Classical For Everyone

There may have been wine involved when the decision to put together a show of music for pets was first discussed. But when I was presented with art for the episode featuring a the surprisingly gifted cavoodle, Bob; it was too late to go back. So, music for pets it is. But I don't imagine you lining up your Spots, Tiggers, Fidos, Nuggets and Bobs for them to listen appreciatively to your audio devi...

Who are 'the other Russians'? Well, I've played a fair bit of music by Russian and Soviet era composers in the show. Tchaikovsky got two whole episodes and there has been relatively frequent appearances by Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. But there are a quite a number of other composers more than worthy of a good listen who I have largely ignored… 'the other...

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few m...

He was taught by Antonio Salieri and his music was admired by Ludwig van Beethoven… but he enjoyed very little success in his short lifetime. It would take decades after his death for his music to make its way onto concert stages… and for him to become one of the best loved composers who ever lived. If you are new to his music I hope that over the next hour and a bit I'll give you a sense of why t...

This episode features a living musician, still very much in his prime… the Dutch cellist, Pieter Wispelwey. So, what prompted me to choose him? Well, a few things. I've been a fan for a long while and have been lucky enough to hear him play a number of times over the last three decades. And about 18 months ago the record company Channel Classics released a big box of CDs of recordings he made for...

Music from and about Seville, the city of Carmen's tobacco factory and Figaro's barber shop; the city of flamenco and fiestas; the city where more operas are set than any other; and the city where almost eight centuries of Spanish dominance does not seem to have been able to erase the sense of the proximity of North Africa and the cultural heritage of the Moorish world. Music by Isaac Albeniz, Joa...

Much music has been inspired by love, passion or obsession…  but only in a handful of cases has the person who was the inspiration… the muse… become publicly linked to a work. Here are the stories of six of them… Alma Schindler, Josephine Brunsvik, Kamila Stösslová, Peter Pears, Clara Wieck and Mathilde Wesendonck. And the music they inspired… by Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leos Janacek,...

Composers have drawn inspiration from the sea for centuries but only with the rise of the larger orchestras of the 1800s did they get the palate needed to create fully persuasive depictions of it. So, apart from one piece for solo piano, major orchestral works are what you will hear in this episode... 'The Sea and Sinbad's Ship' from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Sheherazade', an unfairly short inter...

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937)  is arguably the most beloved composer France has given the world… able to take classical and pre-classical forms, absorb the harmonic colours of Impressionism, draw on the dance traditions of his Basque mother's heritage, and infuse his later work with the energy of early jazz. All of it synthesised into a language that is quite distinctly his own. In this episode… a s...

Recent Discoveries Two T his episode is the second one called 'recent discoveries'. And that should only be taken in the very personal sense of 'recent discoveries' for me. Some of it is indeed recent but in addition to music written in the last few years, there are a couple of pieces that date back to the early and mid-20 th century so they were well and truly discovered before I encountered them...

Music for the hour before dawn. Which is in no way intended to be too prescriptive… the episode can be listened to any time… but I hope it is music that has a calmness and perhaps a contemplative tone that suits the hour when there is a glow in the sky, things are at their most quiet… and you have the world to yourself. The music is by Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Luys Milan, Josef...

Time for some music from one of the oldest instruments in the orchestra. True to the Old French word its English name came from… 'hautbois' with 'haut' meaning both high and loud and 'bois' meaning wood… the oboe found its place as the earliest woodwind instrument through its high range and penetrating volume. And whilst it can be piercing when required, it can also be playful, can manage a soarin...

Music written by people related to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. That may seem an odd way put a show together. If you were to make a playlist of the greatest hits of people related to Taylor Swift, it would be a very short list. But if you ever wanted to get into a complicated debate about nature versus nurture, the Bach clan of what is now northern Germany would be an interesting place to s...

Why a conductor? The outcomes of the complicated relationships conductors have with orchestras and ensembles, with record companies and the public; and with composers living and dead, are in themselves interesting… but for the purposes of this show it is the recorded legacy that matters and Antal Dorati's ranks amongst the finest of his generation. Dorati (1906 - 1988) was a Hungarian Jew who was...

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few m...

I was listening to the conductor Joshua Weilerstein's podcast 'Sticky Notes' the other day. It was an episode on Ludwig van Beethoven's 8th string quartet. He was playing the second section and he described the music as having a sense of 'consolation'… and there was something about that which really struck me. So I started looking into music connected to the idea of consolation but the more I delv...

The relationship between classical music and William Shakespeare's writing is one of the longest and most productive partnerships in the history of either art form. Composers have been drawn to Shakespeare's plays for four centuries and there is a vast amount of music to choose from. For this episode I have nine pieces, but only from four plays which suggests that some of the plays are perhaps mor...

Haydn's music is in no way neglected or forgotten but I wonder if, because he lived a long life, during which he achieved significant success and seemed free of personality disorders, he is a little taken for granted. The creative artist dying at the height of his or her powers, or never recognised in their lifetime, or plagued by psychosis all seem to have an extra attraction for us. And Haydn wa...

I did an episode of music by women composers back in November based around a CD Box release by the record label 'Brilliant Classics' and called it 'Brilliant Women'. No prizes for imagination but it was clear and accurate. So, I am going to keep things simple and call this show 'More Brilliant Women'. I could also call it 'music I am genuinely extremely excited to play for you that just happens to...

Here is the third Classical For Everyone podcast featuring the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I've done an episode on the music Mozart wrote in the last year of his life, 1791, back in June and one focused on 1786 last October. This one is still going to use the 'year in the musical life' theme but it will be a little looser… covering the year or so on each side of the pivotal moment in Mozart'...

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few m...

Much of the 20 th century orchestral music that today dominates concert halls and recording studios started as music for ballets. And the best of it started with the Ballets Russes company; which was largely the creation of one man… the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. It is hard to think of another instance where one man, who was not a composer, has had such an outsize influence on what has c...

It's Classical For Everyone's 1 st Birthday, so here's a personal favourite. This was the first time a choir and soloists had been added to a 'symphony'. Choral and orchestral music had been combined before but at the time there were quite rigid expectations of what a 'symphony' should be. That said there was a fascination amongst some parts of the Viennese audience with the way Ludwig van Beethov...

If from time to time you happen to listen to a podcast with the subtitle 'Five Hundred Years Of incredible Music' then it would be a reasonable expectation to hear some five hundred year old music. I've played a few pieces from the 1500s and 1600s but as you might expect the focus of the show has been sort of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi onwards… call it from the early 17...

On the day this episode is released, the American composer Philip Glass celebrates his 89 th birthday. In a career now lasting well over five decades he has somehow achieved two extraordinarily rare things for a contemporary composer of classical music... a prolific amount of creative output and a degree of broad popularity. For the next hour and a quarter please enjoy a quick survey of five decad...