Classical For Everyone

Who knew that Camille Saint-Saens of 'Carnival of the Animals' fame wrote the world's first film score? Or that the Pulitzer Prize for music has been given to only one work for the screen. Or that five composers, including the American music theatre legend Richard Rodgers, were approached for 'Lawrence of Arabia' before the job fell to an unknown Frenchman who was given six weeks to get the job done. Or that one of the great 20th century symphonies started out as music for a movie. Well I certainly didn't… until I started working on the 'Film Music' episode of 'Classical For Everyone'.
[Episode image: The Embassy Cinema; Wellington, New Zealand.]

[Please feel free to leap straight into this second part of the 'Diving for Pearls' episode but there's background information in the first half you might enjoy if by chance you have missed it.]
How did the term 'baroque', the French version of a very old Portuguese word for a misshapen pearl… which became an insult applied to complicated music… and was then rehabilitated as a description of an ornate style of art and architecture… become the term now almost universally used to describe music written between 1600 and 1750? And what has 'diving' got to do with anything? The answers are in this two part episode of Classical For Everyone exploring lesser known Baroque composers. And there's a merman. But way more importantly… there is amazing music by Rameau, Rebel, Caldara, von Biber, Marais, Keiser, Leonarda, Strozzi, Stradella, Scarlatti, Locatelli and Valentini.
[Episode image: The Canning Jewel (reverse) – Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum.]

How did 'baroque', the French version of a very old Portuguese term for a misshapen pearl… which became an insult applied to complicated music… and was then rehabilitated as a description of an ornate style of art and architecture… become the term now almost universally used to describe music written between 1600 and 1750? And what has 'diving' got to do with anything? The answers are in this two part episode of Classical For Everyone exploring lesser known Baroque composers. And there's a merman. But way more importantly… there is amazing music by Rameau, Rebel, Caldara, von Biber, Marais, Keiser, Leonarda, Strozzi, Stradella, Scarlatti, Locatelli and Valentini.
[Episode image: The Canning Jewel – Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum.]

It could be argued that Night and Darkness are sort of the same. The Night is Dark. That's kind of the point. But there are brightly moonlit nights and there are very dark nights; in more ways than one, and then there is darkness that is as black as night. So it's "Night and Darkness"… including symphonic night music from Gustav Mahler, a song of a rose on a summer night from Hector Berlioz, a night of love from Augusta Holmès, Ludwig van Beethoven's political prisoner crying out from a pitch black dungeon, Sergei Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil and Arnold Schoenberg's music of two lovers sharing secrets walking through a dark forest at night.
[Episode image: Night Sky. Christian Hoiberg Digital Photography School.]

I have been asking myself why it has taken close to a hundred episodes before I got around to one devoted to Chopin. When I was chatting with Claude about doing the episode he described my neglect of the composer as, and I quote, 'an alarming gap… genuinely startling given Chopin's centrality to the repertoire and his obvious appeal to audiences'. So, if even my AI buddy is scratching his virtual head (and frankly being a little pretentious and unsupportive); then there may be listeners to the show who feel the same. So, with the help of eight pianists, a couple of cellists, a conductor and an orchestra let me make it up to you with an hour and a bit of the music of Frédéric Chopin.[Episode image: Detail from 'Chopin Playing the Piano in Prince Radziwill's Salon' by Henryk Siemiradzki 1887.]