Composer of the Week Podcast

Donald Macleod delves into the life and work of Samuel Wesley. Samuel Wesley was a child prodigy, and it was the older composer William Boyce who said of the boy that he was the English Mozart, and that he had dropped down from heaven. Wesley’s star speedily ascended to the heights from an early age as both performer and composer, but with issues surrounding his often extreme character, and also h...

Donald Macleod looks for clues in Beethoven’s early life that point towards the great man he would become. All through 2020, Donald Macleod takes an unprecedented deep dive into the compelling story and extraordinary music of Ludwig van Beethoven. In this uniquely ambitious series, told across 125 episodes of Composer of the Week, Donald puts us inside Beethoven’s world and explores his hopes, str...

Donald Macleod explores the myriad influences on the life’s work of Karol Szymanowski. The reshaping of Europe at the end of the First World War had a defining effect on Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. As Europe was being reapportioned, the comfortable world he’d known up to that point disappeared for good. His family’s comfortable and cultured life disappeared, their assets wiped out by the Oc...

Donald Macleod asks conductor Marin Alsop and historian Simon Schama why Beethoven's life and work still matter today. All through 2020, as part of Radio 3's Beethoven Unleashed season, Donald Macleod takes an unprecedented deep dive into the compelling story and extraordinary music of Ludwig van Beethoven. In this uniquely ambitious series, told across 125 episodes of Composer of the Week, Donald...

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of George Walker, in conversation with his son Gregory. When Rosa King Walker announced to her five-year-old son George that, like it or not, he was going to have piano lessons, she can scarcely have been aware that she was dispatching him on a lifelong journey in music. He made his concerto début at the age of 23 playing Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto,...

Donald Macleod delves into the international successes of Arcangelo Corelli. Arcangelo Corelli was something of a European phenomenon not only during his lifetime, but also after his death. His compositional output was not large, but the development of the printing press enabled his music to be widely circulated. Musically, he bridged the gap between the Baroque and the Classical periods, and is s...

Donald Macleod explores the music of Johannes Brahms through his close relationships. Brahms was a deeply private man and very guarded about his life, his friends and his feelings. Across this week, Donald goes “Behind Closed Doors” with Brahms to discover what really made him tick. He finds friends, mentors and lovers along the way who together help solve the enigma of the composer. We’ll hear ab...

Donald Macleod surveys the life, music and quirks of Australian composer, Percy Grainger Donald Macleod begins this week episode about Percy Grainger by tracing the composer's ambivalent relationship with his primary musical instrument, the piano, and the ever-present influence of his mother. He then follows Grainger to London, where his composing took second place to performing, leading to concer...

Donald Macleod illustrates Leos Janacek’s inner tensions through five key relationships One of the most original voices of the twentieth century, Leoš Janáček was a composer, musical theorist, folklorist and teacher. Born in 1854 in the Moravian village of Hukvaldy, which was then part of the Austrian Empire, in his youth German was the language of government, education and social influence. Havin...

Donald Macleod charts the extraordinary life of composer and jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams’ music stands out from the crowd because, as Duke Ellington recognised, “her writing and performing have always been just a little ahead throughout her career.” A prolific composer and arranger, she was also a gifted pianist. A master of blues, boogie woogie, stride, swing and be-bop, Will...

Donald Macleod journeys through some of the contrasting sides of Sir Malcolm Arnold and his music Sir Malcolm Arnold was a prolific composer, writing music in many different genres ranging from nine symphonies and over twenty concertos, to chamber music, music for brass bands and nearly one hundred and twenty film scores. These many works for film include classics such as Hobson’s Choice, Whistle...

Donald Macleod explores the life, music and perseverance of Antonín Dvořák. Antonín Dvořák was no spring chicken when he found success as a composer. He was in his early thirties before he made his mark in his native Czech Republic, despite composing from a young age. Donald Macleod follows Dvořák as he attempts to win over successive audiences: from Prague to Vienna, England to America, before ev...

Donald Macleod talks to Sir Harrison Birtwistle about his life, inspiration and music. This week Donald Macleod meets Sir Harrison Birtwistle, described as “the most forceful and uncompromisingly original composer of his generation.” We hear his major compositions, broadly in chronological order, and reveal the preoccupations and processes behind a singular music imagination. To begin, we’ll hear...

Donald Macleod delves into the life and work of piano prodigy Muzio Clementi. Muzio Clementi was one of the 18th and 19th century’s most revered musicians – a star performer, a composer admired by Czerny, Beethoven and Chopin and an astute musical businessman. However, he also had his detractors in his own time and history hasn’t been as kind to him as to the greater names of his time – Haydn, Moz...

Donald Macleod explores the music of Sergei Prokofiev and tells the story of his American dream. After a series of revolutions in his native Russia, the young composer Sergei Prokofiev made the decision to leave his homeland and to head to the United States in search of fame and fortune. His years in the United States would turn into some of the most tumultuous of his life. Across this week, Donal...

Donald Macleod explores the music and life of Gustav Mahler through five key themes. This week’s episode begins with an exploration of love - a potent force in Mahler’s creative armoury, but, for Mahler’s wife Alma, it came at a heavy price. Mahler was also obsessed with human mortality, but that became all too real with the tragic death of his daughter Maria. We’ll also hear about the composer’s...

Donald Macleod explores the music and life of Henry Purcell. Frustratingly little is known about the tragically abbreviated life of the composer who is arguably Britain’s greatest, Henry Purcell. Purcell kept no diary of his own – at least none has survived – and if he was active as a letter-writer, precious little of his correspondence has come down to us. Our evidence for the facts of the compos...

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of Franz Schubert. It’s hard to think of a composer more gregarious than Schubert, and further removed from the image of the reclusive genius, closeted away in his artistic ivory tower, creating peerless masterpieces in splendid isolation. From his days at Vienna’s Stadtkonvikt, the Imperial Catholic boarding school that offered the best general and music...

Donald Macleod is joined by William Lyons to explore Guillaume Dufay's life and music. The beauty, originality and technical mastery of Guillaume Dufay’s music illustrate why the Florentine ruler Piero de’Medici gave him the epithet “the greatest ornament of our age”. Undoubtedly he is one of the 15th century’s most distinctive voices. He was in his late 70s by the time he died in 1474; a long lif...

Donald Macleod explores Edward Elgar’s music through the locations that inspired him. Worcester-born, with his roots in the beautiful English countryside around Hereford and the Malverns yet drawn to the bright lights of London, English composer Edward Elgar moved house a lot. He lived in over 25 residences in his lifetime, stayed with friends, travelled often for work and pleasure in the UK, Euro...

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of Antonio Vivaldi. As a virtuoso violinist, as a teacher, as a priest and as a prolific composer, Antonio Vivaldi was a key figure in Baroque Italy and remains one of the most famous names in classical music today. In this episode, Donald begins by exploring Vivaldi’s intrinsic link with his birth city, Venice, through a series of images. Next, he examin...

Donald Macleod talks to composer James MacMillan as he celebrates his 60th birthday One of the UK’s most prolific living composers, James MacMillan was born on the 16th of July 1959 in Ayrshire. His grandfather introduced him to brass band music and his primary teacher taught him the recorder. The combination of these musical experiences sparked a lifelong passion in James to make and create music...

Donald Macleod explores Carl Nielsen’s worldview through his music. You’ll find a clue as to Carl Nielsen’s character in any number of photographs that show him smiling; they include snaps of him taken as a young man in which he’s cheekily pulling funny faces for the camera. They’re far removed from the formal portraiture one might expect of Denmark’s foremost composer. As well as a good sense of...

Donald Macleod tells the story of the loss - and later rediscovery - of CPE Bach’s music Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was many things in his lifetime: composer, virtuoso harpsichord player and improviser extraordinaire, author, businessman – publishing his own music – biographer – of his father and other members of his family, and teacher. This week we look at CPE Bach's music and reputation in the l...

Donald Macleod explores “the poet of the piano”, Fryderyk Chopin. Donald starts this week’s episode with a look at how Chopin’s Polish heritage shaped his music. Although he left the country at the age of 20, dance forms like the polonaise and mazurka left a strong mark on his writing. Next, we catch fleeting glimpses of the composer through his letters, and his relationship with his instrument, t...