Episoder

  • To the uninitiated, the conductor can seem superfluous – simply waving their arms in the air while the orchestra does the hard work. But the art of conducting is fundamental to a great orchestra’s sound and identity. Jeremy Pound speaks to BBC Symphony Orchestra principal conductor Sakari Oramo about this mysterious vocation.

    This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen.
     
    Musical Excerpt
    Dora Pejacevic Symphony, Op. 41 – IV. Allegro Appassionato (opening)
    BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo
    Chandos CHAN 5299
    https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205299
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • The team from BBC Music Magazine demystify the world of classical music through down-to-earth discussion and lively interviews. Want to know what an orchestral conductor actually does? Or how to write an effective soundtrack? Then this is the podcast for you!
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • Manglende episoder?

    Klik her for at forny feed.

  • This week, we chat to the multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Cosmo Sheldrake from his home in Dorset. True to form, he recorded his side of the conversation outdoors in the countryside, so there are quite a few birds and woodland creatures keeping us company throughout this episode. He explains how he records the most intimate, low-level sounds of animals, fungi, rain and even tree sap, and how he goes about recontextualising them in his music. He also tells us all about his musical childhood with his mother, who was trained in Mongolian overtone chanting and who had previously lived and travelled with the pioneering electronic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.
    Links:
    Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake https://www.amazon.co.uk/Entangled-Life-Worlds-Change-Futures/dp/B084T51RCY/
    The Mystic Spiral: Journey of the Soul by Jill Purce https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mystic-Spiral-Journey-Soul-Imagination/dp/0500810052
    Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music by Dust to Digital https://dust-digital.com/pages/excavated-shellac-an-alternate-history-of-the-world-s-music-1907-1967-tracklist
    Smithsonian Folkways (ethnographic recordings and folk from around the world) https://folkways.si.edu/
    Listen to all the music featured in this episode on our Spotify playlist:
    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZoAZxQIlWVfH1dsiP5GAV?si=a1187808f9334992
    Music featured:
    Cuckoo Song (Cosmo Sheldrake, Wake Up Calls)
    Teo (Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain)
    Wriggle (Cosmo Sheldrake, The Much Much How How and I)
    Rich (Cosmo Sheldrake, Pelicans We)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • This week, we meet the star Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński to discuss the laborious process of recording previously undiscovered works, his passion for breakdancing and the music he listens to while he’s on the move. He also tells us about why he believes the post-pandemic concert format works surprisingly well, and why he prefers listening to ambient music when he travels as opposed to music by the likes of Palestrina and Tallis.   
    Listen to all the music featured in this episode on our Spotify playlist:
    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7BIiAN1ge4UruD9bKO0VFb?si=1e27450900554e0f
    Music featured:
    Victoria: O Magnum Mysterium (Choir of Westminster Cathedral/David Hill)
    Mozart: The Magic Flute (Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Mackerras)
    Hasse: Sanctus Petrus et Sancta Maria Magdalena (Jakub Józef Orliński, Il Pomo d’Oro/Maxim Emelyanychev)
    Handel: Rinaldo: Aria. Sibilar gli angui d’Aletto (Argante) (Christopher Purves, Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski discusses his recent recording of music by Stanchinsky (out now on Ondine), discovering the music of Bacewicz and his downtime during the pandemic has seen him fall in love with the piano all over again.
    Recordings featured:
    Stanchinsky: Piano Sonata in E flat minor (Peter Jablonski)
    Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Yuri Boukoff, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/Ljubomir Romansky)
    Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Martha Argerich , LSO/Claudio Abbado)
    Chopin: Mazurka, Op. 6 No. 4 (Peter Jablonski)
    Bacewicz: Children’s Suite – VII: Gavotte (Morta Grigaliūnaitė)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • Reviews editor Michael Beek sits down for a chat with Hannah Rankin. The professional boxer and classically trained bassoonist discusses dividing her time between the worlds of sport and music, choosing the perfect ‘walk-out’ music for when she enters the ring and some of her most cherished works to play and listen to.
    Recordings featured:
    Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Philadelphia Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski)
    Bill Conti: Rocky – Gonna Fly Now (DeEtta Little, Nelson Pigford (vocals); Studio Orchestra/Bill Conti)
    Pierné: Solo de Concert, Op. 35 (Karen Geoghegan (bassoon), Philip Fisher (piano))
    Mozart: Bassoon Concerto in B flat major, K 191 – Rondo (Stepan Turnovsky (bassoon); Vienna Mozart Academy/Johannes Wildner)
    Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel – Overture (Philharmonia Orchestra/Charles Mackerras)
    Brahms: Hungarian Dances (Maxim Vengerov (violin), Vag Papian (piano); Virtuosi/Mikhail Parhamovsky)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • British clarinettist Julian Bliss has an extremely wide breadth of listening tastes, from heavy metal to core classical via jazz and funk. In this episode, he tells us about his passion for Rachmaninov and Oscar Petersen and why he thinks wind band music should be taken more seriously in the UK. He also reflects on the last year of lockdown and what it meant for his practice and approach to performance.
    Recordings featured:
    Stranger on the Shore (Acker Bilk)
    Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 (Martha Argerich, Berlin Philharmonic/Claudio Abbado)
    Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Alexandre Tharaud, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Alexander Vedernikov)
    The Masquerade is Over (Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley)
    Eric Whitacre: Equus
    Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Maria Callas, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano/Herbert von Karajan)
    Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (London Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink)
    Glass: Etude No. 2 (Vikingur Olafsson)
    Invaders Must Die (The Prodigy)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • We speak to Radio 3 broadcaster and producer Georgia Mann, who recently took over the reins on the station’s morning programme, Essential Classics. She tells us all about the new musical discoveries she’s made so far in the job, her experiences of live music during lockdown, starting out as a singer in Gilbert & Sullivan musicals and how to be articulate live on radio when a performance blows you away.
    Recordings featured:
    Miles Davis: Lift to the Scaffold
    Trad: Blow the wind southerly (Sheku Kanneh-Mason)
    Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 8 ‘Pathétique’ (Igor Levit)
    Peggy Granville-Hicks: Sinfonia Pacifica (Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra/Richard Mills)
    Ruth Gipps: Symphony No. 2 (BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Rumon Gamba)
    Hannah Peel: Sunrise Through the Dusty Nebula
    Bach: Cello Suite No. 1: Prelude (Yo-Yo Ma)
    Rossini: The Barber of Seville – Largo et Factotum (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Vittorio Gui & Sesto Bruscantini)
    Verdi: Requiem: Dies Irae (London Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis
    Ella Fitzgerald: Cheek to Cheek
    Serge Gainsbourg: Les goemons
    Mozart: Laudate Dominum (Felicity Palmer, Choir of St John’s College Cambridge, The Wren Orchestra/George Guest)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • The Montenegrin guitarist talks about falling in love with the guitar in Montenegro, ‘growing up’ in London, his favourite guitar to play, the healing power of Mozart and his latest album The Moon & The Forest.
    Recordings featured:
    Joby Talbot: Ink Dark Moon – Luminoso (Miloš Karadaglić)
    Howard Shore: The Forest (Miloš Karadaglić)
    Albéniz: Suite Española – Asturias (Andres Segovia)
    JS Bach: Suite No. 4 in E major BWV 1006a - Prelude (John Williams)
    Mahler: Symphony No. 5 - Finale (Vienna Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein)
    Mozart: String Quartet No. 2 in D major, K 155 (Armida Quartett)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • This week, we have the delightful composer-librettist duo Héloise Werner and Octavia Bright on the podcast. The pair worked together on a one-woman opera The Other Side of the Sea and spoke to us from their respective London homes at the end of the UK lockdown, discussing themes of grief and isolation, as well as the role music plays in their lives and the ever-changing emotional responses they’ve had to it over the last year. They also share stories of carnival music and the human compulsion to dance.
    Music featured:
    Héloïse Werner: Coronasolfège for 6 (The Gesualdo Six)
    Britten: Peter Grimes (Bergen Philharmonic/Edward Gardner)
    Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto (Yehudi Menuhin, Philharmonia Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler)
    Mozart: Clarinet Concerto (Sabine Meyer, Berlin Philharmonic/Claudio Abbado)
    Bach: St Matthew Passion (Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/Stephen Cleobury)
    Bach: Violin Partita No. 3 in E (Christian Tetzlaff)
    Rebirth Brass Band: Do Whatcha Wanna
    Teresa Cristina: Para Não Contrariar Você
    Beverly Glenn-Copeland: Ever New
    Errollyn Wallen: Concerto Grosso (Chineke! Orchestra/Anthony Parnther)
    Megan Thee Stallion: Body
    Beyoncé: Sweet Dreams
    Listen to all the music featured in this episode on our Spotify playlist:
    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4JfJPzQGlqYTOxmuG3tZhn?si=1b5fcf5e26924b30
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • Author and Indian classical singer Amit Chaudhuri talks to BBC Music Magazine about his relationship with western and Indian classical music, the allegories and narratives that can be created within music and his experience of working as the librettist on Ravi Shankar’s opera Sukanya.
    His latest book, Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music, was published recently by Faber, and is part memoir/part essay, focused on his enduring love for Indian classical music and the power of the voice.
    Music featured:
    Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Chile Blues
    Ustad Dilshad Khan: Raga Todi
    Kishori Amonkar: Raga Shuddh Kalyan – Khyal In Drut Teental
    Pandit Bhimsen Joshi: Sun Surat Rangili
    Vishmadev Chatterjee: Bamana De Bata
    Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan)
    Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 7 (Jonathan Biss)
    Ravi Shankar: Sukanya (London Philharmonic Orchestra/David Murphy)
    Listen to all the music featured in this episode on our Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3j2hzTzleS7cTs6GdIyDwa?si=dfca6ff7b9354707
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • As he turns 70 years old, the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber tells us about his remarkable life in music, from growing up in one of Britain’s most famous musical families to performing on the world’s finest stages and his unending passion for helping to create tomorrow’s great players.
    Music featured:
    Shostakovich: Cello Concerto (Mstislav Rostropovich, Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy)
    Bernstein: Mambo (Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel)
    Elgar: Cello Concerto (Julian Lloyd Webber, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Yehudi Menuhin)
    Mozart: Symphony No. 40 (Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner)
    Listen to all the music featured in this episode in our Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/66e9JwhBV5O8zYtbiamw06?si=YzaczmkxQi2M-MXiB3P7aw
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • We speak to DJ, broadcaster and presenter Edith Bowman about her fanatical love of film music and the scores that have shaped who she is today. A former Radio 1 DJ, Bowman has spent the last few years presenting the Soundtracking podcast, in which she talks to directors, actors and composers about the use of music in their films.
    She tells us about the origins of this podcast and the musical discoveries she’s made through it, the scores she returns to time and time again, and the opportunities lockdown has afforded to independent cinema.
    Recordings featured:
    ‘Hand Covers Bruise’ from The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)
    ‘Just Us’ from Soul (Trent Reznor and Atticus)
    ‘Welcome to Lunar Industries’ from Moon (Clint Mansell)
    ‘Bathroom Dance’ from Joker (Hildur Guðnadóttir)
    ‘Cavatina’ from The Deer Hunter (John Williams)
    ‘The Way of the Ghost’ from Ghost of Tsushima (Ilan Eshkeri)
    Listen to all the music featured in this episode in our Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4UztfCiREQVMqDOV1oi4mA?si=i73QlVMETeG3tXDT8n6gUQ
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • Introducing the third season of the Music to my Ears podcast, where we sit down with artists, musicians, broadcasters and writers to find out about the music that has made them who they are today. This season, we hear from guests including DJ Edith Bowman, who tells us about the power of watching films with live orchestras; musician Como Sheldrake, who describes the process of recording the sounds of nature with ultra-high sensitive microphones; and cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, who shared stories of his bohemian musical upbringing alongside his brother Andrew. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • In this week's episode of the Music to my Ears podcast, we speak to Paul Morley, the pop journalist and musician and, more recently, classical music devotee . 
    Brought up in Stockport, Paul cut his teeth in music journalism in Manchester. He then went on to write for the New Musical Express, where he rapidly became one of the paper’s most respected critics, leading to regular appearances on radio and TV.
    In 1983, Morley and producer Trevor Horn founded ZTT Records, which soon hit both the top of the charts and the headlines with the release of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome album. In the same year, they also formed the group The Art of Noise, which had a string of hits including a cover of Prince’s Kiss, featuring Tom Jones.
    In more recent years, however, Paul has turned his attention towards classical music, and in 2010 took part in a BBC Four documentary called The Art of Composing, which saw him study at the Royal Academy of Music for a year. In 2020, he charted his developing interest in a new book called A Sound Mind: How I Fell In Love with Classical Music, which has now been published by Bloomsbury.
    Paul talked to BBC Music Magazine’s deputy editor Jeremy Pound over Zoom during the second period of lockdown in England, and told him how, from his pop and rock background, he gradually fell under classical music’s spell.
    Recordings featured:
    Brian Eno: Fullness of Wind (Variation on Pachelbel's Canon in D)
    Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande: 'Je les tiens dans le mains'
    London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle
    LSO Live LSO0790
    Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 2: I. Overture
    Borodin Quartet
    Decca 4834159
    Janáček: Words Fail
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • In this week's episode of the Music to my Ears podcast, we talk to the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, violinist and producer Caroline Shaw about the music that underscores her day-to-day life and how she balances the various facets of her fascinating career. Orange, her album of string quartets recorded and performed by the Attacca Quartet, was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award earlier this year. Freya Parr spoke to Caroline over Zoom from her home in Amherst, Massachusetts.
    Recordings featured:
    Verdi: La Traviata ‘Dite alle giovine’ ­– Anna Netrebko, Vienna Philharmonic/Carlo Rizzi (DG 475933)
    Tune-Yards: Water Fountain
    Bach: Partita No. 2: V. Chaconne (Itzhak Perlman (violin) – Warner Classics 2564612981
    Bach: Brandenburg Concerto (Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) (Erato 5615522)
    The Bangles: Eternal Flame
     
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • This week, reviews editor Michael Beek sits down with the Russian-British conductor Vasily Petrenko. Vasily recently said farewell as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic and is about to embark on final season as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
    Speaking from his father’s home in St. Petersburg, Vasily talks about returning to the condtuctor’s podium after months in lockdown, saying goodbye to the RLPO and his new appointment with the Royal Philharmonic in 2021.
    Recordings featured:
    Bernstein: West Side Story – Mambo (New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein)
    JS Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I – Prelude No. 1 in C major (Sviatoslav Richter, piano)
    Sounds of Nature
    Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B flat major, Op. 133 (arr. string orchestra) (Amsterdam Sinfonietta/Peter Oundjian)
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • This week, reviews editor Michael Beek sits down with the award-winning British film and television composer Debbie Wiseman OBE (Wolf Hall, Father Brown, Wilde) for a chat about her work. Debbie shares insights into her methods, conducting, her favourite music to listen to and a sneak preview of her latest film score, To Olivia.
    Recordings featured:
    Chopin: Preludes Op. 28 – No. 4 in E minor
    Eric Lu (piano)
    Warner Classics 9029529234
    Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E flat, K364 – Presto
    Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Bruno Giuranna (viola); Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner
    Warner Classics 7543022
    Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony – III. Turangalîla I
    Mannheim National Theatre Orchestra/Alexander Soddy
    Oehms OC472
    Joseph Horovitz: Oboe Concerto – Lento Moderato
    Nicholas Daniel (oboe); Royal Ballet Sinfonia/Joseph Horovitz
    White Line CDWHL2114
    Debbie Wiseman: To Olivia – An Everlasting Gobstoppper and a Shivery Smile
    National Symphony Orchestra/Debbie Wiseman
    Decca
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • In this episode, BBC Music Magazine’s editor Oliver Condy talks to the former Guardian editor and now principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Alan Rusbridger.
    While the editor of a national paper during the Arab Spring, Wikileaks controversies, the newspaper hacking scandal, riots in the UK and more, Alan Rusbridger found time to learn and perform Chopin’s Ballade No. 1, a feat he describes in his book Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible.
    Recordings featured:
    Chopin: Ballade No. 1
    Murray Perahia (piano)
    Sony Classical 
    Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
    New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
    Sony Classical 
    Bach arr. Busoni: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
    Alfred Brendel (piano)
    Decca
    Beethoven: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131
    Takacs Quartet
    Decca 
    Schubert: Variations on an Original Theme
    Andreas Staier & Alexander Melnikov (piano)
    Harmonia Mundi
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  • In this episode of the Music to my Ears podcast, BBC Music Magazine speaks to Karina Canellakis, who is currently chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and has been recently appointed as principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
    Karina was born and brought up in a very musical family in New York. She initially studied and began her career as a violinist and played in a number of the world’s leading orchestras, and it was while she was playing with the Berlin Philharmonic as a member of its Orchester-Akademie that she was encouraged to take up conducting by Sir Simon Rattle. From that moment, she has never looked back, and has since led top ensembles across the globe, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra where she held her first post, as assistant conductor. She is equally at home in opera, and has conducted major productions of works by composers ranging from Mozart to Maxwell Davies.
    Karina talked to BBC Music Magazine’s deputy editor Jeremy Pound over Zoom during the second period of lockdown, and talked to him about the thrill of of working with contemporary composers, the rarity of female role models and the sheer joy of Wagner.
    Recordings featured:
    Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf Op. 67 No. 5
    Alexander Armstrong (narrator), Richard Casey, Ian Buckle (piano duet)
    Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko
    Warner Classics 9029575952
    Wagner: Die Walküre: Prelude
    Wolfgang Windgassen (Tristan), Birgit Nilsson (Isolde), Christa Ludwig (Brangäne), Martti Talvela (King Marke), Eberhard Waechter (Kurwenal), Peter Schreier (Seemann Chor und Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Karl Böhm
    DG 4497722
    Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Act III): 'Denn einer nur freie die Braut'
    Vienna Philharmonic/Georg Solti
    Decca 4786192
    Stephen Sondheim: Sweeney Todd
    Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone), Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Paul Daniel
    DG 4778554
    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices