Composers Episodes

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’. I am glad you are going to join me for an hour of exquisite music… a concerto for two violins and cello, a mandolin concerto, a song from his semi-opera Andromeda liberata , a cello sonata, a section from his Stabat Mater for solo voice and small ensemble, and because it has...

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. With the assistance of The English Concert, Maurizio Pollini, John Eliot Gardiner, Wolfgang Rübsam, Masaaki Suzuki, Glenn Gould, Itzhak Perlman, Christophe Rousset, Helena Rathbone & Richard Tognetti. And here is a link to an extended playlist on Spotify with the full...

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...

James Brown once sang, 'It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World' - and for centuries, classical music was exactly that. While talent knows no gender, opportunity certainly did, and countless musical voices were silenced by social barriers and prejudice. But...

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 instead focused on composition. For the first couple of decades of his adult career he was not welcomed by the musical establishment of the day. But especially after the First World War he came to be seen as a major figure and with increasing international success he was by the 1...