The Joy of Classical Music

This is part two of our brief and fragmentary exploration of music inspired by artists and their paintings and we open with the aria That was You Know I Want To Help You from composer Bernard Rand's 2010 opera Vincent. Also featured: Hungarian composer Sandor Veress was so taken by the work of Swiss artist Paul Klee that he wrote a seven part suite called Homage to Paul Klee to express his admiration. In his 1990 opera Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara took scenes from the life of Vincent van Gogh starting in the mental hospital at Saint-Rémy, where he painted The Starry Night. The story moves back and forth in time through his memories Rautavaara took material from this opera to create his Sixth Symphony, Vincentiana.

The next three episodes are all about music inspired by artists and their paintings and we start with composer Michael Gordon’s Vincent Van Gogh’s Video Opera. From 1991 this opera is based on letters written by the Dutch master. Also: Claude Debussy's composition The Sea was inspired by Katsushika Hokusai’s masterpiece The Great Wave Off Kanagawa. German composer Max Reger wrote four symphonic poems based on works of Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin. The Play of the Waves pays homage to Bocklin’s painting Playing in the Waves. French composer Henri Dutilleux wrote The Starry Night in 1978 as a response to Van Gogh’s painting which he described as ‘an enormously powerful and disturbing masterpiece.”

This week it’s all about France and we begin with the aria Farewell, Pastourelles from Maurice Ravel's children’s fantasy opera The Child And The Spells. Also featured: Georges Auric Guillaume de Machaut Gabriel Fauré André Jolivet Olivier Messiaen Melanie Bonis

In the final part of our three-part exploration of the American 20th century we play the music of: George and Ira Gershwin Arnold Schoenberg Leonard Bernstein Harry Partch Samuel Barber John Alden Carpenter

A radio show and podcast created and first aired at Free FM 89.0, a member of the Community Access Media Alliance Aotearoa/New Zealand. Supported by NZ on Air. freefm.org.nz and @freefm89 on Facebook and Instagram

Across the course of the American 20th century composers revelled in the possibilities offered by modernity. They explored the landscape, the social milieu, the machines and engines, factories and cities, the chaos, the calm and the uncertainty. They explored the potential of electricity, examined the musical traditions of non-Western cultures pushing out the boundaries of formal art music while reshaping the entirety of its potential. In Part two of our exploration of the American century we play the music of: Scott Joplin Aaron Copland Lou Harrison Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé

Across the course of the 20th century America became the world’s economic and cultural powerhouse and little happened without something of America being involved, classical music included. With that in mind for the next three episodes we are celebrating the music of the American 20th century. Todays episode features: Gian Carlo Menotti Ellen Zwilich Virgil Thomson Joseph Schwantner George Crumb

In this Joy Of Classical Music Special Puerto-Rican born New York based composer, guitarist and visual artist Gabriel Vicens talks about his new album Mural. All Gabriels work including Mural is available on Bandcamp. Just type his name into the Bandcamp search engine and it will take you right to his site. Otherwise Mural can be purchased via Stradivarius Records online. Featured Music: 1. The Way We Are Created 2. Mural 3. El Matorral 4. Carnal 6:25

This week's episode opens with the aria Now Grasp Your Daughter from Lou Harrison's 1970 opera Young Caesar. An exploration of the early life of the great Roman Emperor with a particular focus on his love affair with King Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, the unabashed theme of gay love was deeply controversial for the time and the opera, though highly acclaimed, struggled to find its feet. Also on the menu: Dutch Recordist Lucie Horsch Chinese American composer Tan Dun Catalonian composer Roberto Gerhard Estonian composer Eduard Tubin

This episode is all about China and to quote Chinese American pianist and academic Hao Huang: “Western classical music wasn’t introduced to the Chinese public until Christian missionaries came in the 19th century, but it quickly gained popularity and prestige as a symbol of the Western “culture of scientific progress and modernisation.” The rigours of classical training fit the Confucian value of self-cultivation through self-discipline. Confucius believed that the study of music was “an indispensable way to train the mind,” and considered it more important than mathematics and writing. Hau Huang goes on to note that 36 million Chinese children are currently studying Western classical music traditions, that’s 6 times the number of American children and wonders if the future of Western Classical music might just be in the hands of Asian musicians. Featured Composers: Xian Xinghai Zhou Long Tan Dun Qigang Chen Zhu Jian

This week we play music from composers who died in Nazi death camps. Hans Krasa – murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz Gideon Klein – executed by Nazi soldiers trying to erase evidence from advancing Allied forces. Ilse Weber – murdered alongside with her young son Tommy in the gas chambers at Auschwitz Mordechai Gebirtig – executed in the Krakow ghetto for the crime of being Jewish Pavel Hass – murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz Viktor Ullmann – murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz Erwin Schulhoff – died of tuberculosis at Wülzburg prison while awaiting transportation to a death camp. To quote Viktor Ullman on his internment: “By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon. Our endeavour with respect to the arts was commensurate with our will to live.”

This week we begin with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and soprano Jane Sheldon performing Eliza’s Aria from the Wild Swans Ballet Suite by Soviet born Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. Then it's A Love Song from composer and accordion specialist Pauline Oliveros, Irwin Swack's violin concerto Waters of Memory, two piano sonatas inspired by popular music styles from Kiwi composer Jenny McLeod, a 75th birthday tribute to Stephen Hawking, a famous children's song by Japanese composer Kōsaku Yamada and an excerpt from Franz Sheker’s popular 1912 opera A Distant Sound, the story of a musician who sacrifices his happiness as he pursues the mystery of the beguiling sound in his head.

Today we open with the aria News Has a Kind of Mystery from the opera Nixon in China by John Luthor Adams, before visiting Franz Shrecker's glorious 1900 composition Intermezzo for String Orchestra, Op. 8. A victim of nazi persecution Shrecker's work was almost lost, but not quite. We feature a little something from one of the world's most popular composers, Estonian composer Arvo Part and a snippet from Mica Levi's score for the 2014 sci-fi film Under the Skin. Also on the menu is composer, gay activist, record salesperson, music critic, firefighter, florist, nurse and painter Lou Harrison, and Pulitzer Prize winners Charles Ives and Jennifer Higdon, whose stunning Southern Harmony explores the melodies of the American south.

We open with the aria News Has a Kind of Mystery from the opera Nixon in China by John Luthor Adams before visiting Franz Shrecker's glorious 1900 composition Intermezzo for String Orchestra, Op. 8. A victim of nazi persecution Shrecker's work was almost lost, but not quite. We feature a little something from one of the world's most popular composers, Estonian composer Arvo Part and a snippet from Mica Levi's score for the 2014 sci-fi film Under the Skin. Also on the menu is composer, gay activist, record salesperson, music critic, firefighter, florist, nurse and painter Lou Harrison, and Pulitzer Prize winners Charles Ives and Jennifer Higdon, whose stunning Southern Harmony explores the melodies of the American south.

A radio show and podcast created and first aired at Free FM 89.0, a member of the Community Access Media Alliance Aotearoa/New Zealand. Supported by NZ on Air. freefm.org.nz and @freefm89 on Facebook and Instagram

Today we open with an Aria from Aaron Copland’s 1954 opera The Tender Land, we listen to the theme from the highest grossing Hollywood film of 1959, there's a song from English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, a visit to the Mothership with the world's second most performed composer, there's some romance for violin and piano from the first American woman to compose a full symphony and an adaptation of dada gibberish by Finnish conductor/composer Essa Pekka Salonen.

We kick off this week's episode with a glorious aria from Japanese composer Ikuma Dan’s opera Twilight Heron before diving deep into an eclectic mix that includes Russian composer Shostikovich, Canadian composer Linda Catlin Smith, some Hungarian folk arrangements courtesy of Bella Bartok and a little something from Austrian/American composer Arnold Schoenberg, whose innovations altered the course of 20th century music.

Today's episode is all about the legendary American avant-garde composer John Cage. We listen to his music and music from those friends, pupils and associates he inspired. To quote the man himself: "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."

Today's focus is on German composer Hans Werner Henze and his symphony No.3 but not before we touch base with Caroline Shaw, an aria from French opera Louise, NZ pianist Michael Houstoun and a Japanese saxophonist colloquially known as Mr Fuzzy Bird.

This week we are listening to the music of two extraordinary composers - Lili Boulanger and Vítězslava Kaprálová. Both died aged 25 but not before they gifted the world an extraordinary body of work.

This week we open with an aria from The Bartered Bride, a comic opera where true love prevails over social ambition, we visit the battlefields of 13th Century Novgorod via Sergei Prokofiev's score to Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 film Alexander Nevsky. There's a saxophone sonata from the most popular American composer of the 1940s and 50s, a delightful piece from Ukrainian composer Julia Gomelskaya who died in a car crash in 2016 and we finish up with Franz Liszt and a composition purportedly said to represent the sea. And that's just to start.

This week it’s all about the Czech Republic. Of course an hour long episode only provides enough space for a meagre snapshot of one nation's musical legacy and today's music only serves as a rough introduction. More Czech music will feature in future episodes. Among the featured music is a curious composition by Erwin Schulhoff. His 1919 composition Sonata Erotica is basically the female orgasm notated for performance. The 'climax' of that year's Prague Spring Festival, it was to be Schulhoff's nadir. When the Nazis invaded a few years later they branded him a degenerate and sent him to a death camp. He did not survive.

And somehow we are back in Finland again and this time it's all about the Kalevala, that nation's national epic, which we explore through two compositions: Uuno Klami's Kalevala Suite and Jean Sibelius's Tapiola.

1935 Pirate Film Captain Blood, the world's most performed Mexican orchestral work, an evisceration of the British class system and then there's Arseny Avraamov's Symphony of Factory Sirens. Composed for the fifth anniversary of the October Revolution it involves navy ship sirens and whistles, bus and car horns, factory sirens, cannons, the foghorns of the entire Soviet flotilla in the Caspian Sea, artillery guns, machine guns, hydro-airplanes and a large choir.

Among our usual eclectic mix is Joan Tower's one movement orchestral work Made In America, which draws its inspiration from the song America The Beautiful. There's a snippet from Meredith Monk's opera Atlas, an exploration of the life of a Belgian French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist opera singer but mostly this week's episode is about Romantic composer Robert Schmann.

After two weeks in Finland and two further weeks in Australia we are back to our usual eclectic musical mix. Starting in Norway we tarry for a while in England and Australia before landing in Russia and taking in the entirety of the most frequently performed work in the classical repertoire, Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.

In the second part of our journey across Australia we visit the Kakadu National Park, visit the set of a Hitchcock movie and explore the influence of Aboriginal culture on Australian art music before finishing with Deborah Cheetham's glorious symphonic composition Dutala (The Space Between The Stars).

This week and next it's all about Australia. We start at Cloudstreet in Perth, the setting for the 2016 operatic adaptation of Tim Winton's revered 1991 Novel of the same name and finish with Australia's greatest composer, the wildly eccentric Percy Grainger. Along the way we touch base with all facets of formal Australian art music.

Finland spends $91 per person per year on art and culture and it shows. While NZ, a nation of similar size, population and GDP supports five professional orchestras, Finland supports 30. In today's episode we take a brief look at that nation's vast compositional catalogue.

In 2019, 174 composers were invited by the BBC's Music Magazine to select the greatest living composers and of the three selected, one was Kaija Saariaho who died on the 22 June 2023 aged 70. This episode is all about the life and music of Finnish Composer Kaija Saariaho.

There's a trip to the movies with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, some ground-breaking acoustic-electrictronica courtesy of Kiwi composer Douglas Lilburn, a plea for peace with Frank Ticheli's Earth Song and a visit to Ukraine that includes a conversation with pianist Lubomyr Melnyk who holds the world record for the most notes played per second. Track 1 Viktorija Kaminskaite performing ‘A Voice A Little While Ago’ from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Track 2 Myroslav Skoryk – A Melody Track 3: Lubomyr Melnyk – The Continuous Music Man Track 4: Illirion – Lubomyr Melnyk Track 5: Frank Ticheli - Earth Song Track 6: Douglas Lilburn - The Return

In today's episode, Indian classical collides with Western Classical then there's the word that shall not be spoken, the title of a composition by the late Julius Eastman, a fragile but brilliant figure who loved to provoke. Then there's the tragic figures of Ivor Gurney and Lili Boulanger. Gurney, undone by severe mental illness, nevertheless produced some beautiful and enduring music as did Boulanger who died of TB aged 24. Then there's filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's later period masterpiece Ran and its evocative score by Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. Based on King Lear, Ran is another sort of tragedy. Perhaps beauty from tragedy is the theme for today. Track 1. Reena Esmail - TaReKiTa performed by The Los Angeles Master Chorale Track 2. Reena Esmail - Ram Tori Maya performed by Carnegie Hall’s The Orchestra Sings project Track 3. Tōru Takemitsu - The opening movement from the motion picture Ran. Track 4. Caroline Shaw - ‘Its Motion Keeps’ performed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Track 5. Julius Eastman - Evil Track 6. Saint Saens - The Swan performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott Track 7. Lili Boulanger - The Old Buddhist Prayer Track 8. Ivor Gurney - A Gloucestershire Rhapsody

From the grim depths of Soviet Russia to the bright tropical rainforests of Hawaii, birds are a bit of a theme today with the now extinct Hawaiian Kauai and the English Lark featuring. Then there's Terry Riley, minimalist composer and tape loop pioneer regaling us with his strange and joyous visions. Otherwise it's the usual eclectic mix. Track 1. Sylvia McNair performing Hark! Hark! the Echoing Air from Henry Purcell’s 1692 semi opera, The Fairy Queen. Track 2. Alexander Liebermann - The Last Song of the Kauai Track 3. Gavrill Popov - Chamber Symphony for Seven Instruments performed by the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra Track 4. Terry Riley A Rainbow in the Curved Air Track 5. Maurice Ravel - Valley Of The Bells Track 6. Sergei Rachmaninoff - How Peaceful performed by Norwegian trumpet virtuoso Tine Thing Helseth Track 7. Sergei Rachmaninoff - How Peaceful performed by soprano Anna Netrebko. Track 8. Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending performed by The London Philharmonic

From Wales to Poland to Japan to France to the USA. It's an international affair that explores art song, film scores, the classics and the not so classic, that would be some formal electronica from computer creative Laurie Spiegel Track 1. Andrea Bocelli and Bryn Terfel performing At the back of the Holy Temple from George Bizet’s 1863 opera The Pearl Fishers Track 2. Miklós Rózsa - the theme form the 1959 film Ben-Hur performed by the John Wilson Orchestra Track 3. Toshi Ichiyanagi - The first movement from Cloud Atlas performed by Yukie Nagai Track 4. City Boy by Judd Greenstein performed by the Now Ensemble Track 5. Edgard Varese - Ionisation performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain Track 6. Listen by Scott Gendel performed by mezzo-soprano Dominique Cooper Track 7. Marion Bauer - Coyote Song performed by Helene Lindqvist Track 8. Arthur Rubinstein plays Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2 in E flat Track 9. Rebecca Clarke - A Dream sung by soprano Hélène Lindqvist Track 10. Laurie Spiegel - Drums

We conclude our three-part celebration of women composers with NZ composer Janet Jennings who talks about her life and two works, A Daughter of Eve and Voices Of Women. Track 1: A Daughter of Eve Track 2: Voices of Women

Ep 17 Jeremy Mayall Part 2 1. Jeremy Mayall - Space Time Continuum 2. Flutter - Composed by Jeremy Mayall, lyrics by Shoshana Sachi, sung by Julia Booth 3. Jeremy Mayall - As Time Passes 4. Jeremy Mayall - The Long White Cloud 5. Pierre Boulez with the Ensemble Intercontemporain - Répons 6. Jeremy Mayall: OneFatMan - A Typical Day In Suburbia from his 2004 pop/hip/hop album A Typical Day In Suburbia

Jeremy Mayall Interview Part One Track 1. Kia Eke Panuku from the album AWE by Horomona Horo and Jeremy Mayall Track 2. Jeremy Mayall - Fourteen Moments for Three performed by NZTrio Track 3. Jeremy Mayall - The Effect Of Bundled Sticks On Sound performed by Ben Hoadley (bassoon) with Chris Lam Sam (electronics) Track 4. Floating Points with Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Movement 1 from the album Promises Track 5. Jeremy Mayall - Opening theme from the Shepherd soundtrack Track 6. Jeremy Mayall - We Are All Stardust.

Our celebration of Women in Music continues 1. Soprano Dawn Upshaw performs Tania Leons Mothers Prayer 2. Everything You Need to Know about Florence Price 3. "Andante Cantabile" from Florence Price's "String Quartet in a minor 4. Angélica Negrón - El Colapso 5. Meredith Monk: Strand (Gathering) from Songs of Ascension 6. Meredith Monk – ‘I Believe in the Healing Power of Art’ An Audio Documentary 7. Margaret Monk - Road Songs from David Byrne’s 1986 film True Stories 8. Kaija Saariaho - Ballade 9. Alla Pavlova: Symphony No. 4 "Path to Shambala”

As I have been putting this series together I find myself endlessly grateful to Wikipedia and YouTube for their vast archives, especially YouTube whose musical offerings are almost unsurpassed. As I have been exploring the music on offer I have watched numerous live orchestral concerts from the 1940s through to the 1980s and was surprised by the lack of women. Until the 1990s it seems that orchestras were a male dominated affair and as for women composers, good luck with that. Until the last couple of decades it seems female musicians were largely on the outer and I can’t help but imagine all that squandered potential, but in recent times things have changed considerably and with that in mind the next three episodes are all about women and the fulfilment of that potential. 1. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performs Sergei Rachmaninov’s Vocalise 2. Ina Boyle - Phantasy 3. Margaret Bonds - Troubled Water. 4. Caroline Shaw & Sō Percussion - Other Song 5. Emahoy Tsegué Maryam Guèbrou - The Garden of Gethesemanie 6. Juhi Bunsal - In Perfect Light 7. Excerpt from Deborah Cheetam’s opera Pecan Summer 8. Excerpt from Deborah Cheetham’s opera Eumeralla: A War Requiem for Peace: IV. 9. Joan Tower - Sequoia 10. Jenny McLeod - A&P Show

We start in Quebec with a rock band, pass through Japan and end in Estonia with an often overlooked genius. On the way there is the usual eclectic mix with a focus on Aaron Copland’s Fanfare For The Common Man. 1. Emerson Lake and Palmer - Fanfare for the Common Man 2. Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man 3. Joan Tower - Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman 4. Maurice Ravel - Boat on the Ocean 5. Toru Takemitsu - Rain Spell 6. Christina Ludwig performs Franz Schubert’s To Music 7. Hildur Guðnadóttir - Theme from. the motion picture Tar 8. Hildur Guðnadóttir - Fólk fær andlit 9. Claude Debussy - Children's Corner 10. Eduard Tubin - Symphony No. 1 in C Minor: I. Adagio - Allegro Feroce

We are back to our eclectic journeying and today’s adventures include New Zealand and Wolastoq Tribal territory in Eastern Canada and take in Einstein, Beethoven, murder ballads, noir and art song. 1. Inia Te Wiata - The Maori Flute 2. Jeremy Dutcher - Pomok naka Poktoinskwes 3. Michael Houstoun performs Beethoven’s Piano sonata No15 in D Major, Opus 28 4. The Philip Glass Ensemble perform Train from Einstein on the Beach, an opera by Philip Glass 5. Bryce Dessner - Murder Ballades, Omie Wise, 6. Aaron Copland - Quiet City 7. Erik Franklin - Weavers

Classical music is dynamic and constantly evolving, building on what has gone before while pressing forward in search of new territory and with that in mind this week we’ll be looking at some of the genres young stars. 1. Juhi Bansal - Waves of Change (music, surfing and identity) 2. Caroline Shaw - Partita for 8 Singers: No. 1. Allemande 3. Attacca Quartet with Caroline Shaw - And So 4. David Hertzberg’s Spectre of the Spheres performed by the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra 5. Leonard Mark Lewis - Warm Summer Sun 6. Lucie Horsch - Pašona Kolo 7. Gabriella Smith - Bard of a Wasteland 8. Bryce Dessner’s Raphael performed by the Ensemble Intercontemporain

We continue our exploration of that strange and exhilarating landscape where Classical meets Jazz. 1. The Swingle Singers performing Prelude no.11 from J S Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier 2. Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia: Section III performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra with The Swingle Singers 3. Herbie Hancock performs Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra In G 4. Dmitri Shostakovich -Suite for Jazz Orchestra, Waltz No. 2 5. Igor Stravinski - Piano Rag Music 6. Igor Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto performed by Woody Herman 7. George Antheil - Jazz Symphony 8. Leonard Bernstein - 3 Dance Episodes from his musical On the Town

For today’s episode and the next we explore that strange and wondrous landscape where Classical meets Jazz. 1. The Swingle Singers perform Bach 2. John Lewis’s Three Little Feelings from Gunther Schuller’s album project Birth of the Third Stream 3. NZ pianist Michael Houston performs Mike Nock’s In the Time of Sukura 4. George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue 5. Copland Plays his own Piano Concerto from Jazz in the Concert Hall recorded in 1964.

Today we begin our travels in 4th century Byzantium take in Austria, France, Russia, Italy and on the way there much strangeness, wonder and beauty to explore. 1. Anna Netrebko Elīna Garanča perform "Mira O Norma Si, Fino All'ore Estreme’ from the Opera "Norma" by Vincenzo Bellini 2. Claude Debussy - Clair de Lune 3. A short audio documentary about Austrian composer Anton Webern then we listen to his Variations, Op 27 played by Glenn Gould 4. Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102 5. Ioannis Arvanitis - Hymn to St. Basil

Today’s journey includes 16th century England,19th century Italy with a diversion to the Planet of the Apes before Ethiopia and the Baltic sea. On offer is the avant-garde, the High Renaissance, some circular Ethiopian compositional styles and lots more besides. 1. Angela Gheorghiu performs Vissi d'arte from Tosca by Puccini 2. A short audio documentary about John Cage then it’s his composition Sonata V 3. Soprano Emma Kirby performs Part 1 scene 3 from Joseph Haydn’s The Creation 4. Thomas Tallis - Spem in Alium 5. Jerry Goldsmith - The Planet of the Apes. 6. Handel - Zadok the Priest 7. Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - The Homeless Wanderer 8. The Baltic Sea Orchestra performs Sunlight by Max Richter

We start today’s adventures in Baroque England before visiting Ukraine, France, New Zealand and finishing up in Appalachia. Art songs, symphonies, piano music and arias. It’s all here. 1. Kathleen Battle performs "Ombra Mai Fu / Largo" by G.F. Handel 2. Stefania Turkevych - Time Passes 3. Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1 4. Douglas Lilburn - A Song of Islands 5. Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring

In today’s episode we begin in Ukraine pass through Hollywood, Russia and medieval Germany and on the way touch on the art songs, film scores, scared music, concrete music and listen to the most English composer of his generation.

In this episode travel from Renaissance Italy to contemporary New York and on the way touch on opera, the avant-garde, film score music, electronica and some joyous snippets from Russian/American composer Alla Pavlova’s work The Old New York Nostalgia Suite.

In this episode travel from Renaissance Italy to contemporary New York and on the way touch on opera, the avant-garde, film score music, electronica and some joyous snippets from Russian/American composer Alla Pavlova’s work The Old New York Nostalgia Suite.

Our eclectic journey into the world of classical music begins.