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 t...
An Introduction to the Podcast… with a little music.
Maybe the place to start... An eight-minute overview of the podcast including some unfairly brief excerpts from music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Dmitri Shostakovich, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Adams, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Gershwin and Ross Edwards.
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8:22
Mini-episode: Why does the word 'sonata' keep turning up?
If you're exploring classical music, you'll bump into the term 'sonata' everywhere - piano sonatas, violin sonatas, trio sonatas… even sonata-form. This mini-episode untangles the many meanings of this surprisingly variable word, from its simple origins in Italian to its complex modern uses. And suggests perhaps why composers keep using it when they want you to really listen.
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12:44
The Sea… When composers face the deep.
Composers have drawn inspiration from the sea for centuries but only with the rise of the larger orchestras of the nineteenth century did they get the palate needed to create fully persuasive depictions of it. So, apart from one piece for solo piano, major orchestral works are what you will hear in this episode... ‘The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship’ from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Sheherazade’ an unfairly short interlude from Benjamin Britten’s opera ‘Peter Grimes’, the overture to Richard Wagner’s ‘The Flying Dutchman’, Claude Debussy’s ‘The Sunken Cathedral’, New Zealander Gareth Farr’s massive ‘From the Depths sound the Great Sea Gongs’ and more Debussy… ‘Games of the Waves’ from ‘La Mer’ or ‘The Sea’.
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1:00:09
Mini-episode: Are conductors really that important?
Spend any time with musicians who play in an orchestra it won’t be long before they are sharing war stories of their experiences with dreadful conductors. The subtext of some of these conversations is a half-serious belief that the conductor is just a face for the poster, a body for fundraising events and a target for critics having a bad night… someone the orchestra could survive perfectly well without and, if anything, the performance would be better and everyone on the stage… and in the audience… would have a much more enjoyable time.
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9:11
Music from six remarkable composers... who just happen not to be men.
James Brown once sang, 'It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World' - and for centuries, classical music was exactly that. While talent knows no gender, opportunity certainly did, and countless musical voices were silenced by social barriers and prejudice. But some composers refused to be quiet. This episode introduces music by six women who found ways to make their voices heard: Fanny Mendelssohn, whose works sometimes appeared under her brother's name; Florence Price, who broke barriers as an African-American woman in classical music; and contemporary voices like Jennifer Higdon and Elena Kats-Chernin, whose works premiere in today's concert halls, alongside powerful music from Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Maria Herz.
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.
Australia