Music Matters
First broadcast from 19950121 to 20100313.
| Series | Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 201C | 01 | 20010923 | The music magazine features an item on the Ulster Orchestra, a review of a new book about the Kirov company, and a report from Harare by Joan Brickhill. | ||
| 201C | 02 | 20010930 | Ivan Hewett talks to Sir Roger Norrington about Mahler and the state of the period movement. Plus choreographer Mark Morris and news of a Danish festival in Birmingham. | ||
| 201C | 03 | 20011007 | Ivan Hewett explores a Stockhausen retrospective, cellist Stephen Isserlis talks about Beethoven, and the amateur choral singing competition Let the Peoples Sing comes round again. | ||
| 201C | 04 | 20011014 | Ivan Hewett talks to Marin Alsop about her plans for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and to choreographer Siobhan Davis. Plus a report on Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. | ||
| 201C | 05 | 20011021 | Ivan Hewett on Sir Malcolm Arnold's eightieth birthday, a new book about Stravinsky, and Trinity College of Music's new premises in Greenwich. | ||
| 201C | 06 | 20011028 | Ivan Hewett talks to arts patron Alberto Vilar, and Christopher Maltman discusses taking the role of Figaro with the ENO. Plus a look at the value of classical music in East Asia. | ||
| 201C | 07 | 20011104 | Ivan Hewett investigates London's Planet Tree Festival and the European Month of Music in Basle, and discusses whether Britten was a hero or villain of 20th-century music. | ||
| 201C | 08 | 20011111 | Ivan Hewett presents celebrates the London Jazz Festival with an interview with Dave Brubeck and a behind-the-scenes look at Ronnie Scott's. Plus current issues in jazz. | ||
| 201C | 09 | 20011118 | Ivan Hewett anticipates the 70th birthday of Malcolm Williamson, Master of the Queen's Music, the centenary of Rodrigo, and the 20th anniversary of Cornelius Cardew's death. | ||
| 201C | 10 | South Pacific | 20011125 | Ivan Hewett reports on the Krakov Opera Company's UK tour. Plus a discussion about the appeal of musicals in the light of `South Pacific' opening at the National Theatre. | |
| 201C | 11 | 20011202 | Ivan Hewett celebrates two centenarians and hears about some composing cyclists. Leo Black talks about Schubert, and Errolyn Wallen discusses her sound-and-light show in Wapping. | ||
| 201C | 12 | Tone | 20011209 | Ivan Hewett challenges arts minister Baroness Blackstone on her arts policies. Plus a report from Leeds on the exhibition `Tone', and an interview with pianist Joanna MacGregor. | |
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 21 January 1995 | 19950121 | Producer: F. SHELMERDINE Next in series: 28 January 1995 Previous in series: 14 January 1995 Broadcast history 21 Jan 1995 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 22 Jan 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-01-20. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 28 January 1995 | 19950128 | Producer: A. SELLORS Next in series: 04 February 1995 Previous in series: 21 January 1995 Broadcast history 28 Jan 1995 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 29 Jan 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-01-27. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 04 February 1995 | 19950204 | Producer: F. SHELMERDINE Next in series: 11 February 1995 Previous in series: 28 January 1995 Broadcast history 04 Feb 1995 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 05 Feb 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-02-03. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 11 February 1995 | 19950211 | Producer: F. SHELMERDINE Next in series: 18 February 1995 Previous in series: 04 February 1995 Broadcast history 11 Feb 1995 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 12 Feb 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-02-10. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 16 September 1995 | 19950916 | Producer: F. SHELMERDINE Next in series: 23 September 1995 Previous in series: 15 July 1995 Broadcast history 16 Sep 1995 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 17 Sep 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-09-15. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 16 September 1995 | 19950917 | First broadcast on 1995-09-16 Producer: F. SHELMERDINE Next in series: 23 September 1995 Previous in series: 15 July 1995 Broadcast history 16 Sep 1995 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 17 Sep 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-09-15. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 23 September 1995 | 19950924 | First broadcast on 1995-09-23 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 30 September 1995 Previous in series: 16 September 1995 Broadcast history 24 Sep 1995 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1995-09-22. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 06 January 1996 | 19960106 | Producer: A. SELLORS Next in series: 13 January 1996 Previous in series: 23 December 1995 Broadcast history 06 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 07 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-05. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 06 January 1996 | 19960107 | First broadcast on 1996-01-06 Producer: A. SELLORS Next in series: 13 January 1996 Previous in series: 23 December 1995 Broadcast history 06 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 07 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-05. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 13 January 1996 | 19960113 | Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 20 January 1996 Previous in series: 06 January 1996 Broadcast history 13 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 14 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-12. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 13 January 1996 | 19960114 | First broadcast on 1996-01-13 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 20 January 1996 Previous in series: 06 January 1996 Broadcast history 13 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 14 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-12. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 20 January 1996 | 19960120 | Producer: A. SELLORS Next in series: 27 January 1996 Previous in series: 13 January 1996 Broadcast history 20 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 21 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-19. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 20 January 1996 | 19960121 | First broadcast on 1996-01-20 Producer: A. SELLORS Next in series: 27 January 1996 Previous in series: 13 January 1996 Broadcast history 20 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 21 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-19. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 27 January 1996 | 19960127 | Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 03 February 1996 Previous in series: 20 January 1996 Broadcast history 27 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 28 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-26. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 27 January 1996 | 19960128 | First broadcast on 1996-01-27 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 03 February 1996 Previous in series: 20 January 1996 Broadcast history 27 Jan 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 28 Jan 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-01-26. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 03 February 1996 | 19960203 | Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 10 February 1996 Previous in series: 27 January 1996 Broadcast history 03 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 04 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-02. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 03 February 1996 | 19960204 | First broadcast on 1996-02-03 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 10 February 1996 Previous in series: 27 January 1996 Broadcast history 03 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 04 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-02. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 10 February 1996 | 19960210 | Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 17 February 1996 Previous in series: 03 February 1996 Broadcast history 10 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 11 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-09. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 10 February 1996 | 19960211 | First broadcast on 1996-02-10 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 17 February 1996 Previous in series: 03 February 1996 Broadcast history 10 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 11 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-09. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 17 February 1996 | 19960217 | Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: TINNITUS Previous in series: 10 February 1996 Broadcast history 17 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 18 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-16. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: 17 February 1996 | 19960218 | First broadcast on 1996-02-17 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: TINNITUS Previous in series: 10 February 1996 Broadcast history 17 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 18 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-16. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: Tinnitus | 19960224 | Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 02 March 1996 Previous in series: 17 February 1996 Broadcast history 24 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 25 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-23. | |||
| Programme Catalogue - Details: Tinnitus | 19960225 | First broadcast on 1996-02-24 Producer: J. ISAACS Next in series: 02 March 1996 Previous in series: 17 February 1996 Broadcast history 24 Feb 1996 17:45-18:30 (RADIO 3) 25 Feb 1996 12:15-13:00 (RADIO 3) Recorded on 1996-02-23. | |||
| I Know What I Like | 19970524 | Live from the Library Theatre, Manchester. Ivan Hewett chairs a discussion about how we appreciate music, and the role music plays in our lives. We all know what we like, so why should we have to be told? | |||
| I Know What I Like | 19970525 | From the Library Theatre, Manchester. Ivan Hewett chairs a discussion about how we appreciate music, and the role music plays in our lives. We all know what we like, so why should we have to be told? | |||
| 19970531 | Ivan Hewett with news and views from the musical world. This week, a walk round a Mendelssohn exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and a trip to a musical weekend in Lacock for players of the serpent, an ancient bass wind instrument. | ||||
| 19970601 | |||||
| 19970607 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, choreographer Mark Morris on his interpretation of Handel, violinist Gidon Kremer on master of tango Astor Piazzolla, and a look at Ravel's fascination with Spain. | ||||
| 19970608 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, choreographer Mark Morris on his interpretation of Handel, Gidon Kremer pays homage to the master of tango Astor Piazzolla, and a look at Ravel's fascination with Spain. | ||||
| 19970614 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and events in the musical world. This week, a new book on Mahler, a meeting between Ensemble Bash and musicians from Ghana, and what a new-born baby hears. | ||||
| 19970615 | |||||
| Die Aegyptische Helena | 19970621 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and events in the musical world. This week, the British premiere of Strauss's `Die aegyptische Helena', the birth of the orchestra, and the art of the Harlem Renaissance. | |||
| Die Aegyptische Helena | 19970622 | ||||
| 19970628 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and events in the musical world. This week, composers' fascination with the poetry of Byron; a new scheme to provide music in prisons; and how Hong Kong's music scene will be affected by the handover to China at the end of this month. | ||||
| 19970629 | |||||
| A White House Cantata | 19970705 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and events in the musical world. This week, a look at Leonard Bernstein's `A White House Cantata', only now receiving its world premiere; singers from the Royal Opera House rehearsing Verdi's `Macbeth'; and why the French composer Eric Satie wrote the piece `Vexations', which lasts 14 hours. | |||
| A White House Cantata | 19970706 | ||||
| 19970712 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and events in the musical world. This week, the symphony becomes heroic in the wake of Beethoven; composers write again for the virginals; a new book on English cathedral music; and a project in Birmingham to get young people singing. | ||||
| 19970713 | |||||
| 19970914 | A new season and a new time for the popular music magazine presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, a review of Jonathan Miller's TV series for people who do not like opera; the hidden riches of Yemenese music heard for the first time in this country; and a composing computer - will it ever replace the human composer? | ||||
| 19970915 | A new season and a new time for the repeat of the popular music magazine presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, a review of Jonathan Miller's TV series for people who do not like opera; the hidden riches of Yemenese music heard for the first time in this country; and a composing computer - will it ever replace the human composer? | ||||
| 19970921 | Weekly music magazine presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, a new book about Diaghilev, the San Francisco Opera House re-opens, music-making in Manchester, and the Diva as an icon. | ||||
| 19970922 | |||||
| 19970928 | Music magazine. This week, Ivan Hewett discusses the flourishing cultural life in Vienna during the first half of the century; looks at how pop musicians like Paul McCartney have crossed over to classical music; and brings news of Riccardo Muti's appeal to halt the destruction of musical manuscripts in Naples. | ||||
| 19970929 | |||||
| 19971005 | Weekly music magazine presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, the Russian choral tradition, a new ballet about Edward II, and Vaughan Williams - establishment figure or subversive? | ||||
| 19971006 | |||||
| Music Matters | 19971019 | Radio 3 begins a week of programmes highlighting the daily stresses and strains of a musician's life with a special edition of `Music Matters' presented by Ivan Hewett | |||
| Music Matters | 19971020 | ||||
| Vivace | 19971026 | Music magazine. Ivan Hewett reviews Joan Sutherland's autobiography, which reveals the passions that drive opera; looks at a report on amateur music-making in this country; and features a new computer package called `Vivace', which provides musicians with a reliable, readily available and willing accompanist. | |||
| Vivace | 19971027 | ||||
| Die Winterreise | 19971102 | Music magazine. Ivan Hewett looks at rough music, the rude cacophony used by 17th-century communities to ostracise an offending individual; and differing ways of interpreting Schubert's `Die Winterreise'. | |||
| Die Winterreise | 19971103 | ||||
| 19971109 | Ivan Hewett explores Sibelius's fascination with Finnish legends and folklore, looks at the way Soundbeam helps people with disabilities make music, and joins 700 young people working on an education project to be performed at Huddersfield Football Stadium. | ||||
| 19971110 | |||||
| Nosferatu | 19971116 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, James Bernard, Hammer Studios' king of horror film composers, on his new score for the 1922 classic `Nosferatu'. | |||
| Nosferatu | 19971117 | ||||
| 19971123 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world, including news of a Prokofiev festival, the Brahms clarinet sonatas revisited, and a look at traditional music from the Andes. | ||||
| 19971124 | |||||
| Great Composers | 19971207 | Ivan Hewett looks at the musical history of St Paul's Cathedral, which celebrates its tercentenary this year; previews the BBC2 series `Great Composers'; and finds out about music written for 40 birds selected from all over the world for their `musical abilities'. McCarthy, artistic director, Music Theatre Wales; and Tom Sutcliffe, opera critic and author. | |||
| Great Composers | 19971208 | Ivan Hewett looks at the musical history of St Paul's Cathedral, which celebrates its tercentenary this year; reviews the BBC2 series `Great Composers'; and finds out about music written for 40 birds selected from all over the world for their `musical abilities'. McCarthy, artistic director, Music Theatre Wales; and Tom Sutcliffe, opera critic and author. | |||
| 19971214 | Ivan Hewett looks at how Christmas music has changed through the ages. McCarthy, artistic director, Music Theatre Wales; and Tom Sutcliffe, opera critic and author. | ||||
| 19971215 | |||||
| 19980104 | Ivan Hewett reviews the musical highlights of 1997 and looks forward to the year ahead. Plus a report from Mostar, where the Pavarotti Music Centre has just opened. | ||||
| 19980105 | |||||
| Sweeney Todd | 19980111 | Music magazine, presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, a Martinu festival at the Barbican, and Sondheim's `Sweeney Todd' in Leeds. | |||
| Sweeney Todd | 19980112 | ||||
| Hexamaron | 19980118 | 19980119 | Music magazine, presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, the history of the London Sinfonietta, celebrating its thirtieth birthday this year. Peter Maxwell Davies visits Antarctica and sends back his impressions. And there is a rare performance of Liszt's `Hexamaron', written for six great pianists of the day. / Music magazine, presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, the history of the London Sinfonietta, celebrating its thirtieth birthday this year. Peter Maxwell Davies visits Antartica and sends back his impressions. And there is a rare performance of Liszt's `Hexamaron', written for six great pianists of the day. | ||
| 19980125 | 19980126 | Music magazine, presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, Beethoven the revolutionary in Glasgow, the history of the drum kit and a new book on different styles of singing. / Music magazine, presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, Beethoven the revolutionary in Glasgow, and a new book on different styles of singing. | |||
| 19980201 | 19980202 | Music magazine, presented by Ivan Hewett. This week, a new book on Verdi, a festival of improvisation and a new piece for the virginals. / Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a new book on Verdi, a festival of improvisation and a new piece for the virginals. | |||
| Billy Budd | 19980208 | 19980209 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, to mark the centenary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht, a look at the writer's association with composers. Opera North presents a new production of Britten's `Billy Budd' in Leeds. And the musical diversity of the 1970s is celebrated in the `Towards the Millennium' series. | ||
| 19980215 | 19980216 | This week, Rostropovich conducts Shostakovich, and the newly formed European Opera Centre perform Mozart at Buxton. | |||
| Tales Of Hoffmann | 19980222 | 19980223 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a new production of Offenbach's `Tales of Hoffmann' at English National Opera, a visit to the Oxford Cello School, and a look back at the music of the Byzantine period. / Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a new production of Offenbach's `Tales of Hoffmann' at English National Opera, a visit to the Oxford Cello School, and the Harlem Gospel Singers in Hackney. | ||
| 19980301 | 19980302 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, Prince Albert's contribution to musical life, the problems of themed concert programming, and hot dishes and Cuban spice at Club Tropicana. / Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, Prince Albert's contribution to musical life, what went on in Bluebeard's castle, and the problems of themed concert programming. | |||
| Howard Goodall | 19980308 | 19980309 | Ivan Hewett talks to Heinrich Schiff about his interpretation of the Beethoven cello sonatas and reviews `Howard Goodall's Choir Works', the new Channel 4 series which circles the globe seeking out the world's greatest choirs. | ||
| 19980315 | 19980316 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, what makes a good musical biography, musical versions of Shakespeare, and Tchaikovsky tackled by Roger Norrington | |||
| 19980322 | 19980323 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a glance backstage at the opera, new ideas on Verdi, and a work by Handel rediscovered after 261 years. | |||
| Seven Sonnets Of A Michelangelo | 19980329 | 19980330 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a unique staging of Britten's `Seven Sonnets of a Michelangelo', a look at the life of the singer Paul Robeson, and a new television series celebrating the jazz heroes of this century. Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a unique staging of Britten's `Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo', the life of singer Paul Robeson, and a new television series celebrating the jazz heroes of this century. | ||
| Seven Sonnets Of Michelangelo | 19980329 | 19980330 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a unique staging of Britten's `Seven Sonnets of a Michelangelo', a look at the life of the singer Paul Robeson, and a new television series celebrating the jazz heroes of this century. Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a unique staging of Britten's `Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo', the life of singer Paul Robeson, and a new television series celebrating the jazz heroes of this century. | ||
| 19980405 | 19980406 | Ivan Hewett visits Stockholm, this year's European City of Culture, and asks what the role of music is in the global city of the future. | |||
| 19980412 | 19980413 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. Pianist Joanna MacGregor explains how Birtwistle's music has links with music of the past, and a group of amateur musicians creates a new piece with the Danish composer Per Norgard. | |||
| 19980419 | 19980420 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. Pianist Imogen Cooper talks about her forays into the rich repertoire for piano trio. Plus the unique sounds of Pham Van Ty and the Ca Tru Thai Ha Ensemble of Hanoi, who are here for a festival of Vietnamese culture. | |||
| 19980426 | 19980427 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a look at Siobhan Davies's new dance piece choreographing Conlan Nancarrow's extraordinary studies for player piano. Plus a visit to the new Wiltshire Music Centre. | |||
| 19980503 | 19980504 | Ivan Hewett talks to Thomas Hampson about Mahler's Ruckert Lieder and reviews Channel 4's new series on the jazz greats. | |||
| 19980510 | 19980511 | Ivan Hewett interviews Daniel Barenboim about his current Beethoven cycle at the Royal Festival Hall and celebrates 25 years of the Kronos Quartet. | |||
| Angel Magick | 19980517 | 19980518 | Ivan Hewett explores magical ideas in music as John Harle and David Pountney's new opera `Angel Magick' opens in Salisbury. Plus a look at image in classical music, from Nigel Kennedy to Medieval Babes. | ||
| 19980524 | 19980525 | Ivan Hewett investigates noise levels in orchestras, talks to Broadway singer Kim Criswell about the unearthing of some Cole Porter treasures, and samples ancient music from Georgia performed by Ensemble Mzetamze. | |||
| 19980531 | 19980601 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, a feature celebrating the centenary of the birth of Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca, a tribute to the great Russian bass Chaliapin, and a preview of a new music theatre piece set in a Scottish pub. | |||
| Dr Ox | 19980607 | 19980608 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the music world. This week, a preview of Gavin Bryars's eagerly awaited new opera `Dr Ox's Experiment' and a visit to the Royal Scottish Academy's new Alexander Gibson Opera School. | ||
| 19980614 | 19980615 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the music world. This week, silent-film legend Charlie Chaplin as a composer, and an assessment of the Royal Ballet on the hundreth birthday of its founder Dame Ninette de Valois. | |||
| 19980621 | 19980622 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the music world. This week, composers who have written for and about children. And the Lindseys talk about the evocative musical language in Janacek's quartets. | |||
| 19980705 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the music world. This week, a look behind behind the scenes at Almeida Opera's Chinese double bill, and medieval music on the streets of York. Also, what exactly is vibrato? | ||||
| The Silver Tassie | 19980712 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the music world. This week, he talks to the Skampa Quartet about the evocative musical language of Janacek's string quartets and visits ENO Works, where Mark-Anthony Turnage is developing ideas for his new opera `The Silver Tassie'. | |||
| 19980920 | Music magazine, with Ivan Hewett. This week: defnining the classical in music, and new attitudes to the role of music in society. | ||||
| 19980927 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week: a rare interview with legendary dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, and a look at a new scheme which aims to transform the way music is taught in schools. | ||||
| 19981004 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week: a tribute to the extraordinary singer-actress Lotte Lenya as the centenary of her birth approaches. Plus an assessment of the influence of the great visionary of 20th-century music - Karlheinz Stockhausen, celebrating his seventieth birthday. | ||||
| Spirit Garden | 19981011 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, the opening of the new Sadler's Wells, plus the old and new sounds of Japanese music as featured in the `Spirit Garden' festival at the South Bank Centre in London. | |||
| In C | 19981018 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, pianist Mitsuko Uchida on the art of touch in performance, and the influence of the first minimalist piece - Terry Riley's `In C' - on composers and musicians from Steve Reich to Jarvis Cocker. | |||
| Now Comes The Dragon | 19981025 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, east meets west in the Grand Union Orchestra's mammoth new commission, `Now Comes the Dragon's Hour'; plus a new approach to teaching early music at Trinity College. | |||
| 19981101 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, 25 years of the pioneering early-music vocal ensemble the Tallis Scholars. Plus a look at the roots of klezmer as a month-long festival of Jewish music begins in London. | ||||
| 19981108 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, he interviews Hans Werner Henze, a leading composer of contemporary opera, as the Royal Northern College of Music launches its festival of his music. Plus a look at the new British Library transformed into a performance space for dance. | ||||
| 19981115 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world. This week, he previews Simon Holt's first opera, based on an erotic strip cartoon by Lorca; reports on progress of the new Gateshead Arts Centre; and investigates the music that will create the atmosphere in the Millennium Dome. | ||||
| 19981122 | Ivan Hewett with the latest news and views from the musical world, including symmetries in Bach, music and gender, and the panpipes of Eastern Europe. | ||||
| Scheherazade | 19981129 | Ivan Hewett looks beyond `Scheherazade' and `Flight of the Bumble Bee' to investigate the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, who died 90 years ago. Plus a look at how the music industry is being transformed through `music on demand' on the internet and cable. | |||
| Bartok | 19981213 | Ivan Hewett talks to conductor Leonard Slatkin about the Czech spirit in music. Plus a look at `Bartok', a trendy new bar in London featuring classical music from Bach to Steve Reich - is this the shape of things to come? | |||
| 19981220 | Ivan Hewett previews music programmes on television this Christmas, explores the King's College Choir phenomenon, and looks back at the musical highlights of 1998. | ||||
| 19990110 | Ivan Hewett explores the way in which orchestras are developing new audiences. He also visits the Richard Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester, designed with disabled people in mind. | ||||
| 19990124 | With Ivan Hewett. This week, Julian Lloyd Webber comments from personal experience on the new film about Jacqueline Du Pre. He also looks at the problems facing young musicians launching a professional career. | ||||
| 19990131 | Ivan Hewett looks at the role of sponsorship in music. And Tony Woodcock, former head of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra but now in charge of the Oregon Symphony, sends a postcard comparing Britain's sunny south coast with America's wild west. | ||||
| 19990207 | Ivan Hewett debates the lack of a first-rate concert hall in London and looks at the plans for improving the acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall, the regenration of the ground-breaking Roundhouse in Camden, and the novel idea of reconstructing the Queen's Hall as it was in Sir Henry Wood's day. | ||||
| 19990214 | Ivan Hewett analyses the identity crisis in English music and asks if music is the food of love. | ||||
| 19990221 | Ivan Hewett dons his hard hat and visits the site of the Royal Opera House development to see where the millions have gone. Plus a report from France on how the opera scene has become a political hot potato. | ||||
| Towards The Millennium | 19990228 | As the `Towards the Millennium' festival reaches the 1980s, Ivan Hewett surveys what the age of yuppies and fast cars gave us on the musical front. Plus a look at Bernard Herrmann's musical contributions to Hitchcock films - would the famous shower scene in `Psycho' have been as terrifying without those screeching strings? | |||
| 19990307 | In National Orchestra Week, Ivan Hewett looks at the range of educational activities being run by orchestras. Plus the latest research into communicating with babies through music. | ||||
| Experiences | 19990314 | With the opening of more and more museums and `experiences' devoted to music of all kinds, Ivan Hewett asks how much music really gains from being packaged. | |||
| Euroland | 19990321 | As Britain prepares to join `Euroland', Ivan Hewett investigates what Europe is doing for music. | |||
| Silbersee | 19990328 | Ivan Hewett visits London's newest opera venue - Wilton's Music Hall - and previews the opening performance there of Weill's `Silbersee', translated by Rory Bremner | |||
| 19990404 | Ivan Hewett talks to Jonathan Miller about the drama of the Passion and looks at the state of contemporary music publishing. | ||||
| 19990411 | Ivan Hewett looks at the influence of painter Vassily Kandinsky as a major exhibition of his work opens at the Royal Academy of Art. Plus a report from Venice on the latest news in the troubled history of the Fenice Theatre. | ||||
| 19990418 | Ivan Hewett investigates the decline of individuality in arts centres' programming around the world. Plus John Eliot Gardiner on his mammoth project to perform the complete cycle of Bach's cantatas in the year 2000. | ||||
| 19990425 | To celebrate Duke Ellington's centenary, Ivan Hewett looks at his influence over jazz and classical music. And teachers and pupils give their opinions of the Associated Board's new jazz examinations. | ||||
| 19990502 | Ivan Hewett visits Salford to see how the North West will benefit culturally from the new Lowry Centre. He also discovers Rachmaninov with Vladimir Ashkenazy. | ||||
| 19990509 | Ivan Hewett looks at how politics have influenced music in Cuba since the revolution 40 years ago, as the Barbican plays host to the UK's largest ever Cuban arts festival. Plus the furore over who should succeed Wolfgang Wagner as director of the Bayreuth Festival. | ||||
| Spectrum 2 | 19990516 | As the Associated Board launches `Spectrum 2', its second volume of graded contemporary piano pieces, Ivan Hewett discusses the benefits of introducing contemporary music to children. | |||
| 19990523 | Ivan Hewett meets the Soglasie Male Voice Choir of St Petersburg, who are reviving Russian choral music that was banned in the Soviet era. He also finds out about about Chamber Music 2000 - the Schubert Ensemble's ambitious plan to encourage the writing and playing of chamber music. | ||||
| 19990530 | Ivan Hewett with news and views from the musical world, including an interview with doyen of musicologists H C Robbins Landon, who talks about his discoveries and adventures in music. | ||||
| 19990606 | As the Cardiff Singer of the World competition gets under way, Ivan Hewett explores the benefits and perils of singing competitions. Plus a look at challenge of finding a new chief conductor for the Berlin Philharmonic, as Claudio Abbado prepares to hand over the baton. | ||||
| 19990613 | Ivan Hewett reports on choreographer Twyla Tharp's reworking of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Plus a look at whether music festivals are losing their individual identities. | ||||
| 19990620 | As the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates the diamond jubilee of its own hall, Ivan Hewett looks at the orchestra's uncertain future. Plus a look at the future of music in the new millennium with Danish compmoser Per Norgard, featured composer at this year's Aldeburgh Festival. | ||||
| 19990627 | As the South Bank Centre's Meltdown festival reaches its climax, Ivan Hewett asks: has the fashion of playing any kind of music in any venue gone too far? Also, does the opening of the new Scottish Parliament signal that Scotland needs its own national anthem? | ||||
| 19990704 | Ivan Hewett looks at the musical heritage of Bangladesh as a festival of Bangladeshi arts and culture opens in the UK. He also previews a new television series which explores six masterpieces of 20th-century British classical music. | ||||
| 19990711 | Ivan Hewett looks forward to the televising of the first night of the Proms by exploring different approaches to directing concerts on television. He also discusses the future of international arts centres with Karsten Witt of London's South Bank Centre and John Rockwell, former director of the Lincoln Center, New York. | ||||
| Lucia | 19990926 | Ivan Hewitt previews Don Boyd's film `Lucia', which opens this week, and asks whether it heralds a renaissance of opera on film. Plus a report by a member of Cardboard Citizens - a theatre company for homeless people - on their innovative production of `The Beggar's Opera'. | |||
| Music And Silence | 19991003 | Ivan Hewett examines the wealth of recent books with a musical theme, including Rose Tremaine's new novel `Music and Silence', and talks to Baroness Warnock about music's power to stimulate the imagination. | |||
| 19991010 | Ivan Hewett presents the music magazine, which takes a look at the Arts Council's New Audience Programme. | ||||
| Max Black | 19991017 | As Heiner Goebbels's `Max Black' opens, Ivan Hewett discusses the explosion of work emerging from the outer edges of music theatre. Plus a report from Madrid on how the Opera House is faring two years after its reopening. | |||
| 19991024 | Ivan Hewett talks to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies about the role of the composer in encouraging children's musical creativity. Plus a report on why the Paris Opera is auctioning off 10,000 costumes. | ||||
| Diary Of One Who Vanished | 19991031 | As Deborah Warner's staging of Janacek's `Diary of One Who Vanished' opens at the Royal National Theatre, Ivan Hewett discusses the pros and cons of staging song cycles. Plus, as the ECM record label which brought the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek together celebrates its 30th anniversary, should record companies become entrepreneurs? | |||
| 19991107 | Ivan Hewett debates the future of the musical with Tim Rice, Jeremy Sams and Sheridan Morley, and investigates whether ten years on Berlin's cultural life has benefited from the fall of the Wall. | ||||
| Only Connect | 19991114 | Ivan Hewett explores the Barbican Centre's `Only Connect' season, which brings together artists from different musical styles, including Mercury Prize winner Talvin Singh. Plus director Jonathan Miller's view of opera in the 21st century. | |||
| Understanding Opera | 19991128 | Ivan Hewett talks to Colin Davis about his Berlioz odyssey and how his view of the composer has changed over 30 years. Plus a report from English National Opera's debate on `Understanding Opera'. | |||
| Fantasia 2000 | 19991205 | Ivan Hewett discusses the marketing of classical musicians and the influence of the pop approach. Plus a look at `Fantasia 2000' and why Disney feels that a remake of the classic film is needed for the new millennium. | |||
| 19991212 | Ivan Hewett asks whether the new spiritualism in music is the genuine article. Plus a report from Argentina on People's Opera at the Teatro Colon. | ||||
| 19991219 | Ivan Hewett discusses the music of Thomas Ades - the most feted British composer since Britten - in light of a new Channel 4 profile. He also talks to William Orbit about his remix of classical music. | ||||
| New Millennium Special Edition | 20000109 | In the first programme of the year 2000, Ivan Hewett is joined by conductor Charles Hazlewood, columnist Norman Lebrecht and artistic director of the London Sinfonietta GillIan Moore to reflect on the direction of music in the 21st century. And four leading British composers look to the future. | |||
| Music Of The Heart | 20000116 | Ivan Hewett previews `Music of the Heart', a Wes Craven film about the true life story of a violin teacher's battle to bring music to school children in Harlem. Plus a masterclass given by baritone Thomas Hampson as part of ENO's Young Singers Training Programme. | |||
| 20000123 | Ivan Hewett examines the public personae of modern composers. How highly do we value our composers? What is their role in contemporary society? Plus a look at how Bristol is shaking off the disappointment of its failed Lottery bid for the refurbishment of a long-neglected music venue to provide an arts centre. | ||||
| 20000130 | Ivan Hewett talks to conductor and composer Pierre Boulez, whose seventy-fifth year is marked by the Boulez 2000 Festival. Plus a look at the first steps to change the Royal Festival Hall's acoustics, which musicians and audiences have complained about for years. | ||||
| The Silver Tassie | 20000206 | Ivan Hewett visits the Laban Centre in South London to see how a recent lottery award will change this leading conservatoire for professional dance training. Plus a debate on what it takes for a contemporary opera to secure its place in the repertoire, as Mark-Anthony Turnage's new opera, `The Silver Tassie', opens at the Coliseum. | |||
| Voyager | 20000213 | Ivan Hewett talks to Maxim Vengerov about the challenge of performing on a Baroque violin for the first time as part of the `Voyager' season at London's Barbican Centre. Plus a preview of Mike Leigh's new film `Topsy-Turvy', which focuses on the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan and on the original production of `The Mikado'. | |||
| 20000220 | In the week that the South Bank Centre unveils its redevelopment masterplan, Ivan Hewett investigates the implications for the UK's largest arts complex. Plus a discussion on whether the classical music magazine market can support the imminent lauch of yet another title. | ||||
| 20000227 | Ivan Hewett presents a special edition live from Berlin, new capital of a unified Germany and the most culturally vibrant city in Europe. Despite the city's optimism, money is tight, and the ghosts of a divided past still haunt the place. Leading conductors, musicians and commentators debate the politics of Berlin's cultural life. | ||||
| Big Bangs | 20000305 | As a major festival of African music opens at the Barbican Centre in London featuring artists such as King Sunny Ade and Miriam Makeba, Ivan Hewett discusses the changing world music scene. Plus a preview of Howard Goodall's television series `Big Bangs', which depicts five crucial moments in Western musical history. | |||
| 20000312 | Ivan Hewett presents the latest news and views from the world of music, including a discussion on the future of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in the light of Gerard Schwarz's appointment as music director. Plus a report on musical life in the former republics of the Soviet Union. | ||||
| Love | 20000319 | Ivan Hewett reviews Kenneth Branagh's new film `Love's Labour Lost' and asks whether Shakespeare's play works as a musical. Plus a report on Moscow's plan for a major new cultural centre. And as Stephen Sondheim turns 70, a discussion of his contribution to the American musical. | |||
| 20000326 | As Deborah Warner's staging of the St John Passion opens at English National Opera, Ivan Hewett explores the powerful connections between music and theatre in Bach's music. Plus a discussion on Pierre Boulez - 75 this week - as a force on the contemporary music scene. | ||||
| 20000402 | Ivan Hewett discusses the mplications for music institutions around the country as the Arts Council of England devolves power to the regional arts boards. Plus a report on how the 250th anniversary of Bach's death is being marked in his homeland. | ||||
| 20000409 | Ivan Hewett investigates whether the new arts centre in Salford is what the region needs or whethr it is at risk of becoming a white elephant. Plus a report from France about why the proposal to move Berlioz's remains to the Pantheon in Paris is causing such a political furore. | ||||
| 20000416 | Ivan Hewett debates whether amateur music-making in this country is valued. Plus an exploration of the extraordinary world of sound art, as a major exhibition opens at London's Hayward Gallery. | ||||
| 20000430 | As a celebration of Gypsy music and arts opens at London's Barbican Centre, Ivan Hewett investigates whether Gypsy culture is still alive today. Plus a report on a music project tackling racism among football supporters at Charlton Athletic. | ||||
| 20000507 | As a major festival devoted to works inspired by impresario Sergei Diaghilev opens, Ivan Hewett investigates whether there is still a place in the modern world for old-fashioned music dictators. Plus a report on the background to today's controversial performance by the Vienna Philharmonic under Simon Rattle at the site of the Mauthausen concentration camp. | ||||
| The South Bank Show | 20000514 | Ivan Hewett investigates what the appointment of the new mayor will mean for the capital's musical life. Plus an examination of the potentially difficult relationship between television and contemporary music, as ITV's `The South Bank Show' tackles music by Simon Holt and Judith Weir | |||
| 20000521 | Italian politics is currently taking turn to the right. Ivan Hewett investigates how this may affect the country's musical life. Plus a report on the reaction to the news that the three Paris-based symphony orchestras have all appointed new conductors, none of them French. | ||||
| 20000604 | Ivan Hewett investigates a project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where the opera house has just been restored, and investigates the work of the specialists who treat injured dancers. | ||||
| 20000611 | Ivan Hewett investigates what community music will be like in the 21st century and how community musicians will develop their skills to meet new challenges. Plus a report on the use of computers in the musical classroom. Are computers just another tool, or do they inhibit musical originality? | ||||
| 20000618 | Ivan Hewett talks to Andrew Porter, who this week gives the Hesse Lecture at the Aldeburgh Festival on the subject of the responsibilities and rewards of being a music critic. What are critics for? And who reads them? Ivan Hewett discusses these questions with Andrew Porter and some of his colleagues, and talks to those who read the critics, and those who commission their work. | ||||
| 20000625 | Ivan Hewett discovers the background to the recent controversial collaboration between the Berlin Philharmonic and a leading German rock band. Plus a report on the recent conference in Iceland on music and national identity. Does English music still sound English? And should it still try? | ||||
| 20000702 | Ivan Hewett explores the life and teaching of the composer Franz Schreker. Plus why several international companies are currently vying to become dominant in the new multimedia musical world - in the process acquiring some of the most famous old-school music publishers, especially in France and Italy. | ||||
| When The Music Stops | 20000709 | Ivan Hewett revisits `When the Music Stops', the book in which, four years ago, Norman Lebrecht predicted the `final days of serious music'. How do his apocalyptic prophecies look now - or are things really as bad as that? | |||
| 20000910 | Ivan Hewett returns with a new series of his weekly look at matters of the moment in the musical world. Today, he explores the origins of music itself, plus a look back at the Proms and a look forward to the autumn season. | ||||
| 20000917 | Ivan Hewett takes a weekly look at current issues in the musical world. In this edition, he previews an Argentinian fiesta and asks whether the phenomenon of cultural tourism is entirely healthy. Plus a look at Sir John Drummond's thoughts on the state of music in Britain as revealed in his recently published memoirs. | ||||
| 20000924 | Ivan Hewett takes a weekly look at current issues in the musical world. In this edition, he invites Sir Charles Mackerras to mark the approach of his 75th birthday by reflecting upon his musical involvement in an ever-changing Eastern Europe. Plus an investigation into the threats faced by brass bands. | ||||
| 20001001 | Ivan Hewett takes a weekly look at current issues in the musical world. This edition looks at a shared commissioning exercise between two female composers, namely Sally Beamish and Karin Rehnkvist. Plus an investigation into the state of music publishing across Europe. | ||||
| 20001008 | Ivan Hewett investigates how the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has regrouped following the demise last winter of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. Plus news of a three-week celebration of the music of Sir John Taverner | ||||
| The Last Supper | 20001015 | Ivan Hewett looks ahead to the Glyndebourne opening of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's new theatre piece `The Last Supper'. And in the light of a new biography on Yehudi Menuhin, a discussion of some of the problems surrounding musical biography. | |||
| 20001022 | Ivan Hewett investigates how the recently lifted EU sanctions against Austria have affected the musical life of the country. | ||||
| 20001029 | Ivan Hewett looks at the changing role that music plays in forging cultural identity around the world. | ||||
| 20001105 | Ivan Hewett investigates how the course of opera was changed by a philosopher and previews a new community opera inspired by the Tower of Babel. | ||||
| 20001112 | Ivan Hewett investigates how politics impinges on music-making in Haiti. Neil Hoyle make a plea for politics to be kept out of music. And Christopher Cook looks at modern dance in China. | ||||
| New China | 20001126 | In a special edition as part of Radio 3's `New China' season, Christopher Cook visits the largest piano factory in China and investigates the enduring appeal of this most Western of instruments, as well as looking at whether the projected Beijing opera house will ever be built. Plus a report on music piracy in China, where 90 per cent of all prerecorded music sold is on pirated CDs and tapes. | |||
| Culture Of Failure | 20001203 | Ivan Hewett investigates the Northern Sinfonia. And Peter Renshaw mounts an attack on what he calls the `culture of failure'. | |||
| 20001210 | Ivan Hewett asks whether the tradition of British travelling folk singers is dying out, examines the teaching of music in the classroom, and assesses the artistic and financial health of the Ulster Orchestra. | ||||
| 20001217 | On the centenary of the death of the Marxist composer Alan Bush, Ivan Hewett asks who are today's political composers. And Michael Kaiser reflects on the arts, subsidy, and running an opera house in Britain. | ||||
| 20010107 | Ivan Hewett takes a weekly look at current issues in the musical world. This edition focuses on the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the seventh edition of which is due to be published tomorrow. As well as a 29-volume print version, taking up almost five feet of shelf room and weighing 68 kilos, the dictionary will also be available in a constantly updated online version. | ||||
| 20010114 | Ivan Hewett discovers how, with the establishment of the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Northern Ireland hopes to become a pioneer in the field of fusing technology and music. Plus a report on Manchester's Halle Orchestra. | ||||
| 20010121 | Ivan Hewett celebrates the sixtieth birthday of organist Dame Gillian Weir, anticipates Verdi centenary, and talks to pianist Robert Levin about improvisation. | ||||
| Russell Watson - The Voice | 20010128 | Ivan Hewett looks at how marketing has turned a Salford factory worker into `Russell Watson - the Voice', and invites Wagner's great granddaughter to help rattle some skeletons in the family cupboard. | |||
| 20010204 | Ivan Hewett visits Tate Modern's new exhibition Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis and asks whether the trend towards the use of background music in galleries enhances or distracts. Plus a look at how Northern Ireland hopes to lead the field in fusing music and technology with the establishment of the Sonic Arts Research Centre. | ||||
| The Bird Sings With Its Fingers | 20010211 | Ivan Hewett investigates the collaboration between composer Julian Anderson and choreographer Mark Baldwin on their ballet `The Bird Sings with Its Fingers', and investigates an exam aid which critics claim will produce a generation of `robot musicians'. | |||
| 20010218 | Ivan Hewett investigates the difference between the City of Birmingham Touring Opera and the Birmingham Opera Company and talks to composer Ned Rorem about the UK premieres of three of his operas. | ||||
| 20010225 | Ivan Hewett talks to Nicholas Kenyon about whether authentic performance has a future and looks at a new mentor scheme for young composers. | ||||
| Bohemian Spring | 20010304 | As the LSO inaugurates its `Bohemian Spring' series, Ivan Hewett investigates Czech music. Leon Botstein reveals how he balances his conducting career with his academic pursuits. Plus, on the fortieth anniversary of his death, a tribute to the pioneering pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War but went on to commission works from Ravel, Prokofiev, Strauss, Schmidt and Britten. | |||
| 20010311 | Ivan Hewett lvisits the new music venue Ocean, which aims to regenrate one of London's most deprived boroughs. Plus a report on Vienna's millennium project the House of Music. | ||||
| 20010318 | Ivan Hewett talks to two grand old men of music: the composer Hans Werner Henze - 75 later this year and currently being celebrated on London's South Bank - and musical iconoclast and prankster Mauricio Kagel, who is the subject of a retrospective at the Royal Academy of Music. | ||||
| Turandot | 20010325 | As a Bollywood-style `Turandot' opens at the Royal Opera House, Ivan Hewett looks at the West's fascination with Bollywood. Pierre Boulez argues the case for a new concert hall in Paris. | |||
| 20010401 | Sir Andrew Davis talks to Ivan Hewett about his first six months as the head of the Chicago Lyric Opera. And Irene Schreier Scott makes the case for music theorist Heinrich Schenker. | ||||
| 20010408 | Ivan Hewett is joined by two historians of recorded sound, Timothy Day and Robert Philip, to discuss the value of old recordings for today's musicians. Plus news of two contrasting schemes to encourage young composers. | ||||
| 20010415 | Ivan Hewett visits Rome and investigates a new concert hall, the Rome Opera and the state of music funding in Italy. He also searches for lost musical treasures in the Vatican cellars. | ||||
| From Morning To Midnight | 20010422 | Ivan Hewett finds out how the English National Opera has helped composer David Sawer bring his new opera `From Morning to Midnight' to the stage. Plus a report from Venice on whether the opera house La Fenice will again rise from the ashes. | |||
| 20010429 | Ivan Hewett talks to Peter Maxwell Davies about his trip to Antarctica and the resulting symphony, which premieres next weekend. Plus an investigation into how Britain's summer music festivals will be affected by the foot and mouth epidemic. | ||||
| 20010506 | Live from the Royal Festival Hall, Ivan Hewett chairs a debate on the future of the South Bank Centre. The panel includes Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor of London, Jodi Myers, Director of Performing Arts at the South Bank, Serge Dorny, Artistic Director of the LPO, Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas, and David Jones, concert promoter and Director of Serious Ltd. | ||||
| 20010513 | Ivan Hewett launches Radio 3's Remaking the Past season in conversation with the composer Alexander Goehr. Plus a report on how musicals are breaking free of the past by turning to garage and hip hop music. | ||||
| 20010520 | On the eve of the Chard Festival of Women Composers, Ivan Hewett discusses feminism in music. And pianist Abdullah Ibrahim talks about new projects back home in South Africa. Plus a profile of veteran film composer Ennio Morricone. | ||||
| 20010527 | Ivan Hewett meets some of the members of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe - which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year - and eavesdrops on a commission by Heinz Holliger. Plus a 70th-birthday recital and interview with pianist Alfred Brendel | ||||
| 20010603 | Ivan Hewett talks to Valery Gergiev, Musical Director of the Kirov Opera. Plus views on politics and the arts from musicians around the country. | ||||
| 20010610 | Ivan Hewett investigates the education and training of the next generation of British musicians, talking to teachers, administrators, agents, seasoned performers and the young musicians themselves. He compares their situation to that of their counterparts in Europe and America, and asks to what extent the current system of education is working and whether things are getting better or worse. | ||||
| The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat | 20010617 | Ivan Hewett talks to Michael Nyman and Oliver Sacks about a new production of Nyman's opera `The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat'. He also investigates Heiner Goebbels's Sound City project, which brings together an eclectic range of musicians as part of this year's London International Festival of Theatre. | |||
| 20010624 | Ivan Hewett celebrates the centenary of the music publishing house Universal Edition, which since its foundation has been at the forefront of musical developments, publishing works by composers such as Mahler, Janacek, Boulez, Stockhausen and Birtwistle. | ||||
| The Noise Of Time | 20010701 | Ivan Hewett previews Complicite's `The Noise of Time' - a multimedia exploration of the life and times of Shostakovich - and investigates a new digital channel that may be the saviour of classical music on television. | |||
| 20010708 | Ivan Hewett looks back at the pioneering fusion band Shakti, who are taking part in the South Bank Centre's Rhythm Sticks Festival. Plus a report on why today's composers want to abandon the concert hall. | ||||
| 20010715 | In the final edition before the programme takes a summer break, Ivan Hewett investigates ancient Greek water-organs, a pair of remarkable dramatic sisters and the continuing refurbishment of the Royal Albert Hall. He also celebrates the centenary of Gerald Finzi, who was born yesterday in 1901. | ||||
| 20020106 | Ivan Hewett takes the temperature of the symphony orchestra with conductor Douglas Bostock, composer Alwynne Prichard and managing director of the LSO Clive Gillinson | ||||
| 20020113 | Ivan Hewett discusses surtitles for opera, the homeless state of La Scala, and a new Granta collection of writing on music. | ||||
| 20020120 | Ivan Hewett explores the work of the Irene Taylor Trust, which uses music to teach prison inmates artistic and personal skills. Plus reviews of two new books on William Walton. | ||||
| 20020127 | Ivan Hewett marks the first BBC World Music Awards with a special edition discussing issues facing the world music scene today. Plus an interview with Susheela Raman. | ||||
| 20020203 | Ivan Hewett blows the dust off musical manuscripts at Magdalen College, Oxford, and finds out what is happening to the Bach family archive, currently housed in Kiev. | ||||
| You Can | 20020210 | Ivan Hewett reviews the book `You Can't Steal a Gift', about the encounters Gene Lees had with four seminal jazz figures. Plus a report on new developments at Welsh National Opera. | |||
| Carmen | 20020217 | Ivan Hewett looks at the continuing fascination of `Carmen' and of German composer Handel. | |||
| A Masked Ball | 20020224 | Ivan Hewett discusses ENO's interpretation of `A Masked Ball'. Sally Beamish on writing `Monster' for Scottish Opera. Plus the electroacoustic group BEAST at 20. | |||
| 20020303 | With Ivan Hewett. Including an investigation of the Peter Warlock archive at Eton College and a profile of ballerina Beryl Grey as she approaches her seventy-fifth birthday. | ||||
| 20020310 | Ivan Hewett talks to Daniel Barenboim. Plus a review of a new book about Toscanini's 17 years at the helm of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and Hilary Finch's views on the encore. | ||||
| The Triumphs Of Oriana | 20020317 | Ivan Hewett investigates a new recording of the madrigal collection `The Triumphs of Oriana' and previews Lynne Plowman's new opera `Gwyneth and the Green Knight'. | |||
| La Vestale | 20020324 | Ivan Hewett talks to director Francesca Zambello about her new production of Spontini's `La Vestale'. Plus a project using an opera as the basis for the school curriculum. | |||
| 20020407 | Ivan Hewett talks to conductor Lorin Maazel and investigates the theory that digital music editing has killed off interpretation in real music making. | ||||
| 20020414 | Ivan Hewett pays tribute to Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, who is on a visit to the UK, and Damian Fowler reports on the demise of classical music radio stations in America. | ||||
| Temperament: How Music Became A Battleground For The Great Minds Of Western Civilisation | 20020421 | Ivan Hewett eavesdrops on piano lessons in Cambridge, reviews `Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilisation', and meets two organists. | |||
| Bacchai | 20020428 | Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Hall's forthcoming `Bacchai', the new Proms season, and Marc-Andre Hamelin plus a new book on composer-pianists. | |||
| Tosca | 20020505 | Ivan Hewett talks to Django Bates about his new commission for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and reviews a new film of `Tosca' starring Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. | |||
| 20020512 | Ivan Hewett explores new works by composer Peter Maxwell Davies and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and reports on musical life down under. | ||||
| 20020519 | Ivan Hewett investigates the world of Baroque music as part of the theme of this year's Lufthansa Festival, and examines the influences on music written for Bollywood films. | ||||
| 20020526 | Ivan Hewett with features on this year's Spitalfields Festival, composer Iannis Xenakis, and the St Petersburg Philharmonic's bicentenary. | ||||
| 20020609 | Ivan Hewett talks to Andre Previn; Catherine Guilyardi considers the cultural policies of Jean-Marie Le Pen; and Roger Nichols reviews a new book about Swiss conductor Paul Sacher. | ||||
| 20020616 | Ivan Hewett talks to pianist Murray Perahia. Plus a feature on the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, and writer Janice Galloway on her new novel based on the life of Clara Schumann. | ||||
| 20020623 | Ivan Hewett's guests include composer Nigel Osborne and father-and-daughter duo Ravi and Anoushka Shankar. Plus a new Janacek biography and this year's City of London Festival. | ||||
| Carmen | 20020630 | Ivan Hewett attends rehearsals for Glyndebourne's new production of Bizet's `Carmen'. Plus a survey of early music from Spain and a review of a book about how we listen to music. | |||
| 20020707 | Ivan Hewett talks to countertenor James Bowman and Naxos boss Klaus Heymann. | ||||
| 20030209 | With Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson. Film director Ken Russell talks about how music helped him through a personal crisis. And an examination of how well we nurture our composers. | ||||
| 20030223 | Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson with news from the music world, an interview with pianist Murray Perahia and a fresh examination of Sergei Prokofiev. | ||||
| 20030413 | The weekly magazine programme with Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson. | ||||
| 20030427 | With Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson. As Almeida Opera prepares to return to its Islington home, Music Matters takes a walk around its newly renovated theatre. | ||||
| 20030511 | Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson with news from the music world and an interview with American pianist Richard Goode. | ||||
| 20030518 | With Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson. Music Matters takes a look at the relationship of singers and their unsung heroes, accompanists. | ||||
| 20030525 | With Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson. In the anniversary year of Queen Elizabeth the First, Dermot Clinch views some important Elizabethan musical scores in the British Library. Plus a look at African polyrhythm and its influence on modern composers, and a consideration of the concept of virtuosity - lost art from a bygone age or relevant musical phenomenon? | ||||
| 20030601 | With Dermot Clinch and Tommy Pearson. Including an interview with composer George Benjamin and an examination of how top jobs in the music profession are filled. | ||||
| 20030921 | Music magazine with Tom Service, featuring an interview with New York pianist and writer Charles Rosen, and a look at A Tale Of Four Houses, a new book charting the history of four of the world's most important and influential opera houses: The Royal Opera House; La Scala in Milan; Vienna's Staatsoper; and the New York Met. | ||||
| The Academy Of Ancient Music | 20031005 | Presented by Tom Service. Conductor, harpsichordist and scholar Christopher Hogwood talks about the Academy of Ancient Music, the orchestra he founded in the early 70s. Is classical music attracting enough black musicians? And a look at the life and career of Russian pianist, Vladimir Horowitz, born 100 years ago this month. | |||
| 20031012 | With Tom Service Including an interview with The English conductor Sir Roger Norrington whose work on musical scores, on sound, on orchestra size, seating and playing have influenced the way 18th and 19th Century music is now perceived. And a look at the world of some of the unsung heroes of the operatic world: understudies. | ||||
| 20031019 | With Tom Service. An interview with architect Frank Gehry whose 'Walt Disney Concert Hall' opens in Los Angeles next week, plus Music Matters assesses the reputation of Claudio Monteverdi. | ||||
| 20031109 | With Tom Service. Including news and interviews with key players in the music world. | ||||
| 20031116 | With Tom Service. News and interviews with key players in the music world. | ||||
| 20031214 | With Tom Service. News and interviews from key players in the music world. | ||||
| 20040104 | Tom Service talks to William Christie, director of Les Arts Florissants, about the demands of Baroque repertoire. Plus a discussion of two new biographies of Mendelssohn. | ||||
| 20040111 | Tom Service with news and views from the world of music. | ||||
| 20040118 | In a special live edition of Music Matters, Tom Service discusses the life and legacy of John Cage with experts and enthusiasts and illustration from those who knew him. | ||||
| 20040201 | Austrian maverick HK Gruber talks about his work as composer, conductor, chansonnier and double bass player. Simon Broughton reports from the most remote music festival in the world, held annually in the Sahara Desert. And a look at a new assessment of the work of Luigi Dallapiccola, one of the most important Italian composers of the twentieth century. Presented by Tom Service. | ||||
| 20040208 | Featuring 'Spectrum', a new book and CD published by the Associated Board containing specially commissioned short cello pieces aimed at students, amateur and professional musicians. Music Matters puts it to the test. Presented by Tom Service. | ||||
| 20040307 | With Tom Service. Today's programme includes an interview with Scottish composer James MacMillan, whose work features heavily in the Sounds New festival in Canterbury. And, as the organ in the Royal Festival Hall celebrates its 50th birthday, we'll be asking whether this particular instrument is as controversial today as it was back in 1954. | ||||
| 20040314 | With Tom Service In this special edition Music Matters asks what was the genius of Mozart? Joining in the discussion are director Peter Hall, pianist Mitsuko Uchida, conductor Neville Marriner and Professor Joan Freeman, international expert on gifted children. And composer John Tavener talks about why he thinks Mozart was divinely inspired. Evening Morning Afternoon With Tom Service In this special edition Music Matters asks what was the genius of Mozart? Joining in the discussion are director Peter Hall, pianist Mitsuko Uchida, conductor Neville Marriner and Professor Joan Freeman, international expert on gifted children. And composer John Tavener talks about why he thinks Mozart was divinely inspired. | ||||
| 20040321 | With Tom Service. The violin is possibly the most versatile of all instruments and blessed with a range and emotional intensity to rival even the human voice. As a major festival devoted to the instrument opens this week across London, Music Matters takes a look at the violin from the great triumphs of instrument making in the seventeenth century to the latest repertoire written for it. With contributions from Gil Shaham, Maxim Vengerov, Nigel Kennedy, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Ida Haendel. | ||||
| 20040404 | When Stalin stormed out of an early performance of Shostakovich's earthy and often violent opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the composer feared he would be arrested and killed. Music Matters discusses Solomon Volkov's new account of the relationship between composer and dictator. And, as a new production of the opera opens at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Tom Service talks to its director, Richard Jones. | ||||
| 20040411 | Tom Service presents a special edition of Music Matters looking at the legacy of Luciano Berio, who died last year. As a major festival devoted to life and work of the composer opens this week at London's South Bank Centre, Tom talks to some of those closest to him, including his widow Talia Pecker-Berio, cellist Rohan de Saram, trombonist Christian Lindberg and his biographer David Osmond-Smith. | ||||
| 20040418 | Conductor Marc Minkowski has made a virtue out of playing not only early repertoire but classical, romantic and modern music too. With such diversity, Tom asks him how he manages to keep focused. Michael Kennedy talks about his new biography of Edward Elgar and Tom travels to Northumberland to explore its native folk music. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20040502 | English conductor Sir Edward Downes is currently in his eightieth year. As he prepares to conduct Verdi's Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera House, where he has worked for more than half a century, he talks of his life, work, and collaboration with great artists including the composer Shostakovich. | ||||
| 20040509 | Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time was given one of the most unusual and moving premieres of any in the last century in Stalag VIII A, a Nazi prison camp. Author Rebecca Rischin talks to Tom Service about her investigation into the history of the premiere based on testimonies by former prisoners and musicians. Plus, Judith Weir, one of Britain's most wide ranging composers, looks back on her prolific career on the occasion of her 50th birthday, and the Battersea Arts Centre, pioneers of the phenomenally successful Jerry Springer the Opera, celebrate the beginning of their opera festival. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20040516 | With Tom Service The operas of Richard Strauss are hugely popular - a new production of Arabella is one of three Strauss operas staged by the Royal Opera House this year. Music Matters asks whether the composer's genius for operatic music is matched by his characterisation and plot. With Tom Service The operas of Richard Strauss are hugely popular - a new production of Arabella is one of three Strauss operas staged by the Royal Opera House this year. Music Matters asks whether the composer's genius for operatic music is matched by his characterisation and plot. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20040523 | Tom Service's guest is Sir Richard Rodney Bennett is one of the most versatile composers around, composing for concerts and films, playing the piano in contemporary music and in jazz idioms, singing and playing classic show tunes in cabaret. With a major world premiere, he is also the featured composer at this year's Bury St. Edmunds festival. What does his success owe to his 1979 move to New York and what does he feel is the current state of American contemporary music? Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20040606 | Tom Service talks to key players in today's music scene and looks back at the world of the medieval troubador. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20040613 | Tom Service talks to composer Kevin Volans, whose latest string quartet, 'Black Woman Rising', is premiered at the Ravinia Festival, one of America's largest musical events. And five years ago, Youth Music set out to bring music making to children living in areas of social and economic need. Tom previews their big birthday bash in Birmingham this week with music from Taiko drummers to hip hop bands and youth orchestras. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20040620 | Tom Service talks to leading singers about Britten's tenor roles and reviews a new biography of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. | ||||
| 20040711 | Includes a conversation with Pierre Boulez as he prepares to return to Bayreuth with Parsifal and Jonathan Coe on why he prefers composers who are often regarded as 'second rate'. | ||||
| 20040912 | With Tom Service. Daniel Barenboim explains why, relatively late in his career, he has now joined the pantheon of great pianists to have recorded Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. And a look at Push 04, a season of British, black-led theatre, opera and ballet. | ||||
| 20040919 | Tom Service presents a live edition of the programme in which he meets composer conductor Pierre Boulez ahead of a series of performances with the London Symphony Orchestra. Author Jerrold Northrop Moore explores the rural landscape of Worcestershire that informed much of Elgar's work, and as English National Opera prepare to present the complete production of Berlioz's opera, The Trojans, Tom talks to some of those who remember the British premiere of the epic in Glasgow in 1935. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041003 | Virtuoso recorder player Michala Petri talks about forging a modern career with an instrument most associated with baroque music. And, as productions of the one-act opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle open in England and Scotland, Music Matters looks at the personal and psychosexual elements of Bartok's dark, interior drama.# Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041010 | The acting skills of many opera singers are often said to be as wooden as the stage the performers are standing on. Tom Service investigates the infinite difficulties posed by combining acting with singing. Tom also meets one of Europe's most influential composers, Louis Andriessen. He has continually challenged conventional ideas about what music is and today he visits some of the places most important to him in his native Amsterdam. And as the National Brass Band Championships take place next week at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Tom looks at how the passion and excitement of banding informs so much of the nation's music making. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041017 | A live edition with music news and interviews including a profile of composer Harrison Birtwistle. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041024 | Sakari Oramo talks to Tom Service about one of the most remarkable, yet forgotten figures of the British Music Renaissance, Manchester born John Foulds. And Tom discovers what the young composers from the Royal Academy of Music are learning from their Stateside contemporaries. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041107 | As the dust begins to settle on the US elections, a look at the American music scene past and present. What do events in the Oval Office mean for American orchestras and music-making? With American musician Joshua Rifkin on Sousa, Joplin and Bach, and a personal memoir of the journalist Paul Moor on his 1948 meeting with the composer Charles Ives. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041114 | Almost nine years after Venice's La Fenice Opera House was burnt to the ground, the phoenix of the Italian opera world is about to re-open with a new production of La Traviata originally written for the theatre in 1853. The first time it was performed there was a disaster with the audience sniggering at the large leading lady apparently wasting away from consumption, but this time directed by Robert Carsen, it promises to be a more celebratory affair in the newly restored building. Tom Service presents a special edition of the programme talking to the director and taking a tour of the resplendent opera house. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041121 | Tom Service looks at the state of jazz today. Are the new breed of young jazz performers really developing the genre or just giving it a glossy, marketable image? | ||||
| 20041205 | Today a rare interview with Dame Janet Baker, the English mezzo-soprano who was one of the most sought after and beloved voices of music in the twentieth century. Does Joachim Kohler's new biography of Richard Wagner succeed in painting a rounded portrait of the composer as both historical phenomenon and complex personality? And, with a season of horror films in full swing at the National Film Theatre, a look at the way music has expressed fear in the movies. Presenter Tom Service. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20041212 | Tom Service talks to Portuguese pianist Maria Joao Pires about the spirituality of her performances, and examines the letters of Benjamin Britten written between 1946 and 1951 - the period when he wrote many of his best known works, founded both the English Opera Group and the Aldeburgh Festival, and toured widely as a pianist and composer. | ||||
| A Man Of All Time | 20050102 | "I knew if I worked properly I would do all I had to do." On the centenary of his birth Music Matters looks at Tippett's long life and artistic credo in interviews with the Composer held in the BBC Archives. | |||
| 20050109 | Tom Service talks to conductor Charles Dutoit about giving old music new vitality, the influence Herbert von Karajan made on him and how, unusually for a conductor, he prefers short rehearsals. And as Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas last Friday, Tom takes a look at the music associated with the celebrations. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050123 | Tom Service takes a look at music written to commemorate the liberation of the Second World War concentration camps as the 60th anniversary is marked on Thursday by Holocaust Memorial Day. He also talks to one of the world's foremost experts in the performance of 18th century music, Frans Brüggen. | ||||
| 20050206 | Meredith Monk has been described as 'a voice of the future' and 'one of America's coolest composers', she talks to presenter Tom Service about her career that spans more than 35 years. And Tom follows the members of the Sacconi Quartet as they make their debut at one of London's most prestigious venues, in the first in a short series investigating the pitfalls of launching a performing career. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050213 | Today's programme includes an interview with one of Britain's great conducting talents, Sir Colin Davis, Principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Plus a profile of maverick American composer Marc Blitzstein and, 50 years since its invention, a look at the synthesiser, the electronic instrument that transformed pop and classical music. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| charlie Parker | 20050220 | A look at the legacy of the legendary jazz alto saxophonist, Charlie Parker, who died fifty years ago leaving a generation of inspired jazz performers and composers. Presented by Tom Service. | |||
| 20050313 | Tom Service talks to Fanny Waterman, doyenne of piano teachers, and takes a look at the reputation of the prolific Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. | ||||
| 20050327 | GF Handel is one of the best known and loved of all composers, but why has his music fascinated and delighted so many? As the 28th London Handel Festival opens, Tom Service talks to leading musicians drawn to the Handelian flame, including Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan and Emmanuelle Haim. Does the image of Handel the jolly composer and impressario belie a darker side to his character? And what were Handel's views on food, music, money and the opposite sex? Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050403 | In a major interview ahead of a festival of his music at the South Bank Centre in London, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies speaks frankly to Tom Service about the position he holds as the Master of the Queen?s Music, the future of contemporary classical music, and the government?s recently announced Music Manifesto. Tom also investigates the complex life of the Faustian figure, composer Ferruccio Busoni, as the first biography of him is published for over 70 years. Evening Morning Afternoon. Tom Service talks to director Peter Sellars, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and video artist Bill Viola about their extraordinary new production of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde which opens in Paris this week, promising to deliver fresh insight into Wagner's operatic masterpiece. In the UK, a new play Tristan and Yseult opens at the National Theatre and Music Matters calls on psychologists and philosophers to explain why the Tristan myth has endured so strongly since the middle ages - and is still relevant today. And leading musicians talk about their make-or-break career decisions. | ||||
| 20050410 | Tom Service talks to director Peter Sellars, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and video artist Bill Viola about their extraordinary new production of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde which opens in Paris this week, promising to deliver fresh insight into Wagner's operatic masterpiece. In the UK, a new play Tristan and Yseult opens at the National Theatre and Music Matters calls on psychologists and philosophers to explain why the Tristan myth has endured so strongly since the middle ages - and is still relevant today. And leading musicians talk about their make-or-break career decisions. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050417 | Better known as conductor rather than composer, Lorin Maazel's new opera based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four opens at the Royal Opera House at the beginning of May. It's directed by Robert Lepage, and Tom Service talks to both Maazel and Lepage about the work and the possibilities Orwell's novel presents on the operatic stage. Meanwhile, conductor, Ingo Metzmacher's declared passion is to turn today's music into accepted repertoire, he talks about his ideas for radical concert programming and his success in giving concerts combining composers as incongruous as Beethoven and Luigi Nono. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050501 | Politicians, pollsters and the electorate are gearing up for the final election push this week. But how might music be affected by Thursday's result? Is enough being done to foster musical appreciation and talent? As a nation, are we properly investing in our musical future? Music Matters debates music policy with representatives from the political parties and leading British musicians. With Tom Service. | ||||
| 20050508 | The Grand Tour reached its peak in the mid 18th century when rich, adventurous young travellers embarked on a journey south through Europe to expand their horizons. Tom Service investigates the works of some of the composers who were inspired by that journey. Tom also looks at the phenomonen of child prodigies and the talent of 12 year old New Yorker, Jay Greenberg who's already written five symphonies. | ||||
| 20050515 | Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, in his 70th year, is profiled by Tom Service. The composer's works are seen by many as having an extra spiritual dimension. Plus, as a new collection of the letters of Philip Heseltine is published, Tom looks at the colourful and complicated life of the composer who wrote under the pseudonym of Peter Warlock. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050529 | Leonard Bernstein's interest in music education, exemplified by his Young Peoples Concerts with the New York Philharmonic in the 50s and 60s and his celebrated Harvard Lectures in 1973, is continued today through the Grammy Foundation Leonard Bernstein Center for Learning in California. Tom Service looks at this side of Bernstein's work and the legacy he has left. Part of Radio 3's Bernstein season. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050612 | Includes a major interview with the charismatic conductor, pianist and composer André Previn as he celebrates his 75th birthday with a LONDON Symphony Orchestra concert series; a profile of Polish composer, Karol Szymanowski; and as part of the BBC's A Picture of Britain series, an investigation into the relationship between landscape and music. Presented by Tom Service. | ||||
| 20050619 | Minimalist composer Terry Riley influenced people such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams, as well as rock groups such as Soft Machine, The Who and Tangerine Dream with his seminal work 'In C'. He celebrates his 70th birthday this year and talks to Tom Service. There's also an investigation into the journey of jazz along the Mississippi River on the steamboats of the 1920s, and a look into the mysterious world of the piano tuner. | ||||
| 20050703 | Tom Service presents a rare interview with American pianist and composer, Earl Wild, possibly the last great exponent of the Romantic tradition of piano playing. There's also a look at a new book about the gypsy music of the Roma communities in Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050710 | After 40 years as one of Britain's most highly regarded string quartets, the Lindsays are coming to the end of their final season together. Among their achievements are recordings of complete cycles of the Beethoven and Bartók quartets, together with revitalising the musical life of their adopted city of Sheffield. Tom Service talks to the members of the quartet in their final major broadcast interview. Solihull born conductor Jonathan Nott has also revolutionised music making in his adopted home town, Bamberg, in Germany. He's an unfamiliar figure in the UK, but he brings his Bamberg Symphony Orchestra to the Edinburgh Festival next month and talks to Tom about its eclectic programming and renewed vitality. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050814 | A Man of All Time "I knew if I worked properly I would do all I had to do." This year is the centenary of the birth of Sir Michael Tippett and his music is featured throughout the Proms. Tom Service looks at Tippett's long life and artistic credo through archive interviews with the composer. | ||||
| 20050911 | With Tom Service. The composer Sir John Tavener talks about his first ballet score, Amu, a meditation on the human heart inspired by medical technology. And, ahead of Radio 3's Webern Day, Tavener contemplates the Divine Vacuity of Webern's music. And Sir Michael Tippett's centenary year continues to be marked through the publication of the first major selection of his letters. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20050918 | In an opera special, Tom Service talks to David Pountney about his production of Nielsen's Maskarade at the Royal Opera House. There's a look at the enduring appeal of Lehar's The Merry Widow as it opens at Welsh National Opera; a visit to Nottingham as homeless people in the city prepare the premiere of a new opera based on Mahler's Rückert Lieder; and composer Gerald Barry and director Richard Jones talk about the new opera at English National Opera based on Fassbinder's stage play The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20051002 | A special edition focusing on the Greek-born, French composer Iannis Xenakis. Working as an architect with Le Corbusier after the Second World War, Xenakis developed a radical musical style based on the principles and sounds of nature. As a major Xenakis festival opens in London, Tom Service talks to those who knew him well and to the musicians who play his mesmeric music. | ||||
| 20051009 | On the publication of the latest biography of composer Gerald Finzi, Tom Service visits Church Farm, the house that Finzi built in Berkshire where he wrote some of his best known music. Plus the soundworld of experimental composer Alvin Lucier - and a chat with Evan Eisenberg about the update to his seminal work, The Recording Angel, looking at how recording has changed the way we listen to music. | ||||
| 20051016 | Jane Glover discusses her new book about Mozart's women - the mother, sister, friends and lovers who featured so significantly in his life. Harpsichord legend Gustav Leonhardt talks about the keyboard music of Tallis and Byrd. And Tom Service looks at how composers have been portrayed in the movies. | ||||
| 20051023 | As the English National Opera opens a new production of Madam Butterfly, Anthony Minghella makes his operatic directorial debut. Tom Service also talks to Elgar Howarth, now in his 70th year, about his multi-faceted career as a composer, performer and conductor. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20051106 | A new book about the composer Olivier Messiaen claims to explore the world that Messiaen himself was at pains to keep hidden. Tom Service talks to the authors. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20051113 | Presented by Tom Service. In Sir Charles Mackerras' 80th year, a profile of the conductor as seen through the eyes of those most closely associated with him, including Dame Janet Baker and Sir Brian McMaster, director of the Edinburgh Festival. Plus the story of a new opera which unites the Tête à Tête opera company with the skilled knitters and spinners of Shetland - in A Shetland Odyssey. | ||||
| 20051120 | As Steve Reich, one of the pioneers of American minimalism, approaches his 70th birthday next year, Tom Service talks to him about two of his latest works - You Are Variations and Cello Counterpoint. Plus Reich's views on science, Judaism and technology. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20051204 | Fifteen years after the death of Aaron Copland, Tom Service reassesses the music of one of America's best loved composers. He talks to friends and colleagues including conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, writer and historian Vivian Perlis and the journalist Paul Moor, a former lover. And ahead of Radio 3's British Music Week, Tom discusses the position of British contemporary music in the 21st century. | ||||
| 20051211 | Presented by Tom Service. Writer Roger Nichols looks over the vast personal correspondence of Claude Debussy, published in France for the first time. American music historian Vivian Perlis talks about her new publication, An Oral History of American Music, documenting the history of 20th Century music directly through the voices of composers. Plus a look at the simple dance in triple time that became the most popular ballroom dance of the 19th Century, inspiring composers well into the 20th Century - the Waltz. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060108 | The historic City Halls in Glasgow played host to the likes of Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens and William Gladstone. But the building has recently been undergoing a massive refurbishment updating the concert hall and becoming the new home of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Tom Service visits the Halls and looks at how the restoration will change music making in Glasgow. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060122 | Tom Service talks to Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, whose La Pasión Según San Marcos gets its UK premiere at the Barbican as part of two concerts focusing on his work. Tom also explores a collaboration between British and Iraqi performers at the Old Vic in London; a new production of Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060205 | Petroc Trelawny talks to the legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Specialist in Russian music David Nice and ballet critic Ismene Brown review a new book that explores the 15-year collaboration between Prokofiev and the ballet impresario Diaghilev. Plus, 91-year-old Margaret Elliot talks about life in St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith during the years Gustav Holst was the music master. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060219 | Petroc Trelawny previews English National Opera's production of Vaughan Williams' rarely performed opera, Sir John in Love, and he delves into the peculiar world of the trombone as a new book is published charting the idiosyncratic development of the instrument. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060305 | With Petroc Trelawny. Mozart's 250th birthday has provoked a number of new books on the composer's life and music. But are they adding anything new to the already vast Mozart literature? Plus a look at Shostakovich's 15 String Quartets through the eyes and ears of the performers, including members of the Fitzwilliam and Kopelman Quartets who worked directly with the composer. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060312 | The BBC Concert Orchestra celebrates film score composer Bernard Herrmann's brilliant, yet often turbulent relationship with Alfred Hitchcock. Petroc Trelawny investigates how Herrmann redefined the relationship between image and sound. Plus a look at Tchaikovsky's masterpiece Eugene Onegin, as a new production is staged at the Royal Opera House. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060319 | A profile of British composer Sir Richard Rodney Bennett who is 70 this month. Plus a look at Opera North's production of Arms and the Cow, Kurt Weill's satirical operetta. With Petroc Trelawny. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060402 | With Petroc Trelawny. As a new production of Offenbach's La Belle Helene opens at English National Opera, a look at Offenbach's place in French culture with soprano Dame Felicity Lott and translator Kit Hesketh-Harvey. Plus, an interview with the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060409 | Petroc Trelawny talks to Chinese-born director Chen Shi-Zheng about his new production of Monteverdi's Orfeo at English National Opera, and to John Mark Ainsley who sings the title role. Plus, ahead of Radio 3's Samuel Beckett Evening, a look at some of the composers who have been inspired by the writer. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060416 | A Wagner Prelude Tom Service presents a special edition of Music Matters as a prelude to BBC Radio 3's Ring in a Day on Monday. Author Patrick Carnegy takes a look at the history of staging Wagner; while writer and broadcaster Stephen Johnson talks about his often rocky relationship with the composer. Soprano Dame Anne Evans and bass Sir John Tomlinson talk about both the physical and mental strain of performing in such a vast work. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| English Music Day. What Is English Music Now? | 20060423 | English music is usually defined by Tallis, Purcell and the 20th Century pastoral tradition. But what is English music today? Tom Service chairs a live edition with contributions from the composers Anthony Payne, Mark-Anthony Turnage and George Benjamin. | |||
| 20060507 | Tom Service talks to director Francesca Zambello, as Franco Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac receives its premiere at the Royal Opera House, 70 years after its first performance. Plus, a celebration of the life of radical experimental composer and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, Cornelius Cardew, on the 70th anniversary of his birth. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060514 | Tom Service finds out about two exciting recent musical developments in South Africa. He talks to Pauline Malefane and Mark Dornford-May, star and director of a new film of Bizet's Carmen set in Pauline's home township of Khayelitsha, Cape Town. And at OSCA, the opera course at the University of Natal in Durban, Martin Handley hears that "black singers are the singers of the future", in the amazing voices of the people of KwaZulu-Natal. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060521 | Tom Service presents a special operatic edition, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Welsh National Opera, the company brought together by a former miner. From those who were there at its inception in 1946 to the newest recruit - general director John Fisher - the programme looks at the past, present and future of opera in Wales. Plus, French directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser talk about their new production of Tchaikovsky's Mazepa; and director Peter Sellars on his production of Mozart's opera, Zaide. | ||||
| 20060604 | Tom Service speaks to Danish composer Poul Ruders about his opera Kafka's Trial. Plus cellist Matthew Barley presents a special report from Uzbekistan on his Between the Notes project. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060611 | Tom Service speaks to Raymond Yiu about his new opera The Original Chinese Conjuror, based on the true story of Chung Ling Soo - whose dramatic death onstage at the Wood Green Empire led to his unmasking as William Robinson. For the 350th anniversary of the birth of the French composer and bass viol virtuoso Marin Marais, viol player Hille Perl and French baroque expert Philip Weller uncover his life and work. Plus, Tom meets identical twins who knew since their teens that they both wanted to be cutting-edge opera directors - Christopher and David Alden, currently staging Janacek and Handel at ENO. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060618 | Tom Service investigates the world of 'semi-opera' as Mark Morris and Jane Glover prepare to stage Purcell and Dryden's King Arthur for English National Opera. Conductor and author Robert Craft takes a break from recording to talk about Arnold Schoenberg; and a look behind the doors of Tate Modern's new Kandinsky exhibition prompts an examination of the pivotal relationship between Schoenberg and the artist. Evening Morning Afternoon. | ||||
| 20060702 | Tom Service investigates the world of 'semi-opera' and speaks to Mark Morris and Jane Glover about their staging of Purcell and Dryden's King Arthur for English National Opera. Plus, composer Judith Weir talks about the new version of her opera Blond Eckbert - currently touring the UK. | ||||
| 20060709 | Tom Service speaks to author Seb Hunter and music critic Fiona Maddocks about Seb's new book. Plus a look at the life of French composer Gustave Charpentier on the 50th anniversary of his death. | ||||
| 20060910 | Tom Service talks to conductor Riccardo Chailly about running both the orchestra and opera in Leipzig. Plus, the story of Peter and the Wolf 70 years on from its first performance. It's also the 60th anniversary of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - we hear from founding members and conductor Daniel Gatti. And following news of the death of former Radio 3 Controller, Sir John Drummond, we look back on his life in the Arts. | ||||
| 20060924 | As composer Steve Reich celebrates his 70th birthday, Tom Service travels to New York to talk to Reich and assess how his legacy influences both popular and classical music. DJ Spooky looks at the composer's affect on Urban DJ culture, and, as Reich once earned a living driving a taxi in New York, Service is joined by composer and journalist Kyle Gann on a musical and cultural taxi ride. | ||||
| 20061001 | Tom Service explores that most versatile of instruments - the human voice. Tenor Ian Bostridge previews a major song series on London's South Bank and Emma Kirkby and Anthony Rooley sample different approaches to performing Dowland songs. Plus reviews of a new book on Italian opera and the art of 'bel canto', and a fascinating study of the human voice by Anne Karpf. | ||||
| 20061008 | Tom Service interviews Deborah Warner, whose new production of Poulenc's La voix humaine is due to be performed by Opera North in the newly refurbished Leeds Grand Theatre. Plus Stephen Walsh on his second volume of the biography of one of the most significant and influential composers of the 20th Century, Stravinsky. Tom also explores the latest corporate bonding exercise, can paintballing really be replaced by playing in an orchestra? | ||||
| 20061015 | Tom Service investigates the relationship between the music of Grieg and the landscape of his native Norway, and how the composer's time in England had a far greater influence on his life than previously thought. Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard talks about his life in music as his latest CD of Schumann is released. Plus news of the UK's first ever Bachelor of Music degree in Indian classical music. | ||||
| 20061022 | |||||
| 20061105 | Tom Service talks to Prof Stephen Hawking about the role music plays in his life ahead of his specially programmed concert at the Cambridge Music Festival. As Western classical music takes a greater hold in East Asia, an investigation into its role in Chinese society. And coinciding with a festival of his music in Manchester, composer Mark Anthony Turnage discusses jazz, classical and his unique path between modernism and tradition. | ||||
| 20061112 | A look at the colourful world of Gilbert and Sullivan. And Tom Service talks to Janacek scholar John Tyrell about his new biography of the composer. | ||||
| 20061119 | Tom Service talks to Anthony Phillips, who has translated the journals of Sergei Prokofiev, and Prokofiev specialist Noelle Mann about the composer who was a compulsive diarist. After his death, many of Prokofiev's writings were kept in a special closed section of the Russian State Archive and have only recently been published. Composer George Benjamin and his librettist Martin Crimp talk about Benjamin's first opera, Into the Little Hill, which opens in Paris. Plus the revelatory music of composer Helmut Lachenmann. | ||||
| 20061203 | With Tom Service. Personal stories from the silent force behind the music industry - members of the 700-strong former workforce of instrument makers Boosey and Hawkes talk about how they helped to shape the sound of Britain. Plus an exploration of the brave new world of Sound Intermedia as lights, computers and video screens increasingly alter the relationship between composition and performance. | ||||
| 20061210 | As the UK album charts are increasingly populated by classical crossover artists in the run-up to Christmas, Tom Service takes a look at the genre that has included names such as Mario Lanza, Emerson Lake and Palmer, the Three Tenors and Angelis. He asks if there is more to crossover than marketing and easy money. Director Francesca Zambello talks about her new production of Carmen at Covent Garden. | ||||
| 20070107 | Composer and writer Ned Rorem talks movingly to Tom Service about how his words and music are inextricably linked in his new collection of diaries, Facing the Night. Plus a report from Tel Aviv on the 70th anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and New Year celebrations behind the scenes with the National Youth Orchestra in Oxfordshire. | ||||
| 20070121 | Tom Service talks to renowned pianist and scholar Charles Rosen, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year. He also explores graphic images of musical humour from the middle ages to modern times with author and historian Jeremy Barlow. | ||||
| 20070204 | As the English Folk Dance and Song society celebrates its 75th anniversary, Tom Service visits Lincolnshire. From Percy Grainger's field recordings of folksong at Brigg to the peal of tuned bells at Croyland Abbey, he asks how music shapes the sense of where we live. | ||||
| 20070217 | Tom Service investigates the stories behind this week's headlines in the music world. He meets the pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, who at 103 years old still plays daily. And celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of the best loved and most hated buildings in the country - the Barbican Centre. Tom asks what should our arts centres be today - bastions of cutting edge urban design or monuments to a fading culture? | ||||
| 20070303 | Tom Service asks what the future holds for classical music and whether the genre needs to change. He looks at the Victorian predictions of William Sterndale Bennett which provide a fascinating account of the hopes and fears of the Victorian musical world. He is also joined by John Williams and John Etheridge to talk about their unique collaboration combining two of the greatest names in classical and jazz guitar. | ||||
| 20070310 | Tom Service talks to Handel scholar Winton Dean about his in-depth study of Handel's last 20 operas, and investigates the challenge of staging and performing Handel's operas in the world's great opera houses with guests including Sir Peter Jonas, Sir Charles Mackerras and Sarah Connolly. Plus American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on what drives his work with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and his passion for education. | ||||
| Finland Special | 20070317 | Tom Service takes a musical journey through Finland and discovers the state of Finnish classical music as the country celebrates not only its 90th year of independence but also marks the 50th anniversary of Sibelius's death. From discussing Sibelius's legacy at Ainola to attending the Musica Nova Helsinki new music festival, Tom finds out what drives Finland's classical music scene and what we can learn from its impressive music education system. He speaks to composer Magnus Lindberg, conductor Suzanna Malkki and managing director of the Association of Finnish Music Schools Timo Klemettinen as well as other prominent Finns on the front line of Finnish music making. | |||
| 20070324 | Petroc Trelawny travels to Cumbria to find out more about the Dowdales Community Opera Project, part of an ongoing partnership between the Royal Opera House and Dowdales Performing Arts College. He also talks to Alexandra Wilson, author of a new book about Puccini. | ||||
| 20070407 | On Easter Saturday, Harry Christophers helps Tom Service to take a closer look at Spanish Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria, one of the most admired European composers of church music in his day. Plus, tenor Roberto Alagna talks about the pressures of singing in some of the world's most prestigious opera houses. | ||||
| 20070414 | Tom Service visits the British Library with Lewis Foreman to sift through the remarkable secret archive of papers and photographs of Arnold Bax's mistress Harriet Cohen. And Norman Lebrecht discusses his latest book, The Life and Death of Classical Music, with Tom, record producer Michael Haas and New York journalist John Rockwell. | ||||
| 20070421 | In this week's programme Petroc Trelawny talks to harpsichordist-turned-conductor Christophe Rousset about playing Baroque music the French way, and the secrets behind the success of his group Les Talens Lyriques. Petroc also explores the viola, taking as a starting point a new biography of Lionel Tertis by John White, and looks at Britten's 'forgotten opera', Owen Wingrave, conceived originally for television but about to hit the stage of the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House. | ||||
| 20070428 | Petroc Trelawny heads to the British Library for the first ever three-day conference devoted to the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. A unique gathering of historians, musicologists, practitioners, media commentators and concert-goers reflect on the cultural phenomenon which for many marks the highlight of the classical music year. Archive recordings and interviews with the leading authorities on the history of the Proms will illustrate key topics raised in the lectures and debates of the conference, and shed new light on the future of what has become a national institution. | ||||
| 20070512 | Tom Service talks to author Tim Carter about his new book, which offers the first fully documented history of the making of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! He also catches up with one of the world's most sought-after musicians, Portuguese pianist Maria Joao Pires. | ||||
| 20070519 | Tom Service tracks down composer Oliver Knussen in his Suffolk hideaway and gets the latest thoughts and predictions from the founder of Naxos Records Klaus Heymann. American singer Grace Bumbry reminisces about a glorious operatic career that took in both soprano and mezzo-soprano roles. And Tom discovers the vibrant Cuban world of Anacaona, the all-girl band that set the nightclubs of Havana alight in the 1930s. | ||||
| 20070602 | Tom Service travels to Paris to visit the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique, or IRCAM. Founded in 1977 by Pierre Boulez at the behest of President Georges Pompidou, IRCAM is a research centre for new music and associated technologies. Thirty years on, Tom finds out what goes on at the IRCAM today and asks how relevant it is as an institution in the context of 21st century art music, and French culture generally. With contributions from Pierre Boulez, Georgina Born, Roger Nichols and Jonathan Harvey. | ||||
| 20070609 | As celebrations begin to mark the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank following its major refurbishment, Petroc Trelawny goes behind the scenes and talks to the people running this cultural landmark. He also takes a look at the murky history of musical life in post-war Germany, and German conductor Ingo Metzmacher discusses the attraction of orchestras in his native country. | ||||
| 20070616 | There's an operatic flavour to the programme as Tom Service talks to John Fisher, General Director of Welsh National Opera. He also finds out about Elephant and Castle, a new opera aiming to project an urban vision onto a rural landscape by incorporating film, digital sounds, installations and live performance. | ||||
| 20070623 | Tom Service talks to early music virtuoso Jordi Savall, focuses on the Glyndebourne Opera House as they stage Katie Mitchell's dramatic vision of Bach's St Matthew Passion, and explores the dangers of being a practising musician. | ||||
| 20070707 | Tom Service talks to conductor Robert Spano and discusses music, memory and 'The Importance of Music to Girls' with poet and author Lavinia Greenlaw. Plus pianist John York and psychologist John Sloboda look at the psychological skills necessary to become a musician. | ||||
| 20070728 | Tom Service introduces topical interviews, features and discussions on the big ideas driving today's classical music world. | ||||
| 20070915 | Tom Service talks to composer James MacMillan, whose new opera The Sacrifice is to receive its premiere by Welsh National Opera in Cardiff. Directed by Katie Mitchell and with a libretto by Michael Symmons Roberts, the opera draws on the Mabinogion, an ancient collection of Welsh folk tales, and tells the story of a ruler's ultimate sacrifice to safeguard the future of his war-torn country. | ||||
| Portugal Special Edition | 20070922 | Tom Service heads to Portugal to explore the part classical music has to play in Portuguese culture today. Talking to fado star Mariza and composer Emmanuel Nunes, he travels to Lisbon and Porto, home of the stunning Casa da Musica concert hall, to experience the flourishing contemporary classical music scene at this year's Musica Viva Festival. | |||
| 20071006 | 40th Anniversary Special As Radio 3 celebrates 40 years of broadcasting, Tom Service listens back over the decades and investigates how the station has reacted to the outside world and vice-versa. With contributions from Nicholas Kenyon, Harrison Birtwistle, Lord Asa Briggs, Robert Ponsonby and Georgina Born. | ||||
| 20071013 | Tom Service examines the life and legacy of one of Italy's most pioneering and influential 20th-century composers, Luigi Nono, as a major celebration of his work gets underway in London. Also, as the London Philharmonic Orchestra turns 75, Tom finds out what makes it unique and talks to its acclaimed new Principal Conductor, Vladimir Jurowski, about his plans for the future of the LPO. | ||||
| 20071020 | Tom Service meets conductor John Eliot Gardiner to explore his reinterpretation of the music of Brahms, there's the latest from music's most talked about family with author Jonathan Carr on The Wagner Clan, and Vienna meets Hollywood with Erich Wolfgang Korngold at the movies. | ||||
| 20071103 | Petroc Trelawny explores the border territory between literature and music, and how music can transform Shakespeare plays. Plus pianist Richard Goode talks about the many guises of piano playing, and the programme investigates the uncompromising music of Alexander Goehr as he reaches 75. | ||||
| 20071110 | The spotlight falls on four new books about music, including a major biography of Robert Schumann, and Oliver Sacks's hot-off-the-press Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. Petroc Trelawny talks to the authors and is joined by critic Hilary Finch, violinist Paul Robertson and musicologist Tess Knighton. | ||||
| 20071117 | Tom Service talks to one of the most versatile jazz musicians of his generation, Chick Corea. Musician and artist Bill Drummond, who came up with the idea of a No Music Day, and pianist David Owen Norris discuss living a life without music. | ||||
| 20071201 | Tom Service immerses himself in the music of Domenico Scarlatti as the Royal Northern College of Music perform all 555 of his sonatas in one day in Manchester. The life of composer and war poet Ivor Gurney is celebrated in Gloucester, and tenor Ian Bostridge talks about his year-long series of concerts at London's Barbican. | ||||
| 20071208 | Tom Service talks to violinist Itzhak Perlman about being a great advocate of classical music and the importance of music education. There's an update on the Music Manifesto from composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall, and Tony Hall, Executive Director of the Royal Opera House, talks about the challenges of finding new audiences for opera and ballet. | ||||
| 20071215 | Tom Service presents a special programme looking back on the life and music of one of the 20th century's most distinguished and controversial composers - Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died last week. | ||||
| Film And Music | 20080105 | Tom Service investigates the hidden world of film music. He visits the Abbey Road Studios where scores have been recorded to such monumental movies as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the more recent Golden Compass. Plus composers Howard Shore and Mike Figgis explain their own philosophies of film composing, and a look at the modern sound library technology which shapes the scores of today. | |||
| 20080112 | Tom Service talks to composer Judith Weir ahead of Radio 3's forthcoming weekend celebration of her work. Plus 25 years after the death of pianist Artur Rubinstein, friends and colleagues assess his legacy, and a new collection of essays entitled Philosophers on Music falls under the Music Matters spotlight. | ||||
| 20080119 | Valery Gergiev, principal conductor of the LSO, talks to Tom Service about his current preoccupations, including his Mahler cycle. And conductor Mark Elder and players celebrate 150 years of the Halle, Britain's oldest professional symphony orchestra. | ||||
| 20080202 | Tom Service talks to Daniel Barenboim as he performs the entire cycle of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas at London's South Bank. Plus a review of Marina Frolova-Walker's new book on Russian music which challenges the notion of 'Russianness'. | ||||
| 20080209 | Tom Service talks to pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard about his first recording of Bach - The Art of Fugue - and his stewardship of the Aldeburgh Festival. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales celebrate the music of Henri Dutilleux. And a major exhibition of field recordings from India opens at the Horniman Museum in London. | ||||
| 20080216 | Tom Service explores the little-known world of Vivaldi the opera composer ahead of a performance of Tito Manlio at London's Barbican next week. With a re-assessment of Olivier Messiaen's legacy as teacher, and harpist Osian Ellis on his 80th birthday. | ||||
| 20080301 | Tom Service investigates the links between music and health. He looks at reports on how music can change the lives of people with conditions ranging from schizophrenia to Alzheimer's. Saxophonist Barbara Thompson talks about her battle with Parkinson's disease. Plus news from the Royal Opera House and its workshops for autistic teenagers, and Prof Paul Robertson on the effects of music on the mind. | ||||
| 20080308 | As the Grand Union Orchestra celebrates its 25th birthday, Petroc Trelawny meets the recently formed Grand Union Youth Orchestra as they prepare for a performance in East London. Plus a review of Alex Ross's new book about 20th-century music The Rest is Noise, and miniature opera, with a look at five 15-minute chamber operas, the fruit of collaborations between Scotland's leading creative figures. | ||||
| 20080315 | Petroc Trelawny visits the seaside in a quest to find one of Britain's finest Wurlitzer organs. As Harrison Birtwistle's opera Punch and Judy opens on two London stages in the coming weeks, the programme asks how Mr Punch has infiltrated the world of classical music. Plus a look at whether music can shape the politics of the artist. | ||||
| 20080322 | Tom Service talks to English baritone Thomas Allen about what sustains him through decades of success in his profession. As a new book about the poet Heinrich Heine is published, Music Matters examines his enduring appeal for composers from Schubert to Berg. And there is an interview with composer Olga Neuwirth about her opera Lost Highway, based on the film by David Lynch, which opens at the Young Vic in London next month. | ||||
| 20080405 | With Petroc Trelawny. | ||||
| 20080412 | With Tom Service. Fifty years since the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams, journalist Simon Heffer explains the profound influence of war on the composer's music and how it modernised his style of writing, especially in his Sixth Symphony. Tom talks to German composer Heiner Goebbels about his strongly 'visual' compositions. And organist, harpsichordist and conductor Ton Koopman looks back on his 40-year career. | ||||
| 20080419 | As Luigi Nono's opera Prometeo receives its UK premiere, Tom Service talks to architect Renzo Piano about his designs for the original performance of the work. He also meets Nono's widow Nuria Schoenberg-Nono, who tells of the place the piece occupied in the composer's life. Plus an interview with violinist Nigel Kennedy on the release of his recording of Beethoven's Violin Concerto and a celebration of the sound of the King's Singers to mark their 40th anniversary. | ||||
| 20080503 | Tom Service talks to sibling pianists Katia and Marielle Labeque to find out about their unique rapport. Belgian conductor Philippe Herreweghe explains the importance of his Baroque music group Collegium Vocale Gent in advance of their appearance at this year's Lufthansa Festival. Plus contemporary composer Jonathan Harvey explaining the complex musical language of his compositional world. | ||||
| 20080510 | Tom Service presents a programme devoted to a rare interview with the celebrated and often controversial pianist Krystian Zimerman. In an extensive and wide-ranging discussion, he talks about everything from his relationship with audiences and the recording process, to politics, pianos and why he can only listen to his own performances in the car. Born in Poland in 1956, Zimerman became the youngest-ever winner of the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1975, before studying intensively with the great Artur Rubinstein. Highly self-critical, Zimerman gives relatively few concert performances and has not released a solo recording for nearly two decades. | ||||
| 20080524 | Petroc Trelawny investigates the place of classical music in fiction and why it appeals to authors from Louis de Bernieres to Rose Tremain. Novelist Ian McEwan has written his first libretto for composer Michael Berkeley and both composer and librettist talk together about their collaboration, For You. Plus a look at the world of philanthropy, asking how much does the classical music world rely on the charitable donations of the super-rich. | ||||
| 20080607 | Tom Service meets sitar virtuoso Ravin Shankar, currently on his final tour of Europe. Plus a reassessment of Rimsky-Korsakov's legacy 100 years after his death, and as a second volume of Prokofiev's diaries is published, Tom looks at the wider phenomenon of composers' diaries and what can be learnt from them. | ||||
| 20080614 | Tom Service is joined by American critic and playwright Bonnie Greer to discuss a new book by George E Lewis. A Power Stronger Than Itself charts the progress of the Assocation for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an American institution founded in 1965, still active today, and renowned for its unparalleled contributions to modern music. And 50 years after its Broadway premiere, Music Matters reassesses the significance of perhaps the most famous musical of all, West Side Story. | ||||
| 20080712 | Tom Service talks to Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos about his new opera Love and Other Demons due to open at Glyndebourne next month. We're also on the trail of historic keyboards in Surrey, Arnold Dolmetsch and the early music revival at the beginning of the 20th Century. | ||||
| 20080906 | Kennedy on Grappelli In conversation with Geoffrey Smith, Nigel Kennedy pays tribute to the great improvising violinist Stephane Grappelli. Featuring some of the classic recordings and selections from the archive. | ||||
| 20080913 | Tom Service visits the celebrated Lucerne Festival Academy in Switzerland, where 130 musicians from around the world come together to explore contemporary classical music under the direction of Pierre Boulez and members of his Ensemble Intercontemporain. Conductors stay in the spotlight as Tom and Petroc Trelawny meet two other major figures: Esa-Pekka Salonen, newly appointed principal conductor and artistic advisor to the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Charles Mackerras, who talks about Mozart as he launches the Royal Opera House season with Don Giovanni. | ||||
| 20080920 | With the first new concert hall to be built in London for over 25 years about to open its doors to the public, Tom Service investigates why the capital needs yet another concert venue. There is also a look at La Calisto, a comic tale of amorous confusion between gods and mortals, and the first ever opera by Baroque composer Francesco Cavalli to be performed by the Royal Opera House. Why has it taken so long for it to reach the stage there? Plus 2008's centenary of composer Raymond Scott, the man who wrote music for adverts, electronics and for getting babies to sleep. | ||||
| 20081004 | Tom Service meets young Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons as he takes over the reigns of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The life of Thomas Beecham falls under the spotlight as author John Lucas presents new material on the conductor's private life, including his visits to Nazi Germany and his views of its leaders. And singing Rossini - what exactly does it involve? Credited with the invention of the modern tenor, Rossini makes demands of his singers that far exceed those of his predecessors. Some of today's leading Rossinians reveal the secrets of their success, pianist and vocal coach Gerald Martin Moore looks back at some of the great Rossini singers of the past, and opera historian Emanuele Senici explains why singers in Rossini's day had it so much easier than the divas of today. | ||||
| 20081011 | Tom Service travels to Ireland to explore the part classical music has to play in Irish culture today. In the last decade, the country has experienced a revolution in music-making. Tom visits Ireland's first purpose-built opera house, which is about to open its doors to the Wexford Opera Festival. Plus a look at contemporary classical composition in Dublin and traditional music and dance at the world-renowned Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick. And Irish composer Gerald Barry explains how the solitude of County Clare is essential to his uncompromising music. | ||||
| 20081018 | Petroc Trelawny talks to leading American composer John Adams about his new musical memoir Hallelujah Junction, and how he has been blacklisted by US security for the perceived morality of his political stage works. Authors David Huckvale, Peter Dickinson and Adrian Wright review each other's recent books on the composers Lord Berners and William Alwyn and about the British composers who composed music for Hammer horror films. And as a rare Stradivarius cello, expected to fetch over one million pounds, is about to be auctioned online, Petroc investigates the phenomenal prices such instruments command and asks who is buying them. | ||||
| 20081101 | With the presidential elections a few days away, Tom Service is joined by three leading figures from the American music scene to assess the possible impact on musical life in the US. Plus author John Tilbury talking about his controversial new biography of composer Cornelius Cardew, and a conversation with Leon Fleisher, hailed as one of the great pianists of the 50s and 60s and who was forced into early retirement by repetitive strain injury. | ||||
| 20081108 | Petroc Trelawny is joined by Alexander Waugh to discuss his new book about the Wittgensteins, one of the most talented and eccentric families in European history, dogged by conflicts but held together by a fanatical love of music. He also hears a new Remembrance Sunday commission from Portsmouth Grammar School by Peter Maxwell Davies and Andrew Motion | ||||
| Music And The Brain | 20081115 | In a special edition of the programme, Tom Service talks to scientists and musicians conducting the latest research looking at how the brain makes sense of music, asking how a disparate collection of soundwaves has the ability to change people's lives. | |||
| 20081122 | With Tom Service. Including Fiona Shaw on directing her first opera. Tom Service discusses the collaborative process with actress Fiona Shaw as she makes her directorial debut in the opera world in charge of a new production of Ralph Vaughan Williams's Riders to the Sea. With the latest Streetwise Opera project, My Secret Heart, bringing together the homeless with professional opera through Allegri's Miserere, and an interview with leading young German composer Jorg Widmann. Plus a look back at the history of the London Sinfonietta, reflecting on the progress made in new music since its establishment 40 years ago. | ||||
| 20081129 | Nigel Simeone tells the story of classical music activity in Nazi-occupied Paris. Nigel Simeone visits Paris to tell the story of classical music activity in the city during the years of Nazi occupation, with historians, musicologists and musicians who vividly outline both the oppression and the resistance in the concert halls, conservatoires and radio studios of the times. | ||||
| 20081206 | Presented by Tom Service. Including 100 years of Elliott Carter's correspondence. Tom Service looks through a new book charting nearly a century of Elliott Carter's correspondence. Plus an interview with one of the most sought-after mezzo-sopranos on the operatic stage, Angelika Kirchschlager. | ||||
| Review Of 2008 | 20081213 | Tom Service and guests look back at some of the key cultural milestones of the year, from concert series and festivals to Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture and other events that have had a big impact on the arts scene. Tom also previews some potential highlights of 2009. | |||
| 150th Anniversary Of The Birth Of Puccini | 20081220 | Tom Service presents a special programme marking the 150th anniversary of Puccini's birth. In a special edition to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Puccini, Tom Service visits some of the locations in Tuscany that meant so much to the composer, even when he had achieved international stardom. In the company of musicologist Roger Parker, he assesses Puccini's legacy, the reception of his music a century ago and now, his complicated relationships with women and their impact on the operas, and the importance of his works in the Italian opera scene after Verdi. | |||
| 20090110 | With baritone Thomas Quasthoff, a Nielsen festival and an Opera North comic operetta. Tom Service talks to German baritone Thomas Quasthoff, who appears in Haydn's oratorio The Creation in as part of his series of concerts given at London's Barbican Centre throughout 2009. Academic David Fanning, musicologist Niels Krabbe and composer Karl Aage Rasmussen discuss Carl Nielsen and his music, as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Halle embark on a complete cycle of the Danish composer's symphonies in Manchester and Birmingham. The programme also eavesdrops on a rehearsal of Skin Deep, a new comic operetta staged by Opera North in Leeds, and which is based on a libretto by Armando Iannucci set to music by David Sawer. And Michael Church visits Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to report on efforts to preserve traditional music in Central Asia. | ||||
| 20090117 | Presented by Tom Service. With pianist Stephen Hough ahead of concerts in London and New York, and Nicholas Kenyon and Paul Griffiths reviewing American musicologist Richard Taruskin's collection of essays entitled The Danger of Music. Also, as a new production of Benjamin Britten's reworking of the Beggar's Opera opens at the Linbury Studio Theatre, Tom is joined by Jeremy Barlow to trace the history of this work, first heard in Britain in 1728. Tom Service talks to pianist Stephen Hough and looks at the history of the Beggar's Opera. | ||||
| 20090124 | Tom Service compares two modern dystopian visions of the world about to hit the London stage: Korngold's Die Tote Stadt at the Royal Opera House and John Adams' Dr Atomic at the ENO. He also speaks to Canadian baritone Gerald Finley on singing the title role in Adams' opera. There is also a survey of The Complete Church Cantatas by JS Bach, a cycle devised by the Royal Academy of Music in London. Tom discusses the project's objectives with RAM's principal Jonathan Freeman-Atwood and Bach scholar Berta Joncus. And Michael Church visits Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to report on efforts to preserve traditional music in Central Asia. Tom Service compares two dystopian visions of the world on stage in London opera houses. | ||||
| 20090207 | Petroc Trelawny talks to director Jonathan Miller as his eagerly-awaited production of Puccini's La Boheme opens at English National Opera. Voice coach Christina Shewell talks about her new book, The Mystery and Mending of the Voice, in which she offers solutions to help people with problems in their spoken and singing voices. | ||||
| Petroc Trelawny | 20090207 | talks to director Jonathan Miller as his eagerly-awaited production of Puccini's La Boheme opens at English National Opera. Voice coach Christina Shewell talks about her new book, The Mystery and Mending of the Voice, in which she offers solutions to help people with problems in their spoken and singing voices. Petroc Trelawny talks to Jonathan Miller and voice coach Christina Shewell. | |||
| The Arts And The Financial Crisis | 20090214 | Tom Service discusses, together with an international panel of experts, the challenges arts institutions face in an uncertain future blurred by the global financial crisis. Russian pianist Mikhail Rudy talks about a series of experimental concerts called Piano Dialogues he is offering at Kings Place in London, a collaboration with actor Peter Guinness and jazz pianist Misha Alperin. And Tom looks in on a community-based project set up by Aldeburgh Music by composer Anna Meredith. Entitled Tarantula in Petrol Blue, it is a new piece for the stage involving local teenagers and young professionals. Presented by Tom Service. With a discussion on the financial crisis's effect on the arts. | |||
| Bryn Terfel | 20090221 | Tom Service talks to Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel as he prepares to take on the role of Wagner's Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and looks at a new book about how the Paris Opera survived the French Revolution. And Tom also visits Leeds to find out about some of Yorkshire's lost pianos. Tom Service talks to Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel. Plus some of Yorkshire's lost pianos. | |||
| Musiclearninglive!2009 Music Debate | 20090307 | Tom Service chairs a debate from the MusicLearningLive!2009 festival, hosted by the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, addressing some of the current issues in music education. He is joined by panellists Richard Hallam, the National Music Participation Director; Katherine Zeserson, Director of Learning and Participation at The Sage, Gateshead; cellist and broadcaster Zoe Martlew; chief culture writer and music critic of The Times, Richard Morrison; and Christina Coker, Chief Executive of Youth Music. Tom Service chairs a debate from Manchester about the current issues in music education. | |||
| Tom Service | 20090314 | Tom Service presents a programme focusing on the classical period, and talks to conductor Roger Norrington as he celebrates his 75th birthday. Petroc Trelawyn talks to Richard Goode as his recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos are released on CD. While conductor Jane Glover and musicologist Cliff Eisen are in the studio to discuss a new book about Mozart, Haydn and early Beethoven. Tom Service talks to conductor Roger Norrington. Plus pianist Richard Goode. | |||
| Purcell Weekend - In Search Of Purcell | 20090321 | Tom Service goes in search of Purcell, as BBC Radio 3 celebrates the 350th anniversary in 2009 of the English composer's birth. Experts, musicians and historians take him through a journey back in time, tracing what little is known about the composer, and what the latest research and findings suggest. Looking at material recorded in different venues across London, where Purcell lived and died, the programme pieces together his life and work. Westminster Abbey reveals information about him as a youngster; the British Library sheds light onto both the man and the musician through his manuscripts and scores; and the National Portrait Gallery, with its Purcell iconography, tells us about the times through which he lived. | |||
| Simon Rattle | 20090404 | In a candid interview recorded in the German capital, Tom Service talks to Simon Rattle, principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. Almost seven years into his tenure at the helm of probably the most famous orchestra in the world, Rattle chats openly about his relationship with the orchestra and about renewing its tradition with the help of players united in purpose, yet coming from very different backgrounds and nationalities. Rattle also talks about a crucial role he sees for the orchestra today - catering for Berlin, an increasingly multi-cultural and renewed city - as well as pondering the question of what the attraction is to him of conducting. Tom Service talks to Simon Rattle, principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. | |||
| Imogen Cooper | 20090411 | Tom Service talks to pianist Imogen Cooper about her life-long passion for the music of Schubert, which she has been re-visiting in a series of performances and live recordings at the Royal Festival Hall, 20 years after she made her first complete survey of his piano works. He visits Cambridge, ahead of a week of choral concerts marking the university's 800th anniversary, to explore the past, present and future place of singing in the city. He also discusses the role of music in cancer care with Don Campbell of Mozart Effect fame. Tom Service talks to pianist Imogen Cooper and explores Cambridge's choral traditions. | |||
| Handel Week | 20090418 | As part of BBC Radio 3's Handel celebrations, Petroc Trelawny is joined by conductor and harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood, classical music critic of the Sunday Times Hugh Canning, and writer and broadcaster Berta Joncus to assess the composer's reputation and significance 250 years after his death. Directors including Nicholas Hytner and David Alden talk about the challenges and joys of putting Handel on the stage, and soprano Rosemary Joshua talks about the importance of authenticity in singing Handel. Petroc also visits the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to find out what the Handel manuscripts held there can tell us about the composer's working methods and his concept of the integrity of the musical work. Petroc Trelawny and guests assess Handel's significance 250 years after his death. | |||
| Felicity Palmer And Anish Kapoor | 20090502 | Tom Service interviews versatile mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer about her career, which has featured repertoire spanning more than 300 years, both in the concert hall and the opera house. She is to perform the role Mrs Sedley in a new production of Britten's Peter Grimes at English National Opera in 2009. Tom also visits the Brighton Festival 2009 to talk to artist Anish Kapoor, its guest artistic director, who has collaborated on a challenging music programme to go with the rest of the event. Is this the way forward for artistic festivals in the future? | |||
| Mendelssohn Weekend - Mendelssohn's Scotland | 20090509 | Tom Service journeys through Scotland in a quest to find the inspiration behind Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and his Scottish Symphony. Check out more images and video clips from Tom's journey below. Tom Service follows in the footsteps of Mendelssohn, who toured Scotland in 1829. | |||
| Glyndebourne At 75 | 20090516 | As Glyndebourne celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2009, Tom Service explores the role of a private opera house in the 21st century. In the grounds of the famous house deep in the Sussex Downs, Tom discusses recent developments at the company, and its role both in the local community and on the international stage, with executive chairman Gus Christie - grandson of founder Sir George Christie - and general director David Pickard. Tom finds out what Glyndebourne means to some of the artists involved in 2009's festival including current music director Vladimir Jurowski, director David McVicar and singers Sarah Connolly and Danielle de Niese - and to two artists who have long been associated with the company, Janet Baker and Felicity Lott. There is also a look at the company's commissioning of new music, its education and outreach work, its development of young singers through Glyndebourne on Tour and its multimedia ambitions. Tom Service visits Glyndebourne to look at the role of the opera house in the 21st century | |||
| Penderecki | 20090523 | In Music Matters this week, a tribute to British composer Nicholas Maw who died on Tuesday, aged 73. Also, Petroc Trelawny talks to Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, Oscar winning playwright Ronald Harwood and looks into the business benefits of commissioning new music. Petroc Trelawny talks to Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Petroc Trelawny talks to Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki about writing music in a post Soviet world, while playwright Ronald Harwood discusses his two plays Taking Sides and Collaboration, depicting Wilhelm Furtwangler and Richard Strauss and the controversy surrounding their political views in Nazi Germany. Plus a look at the latest technology allowing composers to write music in Braille. | |||
| Haydn | 20090606 | Tom Service examines our attitudes to the music of Haydn and tries to get to the bottom of why he isn't as popular as Mozart or Beethoven. With the help of some of the leading Haydn aficionados - pianists Alfred Brendel and Robert Levin, leader of the Lindsays Peter Cropper, and pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen - Tom finds out just how Haydn did it, why it is we think of him as 'witty', and what sort of a man really lay behind that intricately constructed, sometimes humorous and always profound music. Tom Service examines our attitudes to Haydn with the help of Alfred Brendel among others. | |||
| Colin Davis | 20090613 | Tom Service talks to conductor Colin Davis - as he celebrates 50 years with the London Symphony Orchestra - about the place of orchestral music in the 21st century. At the Royal Opera House, conductor Antonio Pappano and director Christof Loy discuss their new production of Berg's Lulu, an epic tale of moral and social decline. And Tom debates the wider links between music and morality with an expert panel - musicologist John Deathridge, composer Deirdre Gribbin and philosopher Roger Scruton. Tom Service talks to Colin Davis and explores the links between music and morality. | |||
| John Potter/leonard Bernstein/thomas Hampson | 20090620 | Tom Service talks to tenor John Potter about his new book on the history of the tenor voice, from its emergence in the 16th century to the phenomenon of the Three Tenors and beyond. With contributions from fellow tenors Ian Bostridge and Robert Tear. Plus the latest research on the politcal life of Leonard Bernstein against the backdrop of the Cold War, and baritone Thomas Hampson discussing his Song of America project. Tom Service talks to tenor John Potter about his book on the history of the tenor voice. | |||
| Debussy, Saariaho And Perceptions Of Classical Music | 20090704 | Tom Service investigates the story of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande through the lives of the women so closely involved in the opera's creation, as a new book examining the work is published. As Kaija Saariaho's opera L'Amour de loin opens at English National Opera, Tom meets the composer and the director Daniele Finzi Pasca. Sound artist Martin Parker discusses his new works for headphones, designed specially for locations around East Neuk in Scotland. Tom explores perceptions of classical music with the help of BBC 6 Music's Chris Hawkins. Tom Service talks to Kaija Saariaho about L'Amour de loin at English National Opera. | |||
| Susan Graham/french Piano Music/neville Cardus/louis Braille | 20090711 | Petroc Trelawny presents the music magazine, with a focus on French music as he meets mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, one of the world's leading interpreters of French song, and finds out about a new book on French piano works by Roy Howat. Also a discussion on music and cricket writer Neville Cardus, and Petroc finds out how Louis Braille's raised-dot system is applied to music notation. Petroc Trelawny talks so mezzo-soprano Susan Graham about her passion for French music. | |||
| Hungary | 20090919 | Tom Service visits Budapest to explore how musical life has changed in Hungary since the fall of communism. The country was important in developments in the months leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Tom explores areas from the legacy of Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly, to state education and the all-pervading influence of Hungarian folk music. With contributions from internationally-renowned Hungarian musicians such as conductor Ivan Fischer, pianist Andras Schiff and soprano Andrea Rost. Tom Service discovers how musical life in Hungary has changed since the fall of communism. | |||
| Vasily Petrenko/kenneth Macmillan/martinu | 20091003 | Tom Service travels to Liverpool to meet Vasily Petrenko, the young Russian maestro who has taken the city by storm since taking up the post of principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006. The orchestra is currently in the midst of recording a complete cycle of Shostakovich symphonies and Petrenko talks about what the composer means to him personally, as well as his future plans for the orchestra. Author Jann Parry comes into the studio to talk about her new biography of dancer and choreographer Kenneth MacMillan; and 50 years after the death of composer Bohuslav Martinu, Tom reassesses the legacy of this surprisingly prolific Czech composer. Tom Service meets Vasily Petrenko, principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic | |||
| Peter Maxwell Davies | 20091010 | Tom Service travels to Scotland's Orkney Islands to visit composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies as he celebrates his 75th birthday. Tom Service travels to the Orkney Islands to visit composer Peter Maxwell Davies. | |||
| Bang On A Can/robert Carl/steve Martland/composers In Residence | 20091017 | Tom Service profiles New York-based Bang On A Can ahead of a UK performance with Steve Reich. This multi-faceted ensemble has been at the forefront of contemporary music across the Atlantic: Tom talks to BOAC's founders and artistic directors - American composers David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe. A new book by Robert Carl analyses and researches the origins of Terry Riley's In C - the Rite of Spring of Minimalism. Tom talks to the author, and discusses the book and the piece's legacy with rock critic and musician Robert Sandall, and composer Anna Meredith. Tom talks to enfant terrible of British music Steve Martland, asking him for his controversial views on the 'British music establishment', on the role of the composer in today's society and on how today's music will be assessed in the future. And there is a look at an online competition seeking to re-define the concept of a composer-in-residence for the digital age - with three finalists having been drawn from over 300 competitors in 120 countries. Featuring a profile of Bang on a Can, a new book on Terry Riley's In C and Steve Martland. | |||
| Cape Town Opera/erik Chisholm/kevin Volans/scottish Opera | 20091024 | Presented by Tom Service. Including Cape Town Opera's UK debut, the life of Scottish composer Erik Chisholm, South African born composer Kevin Volans and Scottish Opera's tour of the Highlands. Including Cape Town Opera's UK debut, and the life of Scottish composer Erik Chisholm. | |||
| 20th Anniversary Of The Fall Of The Berlin Wall | 20091107 | 1989: Twentieth Anniversary Petroc Trelawny presents a special live edition from the studios of Deutschlandradio Kultur to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Petroc Trelawny presents a special edition from Deutschlandradio Kultur in Berlin. | |||
| Richard Rodney Bennett, Leonidas Kavakos | 20091114 | Tom Service talks to composer Richard Rodney Bennett. In a candid interview, he talks about his childhood love of the Great American Songbook, his experience in Paris as Boulez's first pupil and early career as a serialist composer, as well as his movement towards an accessible musical language drawing on his lifelong passion for harmony and song. Ahead of a residency at London's Southbank Centre, Tom meets violinist Leonidas Kavakos. He talks about his concept of 'Source' - the inspiration which lies at the heart of all great music based on folk music, the music of Bach, spirituality and silence. Tom Service talks to composer Richard Rodney Bennett and violinist Leonidas Kavakos. | |||
| Purcell Weekend | 20091121 | As part of a celebration of the 350th anniversry of Henry Purcell's birth, Tom Service explores the composer's influence on British musical life from the 20th century to today, presenting both archive material and specially recorded interviews. | |||
| 20091205 | Petroc Trelawny focuses on three new books: Susie Gilbert's Opera for Everybody: The Story of English National Opera; Sjeng Scheijen's new biography of the great impresario Sergei Diaghilev; and the diaries of the young Benjamin Britten, edited by John Evans. Petroc is joined by tenor Robert Tear, director of opera at the Royal Opera House Elaine Padmore and musicologist David Nice to review them. Petroc Trelawny and guests review three new books about music. | ||||
| Ten Years Of Music | 20091212 | As the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, Tom Service and a panel of experts and artists examine - with the help of some archive material - what has happened in the world of music over the past ten years, highlighting the memorable hits and the disappointing misses as well as analysing how much the musical landscape has changed overall during this quite turbulent time. | |||
| Midlands Christmas Music | 20091219 | Tom Service travels across the English Midlands taking a snapshot of music making in villages, towns and cities as people prepare for Christmas. Visiting Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and the West Midlands, he meets those bringing music to the heart of communities. From brass bands to opera, children's choirs to pub carols, Tom discovers stories about the importance of music in people's lives at this time of year. Radio 3's flagship classical music programme. | |||
| Tchaikovsky Biography/george Benjamin/faure Songs | 20100109 | Tom Service and guests discuss a new biography of Tchaikovsky and Tom talks to composer George Benjamin, who celebrates his fiftieth birthday in 2010. Pianist Graham Johnson comes into the studio to talk about what makes Faure songs unique. Tom Service and guests discuss a new biography of Tchaikovsky. | |||
| 20100116 | Tom Service talks to some of the composers who have been commissioned to write new works for a Mahler symphony cycle about to start in Manchester - with each new piece designed to be performed alongside the original works in a series of concerts running until June. The conductors of the BBC Philharmonic and Halle, Gianandrea Noseda and Mark Elder, talk about the inspiration behind the project. And at the start of a year marking 150 years since Mahler's birth, Norman Lebrecht shares his thoughts on what we can expect to learn afresh about the great composer. Tom also explores the operatic world of Hans Werner Henze, as the BBC Symphony Orchestra perform his 2007 work Phaedra for the Henze Total Immersion day at the Barbican Centre. He talks to critics and performers about the 83-year old German composer's mastery of music for the stage, from his early works in the 1950s through to his latest, Opfergang, which receives its premiere in Rome this month. Tom Service talks to composers writing new works for a Mahler symphony cycle. | ||||
| Alan Gilbert/nico Muhly/dalston Songs/julia Jones | 20100123 | Tom Service talks to two New Yorkers - conductor Alan Gilbert in his first season with the New York Philharmonic, and young composer Nico Muhly. Stories are turned into music in Helen Chadwick's Dalston Songs, and Tom meets British-born conductor Julia Jones ahead of her debut at the Royal Opers House. Presented by Tom Service. Featuring conductor Alan Gilbert and composer Nico Muhly. | |||
| The Gambler/sibelius Biography | 20100206 | Petroc Trelawny explores the world of Prokofiev's action-packed opera The Gambler. Based on Dostoevsky's novel about the loss of hope through the addictive power of gambling, the work is now receiving its first Royal Opera House staging. Petroc talks to director Richard Jones and conductor Antonio Pappano. Petroc also looks at a new biography of composer Jean Sibelius by Glenda Dawn Goss, who has lived and taught in Helsinki for 12 years and now hopes to place the iconic Finnish composer in a new cultural light. Presented by Petroc Trelawny. Featuring a new version of Prokofiev's opera The Gambler. | |||
| Istanbul | 20100213 | Music Matters goes Turkish today. Petroc Trelawny reports from Istanbul on the state of classical music in the city in its year as one of three European Capitals of Culture, and explores the role of culture in Turkey's bid to join the European Union. We hear from those at the forefront of classical music-making in the city, from members of the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra to people involved in privately-funded orchestras, as well as some of Turkey's most important soloists and conductors. Will Istanbul make the most of its opportunity to showcase its cultural riches, or will its year as Capital of Culture amount to little more than a grand arts festival? Producer Emma Bloxham. Petroc Trelawny reports from Istanbul on the state of classical music in the city. | |||
| Christoph Von Dohnanyi/venetian Music/bach Solo Music | 20100220 | On the 50th anniversary of the death of the composer and pianist Erno von Dohnanyi, his grandson and pupil - the conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi - reflects on his career, a life marked by artistic conflict and political turmoil. Music Matters also travels to Venice to check on new scientific research establishing direct links between the acoustics of some of its illustrious churches and the music that was written for them during the Renaissance. And there's an interview with David Ledbetter, author of a new book on J.S. Bach's compositions for solo instruments which, he argues, must be regarded as a whole. We also hear about the subject from one of the world's leading lute players - a specialist on this repertoire - Jakob Lindberg. Presenter/ Tom Service, Producer/ Juan Carlos Jaramillo. Tom Service explores the link between acoustics and music in Venice's churches. | |||
| Scotland Week | 20100306 | As part of Radio 3's focus on Scotland, Music Matters is in Glasgow this week to catch up with the latest from the country’s diverse and vibrant music scene. Tom Service meets mezzo soprano Karen Cargill and soprano Lisa Milne to talk about the experience of performing in front of a home crowd as well as Robin Ticciati, the newly installed principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Plus the role of the bagpipe in Scottish life. Tom Service presents a special programme from Glasgow. class="blq-clearfix"> As part of Radio 3's focus on Scotland, Music Matters this week comes from Glasgow. Tom Service brings together Scottish performers violinist Nicola Benedetti, mezzo soprano Karen Cargill and soprano Lisa Milne to talk about the experience of performing in front of a home crowd. The newly installed principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Robin Ticciati - a Londoner in his mid twenties who counts his mentors as Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Colin Davies - discusses his plans for the ensemble in cities across Scotland. And the role of the bagpipe in Scottish life. How the pipes which are played across the world have become inextricably linked with a nation's identity. Presenter - Tom Service. Producer - Jeremy Evans. | |||
| Chopin | 20100313 | Pleasenotetheprogrammeorder:PlayingChopin(KennethHamilton),MaurizioPollini,BritishLibraryExhibition,KrystianZimerman |
In Music Matters this week Tom Service celebrates the 200th anniversary of Chopin’s birth, meeting two of the world’s greatest pianists Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman to find out how their individual journeys with Chopin have developed over the years, and how his music has changed their lives. Pianists Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman talk about the music of Chopin. |