And the Winner Is...

In the world of classical music, Herbert Von Karajan is considered one of the most successful and most powerful conductors of the past century. Born in Austria, Karajan is best known for his work with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Salzberg Festival, and for his thirty-five years as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Mr. Karajan earned international fame for his tours and award-winning recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic. He had a reputation as a perfectionist and as someone who set new audio standards, by which other recordings would eventually be measured.

Yet despite the accolades, Mr. Karajan was not free of controversy. He joined the Nazi party in 1933 and enjoyed a great success throughout the Nazi regime.

And though he was a well-respected conductor, many critics found him increasingly slick, and a show-off. He did have a fondness for new technology, and played an important role in the development of the compact disc. You won't hear about that in today's documentary, however, as the CD was introduced, with Mr. Karajan present at the press conference, in 1981.

This portrait of Herbert Von Karajan was produced in 1974 by the CBC's Robert Chesterman. Mr. Chesterman was a respected radio producer, film director and author. In the 1970s, he produced several CBC documentary portraits of eminent conductors, which he then published as the book Conductors in Conversation.

Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that aired on January 31, 2012

A Jewish man prays in the gas chamber of the Auschwitz Death Camp. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

Viktor Ullmann and Gideon Klein are two brilliant composers who died in the Holocaust. Now, after almost seventy years, their music is being rediscovered. In this episode of on "And The Winner Is..." we hear some of the musicians and scholars who are passionate about breeding life into these long lost works and we learn about the lives, and the music these two composers.  The documentary is called "Message in a Bottle". It's prepared and presented by writer and freelance broadcaster Megan Williams.

Cars travel along Illinois 146 near Anna, Ill. on the Trail of Tears Auto Tour Route. (AP Photo/James A. Finley)

In the winter of 1838, an astonishing sight could be seen in the eastern United States. Over the mountains and through the valleys and great forests, a stream of Cherokee people, fifteen thousand of them, were slowly making their way west. This was the Trail of Tears, the great Cherokee removal -- a move on the political chessboard of the young United States that was to have long-felt repercussions.

The Cherokee were an independent nation, but in the great game of the building of America, they were disposable. Cheated out of their lands in the east, the Cherokee were forced to relocate a thousand miles to the west, in Indian Territory, beyond the Mississippi. Their long march through the bitter winter of 1838 took a dreadful toll: as many as four thousand died on that march - of exposure, disease, sickness, heartbreak. The whole episode is a great human tragedy -- a betrayal of ideas, both American and Cherokee. And it ripples down to our own time.

Documentary maker Philip Coulter traveled along the Trail of Tears, asking questions about how such a thing could happen, looking at how the past shapes the present, and what the Trail's legacy is today. On our program this week, we present episode one of The Trail of Tears, an exploration of the background of the Cherokee removal. 

Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that originally aired on January 10, 2012

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Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that aired on January 17, 2012

On November 24th, 1859, a new book with a very long title was published in England: " On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life" The author was: "Charles Darwin, M.A.; Fellow of the Royal, (the) Geological, ETC., Societies; and author of "Journal of Researches during H.M.S. Beagle's Voyage around the World"

At the time Darwin wrote: "The Origin of Species is no doubt the chief work of my life. It has been translated into almost every European tongue,even into such languages as Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. I have heard it said that the success of a work abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last for a few years."

It actually lasted much longer than Darwin himself anticipated. That Book - 'The Origin of Species' - was earth shattering. In his own day, when he wrote those words, and even now, in our own. Darwin showed us how and why all life is change; that nothing stays the same; that over time all living things adapt and evolve, or Perish; and that above all, this is a Natural Process , not the result of Divine Intervention. Darwin's theory - of evolution through Natural Selection - completely changed the way we see the world.

In November of 2009 program Ideas celebrated 150th anniversary of Darwin's "The Origin of Species" with a special four-part series. Today on And The Winner Is...we present part one, which won a Bronze Medal at the New York Festivals.

Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that aired on January 3, 2012

CP PHOTO/Tom Hanson

Unlike most of Canada where Christmas happens just for Christmas Day, and then everybody goes shopping and it's all over, in the province of Newfoundland Christmas is really a twelve day affair. And it ain't over until January 6th, twelfth night. So this week on And The Winner Is... the story of an unusual Christmas Carol. Well, more of a New Year's carol really and a very unusual carol singing tradition.

The documentary is called "A Little Before the Day" and it was prepared by Chris Brookes.

Listen to And The Winner Is... episode from December 27, 2011

If you select the "images" option of Google, and enter the name Camille Saint-Saens into the search engine, your screen will fill with hundreds of photos, including the one above, of one of the greatest pianists and organists and composers ever to stride across the face of the earth. His beard, a prominent nose and hooded eyes makes him look a kin to Charles Darwin or Walt Whitman. And certainly, he belongs on the same historical page as those titans. Like Whitman, multitudes could not contain him.

Saint-Saens is best remembered as the composer of the Carnival of the Animals, a piece he refused to publish in his lifetime, save for the Swan, which proved to be a real cash cow. A few of his symphonies and concertos and concert pieces are still played. But there are literally hundreds and hundreds of works in every genre that are rarely if ever heard. Also little read are his poems, or his writings on religion and philosophy and mathematics and astronomy. Well-traveled and successful, he was the quintessential 19th century polymath. His was a rich and exotic life. It was also, in some ways, a life that was tragic and secretive. Saint-Saens was buried on Christmas Eve, 1921, and back in 2006 CBC's Bill Richardson decided to mark the anniversary by poking around the edges of the puzzle that was and is, Camille Saint-Saens.

Listen to And The Winner Is episode from Dec.20, 2011

Image shows particle tracks as protons collided in CERN's Large Hadron Collider (Dec. 2009) (AP Photo/CERN) 

Our feature this week covers a little subject called The Universe, what we know about it and all the stuff we have yet to discover. Which is most of the stuff. For example, when and how it began, and what it's made of.

In January of 2010, the CBC Radio science program "Quirks and Quarks" assembled a panel of ten prominent physicists, and asked each of them what they think is the biggest question that science has, so far, been unable to answer. They gathered at the Glenn Gould Studio at the CBC Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, before a live audience, and made their arguments. And the audience had a few questions of their own, which you'll hear at the end of the program.

This special edition of Quirks and Quarks is called "The Top Ten Unanswered Questions in the Universe" and it was recognized with a Silver Medal at the New York Festivals.

Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that aired on December 13, 2011

A New York city firefighter pauses at the firefighters memorial wall that displays the names of victims of Sept. 11
 (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick)

Up until ten years ago, September eleventh was just another date. But over the past decade, of course, it's taken on a whole world of meaning. September 11th is used as a kind of shorthand for everything from religious violence to a massive failure of global security. And the space where the World Trade Centre stood until that day has widely become known as Sacred Ground.

In 2010, the CBC Radio program Tapestry decided to explore the idea of Sacred Ground, in a two part series. The series first aired in December of 2010 and a year later, it was recognized with a Wilbur Award.

Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that aired on November 29, 2011



Listen to And The Winner Is...episode that aired on December 6, 2011

Close your eyes.   Listen.   What do you hear?   If you're in your car, like the motor.  Traffic.  If you're inside, the hum of the modern home - the refrigerator, perhaps a dishwasher, a TV in another room.  We don't think about the sounds around us very much.  Nor do we think about how they shape and reflect who we are.   But of course they do.  Now imagine if you lived four centuries ago.  What would you hear?  Did people even listen the same way back then? 
Radio producer Chris Brookes tries to answer that question with today's documentary.  He takes our modern ears on a sound-rich journey through the past.   Our destination:  the acoustic world of Elizabethan England.   This program was originally broadcast on CBC Radio's Ideas.  It was the winner of the 2009 Prix Marulic and the "Best of Festival" Grand Award at the 2009 International Radio Festival of New York.

 

Leonard Cohen performs during his concert in Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)

On April 16, 2009 CBC radio show Q celebrated its second anniversary and to mark the occasion it featured an interview with one of the most ageless artists there is: singer-songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen.

At the time that show aired, Cohen was 74 and in the middle of a marathon tour which had begun in the spring of 2008, and lasted until the end of 2010. It was his first tour in fifteen years.  Fans across the world rushed to the venues to pay homage to a man with wit, charisma, septuagenarian sex appeal -- and whose musical repertoire spans more than four decades.

This special anniversary edition of Q called "Leonard Cohen in Three Acts" won the Gold Medal at the New York Festivals in a category for Best Regularly Scheduled Talk Program.

Listen to And The Winner Is... episode that aired on November 15, 2011