Anyone know what this piece is called?

I sent a link to this thread to ehBeth, maybe she can help you (she lives in Tranna).

You can contact the station through:

http://www.classical963fm.com/contact_us.php

Good luck!

thank you very much for your enthusiasm, I tried to email the host of the program Arlene Meadows on several occasions (earliest was 1 year ago) and her email address, surprisingly, is not her personal email address, so I guess that's why I've not received any response to my enquiry. But thank you so much for trying to help, I appreciate it.

Setanta listens to this station, literally around the clock.

I'll poke him to see what the theme music is if I can't track it down.

(thanks for the heads-up, l'k)

Rachmaninoff, Second Symphony, the adagio (third) movement.

Miss Meadows also often refers to this one hour program as Tempo Adagio. All music of this type has specified tempi (plural of tempo, which in Italian means "time"--and refers to the "speed" at which music is played), with one tempo usually governing an entire movement. There are exceptions--such as the first movement of Tschaikowski's Sixth Symphony, which has nine changes of tempo in that one movement--but basically, all symphonies have four tempos corresponding to the four movements. Originally, symphonies had three movement, were very short (ten to fifteen minutes), and went, basically: fast, slow, fast. Haydn created the modern symphony of four movements, adding a dance tempo movement, and lengthening all of the movements, so that his symphonies last form 15 to 30 minutes. Sometimes the "dance" movement is the second movement, sometimes the third. Sometimes a "scherzo" movement is used, scherzo basically meaning a musical joke, or a humerous or exaggerated exploration of the theme of the work. The most common "dance" movement for most of the history of the symphony was a minuet, but Beethoven (i believe) introduced the scherzo as a movement, and unsettled all the rules (for example, in his Third Symphony, the second movement is very slow and grave, and is marked marche funebre--funeral march).

Tempo adagio simply means played slowly.

One of my favorite adagios is from the "Platoon" soundtrack, simply titled Adagio For Strings...it's one of the most calming pieces of music that I own.

I'm well aware that everyone is not a hip-hop fan, so feel free to ignore this...The {long} intro to Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You", is an adagio...very similar to the one found on the Platoon soundtrack. The entire song {Missing You} is simply pieces and parts of other songs from varying genres, meshed together to form something new...which is one of the main elements of hip-hop. When done correctly, you get a cool song like "Missing You", which uses Classical, the adagio intro...Rock, the underlying base of the song, Sting/The Police's "Every Breath You Take"...Gospel, the chorus...and Rap, the lyrics. On the Platoon ST, as well as in the movie...Charlie Sheens thoughts can be heard on top of the Adagio, and Puffy does the same in his song.

That's Adagio for Strings by the English composer Samuel Barber. An excellent piece of music. You might be interested in the work of a near contemporary of Barber, who was an important influence on him, Rafe Vaughan Williams (a Welshman, his first name is often rendered "Ralph" by the English). Try The Lark Ascending by Williams, i think you'd really enjoy it.

thank you! i've been trying to find its name, without much success, for quite a while now, and it only took 2 days to find the answer to the question I've been meaning to ask! Thanks a lot guys! xD

Set, thanks for the Williams piece...very nice, lots of violin, and of course I love the "swells", very enjoyable, especially with the aid of a sub-woofer.

Found this...

The composer's surname is Vaughan Williams, though following family precedent, it is not hypenated. For those confused by the pronunciation of the name 'Ralph', it seems that 'Rafe' is the old English style, English actor Ralph Fiennes' name is also pronounced the same. The composer was reputedly maddened when mistakenly called 'Ralf'.