Composer of the Week Podcast

Donald Macleod explores Carl Maria von Weber’s city lives and those dramas and scandals survived throughout. Weber’s relationship with European cities mirrored his life and work, from the restless wandering of his earlier years, to the way his life changed after the success of his opera Der Freischütz. And in his final months he travelled to London to compose and produce another major opera, Obero...

This week Donald Macleod lifts the lid on the life and music of Anton Bruckner, focusing upon different themes to better understand both the man and the music. Anton Bruckner was one of the great symphonists, and yet recognition for his talents as a composer came late in life. He was an Austrian by birth, and was noted for his improvisatory skills at the organ. In fact, he received invitations to...

Donald Macleod explores the work of Franz Schubert, focusing on five distinct phases in the composer’s life. And afterlife. We start in 1815, the year in which Schubert turned 18 and was a reluctant schoolmaster still living under his father’s roof. Although he was in many ways unhappy and constrained by his circumstances, he was still prodigiously prolific. In the years after 1820, we see him spr...

Donald Macleod explores the life and works of legendary organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude. Buxtehude was a musical star in his own time, whom Johann Sebastian Bach walked almost 300 miles just to meet and learn from. Yet, the facts of Buxtehude’s own story are far from straight forward. Doubts remain over so many details in the composer’s life. We can’t even be sure when or where he was bor...

Donald explores composer Claudio Monteverdi, one of the most important figures in the development of Western music. As a composer of both secular and sacred music, over the course of his career he worked for court, church and was one of the key figures in the development of opera. Across this week of programmes, Donald Macleod tracks Monteverdi’s career across three cities, from promising child pr...

Donald Macleod explores Beethoven’s life as a set of themes and variations, beginning with his very first musical excursions in the form in the early 1790s. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed piano music in the form of themes and variations across his entire career - from his earliest published work to his late, titanic “Diabelli Variations”, lasting nearly an hour. And Beethoven’s life can...

Donald Macleod explores Ravel’s meteoric rise to fame and early chamber music - including a long-lost violin sonata, and a unique arrangement for four ondes martenots. The music of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) is much loved for its remarkable orchestral colours and brilliant virtuosity, heard vividly in works like Bolero, Daphnis and Chloe and Gaspard de la Nuit. But his chamber music, intimate, crys...

Donald Macleod begins the second leg of his “Tour de France” in three weeks focused on French composers across the centuries. This week, Donald introduces us to the remarkable life story and unsung musical innovations of Hélène de Montgeroult. There aren’t many composers who can claim that music saved their life – at least, in the literal sense. But for Hélène de Montgeroult, it was her astounding...

Donald Macleod begins three weeks focused on French composers, in honour of this month’s ‘Tour de France’ cycle race. "I have followed the theatre since the age of twelve", so said Rameau to a young composer who wrote to him for advice. It's an intriguing insight into a man who didn't produce his first opera until the age of fifty. Quite why it took him that long isn't clear. Up to that point he h...

Donald Macleod surveys one of the most famed Spanish composers of the Renaissance, Tomás Luis de Victoria. Tomás Luis de Victoria has become the most famed Spanish composer of the Renaissance and ranks alongside Palestrina and Lassus as one of the greatest composers of the 16th century. He was a singer, organist, scholar, teacher, and a priest but it was in composition that he made his most signif...

Donald Macleod explores Dvořák’s American years and uncovers what he achieved during his time there. Antonín Dvořák became the first Czech composer to achieve global fame. His gift for transforming the folk styles of his native Bohemia into richly Romantic classical music won him admirers far beyond his homeland. Consequently, Dvořák was approached to leave Europe and serve as director of the newl...

Donald Macleod explores Handel’s crucial relationship with the British monarchy, and how he and the Georgian Kings helped forge a new sense of British culture and identity. What could be more quintessentially British than a rousing chorus of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus? Or his anthem Zadok the Priest, which has been performed at every British coronation since 1727? Yet, though the composer became w...

This month, Donald Macleod takes a new look at one of Britain’s best loved composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season - marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Over the course of four weeks and twenty programmes, Donald will be delving into Vaughan Williams' life story and work in intriguing detail, and he’ll also be talking to some of th...

This month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at one of Britain’s most popular composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season - marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Alongside programmes which delve into Vaughan Williams' life story and music in fascinating depth, over the course of four weeks and twenty programmes, Donald will also be talk...

All this month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at this much loved composer as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season, celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth. He’ll unpack Vaughan Williams' life story in fascinating detail over the course of four weeks and leading authorities on the composer will join him to share their new perspectives. They'll be exploring some of the overlo...

This month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of the UK’s most significant music figures, as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan Williams Today' season, marking the 150th anniversary of his birth. Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of the UK's most significant musical figures. This month, Donald Macleod takes a fresh look at this much loved composer as part of Radio 3's 'Vaughan W...

Donald Macleod and guest Sarah Willis explore some of the greatest “one-hit wonders” in classical music - Johann Pachelbel, Engelbert Humperdinck, Paul Dukas, Gregorio Allegri, Henryk Górecki, Tomaso Albinoni, Giovanni Pergolesi, Pietro Mascagni, Carl Orff and Julius Fučík. Classical music is littered with composers who are famous for just a single piece of music. In a special week of Composer of...

Donald Macleod talks to Peter and Emilie Bernstein about their father, award winning Hollywood film composer Elmer Bernstein, who wrote for films during the 1980s and 1990s. Born in 1922, Elmer Bernstein created the music for more than 150 films. His big break was one of Hollywood's biggest pictures, Cecil B DeMille's swan song, the 1955 biblical epic, "The Ten Commandments". At the same time as w...

Donald Macleod explores Debussy's life as he approaches his thirties. Donald Macleod explores Debussy's life as he approaches his thirties, a challenging period both personally and musically. One of the twentieth century's most original minds, the French composer Claude Debussy has had a profound influence on the course of music. Born in 1862, his precocious talent gained him admittance to the pre...

Donald Macleod explores Henriëtte Bosmans' rise to fame as both a pianist and a composer. Henriëtte Bosmans seemed destined for a life in music from the moment of her birth, in 1895. Her father was the principal solo cellist in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra and her mother a piano teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Bosmans developed a flourishing career and won international success wit...

Donald Macleod explores the richly evocative musical landscape of Ottorino Respighi This week, we’re invited to explore the richly evocative musical landscape of Ottorino Respighi. The colourful inventiveness of his most popular music was often inspired by images, places or stories, like his trio of ‘Tone Poems’: Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome, and Roman Festivals. These works and others were fr...

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Edward Gregson and Alan Bush This week, Donald Macleod is in conversation with British composer, Edward Gregson, who offers a fascinating window into his own story and also the life and work of his mentor, Alan Bush. We’ll see how both composers have made significant contributions to Britain’s musical story, and we explore the events that led to the ver...

Donald Macleod explores Elgar's own belief that he was an outsider from British society Elgar is the composer we turn to in times of national celebration, of pride (Pomp and Circumstance Marches) and of public grief (Nimrod). He mingled with royalty and was made a knight of the realm, seemingly a pillar of the Edwardian and early 20th Century British establishment. And yet, for most of his life he...

Donald Macleod lifts the veil on neglected yet prolific composer, Marianna Martines Marianna Martines lived and worked in Vienna alongside some of classical music’s greatest names. She was tutored by Haydn, played piano duets with Mozart, corresponded with Padre Martini and Farinelli, and was frequently invited to perform for the Imperial Court. For nearly forty years, she was mentored by Metastas...

Donald Macleod reflects on Franz Liszt's Hungarian story - he spent little time there and couldn't speak the language but just how important to his music was the land of his birth? Music Featured: Hungarian Rhapsody No 8 in F sharp minor Die Drei Zigeuner Symphonic Poem: From the Cradle to the Grave Fantasy on Motifs from Beethoven's 'Ruinen von Athen' Variation on a Theme of Diabelli Hungarian Rh...