Episodes
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Classical music is packed with weird and wonderful musical terminology. Steve Wright speaks to author and critic Jessica Duchen about the meaning and stories behind some of music’s most common terms.
This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen.
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The uplifting sound of the horn, particularly in an orchestral setting, is familiar to audiences worldwide – but how do you play this wonderful instrument? Charlotte Smith interviews former London Symphony, London Philharmonic and current Royal Opera House principal horn David Pyatt, who takes her through her first horn lesson. This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen. Musical excerpts:Brahms Symphony No. 1London Symphony Orchestra/Jonathan PasternackNaxos 8.572448 (2011)https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.572448 Franz Strauss Nocturno for Horn and Piano, Op 7 from David Pyatt RecitalDavid Pyatt (horn); Martin Jones (piano)Erato 9029534229 (1998)https://www.warnerclassics.com/release/recital-horn-works Interview recorded at the Royal Academy of Music, London: https://www.ram.ac.ukStudent horn loaned with kind permission by Paxman Musical Instruments, London: https://www.paxman.co.ukLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Classical film scores have given us some of the most recognisable music ever written – and film screenings with a live orchestral soundtrack in the concert hall are increasingly popular. But where do you start when writing a soundtrack and how do you capture that magic? Michael Beek speaks to British film composer Anne Dudley.
This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen.
Musical Excerpt:
Anne Dudley ‘Main Title’ from Elle (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Chamber Orchestra of London/Anne Dudley
Sony Classical 88985361012 (2017)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elle-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B01KJ331FS
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Smoking and alcohol are definite no-nos, but what else can you do to ensure your singing voice is in top condition? Jeremy Pound speaks to Olivia Sparkhall, author of A Young Person’s Guide to Vocal Health, to find out.
This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen.
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Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending consistently tops polls as Britain’s favourite classical work, but what is the source of its enduring popularity? Steve Wright interviews writer and broadcaster Andrew Green about his Lark Ascending/Skylark recordings project for the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, in collaboration with the Wildlife Sound Recording Society and British Library’s Wildlife and Environmental Sounds Collection. This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen. Musical Excerpt:Vaughan Williams The Lark AscendingTamsin Waley-Cohen (violin); Orchestra of the Swan/David CurtisSignum Classics SIGCD399 (2014)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vaughan-Williams-Ascending-Concerto-Serenade-Introduction/dp/B00N7CM1U0Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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The life of a performing musician isn’t easy. There are multiple mental health challenges, including performance nerves, and a sometimes-overwhelming sense of competition and judgement. Charlotte Smith interviews cellist and former BBC Young Musician winner Laura van der Heijden about how she copes with these pressures. This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen. Musical excerpt:Lili Boulanger Reflets from album Path to the MoonLaura van der Heijden (cello); Jâms Coleman (piano)Chandos CHAN20274 (2024)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Path-Moon-Laura-Heijden-Coleman/dp/B0CQ6YZXRM/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Opera is a bit like Marmite… you either love it or hate it. But can an opera cynic learn to love this intense art form? Michael Beek chats to star soprano and opera advocate Danielle de Niese. This episode is sponsored by Bang & Olufsen. Musical excerpt:Mozart ‘L’amerò, sarò costane’ from Il re PastoreDanielle de Niese (soprano); Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Charles MackerrasDecca 478 1511 (2009)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Arias-Danielle-Niese/dp/B0027T5L4CLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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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
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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!
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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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
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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
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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
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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
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