Charles Petzold

You would think that New York City would have literally dozens of radio stations devoted to classical music. Several decades ago, we did more than we have now. But with the long-ago disappearance of WNCN and the more-recent transition of the public radio station WNYC-FM to mostly talk, pickings are slim. Some of the college radio stations (such as WKCR, "King's Crown Radio," the station of Columbia University) play classical music, but not consistently.

The one that remains is WQXR (96.3 on the FM dial), a commercial radio station owned by the New York Times. The programming is generally intelligent, and the DJs know their stuff and can pronounce French, German, and Italian titles with ease. When Deirdre and I aren't listening to an audiobook in the car, we're probably listening to WQXR. According to Wikipedia, WQXR is the most popular classical radio station in the country.

But for awhile, WQXR was available over the Internet only to AOL subscribers, which pretty much meant it wasn't available at all.

Well, WQXR is now back. As of January 10th or thereabouts, WQXR is once again available online playing through Windows Media Player or RealPlayer. Go to www.wqxr.com and click the "Listen Now" button at the top. High-bandwidth streaming is at 96 kbps, but sounds pretty good regardless, and better than my FM radio with the indoor antenna.