Theme Grouping Episodes

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 Schindle...

Composers have drawn inspiration from the sea for centuries but only with the rise of the larger orchestras of the 1800s did they get the palate needed to create fully persuasive depictions of it. So, apart from one piece for...

Recent Discoveries Two T his episode is the second one called ‘recent discoveries’. And that should only be taken in the very personal sense of ‘recent discoveries’ for me. Some of it is indeed recent but in addition to music...

Music for the hour before dawn. Which is in no way intended to be too prescriptive… the episode can be listened to any time… but I hope it is music that has a calmness and perhaps a contemplative tone that suits the hour when...

I was listening to the conductor Joshua Weilerstein’s podcast ‘Sticky Notes’ the other day. It was an episode on Ludwig van Beethoven’s 8th string quartet. He was playing the second section and he described the music as havin...

The relationship between classical music and William Shakespeare’s writing is one of the longest and most productive partnerships in the history of either art form. Composers have been drawn to Shakespeare's plays for four ce...

Much of the 20 th century orchestral music that today dominates concert halls and recording studios started as music for ballets. And the best of it started with the Ballets Russes company; which was largely the creation of o...

If from time to time you happen to listen to a podcast with the subtitle ‘Five Hundred Years Of incredible Music’ then it would be a reasonable expectation to hear some five hundred year old music. I’ve played a few pieces fr...

Only be taken in the very personal sense of… recent discoveries by me. Not that I actually discovered anything. In my ongoing mission to keep the production of CDs alive, I came across music I didn’t know and thought that you...

Representing the weather with music is probably an ancient practice. In our earliest superstitions the percussive blasts of thunder would probably have been mimicked to either flatter or placate the spirit world. And perhaps ...

Classical Music for New Years Eve seems to be dominated by nineteenth century Viennese waltzes and eighteenth century music for fireworks. All nice stuff but I wasn’t after something for New Years Eve. I wanted music for New ...

Sorcerers, Toys, Wolves, Volcanoes and Fossils. Music for young people… but why them… and why now? In some parts of the world people are having a bit of a holiday as this episode goes out… and you may have your children… or n...

I n this episode there will be an amount of Christmas music from the western tradition… which I think you might have to expect from a podcast with the word ‘classical’ in the title but this is not really a celebration of mang...

Music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Morten Lauridsen, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Philip Glass and Benjamin Britten… chosen pretty deliberately for its calming qualities. I’m guessing that quite a few of you are ba...

Probably adopted from early pagan traditions, 'All Hallows Eve', which became Halloween; was, and perhaps in some places still is, a night of rituals to call on the spirits of saints and martyrs for our protection in the year...

This corner of classical music is more generally known by the odd term ‘chamber music’ but please don’t let that stop you from experiencing some incredible music. This is music originally intended for smaller performance spac...

Wondering if I could produce an episode without my AI pal Claude and I going down too many rabbit holes… I thought I’d see what I could come up with if I revisited past episodes and cherry-picked some favourite pieces. To be ...

Music that takes its inspiration from humanity’s gaze out into the cosmos and from our attempts to reach beyond this fragile planet we call home. And to access some music that predated the quite modern science of ‘astronomy’ ...

I get it that for some people opera is just noise that they are not ever going to enjoy but if there are listeners out there with a bit of curiousity and an inquiring mind… and that is how I would describe anyone listening to...

Brian Eno’s 1979 LP ‘Music For Airports’ launched the genre of ‘Ambient Music’… an alternative to the dreadful ‘muzak’ inflicted on humans in most public spaces… music that reduced stress rather than added to it… music for co...

I nstances where composers have hidden something in their works… sometimes for the sheer ingeniousness of being able to do it… sometimes to send a secret message to someone… sometime to create a puzzle for generations to come...

From fairy tale romances to dark psychological dramas, discover how ballet music evolved while maintaining its essential power to match the poetry of human movement with unforgettable musical expression… what I’m calling gras...

There are composers who revel in depictions of the unseen… manifestations of the darker aspects of our imaginations… creatures from realms that four centuries of science just can’t seem to eradicate from our vulnerable psyche...

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...