Composers Episodes

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937) is arguably the most beloved composer France has given the world… able to take classical and pre-classical forms, absorb the harmonic colours of Impressionism, draw on the dance traditions of his B...

Haydn’s music is in no way neglected or forgotten but I wonder if, because he lived a long life, during which he achieved significant success and seemed free of personality disorders, he is a little taken for granted. The cre...

I did an episode of music by women composers back in November based around a CD Box release by the record label ‘Brilliant Classics’ and called it ‘Brilliant Women’. No prizes for imagination but it was clear and accurate. So...

It’s Classical For Everyone’s 1 st Birthday, so here’s a personal favourite. This was the first time a choir and soloists had been added to a ‘symphony’. Choral and orchestral music had been combined before but at the time th...

On the day this episode is released, the American composer Philip Glass celebrates his 89 th birthday. In a career now lasting well over five decades he has somehow achieved two extraordinarily rare things for a contemporary ...

Antonio Salieri was born near Verona in 1750 but lived most of his life in Vienna. And in the 1780s he was possibly the most successful composer in Europe… writing the music for over forty operas. Later in life he taught Schu...

The title of this episode is perhaps a little misleading and it certainly contains a contradiction… namely, if I have a recording, and I can play it to you, then really, is ‘forgotten’ the right adjective? But it is, I hope y...

From playing piano in the waterfront bars of Hamburg in his teens, through the failed premiere of his first Piano Concerto, his fortuitous friendship with Clara & Robert Schumann, reviving the String Sextet… to writing a Requ...

In recent years music written by women has at long last begun to be commissioned, programmed, performed, recorded, discussed, reviewed, studied, and celebrated. And of course, most importantly, composed… in greater and greate...

At the end of the last episode Georg Friedrich Handel had just composed the anthem ‘Zadok The Priest’ for the coronation of King George II of Great Britain. The year was 1727 and it was the same year that Handel; who had grow...

I hope you’re in the mood for some truly beautiful music… much of it involving singing. I don’t know if I can convert anyone to the delights of early 18 th century opera but the songs I’m going to play you in this episode are...

On January 27 th 1786 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart turned 30. He had already written an astonishing amount of music of an incredible standard. He had been happily married to Constanze Weber for three years and their son Karl Thoma...

Benjamin Britten is today perhaps best known for his operas which included ‘Peter Grimes’, ‘The Turn of The Screw’, ‘Billy Budd’ and ‘Death In Venice’. But I am actually going to feature more of his orchestral work in this ep...

I am being a little deliberately opaque with the title of this episode. There is a certain logic to letting people know what they are going to get. But not today. Because I am hoping that for a good selection of listeners out...

The second of a two episode special. His music uniquely blended Western European compositional techniques with distinctly Russian melodic and harmonic elements, creating a style that was both internationally appealing and unm...

The first of a two episode special. His music uniquely blended Western European compositional techniques with distinctly Russian melodic and harmonic elements, creating a style that was both internationally appealing and unmi...

You could take almost any year of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life, probably from the age of fifteen onwards and be staggered by both the scale of his output… AND the quality… but his final year… 1791.. was a truly ast...

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 ...

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’. ...

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....

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...

Ravel was born in the Basque borderlands of France in 1875 and much of his music can be thought of as Spanish rhythms meeting French elegance. He was accepted into the Paris Conservatory as a teenager to study piano but inste...