A podcast about classical music is maybe not really a place for politics but I'm recording this episode a day after the midterm elections in the US. And I think that a lot of people all over the globe are pleased and perhaps relieved that the complicated machinery of democracy in 2026 was robust enough to survive various attempts to compromise or subvert it… and regardless of one's affiliations I think that is well worth celebrating. With some help from Aaron Copland, Jennifer Higdon, Leonard Be

The pianist Sviatoslav Richter's life can somewhat conveniently be broken up into two parts… before he was allowed to tour outside the Soviet bloc in 1960 when he was in his mid 40s… and after. This episode is mostly about that second part; and touches on Richter's expanded interest in Chamber Music, some famous recordings, his influence on piano repertoire and his later career. Plus there will be sensational music from Schumann, Schubert, Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven and Prokofiev. [Episode Imag

We bring meanings to music that the composers often didn't intend. And this episode is going to be an example of that. There is something in some music that for me triggers a sort of longing. The writer and composer Jan Swafford describes some of Mozart's music as having a 'deep yearning' and I think that is in the same general area. And you can't be too prescriptive about this. It is a bit different if there are lyrics but music on its own is generally suggestive rather than specific. And when

The Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter, as I hope this and the following episode will illustrate, is one of the greatest musicians of the recording era… unsurpassed technical expertise matched with a profound depth of musicality. But those clichés (whilst true) could be applied to a not insignificant number of other players. So why Richter? More than most musicians he was touched by history. Born in 1915 and dying in 1997, he outlived the Soviet Union but his life was utterly entangled with that

Why Mozart Opera Overtures? Well, whilst they were not really intended to be stand-alone pieces they have in many instances become favourites of concert programmers and broadcasters, not to mention the public. And with most of them being about five minutes long you can fit eleven of them into a podcast episode! They are also in a way an interesting lens into the development of a composer… since Mozart wrote his first opera very early and completed two in the final year of his life. And in betwee

Who knew that Camille Saint-Saens of ‘Carnival of the Animals’ fame wrote the world’s first film score? Or that the Pulitzer Prize for music has been given to only one work for the screen. Or that five composers, including the American music theatre legend Richard Rodgers, were approached for ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ before the job fell to an unknown Frenchman who was given six weeks to get the job done. Or that one of the great 20th century symphonies started out as music for a movie. Well I certai