Episodes

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...

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...

Here is the third Classical For Everyone podcast featuring the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I’ve done an episode on the music Mozart wrote in the last year of his life, 1791, back in June and one focused on 1786 last Oct...

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is pe...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps ...

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...

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...

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...

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps ...

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...

An episode back in late May 2025 featured music written for the clarinet from the 20 th century. This is a companion show goes back to close to the invention of the clarinet with a work from 1755 and then finishes up with a g...

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...