Classical Music Episodes
June 5, 2025
Early Beethoven... From Provincial Pianist to Vienna Celebrity
Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna in late 1792 as a 22-year-old from the town of Bonn to study with Josef Haydn who was at the time undeniably Europe's most celebrated living composer. Beethoven also quickly established ...
May 30, 2025
The Clarinet… In The Twentieth Century
This episode starts in Paris in 1909 and ends up in Buenos Aires in 1994… and the music includes a healthy dose of the influence of jazz. If you have a small voice inside saying this is going to be a little more ‘modern’ and ...
May 22, 2025
Music for Small Spaces… aka ‘Chamber Music’.
There’s no way around the fact that this entire corner of classical music is generally known by the term ‘chamber music’ but please don’t let that stop you from experiencing some incredible music… even if you find the term, a...
May 16, 2025
Stanley Kubrick’s Music… The impact of a well-placed tune.
No other filmmaker has used classical music to better effect than the American director Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Whilst composers did score some of his films, Kubrick frequently used existing classical pieces… in particul...
May 8, 2025
Antonio Vivaldi… So much more than changes in the weather.
If you have hit play for this episode then that means you are in that part of the population who have not been entirely turned off Vivaldi by the overuse of his deservedly popular set of violin concertos… ‘The Four Seasons’. ...
May 2, 2025
The Guitar… From Spanish Courts to Global Stages.
This first adventure with the guitar on Classical For Everyone features quite a bit of music from Spain.. probably the country that was most closely identified with the instrument until companies in America popularised the el...
April 24, 2025
Happiness… Music to make you feel good.
Sometimes music can just be for pleasure and if that is the composer and the performers’ intention, then good for them… and good for us listeners. If most music is created to make you ‘feel’… then some music can just be to ma...
April 17, 2025
Muses. Six people who have inspired great music.
Much music has been inspired by love, passion or obsession… but only in a handful of cases has the person who was the inspiration… the muse… become publicly linked to a work. Here are the stories of six of them… Alma Schindl...
April 10, 2025
Percussion. A loud episode.
A percussion instrument is pretty much anything that can be hit, tapped, scraped, scratched or banged. In an orchestra it is generally the responsibility of the individual or small group up the back… the ones who get to make ...
April 3, 2025
Johann Sebastian Bach. An introduction in nine pieces.
If you’ve ever been puzzled why once you scratch the surface of classical music the name Johann Sebastian Bach seems to just keep turning up… this episode might offer some clues… beyond the fact that the music is pretty good....
March 27, 2025
The Cello. Music as expressive as the Human Voice.
Amongst all the instruments in the modern string family… violins, violas, cellos and double basses… it is the cello that most closely approximates the range of the human voice… from the lowest bass to the highest soprano and ...
March 21, 2025
Farewells. Music for Partings, Journeys & Goodbyes.
This episode of Classical For Everyone includes musicians slowly leaving the stage… lovers separated by the call of duty… music for beginning a journey… and music for a sad and very final farewell. A section of a symphony by Josef...
March 16, 2025
Not Dead Yet. Music from Living Composers.
This episode is all music written by people who have the particular distinction of still breathing. I think it’s important to say that nowhere near all classical music is written by dead men from Vienna. One of the unintended consequences of a whole...
March 8, 2025
Mini-episode: Why is some Classical Music so damn long?
There’s a string quartet written by the American composer Morton Feldman in the 1980s that is about 6 hours long. ‘Einstein on the Beach’, the opera by Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson, is about five hours long and is performed without an...
March 2, 2025
Night… Classical music after the sun has set.
This episode of Classical For Everyone is all about Night.. music that evokes the night… that captures the different moods of nighttime, and music written to be performed at night. Night in the Gardens of Spain, Moonlight over the Suffolk Coast,...