mood, Edvard Grieg

Suggested by Veronica in Sherwood, Oregon

I feel like the melody of this piece has been following me around since I was a tiny baby, but it's only recently that I've learned its name. It is my favorite piece of classical music of all time and it puts me in a calm, safe mood.

Air date: January 22, 2024

Pictures At An Exhibition: Selections, Modest Mussorgsky

Suggested by Jay in Los Angeles, California

I love Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky, and I love piano. I love piano so much I enrolled in a Bachelors of Arts in Music at NNU in Nampa, Idaho.

Air date: January 18, 2024

L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2: Farandole, Georges Bizet

Suggested by Elaine in Portland, Oregon

Every once in a while I get a an ear worm, or a song stuck in my head. Usually it’s something like (apologies in advance) “Who Let The Dogs Out” or a pop song with catchy lyrics, or a jingle from a TV or radio ad. Ever since I was young, whenever an ear worm got annoying, I’d play in my head a particular piece of classical music that apparently I’d heard at some point. This piece worked very well as a cleansing song! It took me years and years to figure out what the music was, or even the composer. One day I heard my cleansing song while streaming All Classical and I looked on my computer to find out the name of the music and who wrote it. Turns out it is Bizet’s L’Arlesienne, Suite No. 2 “Farandole" and as opposed to an ear worm, I never get tired of hearing this work! So, if you would, please play this delightful, busy piece and perhaps it can become a useful cleansing song for others, too!

Air date: January 17, 2024

Children’s Corner Suite: The Snow is Dancing, Claude Debussy

Suggested by Pie in Portland, Oregon

I discovered this song when I bought an album with Tomita's version at a discount store in the '70's. It reminds me of the snow in January in Cincinnati sitting in my grandmother's Nova while the snow created it's own whirlwind in the dead of winter. It's oh so beautiful this time of year.

Air date: January 16, 2024

Alleluia, Randall Thompson

Suggested by Kirke in Albany, Oregon

Many years ago I was a part of a handbell choir at church; one of our ringers was at the end of her 9th month of pregnancy but was still able to perform with us. I had arranged Randall Thompson's Alleluia to be rung by 3 octaves of handbells, We played it at the beginning of the Easter Eve service, and to our amazement the entire congregation gave us a standing ovation that must have lasted longer than the music itself! As we were taking down our bell tables our pregnant member's water broke, and Mary's baby girl Heather was born on Easter. Whenever I hear Randall Thompson's Alleluia it takes me back to that beautiful memory. I'd love to hear an instrumental version of this traditionally choral piece of music.

Air date: January 15, 2024

Water Music: Suite No. 2, George Frideric Handel

Suggested by Pat in Vancouver, Washington (he/his)

During the 1960’s while in high school I accidentally tuned into a Portland classical program playing Handel's Water Music. I was transfixed! Soon afterwards I bought my first classical recording, of this piece played on period instruments. Thus began my interest in classical music

Air date: January 12, 2024

The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace – Better is Peace, Karl Jenkins

Suggested by Michael in Atlanta, Georgia

I always listen to this piece as we enter a new year with the hope that one day we can truly ring out the war and hate of the world and "ring in a thousand years of peace." This year, it resonated more than ever and I wanted to share it with everyone. May it give us all food for thought as we enter into a year of uncertainty, fear, and chaos for so many.

Air date: January 11, 2024

Row On, Tim Laycock

Suggested by Kate in Depoe Bay, Oregon

I heard this song on the radio a few years ago while driving home. I was not in a good place mentally, things were quite dark and sad. As I listened, tears poured down my face as I realized there was indeed "dawn beyond the night" as the lyrics state. I immediately felt better after that cathartic outpouring of tears and emotion, and this song may very well have saved me.

Air date: January 10, 2024

Dance of the Blind, Marjan Mozetich

Suggested by Kate in Warfield, British Columbia

My husband, Roland, played accordion. Not the um-pah-pah polkas his parents tried to push on him, but music and lyrics uniquely his own, drawn from the depths of his soul. Folks in British Columbia who heard him play asked if he was from the Maritimes; in the Maritimes, people said his music was like nothing they’d ever heard.

He played for audiences and made them smile and dance but, mostly, he preferred playing while perched at the edge of a craggy shore above a raging river, or facing the ocean as the waves slammed into the sand, or at the top of a hillside with the valley at his feet and clouds gathering above.

Roland passed away, suddenly and much, much too soon, two years ago on January 10th. I would love for you to play one of his favourite pieces, Dance of the Blind, as my tribute to him and the wonderful life, full of music, that we shared.

Air date: January 9, 2024

Brigg Fair, Traditional English

Suggested by Pie in Portland, Oregon

I heard this recently on John Burk's show and fell in love with it immediately.

Air date: January 8, 2024

Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Opus 66, Frederic Chopin

Suggested by Mary Sue in Beaverton, Oregon

My mother was a gifted pianist; gifted and frustrated. Her primary musical outlet in our small town was playing for weekly services - 55 years worth - at a church whose members would have appreciated more Buck Owens and less Bach.   My sister and I provided her other musical outlet: when her anger at our quarrelsome ways boiled over, she would head for the piano and pound out one of her "mad songs": Mendelsohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, or Grieg’s Piano Concerto, or some up-tempo Chopin. We have yet to find a version of one of these pieces played with her particular vigor.   Were she still alive, January 6 would have been her 100th birthday. Perhaps one of her more reflective mad songs would fit the bill today? How about Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu in C Sharp Minor? It captures her spit and vinegar, her wistfulness and sadness - and possibly some of ours today, as well.

Air date: January 5, 2024

Danny Boy, Traditional Irish

Suggested by Elaine in Oregon City, Oregon

I would love to hear a choral version of this beautiful piece!

Air date: January 4, 2024

Theme from Inspector Morse, Barrington Pheloung

Suggested by Michael in Oregon City, Oregon

At 65 years young I started late in life listening to classical music. Years ago, my mother and I watched English detective shows on TV such as Inspector Morse. (Still my favorite!) This theme song led to listening to music like The Magic Flute and it just kept going. I have listened to The Five O'clock Favorite almost daily and have learned about so much good music such as Song for Bob, Gabriel's Oboe, The Flower Duet, and a bunch more. Also Thursdays @ Three introduced me to Zuill Bailey and his Bach cello suites. Thank you for all you do and keep inspiring us.

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