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Welcome to Intermezzo from Interlochen Public Radio, where we take a few minutes to bounce some ideas around about classical music.
This Friday is the start of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. Christy L'Esperance and her two co-hosts, Lara and Gabriel, talk about the games, Italian culture and classical music associated with some of the sports events.
The Winter Olympics will feature 16 different sport disciplines, and we'll look at 5 of them this week. Yesterday, we learned about alpine skiing, and today we'll explore one that requires ice: figure skating!
Figure skating actually started out as an event in the summer Olympics in 1908. But since 1924, the sport has been a part of the Winter Olympic Games.
Emil Waldteufel's "Les Patineurs," or The Skaters' Waltz, not only musically describes some of the motions of ice-skating, but has been used as figure skating music, famously by skater Brian Boitano at the 1986 World Figure Skating Championships in Geneva, showcasing his famous "death drop." He won gold in the 1988 Calgary Games in the men's singles competition.
Emil Waldteufel - "Les Patineurs"
This week's Mystery Melody
It's time to test your ears. Each week we have a mystery melody that we have to figure out together. It relates to our topic. (We'll make the melody less mysterious each day.)
If you know the mystery melody, text your name and the title and we’ll give you a shout out on Friday. The number to text is (833) 490-4718.
