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. 

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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: June 21, 2023

Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes, Aaron Copland

Suggested by Paul in Portland, Oregon

My parents married in the summer of 1942. Classical music was with them from the start of their relationship as long as they both lived. And when I say "from the start" here are a couple of examples:
1) their first date was the movie, Fantasia. I think that is still a very cool first date.
2) their honeymoon, summer of '42, was a trip to the Tanglewood Music Festival in Western Massachusetts. So, I scoured the archives of programs for that summer and saw there were many real possibilities of which concerts they might have attended. There was music by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Mendelssohn that summer, but I decided on thinking like a young, happy, honeymooning couple and I've settled on The Suite from Rodeo by Aaron Copland because I know they liked him as a composer, and that selection is for me one that expresses the rush, vitality and passion of that young love and the sheer joy and fun that this love could be.

Air date: June 20, 20223

Susanna: Suite, G. F. Handel

Suggested by Jeff in Portland, Oregon

Any and every thing G.F. Handel composed is entirely listenable and wholly appropriate for Five O'clock. Anywhere.

Air date: June 19, 2023

Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”: IV. Urlicht (Primal Light), Gustav Mahler

Suggested by Torry in Portland, Oregon

It's short, beautiful, and has the most splendid trumpet chorale :) Great programming btw!

Air date: June 15, 2023

Missa Solemnis: Kyrie, Ludwig van Beethoven

Suggested by Pie in Portland, Oregon

This music is so beautiful. I love Beethoven... I want a Beethoven's bust for my piano! (I also want the harpsichord from the Adams family. I love that!)

Air date: June 14, 2023

Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell

Suggested by Elizabeth in Vancouver, Washington

I heard this amazing rendition of Both Sides Now on Suzanne Nance's Sunday Brunch and was moved to tears. Glenn Murphy's voice is so pure, reaching deep into the human heart. If you would be able to play this June 14, my 60th birthday, I would be very touched. Thank you Christa for this show and your amazing talent which you share with the All Classical community so meaningfully.

Air date: June 6, 2023

Symphony No. 9 “Choral”: Ode to Joy, Ludwig van Beethoven

Suggested by Nancy in Vancouver, Washington

25 years ago on June 6, I walked down the aisle to Beethoven's Ode to Joy to marry my best friend and the love of my life. I feel just as much joy in my marriage now as I did on my wedding day and would like to hear this again to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

Air date: June 5, 2023

Lincolnshire Posy, Percy Grainger

Suggested by Toby in Portland, Oregon

I was a proud band geek from adolescence through high school, and just couldn't get enough music for wind band. This was always a favorite piece of mine, and brings back so many memories of playing it in All-State Band when I was young.

Air date: June 2, 2023

Only In Sleep, Eriks Esenvalds

Suggested by Wayne in Portland, Oregon

Though it was written in 2010, I only discovered this composition recently... and after hearing it I was immediately transformed. Set to text by American poet Sara Teasdale, the lyrics take us to a dream state where we remember our childhood friends from long ago. It was the final line, though, that shook me: "For them, am I too a child?" It actually caused me to think about my adulthood in a different way.

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten —
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild —
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

Air date: June 1, 2023

Pagliacci: Recitar! …Vesti la giubba (Put on the Costume), Ruggero Leoncavallo

Suggested by Emma in Portland, Oregon

I am a hardcore theatre kid and classical music lover. I am only somewhat interested in opera, but every time I hear the emotional "Vesti la Giubba" it tugs at the heartstrings. I have been impressed by many tenors and their portrayals of the tragic clown, but no one can do it like the legend himself, Luciano Pavarotti. This is a truly haunting and powerful aria which gives us a picture of pain and despair.

Air date: May 31, 2023

Piano Sonata No. 14 “Moonlight” in c sharp, Op. 27, No. 2, Ludwig van Beethoven

Suggested by Valerie in Vancouver, Washington

When I want to be whisked away somewhere this is what I listen to... and since my commute begins at 5:00 this is a nice calming piece that can relax me on the stressful ride home.

Air date: May 30, 2023

Kara Toprak (Black Earth), Fazil Say

Suggested by Wolfgang in Portland, Oregon

I attended an "In a Landscape" concert with Hunter Noack at Shore Acres State Park in Coos Bay, a special place for my late wife and me. I wandered off the area where patrons were listening. With my headphones I ventured into the botanical garden and looked at flowers. That's when Hunter explained he would emulate a Turkish guitar on his piano; at least that is what I remembered. As he started playing I was puzzled: "how is he doing this" I asked myself as I could not see him from the botanical garden, but could clearly hear the music through the headphones. Well, I never saw him "do it" because by the time I was back, the piece was finished. I found a YouTube video in which Mr. Say plays his piece with the Hessische Rundfunk Symphony Orchester. In one word, fascinating. I loved the different aspects of the piece, and the combination of classic piano with Turkish music. It has become my favorite piano piece.

Air date: May 29, 2023

Saving Private Ryan: Hymn to the Fallen, John Williams

Suggested by Jack in Portland, Oregon

I watched Saving Private Ryan and was overwhelmed with what happens to soldiers who have to go to war. My own father fought in WW II in the European Theatre of Operations under General Bradley. I did not understand why my dad would not be able to sleep at nights if he watched a war movie or why he was dismissive about being injured and would often have periods of silence where he was remembering war time experiences. Even though I had read D-Day by Stephen Ambrose, the reality of Spielberg's film, Saving Private Ryan, hits you hard. You begin to realize what these men went through and why they became known as greatest generation. When Hymn to the Fallen played in the film tears welled up in my eyes because I finally began to understand what he must have experienced. These young men went to war full of ideals and love of country but to survive and win they had to become like the enemy they fought, ruthless and unforgiving. They had to do things no human being should ever have to do or experience. So for me Hymn to the Fallen was for my dad because he left the boy he was on the battle fields of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany and came home to try and have a normal life. Please play this music on Memorial Day in memory of him and all soldiers who fell in war.

Air date: May 26, 2023

Also Sprach Zarathustra, Richard Strauss

Suggested by Jeff in Portland, Oregon

Richard Strauss penned "Also Sprach Zarathustra" in 1896. His tone poem was based on Nietszche's "Thus spake Zarathustra."
In our lifetime, this haunting music was used by Stanley Kubrick in his masterpiece "2001, A Space Odyssey." That film was, in fact, a real mind-blower for a generation of moviegoers. Famously - and mysteriously - the film ends on a truly disturbing note. Arthur C Clarke, of course, wrote the story that freaked us ALL out just a little.

Turns out Zarathustra was the founder of Zoroastrianism, the world's first known monotheistic religion, pre-dating Judaism, Christianity and Islam, now the world's major monotheistic faiths. Known, among other things, to revere Fire, Zoroastrianism holds important tenets. Among which: "The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain and align itself to aša. For humankind, this occurs through active ethical participation in life, ritual, and the exercise of constructive/good thoughts, words and deeds." "Aša" itself is difficult to pin down, but suffice to say it's a Good Thing.

Strauss' composition ought be a haunting 5 o'clock favorite for anyone who remembers Kubrick's motion picture and might even encourage us all to investigate Zoroastrianism, which exists to this day and numbers its adherents in the tens of thousands.

Air date: May 25, 2023

Etude in E, Opus 10, No. 3, Frederic Chopin

Suggested by Thom in Portland, Oregon

This piece carries a special place for my wife and me.

In the very last episode of the very last season of the animated science fiction show Futurama, two of the main characters, Leela and Fry, have a date at a high rise in New New York. Without spoiling the episode, the two essentially 'break space and time', causing their reality to 'pause' for an indefinite amount of time, but with themselves still subject to the laws of time, and so still age. They take this opportunity to quite literally walk the earth together, even traversing the world's oceans on-foot. Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No.3 plays over a montage of the two experiencing this time freeze together, enjoying their one-on-one company.

Near the end of the episode, they are in their 70s and have returned to the original building they were going to have their date at all those years ago, while everything around them is still frozen. The two share celebratory glasses of champagne while reminiscing of their travels. Fry says, "It was a good life, kinda lonely though?" to which Leela replies, "I was never lonely, not even for a minute."

The sentiment of Chopin's Etude Op.10, No.3 has become a reminder of our own relationship and the time we've spent together. We're grateful for our past, and excited for whatever we have left to experience together into our old age. Maybe this is more of a visual thing but, for me, the emotions which this etude conjures are those of a life well lived, defined by being with someone who makes that time better than if it'd been without them, and is one in which you never find yourself bored with that person's company. The piece makes me feel lucky that I seem to have found that person. I never get tired of hearing or playing this piece.

Air date: May 24, 2023

Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra in E flat, Johann Baptist Vanhal

Suggested by Alejandro in Hillsboro, Oregon

In memory of my late dog Forest, who used to love this piece and made him bay. Sure other listeners will appreciate it.

Air date: May 23, 2023

The Planets: Mars, the Bringer of War, Gustav Holst

Suggested by Drew in Portland, Oregon

We recently purchased a new house, but the process was anything but smooth. It was a fight from start to finish: getting the price right, getting critical repairs made, the threat of litigation, numerous delays. It's been a battle from start to finish. Our moving day was yesterday. and we would love to hear Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" as a perfect capper to this whole process.

Air date: May 22, 2023

William Tell Overture, Gioacchino Rossini

Suggested by Marvin in Portland, Oregon

We loved watching the Lone Ranger as kids and the William Tell Overture as its theme music really added some pep to the experience. Can you tell me how this music was chosen for the show?

Air date: May 19, 2023

The Windmills of Your Mind, Michele Legrand

Suggested by Jeff in Portland, Oregon

Growing up, I found this piece mesmerizing; I even set out to memorize the lyrics. Long since forgotten, the lyrics are substantially in service to the music, which is beautiful.

Air date: May 18, 2023

The Constant Nymph: Tomorrow, Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Suggested by Andrew in Portland, Oregon

The album "The Sea Hawk", an anthology of Korngold's film music conducted and produced by his son, was a fundamental part of my father's car music rotation. While every piece on that album is superlative, this one -- written as a song for a film about a songwriter experiencing writers' block -- has always sat differently with me for the same indefinable reasons that any great piece of music does. During the lockdown, I began my graduate research at PSU and someone had wheeled a piano into the lecture hall across from my office. I spent months learning this piece, which is somewhat virtuosic on the piano, and really got a feel for the way Korngold's chord voicings drove the extravagance of much of his music. It is a song about loss and love, themes which were particularly important in the dark days of 2020 and 2021. In addition to the engrossing mezzo-soprano solo at the end, the entire work is a masterclass in orchestration and opened my eyes to 20th century composition.

Air date: May 17, 2023

Peer Gynt: At the Wedding (Prelude to Act 1), Edvard Grieg

Suggested by Caleb in Portland, Oregon

My husband Evan and I just got married on May 6th! Classical music is a big part of our lives; we even met at the University of Portland playing together in the Wind Symphony. We're also big fans of Grieg and are always listening to his piano concerto and string quartet. We even named our adopted gray cat Grieg. (The composer and our cat look alike in my eyes, but Evan doesn't see it.) We couldn't stop listening to this prelude leading up to our own wedding and thinking about how the main theme encapsulated our fullness of energy and spirit and how the clarinet and oboe solos reflected the quieter and more heartfelt emotions we shared about the special day. Thankfully our wedding went much more smoothly than in Peer Gynt, granted that was already a pretty low bar!

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