Written over 26 years, the Ring Cycle takes 16 hours to perform from start to finish. Today, we explore the work's subtleties in greater depth.

For the second day of Wagner Week, we turn our focus to Wagner's innovations -- dramatic, musical, structural and otherwise.

WQXR is focusing the week of July 22-28 on Richard Wagner, that consummate man of the theater who is one of history's greatest – and most controversial – opera composers.

Listen to WQXR's first broadcast in a series of performances from the BBC Proms festival in London. The program includes music by Rachmaninoff, Britten and a BBC commission by Julian Anderson.

Today's Saturday at the Opera is Puccini's Madama Butterfly from the LA Opera, and this week's Saturday’s cartoon features Butterfly's famous aria “Un bel di."

We're keeping the Fourth of July celebration going with a beloved American work, George Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue," which is featured, among many other places, in Walt Disney’s "Fantasia 2000."

July 4th provides an ideal opportunity to focus on the adventurous life and original music of American pianist and composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. David Dubal takes us on a musical tour.

On July 4, 1957, senator John F. Kennedy appeared on WQXR, reading the Declaration of Independence as part of the station's observance of Independence Day.

Joshua Rifkin studied with Babbitt and Stockhausen, recorded with a jug band, and created arrangements for Judy Collins. This Sunday at 9 pm, he talks with David Garland about J.S. Bach.

This Saturday's cartoon features J.S. Bach's famous chorale “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." In a 1980 episode of "The Muppet Show," Rowlf the Dog attempts a few minutes of musical profundity with this work.

In celebration of the bicentennial of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth, WQXR presents a special preview of the Caramoor Summer Music Festival’s "Bel Canto at Caramoor" series. Watch the archived webcast now.

Conrad Tao runs his own music festival, has a major-label debut and is working towards a double degree from Columbia and Juilliard. The overachieving pianist and composer turns 19 this week. See him play at WQXR.

Camille Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals shows up in numerous cartoons, including "Bugs and Daffy’s Carnival of the Animals," which also stars a young Michael Tilson Thomas.

In a companion to his weekly series "The Romantic Piano," piano authority David Dubal comes to The Greene Space at WQXR to discuss the milestones of the Romantic piano literature.

Richard Stoltzman really wants to feel that he's connecting with his audiences – even if it means resorting to nudity.

This Saturday's cartoon is the tranquil conclusion to Walt Disney's "Fantasia," featuring a procession of monks walking through a forest to the music of Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria."

Today at 5 pm, hear the New York Youth Symphony, conducted by Joshua Gersen, in concert at Carnegie Hall celebrating the orchestra's 50th anniversary.

Guitarist Benjamin Verdery recently stopped by WQXR to play the music of J.S. Bach, Prince and Randy Newman. Watch and listen to the performances.

Tonight at 8 pm, tune in for a special re-broadcast of this one-hour program exploring the differences between this year's big anniversary composers: Verdi and his contemporary Wagner.