Classical For Everyone

An American Celebration

A podcast about classical music is maybe not really a place for politics but I'm recording this episode a day after the midterm elections in the US. And I think that a lo

Sviatoslav Richter - Part Two

The pianist Sviatoslav Richter's life can somewhat conveniently be broken up into two parts… before he was allowed to tour outside the Soviet bloc in 1960 when he was in

Longing

We bring meanings to music that the composers often didn't intend. And this episode is going to be an example of that. There is something in some music that for me trigge

Sviatoslav Richter - Part One

The Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter, as I hope this and the following episode will illustrate, is one of the greatest musicians of the recording era… unsurpassed techni

Mozart Opera Overtures

Why Mozart Opera Overtures? Well, whilst they were not really intended to be stand-alone pieces they have in many instances become favourites of concert programmers and b

Film Music

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 wo

Diving For Pearls – Part Two

[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 cha

Diving For Pearls – Part One

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

Night and Darkness

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 dar

Frederic Chopin

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 episo

Germans In Italy

Let's be fair, this is a deeply flawed title. Why? Well the idea is to play music written by German composers when they were living in or visiting Italy. But in the 18th

Chamber Music Three + A Festival Conversation

In two earlier episodes I have referred to Chamber Music as 'Music For Small Spaces'. But if you search more broadly for that term you will come up with very little. If y

Felix Mendelssohn

In the latest episode of the 'Classical For Everyone' podcast… Scottish caves and rescuing Bach, becalmed boats and banking intrigue, Shakespearean fairies and a garment

Music For The Very, Very Young

A good friend asked if I could do an episode of music for her very young daughter. So, welcome to a bit of a Classical For Everyone podcast experiment. On the plus side f

Sunday Night Special … Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony)

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 mus

Neglected Beethoven

Is Ludwig van Beethoven neglected? No, not at all. But with the well-deserved emphasis on his symphonies, a couple of piano concertos and a handful of piano sonatas and s

Not Dead Yet - Two

When a podcast is about five hundred years of music, there is going to be a reasonable amount of music from people who are no longer with us. Now if you combine that with

Winter

Winter... Now if you are in the northern hemisphere maybe think of this as a form of aural air conditioning. But if, like me, you are near the bottom of the planet then t

Music For Pets

There may have been wine involved when the decision to put together a show of music for pets was first discussed. But when I was presented with art for the episode featur

The Other Russians

Who are 'the other Russians'? Well, I've played a fair bit of music by Russian and Soviet era composers in the show. Tchaikovsky got two whole episodes and there has been