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 make you feel good. And from time to time happiness can be in short supply… and if that is the case then I hope the music I am going to play you over the next hour can at least give you a smile. In service of that objective… in this episode will be music by Beethoven, Rossini, Bach, Schubert, Westlake, Bizet, Mozart, Gershwin and Vivaldi. Enjoy.
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1:09:08
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 Schindler, Josephine Brunsvik, Kamila Stösslová, Peter Pears, Clara Wieck and Mathilde Wesendonck. And the music they inspired… by Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leos Janacek, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner.
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1:10:15
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 of people up the back… the ones who get to make the most noise and have to master the most instruments and who, in this episode, help give us armies fighting on an ice covered lake, a peasant girl dancing herself to death, big gates, small rocks and a visit to The Overlook Hotel… with works from the composers Prokofiev, Sculthorpe, Bartok, Stravinsky and Mussorgsky.
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1:04:26
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. 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.
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1:08:57
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 that may be one reason why it seems especially popular. Music from Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edward Elgar, Sergei Prokofiev, Samuel Barber, Dmitri Shostakovich; and, to finish, something for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Five hundred years of incredible music. No expertise is necessary. All you need are ears. If you’ve ever been even slightly curious about classical music then this is the podcast for you.
Österreich