Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20071027 | Bonnie Greer re-traces the journey of The Fisk Singers, a groundbreaking 19th-century black choir in Britain, and examines why their songs of freedom resonated with British audiences. The Jubilee Singers not only introduced the world to black music, but also challenged racial stereotypes and championed the liberties of all black Americans. Bonnie Greer recalls the Fisk Singers, a groundbreaking 19th-century British black choir. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | ||
| 20071124 | Franz Liszt was the most celebrated performer of his day, a phenomenal virtuoso pianist. He was a media-darling who manipulated the press to enhance his reputation, and was adored by his public, the ladies in particular. Pianist David Owen Norris follows Liszt on his record-breaking concert tours, from Lisbon to Constantinople, Gibraltar to St Petersburg, where he gave a staggering 1,000 concerts over nine years. With contributions from historian Donald Sassoon, Rossana Dalmonte from the Liszt Institute in Bologna, and writer Gillen Wood. Plus readings of Liszt's letters by Jamie Glover and reviews of the day by John Sessions. Pianist David Owen Norris follows Liszt on his concert tours as a virtuoso pianist. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | ||
| 20081129 | 20090808 (R3) | Nigel Simeone tells the story of classical music activity in Nazi-occupied Paris. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| 20090725 | Novelist and guitar enthusiast Louis de Bernieres and classical guitar virtuoso Craig Ogden travel to Linares in Andalucia to visit the museum established in honour of its most famous son, Andres Segovia, and to discover more about the man regarded as the greatest guitarist of the 20th century. Albeniz: Granada DG 471430-2 Granados: Spanish Dance No 10 (Danse triste) Granados: Spanish Dance No 5 (Andaluza) Granados: El Maja de Goya Bach: Gavotte en rondeau (Lute Suite No 4) Frescobaldi: Air DG 471699-22 Tarrega: Estudio in A EMI R6104720 Sor: Study in D Sor: Variations on a Theme by Mozart Naxos 8.111090 Debussy: La fille aux cheveux de lin Torroba: Torija (Castles of Spain) Tedesco: Sonata (Omaggio a Boccherini) (finale) Llobet: El noi de la mare Naxos 8.111087 Falla: Homenaje DG 471698-22 Ponce: Concierto del Sur (1st mvt) Ponce: Sonatina Naxos 8.111088 Chopin: Prelude No 7 in A Albeniz: Sevilla Mompou: Muneira (Suite Compostelana) Villa-Lobos: Study No 1 Segovia: Estudio sin luz Torroba: Fandanguillo (Suite Castellana) Torroba: Los Mayos Tarrega: Recuerdos de la Alhambra Rodrigo: Fandango DG 471430-2. Louis de Bernieres visits the museum devoted to Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | ||
| 05-05-2007 | 20080726 | Judith Kampfner follows the story of musicians Margaret Leng Tan and James Graseck, who were sweethearts while studying at at the Juilliard School of Music and then parted after graduation to perform on very different platforms. Margaret graces international concert stages and James busks for commuters on New York stations. Thirty years later, their lives crossed again and they rekindled their love affair. Featuring music played by Margaret and James separately and together from their records and archives. The story of the love affair between musicians Margaret Leng Tan and James Graseck. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| 24-11-2007 | 20080830 | Franz Liszt was the most celebrated performer of his day, a phenomenal virtuoso pianist. He was a media-darling who manipulated the press to enhance his reputation, and was adored by his public, the ladies in particular. Pianist David Owen Norris follows Liszt on his record-breaking concert tours, from Lisbon to Constantinople, Gibraltar to St Petersburg, where he gave a staggering 1,000 concerts over nine years. With contributions from historian Donald Sassoon, Rossana Dalmonte from the Liszt Institute in Bologna, and writer Gillen Wood. Plus readings of Liszt's letters by Jamie Glover and reviews of the day by John Sessions. Pianist David Owen Norris follows Liszt on his concert tours as a virtuoso pianist. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| 27-10-2007 | 20080823 | Bonnie Greer re-traces the journey of The Fisk Singers, a groundbreaking 19th-century black choir in Britain, and examines why their songs of freedom resonated with British audiences. The Jubilee Singers not only introduced the world to black music, but also challenged racial stereotypes and championed the liberties of all black Americans. Bonnie Greer recalls the Fisk Singers, a groundbreaking 19th-century British black choir. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| 50 Years Of Minimalism In Music | 20110604 | 20111119 (R3) | American conductor Richard Bernas talks to Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Bob Wilson, Louis Andriessen, Michael Nyman, Meredith Monk, David Lang, Nico Muhly, John Rockwell, Paula Cooper, among others, as he undertakes a critical survey of five decades of Minimalism in music. He traces its origins in both the San Francisco and New York underground cultures of the early 1960s, exploring the relationship between music and the visual arts, but also theatre and dance. He also assesses how Minimalism, arguably the newest style proper to emerge in Classical music, evolved into a mature and powerful force during the 1970s and 80s, eventually becoming part of the cultural mainstream of today's America. Crossing the Atlantic, he examines its influence in the wider field of European composers, such as Michael Nyman and Louis Andriessen - who've created their own brands of Minimalism. Presenter: Richard Bernas Producer: Juan Carlos Jaramillo. Richard Bernas with a critical survey of Minimalism in music, both in America and Europe. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| A Guide To Accomplishment | 20080719 | 20090912 (R3) | Fiona Talkington presents an insight into the world of the 18th-century amateur musician. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| A Portrait Of Ethel Smyth | 20080329 | Peggy Reynolds looks back at the life and career of Ethel Smyth, composer, writer and friend to figures such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Virginia Woolf. With excerpts from her Mass in D, her songs, chamber music and the large-scale opera The Wreckers as well as a libretto by her lifelong friend Henry Brewster. Plus reflections from Thomas Beecham, Starr Brewster, Vita Sackville-West and others, interwoven with readings from Smyth's own memoirs and letters. Peggy Reynolds looks at the life and career of composer Ethel Smyth. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| A Portrait Of Ethel Smyth | 20080927 | Peggy Reynolds looks back at the life and career of Ethel Smyth, composer, writer and friend to figures such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Virginia Woolf. With excerpts from her Mass in D, her songs, chamber music and the large-scale opera The Wreckers as well as a libretto by her lifelong friend Henry Brewster. Plus reflections from Thomas Beecham, Starr Brewster, Vita Sackville-West and others, interwoven with readings from Smyth's own memoirs and letters. Peggy Reynolds looks at the life and career of composer Ethel Smyth. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| A Public Right And Obligation, The Music Of The New Deal | 20110326 | 20110820 (R3) | In the current economic climate some British cultural organisations are looking to America in search of ideas for fundraising. The received opinion is that America is the great shining example of private and philanthropic sponsorship of the arts. But it was not always the case - there was one brief period, a radical blossoming of government subsidy, when President Franklin D Roosevelt initiated centralised arts funding from scratch. The National Theatre's Nicholas Hytner investigates these five golden years in New Deal America when music and the arts flourished. Federal funding stimulated the growth of new audiences, boosted music education, kept orchestras from going under and gave a platform for composers from rural and minority backgrounds. Beginning in 1935, at the height of the Great Depression in America, the Works Progress Administration or WPA established a scheme to get people off the dole and into jobs. Workers in the arts had to prove their skills and then were paid to perform or work behind the scenes. Orchestras and bands went to parks, parade grounds, ladies lunch meetings, factories and churches. The Federal Music Project was less radical than the Federal Theater Project, Hytner explains. The head of music, was a Russian born classical violinist Nicolai Sokoloff, who wanted the public to be exposed to 'cultivated music'. The public could also interrogate composers after 'laboratory' lectures. Much of the music has been lost but 12 discs of government radio broadcasts were discovered at the New York Public Library during the course of the making of this programme. Funding ended in 1939 due to the war effort and some of the political direction of the theatre projects, which caused unease within the government. Nicholas Hytner explores federal arts funding in Roosevelt's New Deal America. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Angelic Voices | 20080401 | Jeremy Summerly takes a look at the history of boy choristers. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Angelic Voices | 20080405 | Jeremy Summerly takes a look at the history of boy choristers. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Ballet Goes To The Music Hall | 20111231 | 20120825 (R3) | Deborah Bull discovers a world where ballet was all about the spectacle - at the music hall theatres in late Victorian London. She talks to the dance historian Jane Pritchard and the conductor Benjamin Pope about the main composers, Georges Jacobi and Leopold Wenzel, and finds out more about the kind of dance that took place at the Alhambra and Empire Theatres in Leicester Square. Including music specially recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra. First broadcast in December 2011. Deborah Bull explores ballet music in late Victorian London, at the music hall theatres. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Bostridge On Britten | 20130126 | 20130629 (R3) | Ian Bostridge is famous for singing the music of Benjamin Britten. In the composer's centenary year, the singer reflects on the greatness of Britten's vocal music, so much of which was written for the tenor voice. Ian Bostridge brings his singer's experience and deep intelligence to bear on a composer whose work has formed a central part of his repertoire throughout his singing career. He pays tribute to Peter Pears, whose lifelong interpretation of Britten's music he greatly admires. He reflects on why Britten has never been fully absorbed into the mainstream of classical music and considers whether it has something to do with Britten's preoccupation with troubled, alienated characters and situations - exemplified in operas such as Peter Grimes and Turn of the Screw. The subjects of Britten's interest - the ostracized Peter Grimes or the tortured Captain Vere in Billy Budd - are powerfully characterized by the tenor voice. Between the countertenor and baritone, the tenor voice has the capacity to express the nuances of Britten's musical language. In this programme - full of wonderful music from the song cycles, the operas and the choral works - Ian Bostridge contemplates the strangeness of Britten's genius. First broadcast in January 2013. Tenor Ian Bostridge gives his perspective on Benjamin Britten. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Charles Valentin Alkan | 20090425 | 20100717 (R3) | Piers Lane explores the mysterious life and music of French pianist and composer Charles Valentin Alkan. The Italian composer Busoni considered him to be one of the five greatest writers for the piano since Beethoven. He was a friend and neighbour of Chopin and possessed what Liszt called the 'greatest technique' he had ever heard. Piers asks why, by the end of his life, this Romantic virtuoso was all but forgotten. Piers Lane explores the life and music of French pianist/composer Charles Valentin Alkan. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Chopin's Scottish Swansong | 20080802 | In 1848 Chopin visited Scotland. Janice Galloway and Iwo Zaluski follow his footsteps. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Chopin's Scottish Swansong | 20100320 | In 1848 Chopin visited Scotland. Janice Galloway and Iwo Zaluski follow his footsteps. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Come Heavy Sleep | 20130713 | Tom Mckinney meets guitarist Julian Bream on the eve of his 80th birthday to discuss his career and a defining composition by Benjamin Britten that helped to elevate him and his instrument onto the global stage. Julian Bream is arguably the most important guitarist of the second half of the twentieth century: pioneer of the burgeoning period instrument movement and champion of new repertoire for the guitar. The archetypal eccentric Englishman with a huge personality and incredible musical ability, Bream had a massive impact on the global musical scene from the 1960s, becoming a genuine a household name with appearances on prime-time television and platinum record sales. His performances at the Aldeburgh Festival in the 50s, especially his recitals of Elizabethan songs with Benjamin Britten's partner the tenor Peter Pears, eventually led to Britten writing what is perhaps the guitar's finest work - the Nocturnal after John Dowland, an unsettling and often disturbing set of variations based on the song Come Heavy Sleep by John Dowland. It was a landmark moment: that a composer of Britten's stature should write such a substantial and significant piece of music for the guitar, changed at once the perception of the instrument and its subsequent repertoire. At that time the guitar was still a minority instrument, inseparably linked to its Spanish heritage. Bream pounced on the opportunity to play Nocturnal worldwide, almost utilising it as a bargaining chip to coax many other major composers into write for guitar, such as Walton, Tippett, Henze, Takemitsu and Maxwell Davies. With contributions from guitarist Craig Ogden, Britten expert Mervyn Cooke and Bream biographer Tony Palmer, we will hear about the legacy of the Nocturnal and of Julian Bream's remarkable contribution to the guitar's history. Tom Mckinney meets guitarist Julian Bream to discuss his career on his 80th birthday. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Dancing The Apocalypse | 20090328 | 20100731 (R3) | Tom Service is obsessed with Ravel's orchestral piece La Valse. It's little wonder: the twelve-minute masterpiece is one of the most original and enigmatic works in all music. In the course of those twelve minutes Ravel presents a charming waltz in the Viennese style of Johann Strauss and then begins first to dismantle it, and finally to take an orchestral sledgehammer to the musical form. With La Valse, Ravel opened a new door in music and closed it right after him. But what prompted this violent and exhilarating music? Ravel refused to be drawn on the subject but others have seen in the work a perfect picture of an out of control Europe dancing inexorably, terrifyingly to World War 2. Tom talks to conductor Eliahu Inbal, composer George Benjamin, Ravel biographer Roger Nichols and to David Lamaze who claims to have discovered in La Valse a hidden clue to Ravel's intent. Tom Service looks at the dark beauty of Ravel's masterpiece La valse. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Debussy's Summer Of 1912 | 20080628 | Lowri Blake presents a programme about Debussy's work during the summer of 1912, talking to pianists Roy Howat, Peter Hill and Alasdair Beatson as well as musicologist Robert Orledge, and introducing music from that time. It was a very hot summer and Debussy had no time to take his wife and seven-year-old daughter Chouchou on their annual trip to the seaside, much to her displeasure. He had to compose a Diaghilev commission as well as his last completed orchestral work - the ballet Jeux. He was trying to finish the second book of the Preludes for piano, was working on numerous other projects and was tussling with the dancer Maud Allen who wanted changes to the ballet Khamma. He also had a visit from Stravinsky and together they played through, as a piano duet, the score of The Rite of Spring. It made a very significant impression on him. Lowri Blake with a programme about Debussy's work during the summer of 1912. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Debussy's Summer Of 1912 | 20090718 | Lowri Blake presents a programme about Debussy's work during the summer of 1912, talking to pianists Roy Howat, Peter Hill and Alasdair Beatson as well as musicologist Robert Orledge, and introducing music from that time. It was a very hot summer and Debussy had no time to take his wife and seven-year-old daughter Chouchou on their annual trip to the seaside, much to her displeasure. He had to compose a Diaghilev commission as well as his last completed orchestral work - the ballet Jeux. He was trying to finish the second book of the Preludes for piano, was working on numerous other projects and was tussling with the dancer Maud Allen who wanted changes to the ballet Khamma. He also had a visit from Stravinsky and together they played through, as a piano duet, the score of The Rite of Spring. It made a very significant impression on him. Lowri Blake with a programme about Debussy's work during the summer of 1912. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Dialogues Of Sorrow | 20100925 | 20110813 (R3) | Historian, Tristram Hunt explores how the death of Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James I at the age of only 18, gripped the nation and led to an unprecedented outpouring of musical and cultural responses. He was the 'People's Prince' and over 2,000 official mourners attended his funeral with satellite events in Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol. Just compare that to Elizabeth I's death where there were only a couple of hundred official mourners. They felt the loss of what might have been had Henry succeed the uncouth and ill-disciplined, James. Henry was seen as the great hope for Great Britain. He was a renaissance prince who looked to Europe, collecting Italian art, he loved pomp and ceremony and he vowed to fight the protestant cause. Every major writer and composer responded to the young Prince's death, including John Donne, George Herbert, William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes. Tristram Hunt explores these responses with the help of Gabriel Crouch, director of the vocal ensemble Gallicantus, and music editor Sally Dunkley. In the library of Christchurch, Oxford they uncover the Fanshawe manuscripts, one of the most important collections of responses including the heartfelt and moving piece 'Tis now Dead Night' by Thomas Ford, recently reconstructed for performance by Gallicantus. Tristram also visits the National Portrait Gallery with its former director, historian Sir Roy Strong, who has been fascinated by Henry's life since the 1960s. At the gallery, they see portraits of the dashing young prince, a small medallion of him portrayed like a Roman emperor and an etching of the hearse for his lavish funeral. It's impossible to ignore the parallels to Diana's death. Tristram Hunt explores the musical responses to the death of Prince Henry, son of James I. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Ebu Christmas Around Europe | 20071216 | Andrew McGregor presents more live Christmas concerts from radio stations in Europe and Canada. The evening begins with an organ recital from Germany of works by Bach, Buxtehude and Guilmant, followed by a visit to Lisbon for a performance of Baroque vocal works, and ends in Toronto for some jazz arrangements by Mike Downes. The music is interspersed with more festive readings by actors Neil Ashton and Susan Twist. 5.00pm Germany Including: Bach: Prelude and Fugue in E flat, BWV 552 Balbastre: Quand J退sus naquit | |
| Erik Satie Walks To Work | 20101225 | 20110827 (R3) | Composers don't come much odder than the Frenchman Erik Satie (1866-1925). His music - from slow meditative pieces to fast jokey ones with a flavour of the cabaret - was astonishingly individual; and his way of life was just as weird. Not least because he never had any money. In 1898 Satie moved from the heart of bohemian Paris to the obscure suburb of Arcueil. No doubt he was desperate to save money - but he also liked the idea of cutting himself off from the musical establishment. Every day for a decade or more he would walk the 10 kilometres north across the city to earn a meagre living playing the piano in the cabarets of Montmartre. If he missed the last train - or couldn't afford it - he'd walk home again at night. He walked, he looked, he listened - and he spent plenty of time in cafes, where he drank, talked to friends and strangers, and even wrote music. Sarah Walker retraces Satie's footsteps from Arcueil to Montmartre - and uncovers the secrets behind his unique music: in the people and street life of Paris, its caf退s and cabarets, and in the very act of walking itself. Presenter: Sarah Walker Producer: David Gallagher. Sarah Walker retraces French composer Erik Satie's daily walk across Paris. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Giovanni's House | 20090131 | 20090815 (R3) | Martin Handley explores the importance of the famous Italian music publishing firm Casa Ricordi. Throughout most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of Italian opera was directly tied to the fortunes of this single family publishing house, based in Milan. The company was founded in 1808 by Giovanni Ricordi, a violinist who led the orchestra in a small Milanese theatre. From very small beginnings, the business grew rapidly and in 1814 he won the exclusive right to publish all the music performed at La Scala, where he was a prompter. Ten years later he purchased the venue's entire archive, and by 1835 Ricordi boasted a catalogue of 10,000 publications. These included most of the operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. But the company's special relationship with Verdi and Puccini was especially significant. Giovanni's grandson Giulio persuaded Verdi to come out of retirement in 1880 and later played a vital role in Puccini's artistic career, publishing all his works. Casa Ricordi was also the first to come up with the 'royalty' concept and successfully lobbied for one of the first laws to protect composers' (and publishers') copyright. But was the firm always rigorous in its production standards? The music includes many important operas from the 19th century, including Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini. Contributors include Simonetta Puccini, Ricordi family members, Ricordi managing director Tino Cenamo, former Ricordi director of publishing Gabrielle Dotto, music historian Philip Gossett and Verdi expert Cormac Newark. Including: Rossini: Barber of Seville Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Riccardo Chailly (conductor) SONY S3K 37862/A-C Verdi: Don Carlo Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Riccardo Muti (conductor) EMI CDC 7 54868-70 2 Mehul: Horatius Cocles Orchestre de Bretagne, Stefan Sanderling (conductor) ASV CD DCA 1140 Rossini: La Pietra del Paragone Czech Chamber Chorus, Czech Chamber Soloists, Brno, Alessandro de Marchi (conductor) NAXOS 8.660093-95 Bellini: Norma Maria Callas (soprano) Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Tullino Serafin (conductor) EMI 5 56271 2 Liszt: Preludio from 12 Etudes D'Execution Transcendante Francois-Rene Duchable EMI 5 56684 2 Verdi: Nabucco Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Claudio Abbado (conductor) DG 413 448-2 Rossini: Bianca Katia Ricciarelli, soprano (Bianca) London Sinfonietta Opera Orchestra, Donato Renzetti (conductor) RICORDI RFCD 2008 Verdi: Macbeth New Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti (conductor) EMI 5 67128 2 Gounod: Romeo et Juliette Mirella Freni, soprano (Juliette) Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera de Paris, Alain Lombard (conductor) EMI 5 65290 2 Verdi: Simon Boccanegra Mirella Freni, soprano (Maria Boccanegra) Coro e Orchestra del Teatro all Scala, Claudio Abbado (conductor) DG 449 752-2 Verdi: Othello Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Milano, Lorin Maazel (conductor) EMI CDC 747450/51 2 Verdi: Falstaff Chor Der Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Philharmoniker, Leonard Bernstein (conductor) CBS M2K 42535 Puccini: Madam Butterfly Renata Tebaldi, soprano (Madama Butterfly); Carlo Bergonzi, tenor (B.F. Pinkerton) Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia Roma, Tullio Serafin (conductor) DECCA 411 635-2 & 636-2 Puccini: La Boheme Mirella Freni, soprano (Mimi) Schoneberger Sangerknaben, Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan (conductor) DECCA 421 050-2 & 051-2 Puccini: Turandot Mario del Monaco, tenor (Calaf) Orchestra e coro dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia Roma, Alberto Erede (conductor) DECCA 433 761-2 Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore Enrico Caruso MCCD086 Stockhausen:Donnerstag Aus Licht DG 423 380-2 to 383-2 Karlheinz Stockhausen (conductor) Martin Handley explores the importance of Italian music publishing firm Casa Ricordi. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Hidden Composers | 20091031 | 20100911 (R3) | Two French women composers fought against the prejudice and pressures of their time to write their music. Both lived at the turn of the 20th century, and after their deaths their music was either lost or ignored. Now their reputations are being revived. Lowri Blake talks to those who are bringing the wealth of music by Louise Heritte-Viardot and Mel Bonis back into the public domain, and to the writer on music Richard Langham-Smith for whom this was a rewarding voyage of discovery. Presenter: Lowri Blake Producer: Richard Bannerman. Lowri Blake discusses the revival of the music of Louise Heritte-Viardot and Mel Bonis. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| If Chimes Could Whisper, The Strange Tale Of The Glass Armonica | 20120428 | 20121222 (R3) | Dame Evelyn Glennie celebrates the 250th birthday of one of the most unusual of all musical instruments, the Glass Armonica, premiered by Benjamin Franklin in 1762. She tries out the working instrument at the Benjamin Franklin House in London, sees an original example in the Horniman Museum, and discovers the repertoire written for it by Mozart, Hasse and Donizetti. On the way, she encounters madness and mental illness, reveals one of the world's first female virtuosi, Marianne Davies, and meets the man responsible for the present day revival of this remarkable instrument, Thomas Bloch. First broadcast in April 2012. Percussionist Evelyn Glennie celebrates the 250th birthday of the glass armonica. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Inspired, By Birds | 20120225 | 20120908 (R3) | Professional musician Tom McKinney has been fascinated by birds used in music since his mid teens when he first heard Chronochromie, an enormous orchestral work by the French composer Olivier Messiaen, which quotes extensively from European, Far-Eastern and Central American birds. In this Radio 3 Music Feature Tom meets fellow enthusiasts who reflect upon the profound impact that birds have had on many composers. Experts Mark Constantine and Magnus Robb have compiled over 45,000 incredible recordings of birds some of which feature in the programme allowing birds themselves to take pride of place. Close personal friend of Messiaen's, Peter Hill gives tantalizing glimpses into the personal life of music's most committed bird enthusiast. As Tom discovers, being inspired by bird sound can affect people in many different ways. For a composer bird sound is source material in order to create a work of art, for example the migratory calls from a flock of swans over Sibelius's home in Finland formed the main theme in the 3rd movement of his 5th Symphony. But for an obsessive birder like Andy Roadhouse at Spurn Point in East Yorkshire, birds become the entire focus of a person's life. Tom reflects on composers like Vivaldi, Beethoven and Wagner who have all been fascinated - maybe even intoxicated - by bird sound. From the composition of an orchestral symphony to counting flocks of calling Meadow Pipits, the programme hears just how profoundly bird sound can affect and inspire us. First broadcast in February 2012. Tom McKinney explores how throughout history birds have inspired music. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Is This A Record? | 20080809 | Many classical artists over the years have made recordings that in hindsight might be seen as ill-advised, whether through a dubious attempt at 'crossover', or simply through an unsuitable choice of repertoire. Norman Lebrecht looks at these recordings and discusses them with some of the leading record producers of the past 40 years to try and discover how and why they get made. Contributors include Thomas Z Shepherd, Steven Epstein and Herbert Breslin. Normal Lebrecht with recordings by classical artists that look ill-advised in hindsight. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Kennedy On Grapelli | 20071229 | Nigel Kennedy pays tribute to the great improvising violinist Stephane Grappelli. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Kennedy On Grapelli | 20080906 | Nigel Kennedy pays tribute to the great improvising violinist Stephane Grappelli. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Killer Bs | 20080812 | A celebration of a virtually extinct aspect of the music industry, the B-side of a record. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Killer Bs | 20080812 | 20080816 (R4) | A celebration of a virtually extinct aspect of the music industry, the B-side of a record. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Killer Bs | 20080812 | 20081226 (R4) | A celebration of a virtually extinct aspect of the music industry, the B-side of a record. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Lessons With Mozart | 20091226 | Jeremy Summerly eavesdrops on Thomas Attwood's composition lessons with Mozart. 'Study strict counterpoint for a year', said Mozart to the young Englishman freshly arrived in Vienna in 1785, 'and then we'll talk about fugues...'. Remarkably, the manuscripts from their lessons over the next year and a half survive, as does the study in Mozart's luxury apartment near St Stephen's Cathedral in the centre of Vienna; they provide a unique glimpse of a great composer setting out the tools and techniques of his trade. Also listening in to the master and pupil scribbling notes and wisecracks side by side are the Mozarthaus director Gerhard Vitek, composer and teacher Antony Pitts and the British Library's curator of music manuscripts Nicolas Bell. With the voices of Nicholas Dixon, Kathryn Knight and Toby Scholz as well as students from the Royal Academy of Music. Jeremy Summerly explores Thomas Attwood's composition lessons with Mozart. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Music At The Court Of Catherine The Great | 20111029 | 20120804 (R3) | Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia from 1762 until her death in 1796, didn't portray herself as naturally musical. In her letters and memoirs she makes it clear that, when it came to music, she could make neither head nor tail of it - a rather unpromising patron of music, to say the least. But, argues Virginia Rounding, who has written a biography of the Empress, though it may be true that she was not much of a musician herself, music was central not only to Catherine's determination to establish Russia as a leading cultural - and political - force, but also in her effort to reshape the education and role of women in her court and in aristocratic society. And, it is arguably under Catherine that a distinctively Russian classical music tradition began to emerge. With music by Giuseppe Sarti, Tommaso Traetta Baldassare Galuppi, Vasily Pashkevich, Dmitry Bortniansky and by a number of princesses at her court, including Natalia Kourakine, Maria Zubova and Maria Naryshkin. Produced by Hannah Rosenfelder This is a Just Radio Ltd production for Radio 3 First broadcast in October 2011. Virginia Rounding explores the music of Catherine the Great's court and charts its legacy. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Music Of The King James Bible | 20110528 | 20111224 (R3) | The Revd Richard Coles assesses the influence that the King James Bible has had on music during the past 400 years. With the help of composers, writers and musicians he follows the trail of the King James translation from madrigals to missionaries and from Handel to hip-hop. He considers the problems and rewards of setting the sometimes-difficult language of the 1611 version in choral anthems and oratorios. But he also tracks its journey into the American gospel tradition and discovers its central importance in the lyrics of Bob Dylan. Richard Coles on the influence that the Authorised Version of the Bible has had on music. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Musical Comedy Was My Dish | 20080902 | Ben Elton explores a forgotten side of his greatest literary hero. PG Wodehouse wrote lyrics for hundreds of songs which appeared in many musical comedies. He worked with composers such as Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, making an invaluable contribution to the development of musical comedy on Broadway and in the West End.
Ben Elton explores the lyrical side of PG Wodehouse, who wrote for many musical comedies. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Musical Comedy Was My Dish | 20080906 | Ben Elton explores a forgotten side of his greatest literary hero. PG Wodehouse wrote lyrics for hundreds of songs which appeared in many musical comedies. He worked with composers such as Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, making an invaluable contribution to the development of musical comedy on Broadway and in the West End.
Ben Elton explores the lyrical side of PG Wodehouse, who wrote for many musical comedies. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Musical Comedy Was My Dish | 20081224 | Ben Elton explores a forgotten side of his greatest literary hero. PG Wodehouse wrote lyrics for hundreds of songs which appeared in many musical comedies. He worked with composers such as Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, making an invaluable contribution to the development of musical comedy on Broadway and in the West End.
Ben Elton explores the lyrical side of PG Wodehouse, who wrote for many musical comedies. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Musical Deletions | 20130223 | 20130831 (R3) | Roderick Swanston explores musical deletions, revision and completions, tracing the process of how works reach their final version, uncovering some intriguing stories along the way and offering a vision of the creative process that is all too often ignored. Featuring music by Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Elgar, Mahler and Bruckner and insights from Christopher Hogwood, Anthony Payne, Barry Cooper, John Williamson and Lois Fitch. Producer: Hannah Rosenfelder A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 3 First broadcast in February 2012. Roderick Swanston explores the stories behind musical deletions, revision and completions. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Nights In A Divided Spain | 20110129 | 20110903 (R3) | Thoughts of Spanish music mostly conjure up images of exoticism or flamenco, frequently written by composers from outside Spain itself. But within Spain a national music was flourishing at the start of the 20th century, with Manuel de Falla leading the way. Dermot Clinch explores the meaning of 'Spanishness' for native composers such as Falla, Joaquin Rodrigo and Roberto Gerhard (later exiled in England), and looks at their music against the backdrop of the political and cultural upheavals of the 1930s and 40s: the creation of the Republic followed by the Nationalist uprising, the ensuing Civil War and the subsequent regime of General Franco. With contributions from the musicologists Carol Hess, Graham Wade and Samuel Llano and from the historian Paul Preston, along with the insider's viewpoint from Madrid with Cecilia Rodrigo, daughter of the composer and keeper of his memory and archive. Dermot Clinch explores Spain's music and political history in the early 20th century. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Ode To Whitman | 20090530 | 20100724 (R3) | Rob Cowan explores the attraction to composers of the poetry of Walt Whitman. Whitman's poetry has inspired an extraordinary number of musical works - there are some 1200 vocal and instrumental settings of his verse by, among others, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Bernstein, Ives, Weill, Hindemith, Holst and John Adams - and the 'Bard of Democracy's optimistic, inclusive, radically free voice continues to appeal to contemporary composers today. Some of the earliest settings were by English composers, who saw in Whitman a liberation from Victorian jingoism. He represented instead optimism and renewal, a celebration of free speech and free love. Its timeless qualities meant that Whitman's poetry also became a potent force during the Second World War for Kurt Weill and Paul Hindemith, in flight from the Nazis, and looking to forge a new American identity. Weaving together readings of his poetry with some of the music setting his words, and with contributions from David Reynolds, author of 'Walt Whitman's America,' on the influence of music on Whitman's verse, M. Wynn Thomas on the radical qualities of his poetry, and Jack Sullivan on the musical responses to Whitman, this feature takes in some of the wealth of music Whitman has inspired, and discovers the inherently musical aspects of his writing. Music was such a powerful force on Whitman that he saw himself less as a poet than as a singer or bard, and his verse repeatedly alludes to it: 'I sing the body electric', 'Song of myself', 'I hear America singing' are among his titles. Seeing his poetry as a kind of singing, he highlighted American themes but also integrated operatic techniques - the most profound influence on him being, as he put it, 'the great, overwhelming, touching human voice... Vaughan Williams: Toward the Unknown Region (extract) Roderick Williams, Baritone/ Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra/ David Lloyd-Jones Michael Tilson Thomas: We two boys together clinging (extract) Thomas Hampson (baritone)/ Craig Rutenberg (piano) Delius: Sea Drift (two extracts) Bryn Terfel (baritone)/ Bournemouth Symphony Chorus/ Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/ Richard Hickox (conductor) Vaughan Williams: Sea Symphony (extract - mvt 1) BBC Symphony Chorus/ BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Sir Andrew Davis (cond) Bernstein: To What You Said (extract) Charles Ives: Walt Whitman John Adams: The Wound Dresser (extract) Christopher Maltman (baritone)/ BBC Symphony Orchestra/ John Adams (conductor) Hindemith: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd: A Requiem for Those We Love (extract: March, Over the breast of spring) Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/ Robert Shaw (conductor) Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem Yvonne Kenny (soprano)/ London Symphony Chorus/ London Symphony Orchestra/ Richard Hickox (conductor) Delius: Songs of Farewell (extract - II 'I stand as on some mighty eagle's beak') Bournemouth Symphony Chorus/ Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/ Richard Hickox (conductor). Rob Cowan explores the attraction of composers to the poetry of Walt Whitman. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Our Lady Of Paris | 20130323 | 20130907 (R3) | Simon Russell Beale celebrates the 850th anniversary of Notre Dame, Paris, by exploring the tension between the sacred and secular as expressed in the musical and cultural life of this city. Eight hundred and fifty years ago the magnificent Cathedral of Notre Dame was founded. The technological and intellectual innovations that erupted at this time gave birth not only to advances in architecture but also to a revolution in western music. Mediaeval musicians veered away from single line plainchant, adding multiple voices and complex harmonies. This extraordinary advance changed the face of music forever as polyphony from Notre Dame flooded across Europe. But the pre-eminence of Paris wasn't to last as the conservatism of the church came into conflict with the innovation of composers. Simon will discover that the tension between the sacred and the secular, which is so prevalent within France's history, caused musicians to turn away from the churches and towards the secular sphere. But rather than killing the tradition, Simon discovers that the sense of the sacred makes its way into French music in the most surprising places. As composers clash with the clergy, their expression of mystery through music becomes all the more poignant leading to some of the most innovative and effective expressions of the divine. Despite the restrictions of religion, the violence of the Revolution and the official separation of Church and State, through adaptation and innovation, French sacred music has survived against all odds and it all began at Notre Dame. Producer: Katharine Longworth First broadcast in March 2013. Simon Russell Beale marks Notre Dame's 850th anniversary, exploring French sacred music. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Paying the Piper: The Coal-Man and the Hosier | 20081125 | John Florance investigates two unsung heroes of British cultural history: the hosiery manufacturer William Gardiner, who introduced the unknown Beethoven to England, and the coal merchant Thomas Britton, whose musical gatherings above his coal store in Clerkenwell attracted some of the greatest musicians of the late 17th and early 18th century and an audience that bridged the social divide.
The story of the hosiery manufacturer who introduced Beethoven to England. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Paying the Piper: The Coal-Man and the Hosier | 20081125 | 20081129 (R4) | John Florance investigates two unsung heroes of British cultural history: the hosiery manufacturer William Gardiner, who introduced the unknown Beethoven to England, and the coal merchant Thomas Britton, whose musical gatherings above his coal store in Clerkenwell attracted some of the greatest musicians of the late 17th and early 18th century and an audience that bridged the social divide.
The story of the hosiery manufacturer who introduced Beethoven to England. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Preparing A Piano | 20120922 | 20130427 (R3) | As a tribute in the centenary year of John Cage (1912-92) and in, perhaps, the first DIY programme ever to be broadcast on Radio 3, the inimitable pianist and comedian Rainer Hersch learns how to prepare a piano. Cage first prepared a piano when he was commissioned to write for the dance work Bacchanale. The venue was too small for Cage's percussion group and the only instrument available was a piano. Cage was excited by the possibility of 'placing in the hands of a single pianist the equivalent of an entire percussion orchestra' and went on to compose over thirty pieces using a variety of items to prepare his piano. Cage coined the term 'prepared piano' and was undoubtedly the composer who made the technique famous. Earlier composers such as Henry Cowell and Erik Satie had contributed to the idea but some musicologists believe the technique goes back to the early nineteenth century when paper was placed over piano strings. In an unusual and humorous programme Rainer composes his own piece for the prepared piano using a manual written by Richard Bunger Evans, a close associate of John Cage. The Royal College of Music plays host and Rainer's hand is held during the preparation by the college's expert Chris Moulton. Arne Gieshoff and William Cole, two RCM students, also take part playing their own short pieces for the prepared piano and talking about how they have been influenced by Cage. The programme is illustrated by works from Cage himself. First broadcast in September 2012. Inspired by John Cage, DIY comedian/musician Rainer Hersch composes his own masterpiece. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Puccini: Touched by the Little Finger of the Almighty | 20081216 | James Naughtie re-evaluates the reputation of composer Giacomo Puccini, who was born 150 years ago.
Despite the enduring popularity of operas such as Tosca, Madama Butterfly and La boheme, Puccini's value to the history of music has been questioned by some academics and opera aficionados, who have criticised the populism of his work. In response to these criticisms, Naughtie hears the opinions of respected Puccini experts including music director of Royal Opera Antonio Pappano, opera director Graham Vick and academics Alexandra Wilson and Emanuele Senici of the University of Rome.
James Naughtie re-evaluates the reputation of the composer Giacomo Puccini. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Puccini: Touched by the Little Finger of the Almighty | 20081216 | 20090118 (R4) | James Naughtie re-evaluates the reputation of composer Giacomo Puccini, who was born 150 years ago.
Despite the enduring popularity of operas such as Tosca, Madama Butterfly and La boheme, Puccini's value to the history of music has been questioned by some academics and opera aficionados, who have criticised the populism of his work. In response to these criticisms, Naughtie hears the opinions of respected Puccini experts including music director of Royal Opera Antonio Pappano, opera director Graham Vick and academics Alexandra Wilson and Emanuele Senici of the University of Rome.
James Naughtie re-evaluates the reputation of the composer Giacomo Puccini. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Purcell And Dryden - A Professional Friendship | 20090905 | 20100828 (R3) | Alyn Shipton explores Dryden and Purcell's collaboration on the semi-opera King Arthur, a work which is often regarded as the first professional collaboration between librettist and composer. He is joined by Purcell biographer Jonathan Keates, who describes some of the sights, sounds and smell of the world of Restoration theatre. It was a period in which people would come in and out for single acts of an opera, jostle in the stalls and swap seats in boxes, while the privileged would claim seats on the stage. There is a look at the latest scholarship on the genesis of the opera, with Dryden's biographer, James Wynn, who traces the origins of the collaboration between the two men in the preface to Dioclesian, which was signed by Purcell but written by Dryden. He explains that 17th-century authorship was a bit like the teams of writers on a present-day sitcom. Alyn also considers the origin of the Knights of the Garter, the redecoration of Windsor Castle and the messy politics of Jacobites supporting the ousted James II versus William III's Orange and Protestant sympathies. This provides the background to such remarkable musical treats as Purcell and Dryden's Chorus of Cold People, the paeon of praise to St George, and the best-known setting in the opera Fairest Isle. With naked sylphs, ancient British battles and a drinking song worthy of the terraces at an England game, Alyn sheds new light on this most fascinating of operas. Alyn Shipton on Dryden and Purcell's collaboration on the semi-opera King Arthur. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Reviving Robin | 20091128 | 20101030 (R3) | The pianist Kathryn Stott tells the story of how, in 1934, the young Communist party member Michael Tippett inspired a depressed mining community in Cleveland with his very first opera, based on the legend of Robin Hood. The work has remained hidden with strict instructions that it never be performed again, but 75 years later residents of Boosbeck in east Cleveland have come together in an ambitious attempt to recreate the project - in the bar of the town's Station Hotel. Producer: Celia Quartermain. Kathryn Stott tells the story of how Michael Tippett's Robin Hood came to be written. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Rolls, Records And The Return Of Myra Hess | 20080126 | ..of Myra Hess. When the playing of the late Myra Hess in one of her famous wartime performances returned to the National Gallery last November thanks to the wonders of a piano roll, it was undeniably a concert with a difference. Christopher Cook tells the story of the multi-million pound player-piano industry with the help of enthusiasts and performers, and discovers how these remarkable instruments found their way from the bars and brothels of America to the homes of British high society. Christopher Cook tells the story of the player-piano industry. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Rolls, Records And The Return Of Myra Hess | 20090627 | ..of Myra Hess. When the playing of the late Myra Hess in one of her famous wartime performances returned to the National Gallery last November thanks to the wonders of a piano roll, it was undeniably a concert with a difference. Christopher Cook tells the story of the multi-million pound player-piano industry with the help of enthusiasts and performers, and discovers how these remarkable instruments found their way from the bars and brothels of America to the homes of British high society. Christopher Cook tells the story of the player-piano industry. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Scriabin: A Life In Colour | 20100821 | 20110806 (R3) | The extraordinary music and story of the Russian composer, pianist, mystic and philosopher. With contributions from Gerard McBurney, Simon Morrison and pianist and conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Peggy Reynolds enters the mystical world and the languid rich harmonies of Alexander Scriabin. At the turn of the twentieth century this remarkable figure's music and ideals challenged the very nature of individual and musical expression. His compositional technique and style evolved extraordinarily during of his life - his early piano pieces, reflect his adoration of Chopin, they are romantic and fresh while his later compositions explore new reaches and innovations in harmony. His ten piano sonatas are staples of the piano repertoire, and his miniature piano pieces are considered masterpieces of 20th century pianism. Scriabin loved to discuss philosophy and became enthralled by the theosophy movement of Madam Blavatsky. He was convinced that he was destined to produce an all-consuming work of art - an apocalyptic work of cosmic proportions which would transfigure mankind and its universe. The unrealised Mysterium (Final Mystery) which would embrace music, sound; colour and light; dance; fires, incense, perfumes; tastes, pain and other tactile experiences. Scriabin's works from 1902 until his death in1914 were all influenced by his this vision. His orchestra works include the Divine Poem (1903), the Poem of Ecstasy (1907), and the Poem of Fire or Prometheus (1909) a multi-sensory work for which Scriabin orchestrated a part for colour keyboard which was to project a constantly evolving stream of colours as the visuals to the sonic portion of the score. Music includes: Symphony No. 3, Op. 43, Le Po耀me Divin Etude in C sharp minor Op.2, No. 2 4 Pieces Op 51, No. 3 Le Po耀me de l'extase, Op. 54 Prelude Op. 11, No. 14 Piano Sonata No. 9 Messe Noire, Op. 68 Prelude in B Op. 2, No. 2 Piano Sonata No. 10, Op. 70 Prometh退e: Le Po耀me du Feu Op. 60 Vers la flamme, Op. 72 5 Preludes Op. 74, Nos. 3 & 5. Peggy Reynolds explores the life and music of Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Singing For Britten | 20131123 | 20140816 (R3) | Benjamin Britten was notoriously particular about the professional musicians he worked with (a close-knit circle of friends) and he had famously high musical standards. Yet all his life he embraced working with amateurs and children. John Bridcut tracks down amateur singers from Suffolk and beyond to share their experiences of singing for Britten - and to discover why it was so special. John Bridcut sang for Britten as a student in 1971, on the recording of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius. It's an experience he will never forget: 'How I wish I could remember every moment of those recording sessions. But at the time I was far too busy getting the notes right. What has stayed with me is Britten's crystal-clear beat, and his nervous intensity. He demanded the most of you. When he first appeared, he greeted our chorus master with a kiss on both cheeks - that sort of thing was quite rare in those days - and the whole of the London Symphony Chorus cheered!' John returns to Suffolk, to Britten's Snape Maltings, to swap memories with two fellow singers from that summer more than forty years ago. He also talks to long-standing members of Britten's 'house choir', the Aldeburgh Festival Singers; Suffolk children who sang for Britten in the 1940s and 1950s; and two retired doctors who've not seen each other since they sang on Britten's celebrated recording of his War Requiem as schoolboys. Britten worked with amateur singers right to the end of his career. John Bridcut asks what he drew from them, and why working with amateurs was so central to his vision of music being 'useful, and to the living'. Producers: Jane Greenwood and Elizabeth Burke First broadcast November 2013. John Bridcut explores Britten's creative relationship with amateur singers. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Sir Henry's Hoard | 20100904 | 20110709 (R3) | Discovered in the basement of the British Library: Proms legend Sir Henry Wood's substantial collection of concert programmes dating from the 1900s and covering musical events across Europe and beyond. Bound into a succession of volumes proudly displaying their owner's name in gold leaf. In Sir Henry's Hoard, Stephen Johnson uses this fabulous collection to build a picture of concert life of the day: the great performers (for example, Pablo de Sarasate, Fritz Kreisler, Arthur Nikisch); the hot new music of the day (Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Gustav Mahler); the first early music revival, embracing music from Monteverdi to Bach; the late 19th century 'golden period' for women's music-making; the often (to us) strange make-up of concerts, with the overture often last, for example. There's also a look at how advances in printing techniques made it possible for such programmes to be produced swiftly, attractively and cheaply, together with a sideways glance at the exotic range of businesses that might advertise in such publications, from umbrella and hat makers to life assurance salesmen. Why did Henry Wood join the exchange scheme that circulated such concert programmes, his own included? Just to be well-informed....or as a route to furthering his fledgling career? Along the way, Stephen Johnson visits the site of the Queen's Hall where Wood made his name through the Promenade Concerts, and the Hitchin church where his wartime funeral took place, a few miles from his last 'home' - the Cromwell Hotel in Stevenage. He also tracks down two stray volumes of programmes that turned up in Cambridge. And of course there's plenty of music, much of it from major performers of Henry Wood's day...and plenty from 'Old Timber' himself. Stephen Johnson explores Proms founder Henry Wood's collection of concert programmes. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Soul II Soul | 20081202 | Trevor Nelson tells the story of the influential band Soul II Soul. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Soul II Soul | 20081202 | 20081206 (R4) | Trevor Nelson tells the story of the influential band Soul II Soul. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Sound Of Cinema: Chaplin And Music | 20121229 | 20130928 (R3) | Charlie Chaplin's role as a pioneering actor, comedian and film maker we know. Less well known is his work as a film composer. Although he could not read music, he worked very closely with music collaborators, singing ideas and giving advice about instrumentation. Matthew Sweet explores the importance of music in Chaplin's creative life and the crucial role it played in his films. Matthew Sweet explores Charlie Chaplin's career as composer. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| String Theory | 20081227 | 20100102 (R3) | International violinist Daniel Hope examines the mysteries of the violin. No one knows who invented it and it was often seen as the Devil's instrument, certainly one that most resembles the human voice and thought at one time to be able to steal men's souls. Exploring its history, Hope offers up his own thoughts on the violin's musical DNA, what he calls the 'soul and feeling of the violin' that can be traced back to countries as diverse as Mongolia, China, India and Arabia. As well as featuring music from the four corners of the world, the programme looks at the transformation of the bow as a tool of war to an instrument of music. And there's a rare chance for Daniel to get his hands on an early instrument built by a descendant of the Father of the Violin, Andrea Amati, on which he plays excerpts from the earliest published violin sonata, written in 1610. Daniel Hope explores the history of the violin. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Sumptuous Was The Feast | 20121027 | 20130817 (R3) | Hiawatha' in the Royal Albert Hall was one of the entertainment phenomena of the 1920s and 30s in London. For two weeks each summer the hall was brimful for the dramatisation of black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's cantata trilogy: 'Hiawatha's Wedding Feast', 'The Death of Minnehaha' and 'Hiawatha's Departure' - collectively known as 'The Song of Hiawatha'. Hundreds of members of the giant Royal Choral Society swamped the arena (aka the tribal encampment) dressed in home-made native American costumes. A vast backcloth, depicting mountains and forests, obscured the Albert Hall's giant organ. Wigwams invaded the stage, where the principal singers (many of the best known British stars of the day) did their stuff. And the bulk of the performances was directed by Dr Malcolm Sargent, matinee idol in the making. At the hundredth anniversary of Coleridge-Taylor's death, Andrew Green's Sumptuous Was The Feast' seeks out memories from those who appeared in the Albert Hall productions and those who attended them. Kath Marshall recalls the tribal chants of an authentic Mohawk chief. Rosemary Woodhouse crept onto the stage to solve the mystery of just how Hiawatha's canoe drifted off-stage as it departed for the Hereafter. But this is no mere trip down memory lane. Andrew Green investigates the popularity of Longfellow's poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' on both sides of the Atlantic. He examines how Coleridge-Taylor was idolised by the black community in the USA as a role model. And has Hiawatha obscured the composer's wider output? Sumptuous Was The Feast' details other performances of 'Hiawatha' from Scarborough to Melbourne, Australia...before the craze died after the Second World War. But could hordes of braves and squaws again fill the arena of the Albert Hall? The story of the Royal Albert Hall performances of Coleridge-Taylor's The Song of Hiawatha Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Tchaikovsky's 1812: A Dishonest Overture? | 20121201 | 20130810 (R3) | September 7th, 1812. Near the village of Borodino, just 30 miles from Moscow, the forces of Tsarist Russia face the might of Napoleon's grande arm退e. James Jolly explores Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, written to commemorate this battle, and discovers hidden depths in this famous crowd-pleaser, which plays fast and loose with historical fact. With contributions from historian Orlando Figes, Russian music expert Geoffrey Norris, and conductors Andrew Litton and Vasily Petrenko. James Jolly on hidden depths and historical inaccuracies in Tchaikovsky's composition. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Arch-musician | 20100327 | 20110723 (R3) | We tend to think of the Italian Renaissance as a cauldron of iconoclastic ideas. But that's far less true of music than of visual art or science. In today's Music Feature Catherine Bott goes in search of a composer born 500 years ago who found that being a *musical* innovator was no easy task: Nicola Vicentino. Imagine an octave divided into 31 parts - 31 very small intervals, 'microtones' - rather than the 12 semitones we're used to today. Sounds weird - and it sounded weird to people when Vicentino first came up with idea in the 1500s. 'But opposition won't stop me,' he said. He composed microtonal music, he built a 'superharpsichord' (archicembalo) and 'superorgan' to play it, he trained choirs to sing it, he wrote a book promoting it. Learning and investigating new things - that's human nature' was Vicentino's motto. Every page of his book is filled with 'my ideas'. His radical musical ideas provoked every possible reaction - from vitriolic hostility to fanatical support. Traditionalists were horrified. Some of the most powerful people in Italy gave Vicentino their patronage. Adoring pupils dubbed him Arcimusico - the Arch-Musician. In this programme, Catherine Bott uncovers Vicentino's remarkable story, exploring what it meant to be a musical innovator in sixteenth-century Italy. How did Vicentino come up with his ideas? How did he try to sell them? Why did people react in the way they did? What were the consequences - for Vicentino himself, and for the future of music? Perhaps the biggest obstacle Vicentino faced is that his music is very hard to perform. But in the twenty-first century people are at last beginning to prove it's possible. Catherine Bott has a go herself, and meets other people who've tried - including members of the BBC Singers who tackled Vicentino's music specially for this programme with conductor James Weeks. With Anton Lesser as Vicentino and contributions from Manfred Cordes, Davide Daolmi, Mary Hollingsworth, Margaret Hunter, Lewis Jones, Laurie Stras, James Weeks, Jon Wild and members of the BBC Singers. Catherine Bott uncovers the story of radical composer Nicola Vicentino. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Art Of Noises | 20090825 | 20100829 (R3) | One hundred years after the founding manifesto of Futurism, Robert Worby examine the least-documented aspect of Italy's most audacious art movement: the Art of Noises. The most influential futurist musician was Luigi Russolo who argued for a complete reappraisal of classical orchestras to include sounds of the modern world. He designed and built early mechanical synthesisers, or intonarumori, to recreate the sounds of factories, cars and whistles. Robert travels to Milan, the birthplace of Futurism, to visit reconstructions of the intonarumori - a collection of instruments invented by Russolo - and re-imagine the sounds of the trams and the mighty railway station which inspired them. With all but a few shards of Russolo's music lost or destroyed, why do the Art of Noises continue to resonate for many musicians and artists today? Robert Worby examine the Art of Noises, an offshoot of the Italian Futurism movement. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Cellists That Time Forgot | 20120128 | 20120901 (R3) | Think of cellists from the past and the names Casals, Fournier, Rostropovich and Du Pre immediately spring to mind. But what about the ones that got away? There are great cellists who, over time, have faded from public consciousness - until now. In this compelling feature, Julian Lloyd Webber reveals four forgotten 'heroes' who helped to shape his own destiny as one of the foremost cellists of his generation. As an instrument the cello has never been more popular and the level of playing, never better. From humble beginnings the cello is now an established solo instrument that any present-day composer would want to write for. In this - his sixtieth birthday year - one of today's most renowned solo cellists, Julian Lloyd Webber, not only tells the story of his cellist heroes, but introduces rare and relatively unheard recordings. He'll tell the story of the cellists themselves, explore how they have inspired him, and look at how the art and style of the cellist has changed through the centuries. 1) Felix Salmond (1888 - 1952). A marvellous cellist whose career was overshadowed by the disastrous first performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto in which he was the soloist. Although no-one laid the blame on him (the problem was with the under-rehearsed orchestra) his career (and his confidence) suffered and he fled to America where he embarked on a very distinguished teaching career which produced some of the finest players of modern times. 2) Milos Sadlo (1912 - 2003). Everyone thinks that it was Rostropovich who re-introduced the long lost Haydn C major Concerto to the world after it was rediscovered in Prague in 1961. But it was Milos Sadlo - a fabulous cellist with a wide discography. 3) Antonio Janigro (1918 -1989). The Italian cellist Antonio Janigro was a prolific recording artist. When war broke out in 1939 he found himself trapped in Zagreb where he was on holiday, and was forced to remain there. Luckily he was offered a professorship at Zagreb Conservatory and he eventually formed the widely recorded I Soloisti di Zagreb which he both conducted and played with as a cello soloist. 4) Leonard Rose (1918-1984). An American cellist who not only enjoyed a distinguished recording career but went on to be one of the world's leading pedagogues, counting Yo Yo Mar and Lynn Harrell among his pupils. This feature is more than a biographical snapshot into cello history. Julian relates these cellists to wider developments in the cellist repertoire, fusing this with his personal passions. Presented by Julian Lloyd Webber. Interviewees: Tully Potter - music historian; Professor Robin Stowell - Cardiff University; Kenneth Woods - cellist & conductor. First broadcast in January 2012. Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber introduces four forgotten heroes of the cello-playing world. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Daffodil Maiden | 20090228 | 20090822 (R3) | Anne Sebba tells the story of celebrated concert pianist Harriet Cohen, considered to be one of the most intriguing musical figures of the 20th century. A musician with a vast repertoire, she had more first performances of works than any other pianist of her day, but is scarcely known today. Long-fascinated by Cohen's story, Anne has read the 3,000 letters bequeathed to the British library to try to understand how Cohen's tempestuous private life impacted on her public performing life. Some music critics believe she was the inspiration for much of Bax's finest music. Others claim that she was jealous and possessive and responsible for preventing many of his pieces becoming better known. Anne Sebba tells the story of celebrated concert pianist Harriet Cohen. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Devil In Music | 20111119 | 20120811 (R3) | Film composer Christopher Young, who has scored Nightmare on Elm Street 2, Hellraiser, and Drag Me to Hell, discovers how his musical scare tactics are inspired by the past. Throughout the programme, Christopher Young examines how a composer makes an audience jump in terror. He discovers how his own devilish compositions are inspired by the works of Wagner, Berlioz and Liszt. Surprising connections are drawn between classic horror scenes and demonically inspired operas and symphonies. The programme starts with an investigation of the relationship between the devil and the violin, embodied in the life and legend of Niccolo Paganini. With musicologist Maiko Kawabata and violinist Philippe Quint, Christopher considers the devil's role in musical complexity. The tritone is a musical interval nicknamed Diabolus in Musica. It was generally avoided by medieval composers due to the chaos it created within harmony. Goldsmith's Lecturer in Music Anthony Pryer dissects the unsettling nature of the Devil in Music. Along the way, Christopher discovers what many musicologists consider to be the first horror scene: The Wolf's Glen scene from Der Freischutz, an 1822 opera by Carl Maria Von Weber. With University of Leeds Professor of Critical Musicology Derek Scott, Christopher examines Mozart's Don Giovanni and Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony. King Edward Professor of Music at King's John Deathridge helps Christopher to discover the demonic techniques developed by Richard Wagner. Horror music expert Stan Link examines Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, while identifying the sensorial similarities between horror films and classic Romantic works. The Devil in Music is a Whistledown production for BBC Radio 3. The producer is Colin McNulty. First broadcast in November 2011. Film composer Christopher Young discovers the scare techniques in classical composition. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Exile Returned | 20120630 | 20130720 (R3) | On September 21st 1962 when Igor Stravinsky got off the plane at Moscow airport he stepped onto Russian soil for the first time in over 45 years. During this time he had become the world's most famous composer and was first a Swiss and then an American citizen. Now at the age of 80 he returned at the height of the Cold War to a country cut off from the composer by revolution. What would he make of the old country and what would the old country make of him? Bridget Kendall, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent and former Moscow correspondent tells the story of the composer's visit to Moscow and his home city of St Petersburg and the effect it had on Stravinsky, his party and the artists, composers and musicians living in the USSR. Featuring archive recordings of the concerts Stravinsky conducted during the trip, interviews with Russian writers and musicians who were in the audience, the composer's biographer Stephen Walsh and Soviet music specialists Gerard McBurney and Marina Frolova-Walker; Bridget Kendall uncovers the cultural significance of the event 50 years on. The programme also features an exclusive interview with the composer's assistant, Robert Craft, who accompanied him on the visit and recalls how Stravinsky and his wife Vera immediately became enthusiastic Russians once again as soon as they came back to the 'motherland'. Producer: Andy Cartwright A Soundscape Production for BBC Radio 3 First broadcast in June 2012. Bridget Kendall recalls Stravinsky's 1962 trip to Russia after almost 50 years in exile. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Fantastical World Of Robert Schumann | 20100529 | 20131221 (R3) | Launching Radio 3's Schumann 200 season, pianist Lucy Parham discovers how literature inspired Schumann to write some of his celebrated piano cycles - Papillons, Carnaval, Fantasiestucke and Kreisleriana. In the 200th year since Schumann's birth, this feature looks behind the music. Schumann turned to the novels of Jean Paul and ETA Hoffmann to access a fantasy world of dual personalities, the ordinary becoming extraordinary, humour and irony. This inspired him to write some of his most idiosyncratic and ground-breaking piano works. Lucy Parham is a well known Schumann interpreter and artistic director of Schumann festivals. She reveals how literary links have shed new light on her interpretation. Visiting Schumann's birthplace in Zwickau, Lucy looks at Schumann's extraordinary collection of books, immaculately preserved, including a novel by Jean Paul, Flegeljahre, with annotations by the composer. A description of a masked ball from this book became Papillons. Also in the collection, she discovers Shakespeare's Macbeth and looks at a score with a quotation from Macbeth in Schumann's hand. As the director of the museum Thomas Synofzik explains, Schumann could never have written music without literature and he might well have become a writer. Lucy plays Schumann's music in the museum, on a piano from 1860 played by Clara Schumann and belonging to the Wieck family, and talks about how her intepretation has deepened. The feature includes insights into German literature from academics Ricarda Schmidt and Erika Reiman and the writer Laura Tunbridge. Throughout the programme you hear Schumann's own words, and passages from the books he turned to for inspiration, read by the renowned actor and music enthusiast Henry Goodman. Lucy Parham on how literature inspired Schumann to write some of his great piano cycles. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Golden Oriole | 20081209 | The French composer Olivier Messiaen's fascination for using birdsong in his music. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Greek Blues | 20080708 | Rock critic Peter Paphides goes back to Athens, the city where his parents grew up, to chart the history and roots of Rembetika, the Greek blues. Played on violins, ouds and bouzoukis and featuring extremely impassioned singing, Rembetika is the music of the lower classes in Greece and Asia Minor. Typical lyrics are concerned with lost love, impending death, hashish, sex, prison and gambling.
Peter Paphides charts the history and roots of Rembetika, the Greek blues. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Greek Blues | 20080712 | Rock critic Peter Paphides goes back to Athens, the city where his parents grew up, to chart the history and roots of Rembetika, the Greek blues. Played on violins, ouds and bouzoukis and featuring extremely impassioned singing, Rembetika is the music of the lower classes in Greece and Asia Minor. Typical lyrics are concerned with lost love, impending death, hashish, sex, prison and gambling.
Peter Paphides charts the history and roots of Rembetika, the Greek blues. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Hands Of The Composer | 20110924 | 20120721 (R3) | Iain Burnside muses on the idea of how hands, fingers, thumbs and their use have directly affected Western keyboard composition. Pianist Stephen Hough, composer Huw Watkins and critic Bryce Morrison join in with their insights into how the physiology of great composers' hands had an impact on the music that they wrote and the various challenges performers face as a result. Includes music by Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Ligeti. Interesting Facts from the programme: Beethoven's hands were heavy and muscular. Weber had astonishingly long thumbs. The extreme length of Rachmaninov's fingers has led some experts to postulate that he had Marfan's syndrome, a genetic condition. Chopin's hands were so elastic and flexible that when he extended them they prompted one of his pupils to remark that they resembled 'the opening mouth of a serpent, about to swallow a rabbit whole. Schumann permanently damaged his right hand in attempting to build the strength and independence of his fingers on a mechanical device. This ended his virtuoso piano career but fortuitously led to him spending more time composing. Music: Music includes great pianist-composers, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov, works by tragically frustrated pianists Schumann and Scriabin through Schoenberg and Stravinsky to finish with the ultimate challenge for contemporary pianists, the phenomenally difficult etudes of non-pianist Gy怀rgy Ligeti. Quotes from programme: 'Stravinsky made no secret about writing at the piano. There are so many chords, for example the first chord in the Symphony of Psalms that has a tenth in both hands. You can just imagine Stravinsky sitting down at the piano and his fingers falling into this position. You can feel that sometimes his hands are doing the composing, or at least having a hand in it.' Huw Watkins, composer 'The last three fingers of the right hand were his Divas' Stephen Hough, pianist, on Chopin 'Thomas Ad退s is blessed with enormous hands. He can stretch an eleventh with many notes in between, which I can't quite do. I can stretch a tenth and I know that it's difficult to resist writing huge meaty chords and Tom certainly doesn't in his piano writing!' 'Scriabin was obsessed with his hands. When he wasn't stretching them, he was washing them.' 'The patterns that Faure writes are quite unlike anyone else's and they suggest a certain sort of hand. If you look at, for example, the 3rd Valse Caprice, it looks in some ways like other people's music and then you try and you think: 'I'm going to have to start learning the piano all over again!' It all sounds easy, which is again irritating - no one has any idea that you're making an enormous effort.' Producer: Mark Swartzentruber Associate Producer: Naomi Edemariam A Perfectly Normal Production for BBC Radio 3 First broadcast in 2011. Iain Burnside on how hands and their use have affected Western keyboard composition. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Kreutzer Sonata | 20101127 | Marking the centenary of his death, Katie Derham considers the relationship between Tolstoy and the Russian composers of the early 20th century. Music, like every other art, but especially music, makes us desire that everyone, as many people as possible, take part in our experience of pleasure', wrote Count Leo Tolstoy in his diary in October 1910. Several weeks later, during an icy November, Tolstoy - one of the world's greatest artists and moral activists - fled his family estate in Yasnaya Polyana having finally decided to leave his wife. He died on his journey. One of the most renowned of his later works was a novella called The Kreutzer Sonata which told the tale of the infatuation of an older married woman for a young violinist. This programme will explore how music remained a source of continued recreation and delight and was an emotional stimulus for Tolstoy for much of his life. Tolstoy loved Russian folk music and the rousing music of the gypsies. At university, he was inspired by friends who had a passion for music to play the piano and he wrote a waltz. He even thought he might become a composer. Later on, eminent musicians visited the Tolstoy homes in the country and in Moscow - and some performed there. They included the great pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein, Sergei Rachmaninov, the harpsichordist and pianist Wanda Landovska, and most famously Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky wrote of meeting Tolstoy: 'I was frightened and self-conscious when I found myself face to face with him... but his manner was very straightforward and open... with me he only wanted to talk music. Producer: Diana Bentley Exec Producer: David Prest A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 3. Katie Derham examines Tolstoy's fraught relationship with music and musicians. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Life and Times of the Tambourine | 20080909 | Huw Williams traces the history of the tambourine, from Stravinsky to the Sugababes. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Lost Beatles Interview | 20080701 | Sixties star Helen Shapiro presents the story of a lost TV interview with the Beatles that was recorded in April 1964 and recently found languishing in a rusty film can in a garage in South London. Experts say it's the earliest surviving interview where Lennon and McCartney talk about how they met and discuss the song writing process.
With contributions from the original TV interviewer Paul Young - who had never seen the footage, which was part of a regional television programme broadcast only in Scotland - Beatles expert and writer Mark Lewisohn and Dick Fiddy of the BFI.
The story of a lost TV interview with the Beatles that was recorded in April 1964. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Lost Beatles Interview | 20080705 | Sixties star Helen Shapiro presents the story of a lost TV interview with the Beatles that was recorded in April 1964 and recently found languishing in a rusty film can in a garage in South London. Experts say it's the earliest surviving interview where Lennon and McCartney talk about how they met and discuss the song writing process.
With contributions from the original TV interviewer Paul Young - who had never seen the footage, which was part of a regional television programme broadcast only in Scotland - Beatles expert and writer Mark Lewisohn and Dick Fiddy of the BFI.
The story of a lost TV interview with the Beatles that was recorded in April 1964. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Lyrita Story | 20070929 | Lewis Foreman talks to Richard Itter, his producers and engineers and the musicians who made the recordings to tell the story behind The Lyrita record label. Contributors: Richard Itter - founder of Lyrita Recorded Edition Vernon Handley - conductor Nicholas Braithwaite - conductor Alan Rowlands - pianist Andrew Cornall - record producer (now Executive Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic) John Dunkerley - sound engineer Edward Greenfield - critic Cliff Challenger, Ian Gordon, Peter Williams, Carolyn Wingfield - Radio 3 listeners Playlist: excerpts from: Sir Charles Villiers Stanford - Piano Concerto no. 2 in C minor, Op. 126, first movement Malcolm Binns (piano) London Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Braithwaite (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 219, Track 3 Heitor Villa-Lobos - Festa na sertao, third movement of Ciclo brasileiro Elizabeth Powell (piano) Lyrita RCS 22, Side 1 Band 3 [mono LP: not yet issued on CD] Gordon Jacob - Elegy for cello and piano Florence Hooton (cello) Wilfrid Parry (piano) Lyrita RCS 2, Side 2 Band 5 [mono LP: now issued on CD with number REAM 2104] John Ireland - April Alan Rowlands (piano) Lyrita RCS 28, Side 1 Band 4 [mono LP: now issued on CD with number REAM 3112] John Ireland - Equinox Lyrita RCS 15, Side 2 Band 5 [mono LP: now issued on CD with number REAM 3112] William Havergal Brian - Symphony no. 6 (Sinfonia Tragica) London Philharmonic Orchestra Myer Fredman (conductor) Lyrita SRCS 67, Side 1 [stereo LP: now issued on CD with number SRCD 295] John Ireland - A London Overture Sir Adrian Boult (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 240, Track 4 George Lloyd - Symphony no. 8, second movement (Largo) New Philharmonia Orchestra Edward Downes (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 2258, CD 3 of 3, Track 2 Frank Bridge - Dance Rhapsody Lyrita SRCD 243, Track 1 Ernest John Moeran - Symphony in G minor, fourth movement Lyrita SRCD 247, Track 7 William Hurlstone - Variations on a Hungarian Air Lyrita SRCD 208, Track 9 Gerald Finzi - Intimations of Immortality (words: William Wordsworth) Ian Partridge (tenor) Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra Vernon Handley (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 238, Tracks 5-14 Sir Hubert Parry - Bridal March, from The Birds Lyrita SRCD 220, Track 9 Sir Edward Elgar - Symphony no. 2 in E flat, Op. 63, third movement (Rondo) Lyrita SRCD 221, CD 2 of 2, Track 3 Herbert Howells - Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21, first movement Richards Piano Quartet Lyrita SRCS 68, Side 1 Band 1 [stereo LP: now issued on CD with number SRCD 292] John Ireland - Sea Fever (words: John Masefield) Benjamin Luxon (baritone) Lyrita SRCD 2261, CD 1 of 3, Track 8 John Ireland - When I am dead, my dearest Lyrita SRCD 2261, CD 2 of 3, Track 22 John Ireland - Prelude: The Forgotten Rite Lyrita SRCD 240, Track 2 Sir Malcolm Arnold - English Dances, Set 1, Op. 27, fourth movement Sir Malcolm Arnold (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 201, Track 4 John Foulds - Dynamic Triptych for piano and orchestra, Op. 88, first movement Howard Shelley (piano) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Lyrita SRCD 211, Track 4 Nicholas Maw - Scenes and Arias (words: anon, c. 1300) Jane Manning (soprano) Anne Howells (mezzo-soprano) Norma Proctor (contralto) BBC Symphony Orchestra Norman Del Mar (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 267, Tracks 1-9 Sir William Sterndale Bennett - Symphony in G minor, Op. 43, fourth movement Lyrita SRCD 206, Track 6 Sir Arnold Bax - Symphony no. 2 in E minor and C, second movement Lyrita SRCS 54, Side 2 Band 1 [stereo LP: now issued on CD with number SRCD 233] Ernest John Moeran - Symphony in G minor, first movement Lyrita SRCD 247, Track 4 Lewis Foreman talks to Richard Itter, the pioneer behind British record label Lyrita. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Lyrita Story | 20080816 | Lewis Foreman talks to Richard Itter, his producers and engineers and the musicians who made the recordings to tell the story behind The Lyrita record label. Contributors: Richard Itter - founder of Lyrita Recorded Edition Vernon Handley - conductor Nicholas Braithwaite - conductor Alan Rowlands - pianist Andrew Cornall - record producer (now Executive Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic) John Dunkerley - sound engineer Edward Greenfield - critic Cliff Challenger, Ian Gordon, Peter Williams, Carolyn Wingfield - Radio 3 listeners Playlist: excerpts from: Sir Charles Villiers Stanford - Piano Concerto no. 2 in C minor, Op. 126, first movement Malcolm Binns (piano) London Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Braithwaite (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 219, Track 3 Heitor Villa-Lobos - Festa na sertao, third movement of Ciclo brasileiro Elizabeth Powell (piano) Lyrita RCS 22, Side 1 Band 3 [mono LP: not yet issued on CD] Gordon Jacob - Elegy for cello and piano Florence Hooton (cello) Wilfrid Parry (piano) Lyrita RCS 2, Side 2 Band 5 [mono LP: now issued on CD with number REAM 2104] John Ireland - April Alan Rowlands (piano) Lyrita RCS 28, Side 1 Band 4 [mono LP: now issued on CD with number REAM 3112] John Ireland - Equinox Lyrita RCS 15, Side 2 Band 5 [mono LP: now issued on CD with number REAM 3112] William Havergal Brian - Symphony no. 6 (Sinfonia Tragica) London Philharmonic Orchestra Myer Fredman (conductor) Lyrita SRCS 67, Side 1 [stereo LP: now issued on CD with number SRCD 295] John Ireland - A London Overture Sir Adrian Boult (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 240, Track 4 George Lloyd - Symphony no. 8, second movement (Largo) New Philharmonia Orchestra Edward Downes (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 2258, CD 3 of 3, Track 2 Frank Bridge - Dance Rhapsody Lyrita SRCD 243, Track 1 Ernest John Moeran - Symphony in G minor, fourth movement Lyrita SRCD 247, Track 7 William Hurlstone - Variations on a Hungarian Air Lyrita SRCD 208, Track 9 Gerald Finzi - Intimations of Immortality (words: William Wordsworth) Ian Partridge (tenor) Guildford Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra Vernon Handley (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 238, Tracks 5-14 Sir Hubert Parry - Bridal March, from The Birds Lyrita SRCD 220, Track 9 Sir Edward Elgar - Symphony no. 2 in E flat, Op. 63, third movement (Rondo) Lyrita SRCD 221, CD 2 of 2, Track 3 Herbert Howells - Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21, first movement Richards Piano Quartet Lyrita SRCS 68, Side 1 Band 1 [stereo LP: now issued on CD with number SRCD 292] John Ireland - Sea Fever (words: John Masefield) Benjamin Luxon (baritone) Lyrita SRCD 2261, CD 1 of 3, Track 8 John Ireland - When I am dead, my dearest Lyrita SRCD 2261, CD 2 of 3, Track 22 John Ireland - Prelude: The Forgotten Rite Lyrita SRCD 240, Track 2 Sir Malcolm Arnold - English Dances, Set 1, Op. 27, fourth movement Sir Malcolm Arnold (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 201, Track 4 John Foulds - Dynamic Triptych for piano and orchestra, Op. 88, first movement Howard Shelley (piano) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Lyrita SRCD 211, Track 4 Nicholas Maw - Scenes and Arias (words: anon, c. 1300) Jane Manning (soprano) Anne Howells (mezzo-soprano) Norma Proctor (contralto) BBC Symphony Orchestra Norman Del Mar (conductor) Lyrita SRCD 267, Tracks 1-9 Sir William Sterndale Bennett - Symphony in G minor, Op. 43, fourth movement Lyrita SRCD 206, Track 6 Sir Arnold Bax - Symphony no. 2 in E minor and C, second movement Lyrita SRCS 54, Side 2 Band 1 [stereo LP: now issued on CD with number SRCD 233] Ernest John Moeran - Symphony in G minor, first movement Lyrita SRCD 247, Track 4 Lewis Foreman talks to Richard Itter, the pioneer behind British record label Lyrita. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Practice Of Practising | 20131228 | 20140726 (R3) | Celebrated pianist Stephen Hough reflects on a life spent practising. Told through a series of intensive rehearsal sessions as he prepares for the first night of the Proms in 2013, Stephen gives an in-depth and frank account of the hard work, self-examination, isolation and forensic scrutiny required to turn a seemingly impossible collection of notes into an effortless and awe inspiring performance. With contributions from fellow musicians including violinist Nicola Benedetti, mezzo soprano Joyce Di Donato and guitarist Julian Bream, The Practice of Practising also examines the firm but distant approach needed by parents of musical children, how singers push themselves past the emotional brink in rehearsal rather than on stage and what happens to the superstar instrumentalist in retirement, when the need to practice is no longer there. Producer: Freya Hellier. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Rite Of Spring | 20130525 | 20130824 (R3) | Dance critic Stephanie Jordan traces the explosive influence of the Rite of Spring on modern dance, the shocking combination of Igor Stravinsky's music and Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography, 100 years after the piece was famously premiered in Paris in 1913 and led to uproar. The programme features interviews with choreographers Akram Khan and Mark Morris, both devising new interpretations of the Rite. Stephanie Jordan meets Deborah Bull, who danced the role of the Chosen Maiden and Monica Mason, for whom the Royal Ballet1s Kenneth MacMillan created his legendary solo choreography. Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer explain how they reconstructed Nijinsky1s 1913 ballet and Marin Alsop describes the physicality involved in conducting Stravinsky1s score today. First broadcast in May 2013. Stephanie Jordan traces the influence of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring on modern dance. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Shorthand Of Emotion | 20110820 | Katie Derham considers the relationship between Leo Tolstoy and the Russian composers of his day. Music, like every other art, but especially music, makes us desire that everyone, as many people as possible, take part in our experience of pleasure', wrote Count Leo Tolstoy in his diary in October 1910. Several weeks later, during an icy November, Tolstoy - one of the world's greatest artists and moral activists - fled his family estate in Yasnaya Polyana having finally decided to leave his wife. He died on his journey. One of the most renowned of his later works was a novella called The Kreutzer Sonata which told the tale of the infatuation of an older married woman for a young violinist. This programme explores how music remained a source of continued recreation and delight and was an emotional stimulus for Tolstoy for much of his life. Tolstoy loved Russian folk music and the rousing music of the gypsies. At university, he was inspired by friends who had a passion for music to play the piano and he wrote a waltz. He even thought he might become a composer. Later on, eminent musicians visited the Tolstoy homes in the country and in Moscow - and some performed there. They included the great pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein, Sergei Rachmaninov, the harpsichordist and pianist Wanda Landowska, and, most famously, Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky wrote of meeting Tolstoy: 'I was frightened and self-conscious when I found myself face to face with him ... but his manner was very straightforward and open ... with me he only wanted to talk music. Producer: Diana Bentley Exec Producer: David Prest A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 3. Katie Derham on the relationship between Tolstoy and the Russian composers of his day. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| The Sound That Burned: The Queen's Hall 70th Anniversary | 20110430 | 20120526 (R3) | On May 10th 1941, during the worst night of the Blitz German incendiary bombs set fire to one of Europe's great concert halls. The water supply ran out and Queen's Hall, famed for its acoustic, burned. Andrew Green tells the story of the hall - its struggle for financial viability, its relationship with visiting and home-grown orchestras and conductors, its design and acoustic qualities, its place in concert-goers' affections - and traces the events of that fateful night. With contributions from, among others, broadcasters John Amis and Richard Baker, cultural historian Leanne Langley, acoustician Rob Harris, Queens Hall 'guide' Robert Threlfall and archive of many of the last century's finest musicians. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3. Andrew Green tells the story of the last days of London's celebrated Queen's Hall. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| The Wonder Of Wunderlich | 20071222 | Tom Robinson tells the story of German singer Fritz Wunderlich, from his humble origins in Freiburg to his premature death at the age of 35 in 1966. Wunderlich was a natural lyric tenor, who excelled in opera, Lieder and lighter repertoire. His recording of Granada is still considered unsurpassed. Contributors include tenors John Mark Ainsley and Ian Partridge and pianist Iain Burnside. Tom Robinson tells the story of German singer Fritz Wunderlich. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Theodorakis - Greece's Musical Revolutionary | 20100130 | 85 this year, Mikis Theodorakis is best known for the music to 1974 film Zorba the Greek, but as Miranda Hinkley discovers, there's also a wealth of chamber, opera and symphonic music. Part of the resistance during the Second World War, imprisoned during the Greek Civil War, exiled during the military dictatorship, his story mirrors that of modern Greece. And he's been responsible for a musical revolution, a uniquely Greek sound. Mikis Theodorakis is joined by singers Maria Farantouri and Marios Frangoulis and by violinist Georgos Demertzis, to look back on a 60-year career. Presented and produced by Miranda Hinkley. Executive Producer Alan Hall. A Nightjar production. Miranda Hinkley looks back on the 60-year career of Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Tuning Into the Enemy | 20080617 | A story of truth and reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa.
At the age of 18, Afrikaner Paul Erasmus went into the police force. Roger Lucey wrote protest songs and went to political meetings with his university friends. Paul systematically wrecked Roger's musical career, bugging his house, pressurising WEA records to drop him and personally seizing his records from stores. In 1995, he asked to meet Lucey in person and confessed all. They now consider themselves friends.
A story of truth and reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Tuning Into the Enemy | 20080621 | A story of truth and reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa.
At the age of 18, Afrikaner Paul Erasmus went into the police force. Roger Lucey wrote protest songs and went to political meetings with his university friends. Paul systematically wrecked Roger's musical career, bugging his house, pressurising WEA records to drop him and personally seizing his records from stores. In 1995, he asked to meet Lucey in person and confessed all. They now consider themselves friends.
A story of truth and reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Verdi 200: Verdi The Opera Director - The Composer's Other Artistic Side | 20131012 | Verdi 200 Throughout his career of nearly 30 operas, Giuseppe Verdi developed an interest in the genre well beyond the world of sound to encompass other aspects of the spectacle on stage. That he was able to take control of the latter as he gained fame and strengthened his position around Europe remains a relatively unknown and obscure side of his artistic life - until now. With the help of valuable archive material and visiting opera houses and institutions in Milan, Venice and Parma - key places for Verdi - opera scholar Susan Rutherford explains how he brought things full circle, completing the journey from composer to 'director', a role he was crucial to develop in 19th-century Italy. This documentary shows how he intervened in the making of staging designs, the latest scenic effects, and - not least - the acting and delivery techniques of his singers as he aimed towards the perfect fusion between music and drama. His role of 'director' was particularly prominent, this programme shows, in his last three works: Aida, Otello and Falstaff. With contributions from, among others, singer Placido Domingo, opera director Graham Vick, the Superintendent of Venice's La Fenice Theatre Cristiano Chiarot, and the director of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani in Parma, Emilio Sala. Opera scholar Susan Rutherford traces Verdi's journey from composer to 'opera director. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects | |
| Viola: Air On A C String | 20120728 | 20130727 (R3) | Writer and string player Fiona Maddocks takes an analytical look at the viola. Why did so many great composers choose the most misunderstood and enigmatic string instrument as their favourite? What is it about its tone quality and the role that it plays in musical texture - right at the heart of the harmonic engine room - that made it so attractive, and why has it become the butt of jokes? With contributions from soloists PInchas Zukerman and Maxim Rysanov, Paul Cassidy of the Brodsky Quartet, violist/composers Brett Dean and Sally Beamish, and baroque violist Annette Isserlis. Music includes works by Bach, Purcell, Mozart Beethoven, Schubert, Janacek, Smetana, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Hindemith, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Walton, and Bartok. Fiona Maddocks analyses the viola, misunderstood middle child of the string family. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Wandering Minstrels | 20120818 | 20130803 (R3) | Sarah Walker uncovers the forgotten story of one of the best known orchestras in Britain in the late 1800s: The Wandering Minstrels - a bunch of aristocrats and middle-class dilettantes who claimed to be the only purely amateur orchestra in Europe. They gave the first ever concert in the Royal Albert Hall, they raised the equivalent of millions of pounds for charity through their performances - and they really put the professionals' backs up. And if their name seems familiar, you're probably thinking of the Gilbert & Sullivan song 'A wandering minstrel I' from The Mikado. No, the orchestra didn't name themselves after the song: the song was a tongue-in-cheek homage to the then-famous orchestra. Sullivan was good mates with the orchestra's founder, Seymour Egerton (later the Fourth Earl of Wilton), and Nanki-Poo, who sings the song, is - like the orchestra's players - a member of the nobility roughing it as an itinerant musician. First broadcast in August 2012. The story of the orchestra who gave the first ever concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Water Music | 20081025 | 20090801 (R3) | Dr Ian Bradley travels to Baden in Austria and Baden-Baden in Germany to discover how in the 18th and 19th centuries, amidst the fountains and cascades, the Kurparks and casinos, these European spa towns inspired serious composition from the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Berlioz. In conversation with local guides and on location in casinos, parks and even taking a dip in the spas, Bradley traces notable stories behind the music. Including Mozart climbing through windows to visit his ailing wife and his musical gift to the local church organist. Then Beethoven and his disagreements with the Baden landlords, his spa cures and inspiring walks in the countryside. He also looks at Berlioz's neuralgia and his commissions from the aspiring local casino owner; as well as Brahms' love for Clara Schumann and the blue composing room in his little white-shingled house. Ian Bradley explores music composed in European spa towns such as Baden-Baden in Germany. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| When The Opera Comes To Town | 20100424 | 20110910 (R3) | It's often forgotten that opera during the nineteenth century in Britain didn't always mean London. In fact, the provinces were a vital part of the operatic circuit. In this programme, Susan Rutherford uncovers some of the stories from the rich history of provincial opera, when audiences from all classes flocked to hear whatever the visiting opera company was performing. Perhaps the most tenacious presence on the provincial opera scene during the nineteenth century and beyond was the Carl Rosa Company, which chuffed and puffed around the country on its own steam train. We discover their punishing schedule - typically a residency of a week with a different opera every night before boarding the train again to the next theatre. Sarah Crouch, violinist in the Carl Rosa orchestra as it struggled to survive during the 1950s, remembers life on the road, 'going on the knocker' - traipsing around towns looking for digs, and performing Wagner operas with a pint sized orchestra. 'We had to play really quite strongly. In spite of resources which were limited by today's standards, the music itself was glorious - a repertoire based around Verdi, Wagner, Puccini - including La Boheme, which like many other works had its first UK performance outside London. Carmen was so popular that special companies were established, which toured for months at a time with only that piece. English language performance was all the rage. The operatic establishment during the last decades of the nineteenth century was desperate to create a national opera to rival the houses which were springing up in Europe. Competitions were arranged to encourage British composers to come up with something which could compare with the great Italian and German works. In these years, in many ways, seeds were sown which would flower into ENO and the provincial touring opera companies of today. Martin Pickard, Head of Music at Opera North, gives the contemporary perspective. And we hear the tale of Maria Malibran - the most famous opera star of her day. (The stage-presence of Lady Gaga, the voice of an angel.) It was an enormous coup for the Manchester Festival when she agreed to appear in 1836. The members of the festival committee must have been thrilled - until she died in the city, leaving nobody to take charge of the arrangements. With music by Bizet, Puccini, Verdi and Offenbach. Producer: Kerry Clark. Susan Rutherford explores the history of opera outside London. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Who Was Carlos Kleiber? | 20090926 | 20100807 (R3) | Ivan Hewett explores the musical enigma of the late conductor Carlos Kleiber. Despite huge demand and adulatory critical praise for his work, he gave very few performances and never granted an interview, increasing speculation about his art and personality. Ivan talks to some of the few who knew Kleiber well and attempts to explain his mercurial and electrifying genius. While most great conductors have strongly-defined profiles, views and attitudes, Kleiber, the son of an equally feted conductor was and remains an enigma, with rumours about him circulating far more freely than facts. Primarily a recluse, he could only be persuaded into the public arena, at least since the late 1980s, by the combination of a momentous event, long rehearsal times and a huge fee. These performances, though, were nothing less than life-changing: concerts with the impact of religious events. Kleiber was also one of the few maestros who, although very demanding at rehearsal, was adored by the musicians who played for him - and by other conductors. But why did he give so few performances? Why his obvious insecurities? Did he really only make records 'when the freezer ran out of food'? And what about Kleiber the man - his life, his friends, his loves, his obsessions? Ivan Hewett explores the musical enigma of the conductor Carlos Kleiber. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Who's Afraid Of Hugo Wolf? | 20100227 | 20110716 (R3) | Hugo Wolf's reputation is for humourless, dense, difficult songs.Yet, when you listen to them, a different story emerges. They can be biting or tender, funny or sad, erotic or esoteric - but always as immediately appealing as those by Schubert or Schumann. How did Wolf gain such a mistaken reputation? With performances of Wolf songs from Fischer-Dieskau, Elly Ameling, Ian Bostridge and Barbra Streisand amongst others, pianist and lieder-lover Iain Burnside traces Wolf's life and aims as a composer. In his quest to set the Wolf record straight, he is joined by fellow Wolf enthusiasts: Dr Susan Youens and Dr Amanda Glauert, the pianist Graham Johnson, and Jeremy Sams, whose father was the eminent Wolf scholar, Eric Sams. Iain discovers how Wolf's sense of humour based on caricature and derision made him as many friends as enemies; how Wagner was both an ardent inspiration and a curse on Wolf's career; how Bizet's opera Carmen brought a new clarity of vision to Wolf's late song collections; and how the richnesses & sophistication of Wolf recordings past may be inhibiting our appreciation of Wolf today. Iain Burnside traces the life and work of lieder writer Hugo Wolf. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |
| Why Do Women Die In Opera? | 20100626 | 20110226 (R3) | Where would opera be without dead women? Associate editor of the Guardian and opera fanatic, Martin Kettle, considers the fact that, be it through suicide, murder, asphyxiation, drowning, execution, consumption, leaping off a balcony or dying in an avalanche, when it comes to the most popular tragic operas, to a disconcerting extent it's the sopranos, and occasionally the mezzos, who get the chop. Together with singers Natalie Dessay and Christine Rice, singer/director Catherine Malfitano, director David McVicar, ENO music director Edward Gardner, The Royal Opera House's director of opera Elaine Padmore and scholars Peter Conrad, Susan McClary and Margaret Reynolds, Martin considers the social, historical, political and artistic contexts in which to understand the dying operatic heroine in canonical operas including La Traviata, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, Carmen, Manon, Tristan and Isolde, the Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser, Gotterdammerung, Salome, Elektra and Lulu. He looks at how composers' own relationships with women might shed light on their dying divas and he weighs up a certain feminist approach to nineteenth century tragic opera which presents death as a punishment that the female romantic lead is required (by a 19th century bourgeois audience) to pay for living too passionately. Journalist Martin Kettle asks why, so often in opera, the soprano meets a gruesome end. Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects |