From fairy tale romances to dark psychological dramas, discover how ballet music evolved while maintaining its essential power to match the poetry of human movement with unforgettable musical expression… what I’m calling grasping towards beauty. This episode explores three centuries of ballet music, from the elegant entertainments of Gluck through the Romantic masterpieces of Adam, Delibes, and Tchaikovsky, to the revolutionary modernism of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, and finally the diverse voices of Copland and Khachaturian.
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1:19:07
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1:19:07
Mozart’s 1791… Music from his final year
You could take almost any year of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life, probably from the age of fifteen onwards and be staggered by both the scale of his output… AND the quality… but his final year… 1791.. was a truly astonishing achievement… including his 27th piano concerto, his 6th string quintet, his clarinet concerto, two complete operas in wildly contrasting genres… ‘La Clemenza di Tito’ and ‘The Magic Flute’, and an unfinished Requiem Mass.
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1:11:11
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1:11:11
Ghosts & Monsters… Music of the Supernatural
There are composers who revel in depictions of the unseen… manifestations of the darker aspects of our imaginations… creatures from realms that four centuries of science just can’t seem to eradicate from our vulnerable psyches. Then there are the composers who just can’t help but enjoy mucking about with an old fairytale or making fun of our collective gullibility. And some do all at the same time. This week it is spooky music from Grieg, Mussorgsky, Schubert, Saint-Saens, Liszt, Shostakovich, Mozart & Chopin.
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1:16:42
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1:16:42
Aotearoa / New Zealand… New Sounds and Cultures for Classical Music
Even if you have listened to a fair bit of classical music I’m quietly confident you will not have heard a note of any of what I am going to play you in this episode… unless you happen to hail from or reside in that jewel of a nation… New Zealand / Aotearoa. Trust me, if you can overcome a nervousness about the unfamiliar… you are going to hear some remarkably good music… by composers Anthony Richie, Gillian Whitehead, Martin Lodge, Tabea Squire, John Psathas, Douglas Lilburn and Claire Cowan.
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1:17:36
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1:17:36
The Clarinet… In The Twentieth Century
This episode starts in Paris in 1909 and ends up in Buenos Aires in 1994… and the music includes a healthy dose of the influence of jazz. If you have a small voice inside saying this is going to be a little more ‘modern’ and a little less ‘enjoyable’, I hope you’ll trust me to prove that voice wrong… or more particularly that you’ll trust Clause Debussy, Malcolm Arnold, Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky and Osvaldo Golijov.
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.
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