Classical For Everyone

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.]

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 century… which is when most of the music comes from… Germany and Italy as we know them today did not exist. And to make things worse… the whole episode is really an excuse to play some music by a man now well and truly owned by modern Austria… which also didn't exist. What became Italy, Germany and Austria were a wonderfully confusing collection of kingdoms, republics, city states, free imperial trading centres, ecclesiastical principalities, and electorates. And you can imagine how catchy that sort of accuracy would have made the title. So please forgive 'Germans in Italy'. My clickbaity title will not diminish the pleasure I hope you are going to get from music by Heinrich Schutz, Johann Rosenmüller, Georg Friederich Handel, Johann Adolf Hasse, Johann Christian Bach, Christoph Willibald Gluck and the composer I alluded to earlier as the emblem of contemporary Austrian tourism… who was in fact from the sovereign ecclesiastical state of Salzburg… Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. [Episode image: Map of Italy. English, Circa 1788. "ITALY from the best AUTHORITIES" printed in London.]

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 you want music for small groups of instruments often performed in intimate spaces then, in English at least, you are going to be looking for 'chamber music'. And in this episode there will be chamber music from Maurice Ravel, Douglas Lilburn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Karol Szymanowski, Laurie Anderson, Johannes Brahms, Michael Norris and Antonin Dvorak. Plus I will be talking a little about chamber music festivals and playing ten minutes of a conversation I had with the violinist Justine Cormack about the At the World's Edge Festival she co-founded in Aotearoa New Zealand.

[Episode image: Courtesy of At The World's Edge Festival; Photographer: Nat Symonds.]

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 sellers' orchestra, a prophet in the wilderness… and a stolen statue. And… if that wasn't enough… eleven pieces of music from Felix Mendelssohn... perhaps the most gifted and quietly underrated composer of the nineteenth century.[Episode image: Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Friedrich von Schadow, 1834.]

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 for the intended audience… There's not a lot of talking. And the show is well under an hour. This might be balanced by the host's attempt to channel the children's books of his (distant) youth. Like I said, it's an experiment. But the music is terrific… Some perhaps expected… some not so much… The beginning of Michael Haydn's Toy Symphony, Edvard Greig's 'In the Hall of The Mountain King', 'Aquarium' from Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival Of The Animals, 'I'm The Birdcatcher' from Wolfgang Mozart's opera 'The Magic Flute'. Peter Tchaikovsky's 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' from his ballet 'The Nutcracker'; the ending of Joaquin Rodrigo's 'Concert for Aranjuez', the beginning of Johann Sebastain Bach's 'Third Brandenburg Concerto', the Prelude to Georges Bizet's opera 'Carmen', Elena Kats-Chernin's 'The Dance Of The Paper Umbrellas' and the Overture to Giacchino Rossini's opera 'The Barber of Seville'. [Episode image: 'The Walk To Paradise Garden' by W. Eugene Smith, 1946.]

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 music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Camille Saint-Saën's 3rd Symphony. Known as the Organ Symphony for reasons that will become pretty obvious. In this performance Daniel Barenboim conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the organist is Gaston Litaize. [Episode Image: Portrait of Saint-Saëns by Benjamin Constant. Background: Illustration of St John's Hall, London; where the premiere took place. The Hall was demolished in 1905.]

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 string quartets; there is another roughly eighty hours of music to explore. And in the same way that maybe Picasso, Rembrandt, Shakespeare and Dickens created very little that is not of extraordinary quality… there is a bunch of incredible music that is not going to be encountered by the casual listener and that is what I want to feature in this show. An overture, excerpts from a misnumbered piano concerto, a string quartet, a piano sonata and from the Triple Concerto. [Episode image: Johannes Gelert sculpture of Beethoven photographed in Lincoln Park outside Chicago mid-20th Century by Percy Sloan.]

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 the baggage of the term 'classical' then you can kind of forget that there is a lot of music being written, performed, recorded and released right now. Music by composers who are still very much amongst the living. And you are going to hear from seven of them in this episode… Gabriela Ortiz, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Maria Grenfell, Unsuk Chin, Anna Clyne, Paul Stanhope and Joe Hisaishi. I hope you enjoy the second 'Not Dead Yet' show from the 'Classical For Everyone' podcast.

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 the music will be bringing up sensations you are all too familiar with. I hope that wherever you are listening to this you are not shivering too much or sweating too much and that for the next hour and a quarter some wintery music will bring you some pleasure. Music from Geirr Tveitt, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Frederic Delius, Frederic Chopin, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Josef Haydn, Johannes Brahms, Jabra Latham, Morten Lauridsen, Henry Purcell and Franz Schubert. [Episode Image: Central Park NY.]

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 featuring a the surprisingly gifted cavoodle, Bob; it was too late to go back. So, music for pets it is. But I don't imagine you lining up your Spots, Tiggers, Fidos, Nuggets and Bobs for them to listen appreciatively to your audio device. No, the music is really more about a selection of the animals that we happen to enjoy as pets. And like all the themes for Classical for Everyone it is an excuse to find some wonderful music… And in this episode it is going to come from… Aaron Copland, Bernd Deutsh, Antonio Vivaldi, Jessica Wells, Domenico Scarlatti, Camille Saint-Saens, Bright Sheng, Sergei Prokofiev, Bohuslav Martinu, Nigel Westlake and Maurice Ravel. [Episode Image: Bob.]

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 relatively frequent appearances by Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. But there are a quite a number of other composers more than worthy of a good listen who I have largely ignored… 'the other Russians'. So for this episode I have music by Glinka, Balakirev, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Scriabin. Most of it is orchestral but there is nine minutes of opera and some very sweet miniatures for solo piano at the end of the show. [Episode Image: The curtain of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg – Wikimedia Commons]

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 music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sixth Symphony. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Andrew Davis.

He was taught by Antonio Salieri and his music was admired by Ludwig van Beethoven… but he enjoyed very little success in his short lifetime. It would take decades after his death for his music to make its way onto concert stages… and for him to become one of the best loved composers who ever lived. If you are new to his music I hope that over the next hour and a bit I'll give you a sense of why that is the case. I'm going to concentrate on music Schubert wrote between 1814 and 1822, that is between the ages of 17 and 25, including sections from two symphonies, two piano sonatas and a piano quintet; and three songs. [The image for this episode is a watercolour of Schubert by his friend Wilhelm August Rieder from 1825.]

This episode features a living musician, still very much in his prime… the Dutch cellist, Pieter Wispelwey. So, what prompted me to choose him? Well, a few things. I've been a fan for a long while and have been lucky enough to hear him play a number of times over the last three decades. And about 18 months ago the record company Channel Classics released a big box of CDs of recordings he made for the company… and they're terrific. And Wispelwey is equally at home with music from any of the last several centuries. Plus he is still touring… so for many of you listening to this podcast… he will be on a stage near you at some point and I recommend you grab the opportunity to hear him play. And perhaps most importantly I can get to play you some of the best music written for the cello… from Johann Sebastian Bach, Josef Haydn, Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky, Benjamin Britten, Antonin Dvorak, Antonio Vivaldi, Dmitri Shostakovich and Peter Sculthorpe. [The episode photograph is by Michel Garnier.]

Music from and about Seville, the city of Carmen's tobacco factory and Figaro's barber shop; the city of flamenco and fiestas; the city where more operas are set than any other; and the city where almost eight centuries of Spanish dominance does not seem to have been able to erase the sense of the proximity of North Africa and the cultural heritage of the Moorish world. Music by Isaac Albeniz, Joaquin Rodrigo, Georges Bizet, Joaquin Turina, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Francisco Guerrero and Giochhino Rossini. All of whom revel in the shifting mirage and extravagant reality that is Seville.

[The episode image is of La Giralda… the belltower of Seville Cathedral… once the minaret of the Grand Mosque of Islamic Seville.]

Much music has been inspired by love, passion or obsession… but only in a handful of cases has the person who was the inspiration… the muse… become publicly linked to a work. Here are the stories of six of them… Alma Schindler, Josephine Brunsvik, Kamila Stösslová, Peter Pears, Clara Wieck and Mathilde Wesendonck. And the music they inspired… by Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leos Janacek, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner.

[The episode image is a photographic portrait of Alma Schindler taken about eighteen months before she met Mahler. It is likely the image was made by Moriz Nähr but the attribution is difficult to confirm.]

*This episode is from back in April 2025. Whilst I am away from the microphone and the CD library for another week, I'm repeating one of my very favourite episodes. Enjoy.

Composers have drawn inspiration from the sea for centuries but only with the rise of the larger orchestras of the 1800s 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'.

*This episode is from the group that launched the podcast back in February 2025. Whilst I am away from the microphone and the CD library for a couple of weeks, I'm repeating some of my favourite episodes. Enjoy.

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937) is arguably the most beloved composer France has given the world… able to take classical and pre-classical forms, absorb the harmonic colours of Impressionism, draw on the dance traditions of his Basque mother's heritage, and infuse his later work with the energy of early jazz. All of it synthesised into a language that is quite distinctly his own. In this episode… a section of his first Piano Concerto, the Pavane for a Dead Princess, a little taste of his String Quartet, the amazing orchestral work La Valse, or The Waltz, the 'Blues' section of his second Violin Sonata… and the irresistible 'Bolero'. Plus a little biography thrown in.

*This episode is from the group that launched the podcast back in February 2025. Whilst I am away from the microphone and the CD library for a couple of weeks, I'm repeating some of my favourite episodes. Enjoy.

Recent Discoveries Two

This episode is the second one called 'recent discoveries'. And that should only be taken in the very personal sense of 'recent discoveries' for me. Some of it is indeed recent but in addition to music written in the last few years, there are a couple of pieces that date back to the early and mid-20th century so they were well and truly discovered before I encountered them. I want to apply a little bit of gentle pressure on behalf of the unfamiliar. I am going to hope that you will be pleasantly surprised by how good music by people whose names might not know can be… Music from Maria Grenfell, Gabriela Ortiz, Daniel Asia, Ethel Smyth, Herbert Howells, and the perhaps more recognisably… Dmitri Shostakovich.

Music for the hour before dawn. Which is in no way intended to be too prescriptive… the episode can be listened to any time… but I hope it is music that has a calmness and perhaps a contemplative tone that suits the hour when there is a glow in the sky, things are at their most quiet… and you have the world to yourself. The music is by Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Luys Milan, Josef Haydn, Georg Friedrich Handel, Rachel Portman, Nicholas Gombert, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach. Regular listeners to the podcast might recognise a couple of pieces from earlier episodes. Forgive me for playing favourites. Now, for this show I am going to be pretty sparing in talk; but I'll add a few paragraphs on each piece to the episode's page at classicalforeveryone.net.

Time for some music from one of the oldest instruments in the orchestra. True to the Old French word its English name came from… 'hautbois' with 'haut' meaning both high and loud and 'bois' meaning wood… the oboe found its place as the earliest woodwind instrument through its high range and penetrating volume. And whilst it can be piercing when required, it can also be playful, can manage a soaring lyricism and can epitomise grace and beauty. Music from Jennifer Higdon, Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Camille Saint-Säens, Richard Strauss, Samuel Barber, Ross Edwards and Antonio Vivaldi. Plus… musicians with knives.

Music written by people related to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. That may seem an odd way put a show together. If you were to make a playlist of the greatest hits of people related to Taylor Swift, it would be a very short list. But if you ever wanted to get into a complicated debate about nature versus nurture, the Bach clan of what is now northern Germany would be an interesting place to start. Somewhere between twenty and thirty relatives of Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music still recorded and performed two and three centuries later. And these were not merchants who wrote a few choral works for fun — these were people who made their living from music. As an aside… Of the six Bach relatives you'll hear in this episode, there is only one whose first name is not Johann. This is not going to be confusing at all.

Why a conductor? The outcomes of the complicated relationships conductors have with orchestras and ensembles, with record companies and the public; and with composers living and dead, are in themselves interesting… but for the purposes of this show it is the recorded legacy that matters and Antal Dorati's ranks amongst the finest of his generation. Dorati (1906 - 1988) was a Hungarian Jew who was able to escape Europe as World War Two commenced and he made the USA his home for much of the rest of his life. Choosing Dorati is also an excellent way to play some of the music that has been missing from the last few episodes of the podcast… what you might call 'classic' classical music… music written for the colours, range and expressive opportunities of a full modern orchestra. Music by Stravinsky, Haydn, Copland, Bartok, Szymanowski, Strauss and Ravel.

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 music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Johannes Brahms Fourth Symphony. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Manfred Honeck.

I was listening to the conductor Joshua Weilerstein's podcast 'Sticky Notes' the other day. It was an episode on Ludwig van Beethoven's 8th string quartet. He was playing the second section and he described the music as having a sense of 'consolation'… and there was something about that which really struck me. So I started looking into music connected to the idea of consolation but the more I delved the more I realised that wasn't quite what I was hearing in the Beethoven. For me it was not about the small gift or healing gesture to balance a loss… it was more about the small supportive joys that hold us up… keep us going… replenish optimism… and regardless of circumstances makes each day worthwhile. And I think 'Solace' is a better word for what the music said to me. And that led to a slightly different search for music for this show and I think the 'solace' theme delivers some really wonderful music… that does… as the subtitle says… 'hold you'.

The relationship between classical music and William Shakespeare's writing is one of the longest and most productive partnerships in the history of either art form. Composers have been drawn to Shakespeare's plays for four centuries and there is a vast amount of music to choose from. For this episode I have nine pieces, but only from four plays which suggests that some of the plays are perhaps more beloved by composers than others… Music from composers responding to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Hamlet' and 'Othello'. And those composers… ranging from the 19th century to the 21st are… Felix Mendelssohn, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Hector Berlioz, Giuseppe Verdi, Dmitri Shostakovich, Frederick Delius and Thomas Adès.

Haydn's music is in no way neglected or forgotten but I wonder if, because he lived a long life, during which he achieved significant success and seemed free of personality disorders, he is a little taken for granted. The creative artist dying at the height of his or her powers, or never recognised in their lifetime, or plagued by psychosis all seem to have an extra attraction for us. And Haydn was born a couple of generations before the 'artist as hero' cult began to emerge. For most of his working life he was 'artist as employee' or 'artist as courtier'. This episode includes sections from his early efforts with the string quartet, the symphony, opera and sacred music. Early but in no way juvenile. In fact surprisingly developed, mature and confident.

I did an episode of music by women composers back in November based around a CD Box release by the record label 'Brilliant Classics' and called it 'Brilliant Women'. No prizes for imagination but it was clear and accurate. So, I am going to keep things simple and call this show 'More Brilliant Women'. I could also call it 'music I am genuinely extremely excited to play for you that just happens to be written by women'. But that would be a little cumbersome. What I can say is this is just fabulous music which I think there is a very good chance you will enjoy. In the next hour and a bit I am going to play music by Ethel Smyth, Augusta Read Thomas, Rachel Portman, Anna Clyne, Liza Lim, Katia Beaugeais, Jenny McLeod, Maria Grenfell, Elena Kats-Chernin and Florence Price.

Here is the third Classical For Everyone podcast featuring the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I've done an episode on the music Mozart wrote in the last year of his life, 1791, back in June and one focused on 1786 last October. This one is still going to use the 'year in the musical life' theme but it will be a little looser… covering the year or so on each side of the pivotal moment in Mozart's life and career where he left Salzburg and moved to Vienna in 1781. It gives me a chance to play you music from a variety of genres, orchestral, opera, string quartet, choral and keyboard. The afterlife of Mozart's music is probably the most successful, or perhaps most fortunate, of all classical composers. So much of his music is still played, broadcast and recorded. But there is a pretty massive amount of amazing music that is not often heard and I think some of it will come up in this episode.

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 music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 – 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' from 1976. Performed by the London Sinfonietta conducted by David Zinman featuring the soprano, Dawn Upshaw.

Much of the 20th century orchestral music that today dominates concert halls and recording studios started as music for ballets. And the best of it started with the Ballets Russes company; which was largely the creation of one man… the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. It is hard to think of another instance where one man, who was not a composer, has had such an outsize influence on what has come down to us as great and lasting music. And I'm going to play you a selection of that music… from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Manuel de Falla and Sergei Prokofiev… as well as giving you a little of the Diaghilev and Ballets Russes story.

It's Classical For Everyone's 1st Birthday, so here's a personal favourite. This was the first time a choir and soloists had been added to a 'symphony'. Choral and orchestral music had been combined before but at the time there were quite rigid expectations of what a 'symphony' should be. That said there was a fascination amongst some parts of the Viennese audience with the way Ludwig van Beethoven seemed to be frequently tearing down traditions and replacing them with what somehow very often seemed to have been an innovation that was music's next natural step. And with the final movement of this symphony, Beethoven took that step. Suddenly there was singing. [Episode Image: Alfred Eiesnstaedt; Beethoven's Birth Room Bonn (1934)]

If from time to time you happen to listen to a podcast with the subtitle 'Five Hundred Years Of incredible Music' then it would be a reasonable expectation to hear some five hundred year old music. I've played a few pieces from the 1500s and 1600s but as you might expect the focus of the show has been sort of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi onwards… call it from the early 1700s until today. That means I've left out a good 175 years of music. This episode is going to be a step toward redressing that neglect.

On the day this episode is released, the American composer Philip Glass celebrates his 89th birthday. In a career now lasting well over five decades he has somehow achieved two extraordinarily rare things for a contemporary composer of classical music... a prolific amount of creative output and a degree of broad popularity. For the next hour and a quarter please enjoy a quick survey of five decades of great music… films, operas, concertos, quartets… and an unfairly small section of solo piano music. Happy Birthday!

Only be taken in the very personal sense of… recent discoveries by me. Not that I actually discovered anything. In my ongoing mission to keep the production of CDs alive, I came across music I didn't know and thought that you, my fine listeners, might enjoy. Incidentally, I was chatting with my friend Claude about the episode and his comment was that my title sounded much more dignified than "Music from Last Month's Credit Card Statement." And I urge you not to be discouraged by the idea of unfamiliar music. I promise there is some very lovely listening in the next 75 minutes from… Karl Goldmark, Joaquin Rodrigo, Frederick Delius, Ferdinand Hérold, Carl Nielsen, Andreas Hammerschmidt and Anne Cawrse.

Representing the weather with music is probably an ancient practice. In our earliest superstitions the percussive blasts of thunder would probably have been mimicked to either flatter or placate the spirit world. And perhaps whoever was organising the noisy tributes to the sky gods got something of the same thrill as composers might when they decide to use the weather for inspiration. In the next hour I'm going to give you a sort of chronological meander through what a handful of composers have done with the idea of storms over the last three hundred years with music from Georg Phillip Telemann, Ludwig van Beethoven, Ethel Smythe, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Jean Sibelius, Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten and John Adams.

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Cesar Franck's Symphony in D minor from 1888. Performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

Antonio Salieri was born near Verona in 1750 but lived most of his life in Vienna. And in the 1780s he was possibly the most successful composer in Europe… writing the music for over forty operas. Later in life he taught Schubert and Liszt. He worked with Beaumarchais and da Ponte, and Goethe was a fan. But if today the name Salieri is even vaguely familiar… it is not because of his music… it is because of a rumour implicating him in the death at a young age of another Vienna-based composer. Time to set the record straight. And play some great neglected music.

Classical Music for New Years Eve seems to be dominated by nineteenth century Viennese waltzes and eighteenth century music for fireworks. All nice stuff but I wasn't after something for New Years Eve. I wanted music for New Years Day. And that led to thoughts about renewals, beginnings, clean slates, optimism and second chances. And mysteriously that line of thought led to the idea of dawn and sunrise. So in the next hour and a bit there will be music about that very pretty time of the day... from Maurice Ravel, Joseph Haydn, Ottorino Respighi, Benjamin Britten, Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen, Peter Sculthorpe, Augusta Read Thomas and Ludwig van Beethoven. Happy New Year!

Sorcerers, Toys, Wolves, Volcanoes and Fossils. Music for young people… but why them… and why now? In some parts of the world people are having a bit of a holiday as this episode goes out… and you may have your children… or nephews, nieces or grandchildren lying around your home or stuck with you in your car. This is music for them. It can be enjoyed by anyone… but this is a collection of music that can be great early experiences of classical music for young people. Music from Michael Haydn, Paul Dukas, Camille Saint-Saëns, Gareth Farr, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In this episode there will be an amount of Christmas music from the western tradition… which I think you might have to expect from a podcast with the word 'classical' in the title but this is not really a celebration of mangers, shepherds, wise men or difficult to explain conceptions… though I have to confess, some shepherds snuck their way in. A certain amount of the music is just there for the sheer joy of it. Music that has a festive feel and in some instances has a certain holiday exuberance. Works by Corelli, Bach, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg, Mozart, Lilburn and Kats-Chernin.

Music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel, Morten Lauridsen, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, Philip Glass and Benjamin Britten… chosen pretty deliberately for its calming qualities. I'm guessing that quite a few of you are balancing the joys and challenges of the holiday season. So if you just want to put your feet up… or you've come to the end of a day with too much red and green in your world and are unwinding… or perhaps heading toward sleep, then I hope you'll enjoy this episode called 'Lullabies and Reveries'. And I'm perhaps using the word 'lullaby' in a broad sense… who says toddlers are the only ones who deserve evocative music to carry them to a dreamy state.

The title of this episode is perhaps a little misleading and it certainly contains a contradiction… namely, if I have a recording, and I can play it to you, then really, is 'forgotten' the right adjective? But it is, I hope you'll agree, a little catchier than… 'music from Antonio Vivaldi that might get a bit more prominence if his set of solo violin concertos called 'The Four Seasons' wasn't so extremely popular'. And as we go along, I'll tell you a little about the remarkable journey of Vivaldi's original handwritten scores and how surprising it is we have any of this music at all.

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This week… Philip Glass' 'Low' Symphony from 1992. Performed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.

From playing piano in the waterfront bars of Hamburg in his teens, through the failed premiere of his first Piano Concerto, his fortuitous friendship with Clara & Robert Schumann, reviving the String Sextet… to writing a Requiem more about the living than the dead; Johannes Brahms created incredible music well before he became a grand old man of the nineteenth century symphony. Performances by Serkin, Szell, Cleveland, Amadeus Quartet, Ugorsky, Ashkenazy, Perlman, Tuckwell, Eschenbach, Klemperer and the Philharmonia.

In recent years music written by women has at long last begun to be commissioned, programmed, performed, recorded, discussed, reviewed, studied, and celebrated. And of course, most importantly, composed… in greater and greater quantities. Last time I checked women account for half the planet's human population and if this podcast is called 'Classical For Everyone' then perhaps the music should be from 'everyone'. And even though I've scattered some wonderful music written by women through earlier episodes of the podcast, there is now so much great music available in great recorded performances, it feels like it could be time for the men to make just a little more room on the turntables. Music from 1690 to 2015 by Jennifer Higdon, Isabella Leonarda, Maddalena Sirmen, Fanny Mendelssohn, Mel Bonis, Ida Presti, Anna Clyne and Elena Kats-Chernin.

An episode back in late May 2025 featured music written for the clarinet from the 20th century. This is a companion show goes back to close to the invention of the clarinet with a work from 1755 and then finishes up with a gem from 1894. Music from Johann Stamitz, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Carl Maria von Weber and Johannes Brahms. My AI friend Claude came up with the title of the episode and I hope you find 'The Clarinet... Masters and Masterworks' a pretty accurate description.

At the end of the last episode Georg Friedrich Handel had just composed the anthem 'Zadok The Priest' for the coronation of King George II of Great Britain. The year was 1727 and it was the same year that Handel; who had grown up and begun his career in what is now Germany, and who had spent an intensely formative four years in the city states of the Italian peninsula, was granted British citizenship. In the next three decades he would write another dozen operas, over twenty oratorios, a slew of concertos, and books and books of keyboard music. More than enough for a second hour of music by this incredible composer.

I hope you're in the mood for some truly beautiful music… much of it involving singing. I don't know if I can convert anyone to the delights of early 18th century opera but the songs I'm going to play you in this episode are I think some of the most exquisite ever written. Handel was born in 1685 in Halle near Leipzig in what is now north-eastern Germany and died in London in 1759. By the time he died he was not just the most successful composer in Great Britain… he was one of the most successful people in the nation. And here is a little quote generated by Claude whilst I was researching this show. It is I think a pretty good summary of why Handel's music has persisted for three centuries… 'The music combines German rigor, Italian lyricism, and English choral traditions into a distinctive, accessible style characterized by memorable melodies, dramatic contrasts, and psychological insight.'

Probably adopted from early pagan traditions, 'All Hallows Eve', which became Halloween; was, and perhaps in some places still is, a night of rituals to call on the spirits of saints and martyrs for our protection in the year ahead; and prayers for the souls of loved ones who might not yet be fully at rest. So when I call this episode 'a different Halloween' all I really mean is that some of the music in this episode is more about sincere spirituality than trick-or-treating. But there are still one or two creepy concessions to today's Halloween. The music is from Modest Mussorgsky, Franz Schubert, Sergei Prokofiev, Rodrigo de Ceballos, John Tavener, Phillip Glass and Gabriel Fauré.

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This week… Aaron Copland's Third Symphony from 1946. Performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

This corner of classical music is more generally known by the odd term 'chamber music' but please don't let that stop you from experiencing some incredible music. This is music originally intended for smaller performance spaces… sometimes even just a dining room… written for a small number of instruments and by virtue of that the connection between players and audience can be more intimate and more intense. The music in the episode is by Anne Cawrse, Giovanni Sammartini, Sergei Prokofiev, Felix Mendelssohn, Gareth Farr and Samuel Barber.

I am looking out at the New York skyline as I record this episode and in the distance in particular I can glimpse the Ansonia Building. Completed in 1904 as an apartment hotel, it was for the early decades of the 20th century popular with visiting European composer/performers who would supplement their income with concert tours of the USA. In particular Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky both stayed at the Ansonia… with Stravinsky becoming a frequent resident for over a decade. Researching that building's connection to classical music, I discovered that a narrow stretch of New York's Upper West Side around the Ansonia had also featured in the lives of the composers George Gershwin, Gustav Mahler, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. So, today you're going to hear music connected to the Upper West Side. Some West Side Stories, if you will.

On January 27th 1786 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart turned 30. He had already written an astonishing amount of music of an incredible standard. He had been happily married to Constanze Weber for three years and their son Karl Thomas was fifteen months old. After moving to Vienna from Salzburg in 1781; Mozart had by 1786 reached perhaps the most economically secure position he would ever have. Essentially he was an in-demand freelance performer / composer with an emphasis on keyboard works and a growing reputation in the court of Joseph II, the Emperor of Austria. Enjoy excerpts from a piano concerto, a symphony, small ensemble music, a solo piano work, a horn concerto and a quite popular opera.

Benjamin Britten is today perhaps best known for his operas which included 'Peter Grimes', 'The Turn of The Screw', 'Billy Budd' and 'Death In Venice'. But I am actually going to feature more of his orchestral work in this episode. There'll be a bit of singing today but I'm going to save up his operas for another time. You'll hear some of his Violin Concerto, Simple Symphony, Ceremony of Carols, Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, War Requiem, Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra... and the incredible Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes.

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This week… John Luther Adams' 'Become Ocean'. Performed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ludovic Morlot.

Wondering if I could produce an episode without my AI pal Claude and I going down too many rabbit holes… I thought I'd see what I could come up with if I revisited past episodes and cherry-picked some favourite pieces. To be honest I was not that optimistic but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I hope you will be too. It has ended up being quite an eccentric and eclectic collection. But it's all very good. In the next hour you will hear music from Aram Khachaturian, Osvaldo Golijov, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Josef Haydn, Edward Elgar, Gillian Whitehead, Philip Glass and Benjamin Britten. And I'll let you know which episodes I have taken the music from in case you want to go back and explore them.

Johann Sebastian Bach's' The Goldberg Variations' was the only work that Glenn Gould recorded twice. Now, he died only about a year after this recording so it's not possible to say that he would not have re-recorded other works… but there is something a little haunting that the work that took him from quirky prodigy to global star in 1955 was the one he returned to in the final year of his life. If you are after some background to Gould and the music he made, then please listen to the previous episode. If you are happy to launch into 52 minutes of piano magic… then 'just hit play'.

This is the first episode of 'Classical For Everyone' devoted to just one musician so I better have some good reasons… apart from just a personal affection for his recordings. In the English speaking world, the Canadian Glenn Gould was amongst the most recognised and popular pianists in the second half of the 20th Century. In fact, even today, over forty years after his death at the age of 50 in 1982 there are not many pianists of similar stature. Ok, so he has enduring popularity. But why is that? At the heart of it is sheer technical skill. Which of course many pianists had and have… but Gould had a quite specific dexterity… a way of playing that articulated each note with a very precise individuality that could be applied at the same time, when required, at extraordinary speed. And in particular he applied this to the, then relatively unknown, keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach… a number of which will be featured in the episode along with music from Beethoven, Byrd, Brahms and Scarlatti.

Music that takes its inspiration from humanity's gaze out into the cosmos and from our attempts to reach beyond this fragile planet we call home. And to access some music that predated the quite modern science of 'astronomy' I've thrown in some works that may owe rather more to 'astrology' or perhaps even to the realm of 'mythology'. As a result this is I think the most eclectic collection of music yet put out into the universe under the 'Classical For Everyone' banner. In the next hour and a quarter you are going to hear music by Gustav Holst, Jean-Phillipe Rameau, Henri Dutilleux, Joaquin Rodrigo, Terry Riley, Johann Sebastain Bach, Brett Dean and Benjamin Britten.

I am being a little deliberately opaque with the title of this episode. There is a certain logic to letting people know what they are going to get. But not today. Because I am hoping that for a good selection of listeners out there the date of 22nd December 1808 is pretty much meaningless. And that what follows will be a bit of a surprise. What happened? Well I guess a lot happened but for our purposes there was a concert. A thirty-eight year old composer, with the help of some aristocratic patrons had booked a big theatre to showcase some of the new music he had been working on. And he was the composer, a performer, the conductor and the promoter. Now the concert turned out to be somewhere between a disappointing night out and an unparalleled disaster… depending on which sources you follow. And you might be wondering why am I featuring an event which, in a city filled with glittering musical events at that time… even as the Napoleonic Wars raged on, was essentially a failure. Might be something to do with the music.

'Unfairly neglected' is a bit of a cliché and pretty subjective but I do think it could describe a mass of great music that a lot of us (us Anglos at least) are missing out on… music from South America. Before I put this episode together I only knew about half the pieces I am going to play. The rest are as new for me as I suspect they might be for you. Which is, I hope, more of a positive than a negative. I don't think I can even get away with describing this episode as 'scratching the surface'… not just because it seems to be 'cliché day' here at Mending Wall Studios… but because an hour and a bit is not a lot of time for the music of an entire continent. Still, it's perhaps worth starting somewhere. Please enjoy music from… Astor Piazzola, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Osvaldo Golijov, Alberto Ginastera and Camargo Guarnieri.

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This week… Anton Bruckner's 7th Symphony. Performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted by Georg Tintner.

I get it that for some people opera is just noise that they are not ever going to enjoy but if there are listeners out there with a bit of curiousity and an inquiring mind… and that is how I would describe anyone listening to this podcast… then I urge you to have a listen to this episode. Why? Well because if you enjoy any music with singing… then you can enjoy opera. And the selection I have made for this episode is based on one simple criteria… pure pleasure. I think you might enjoy ten pieces of opera… from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Georg Friedrich Handel, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppi Verdi, Georges Bizet, Giacomo Puccini and John Adams.

The second of a two episode special. His music uniquely blended Western European compositional techniques with distinctly Russian melodic and harmonic elements, creating a style that was both internationally appealing and unmistakably Russian. Remarkably successful in his own lifetime and responsible for so much music that remains popular to this day he is still perhaps not quite given his due. In these two episodes Sleeping Beauties, Memories of Beloved Places, Teasing Peasants, Violins, Pianos and Cannons argue his case.

The first of a two episode special. His music uniquely blended Western European compositional techniques with distinctly Russian melodic and harmonic elements, creating a style that was both internationally appealing and unmistakably Russian. Remarkably successful in his own lifetime and responsible for so much music that remains popular to this day he is still perhaps not quite given his due. In these two episodes Sleeping Beauties, Memories of Beloved Places, Teasing Peasants, Violins, Pianos and Cannons argue his case.

Why New York? Well, mainly because I love the city… and I'm here. I'm recording this episode in a hotel room on West 56th Street in Manhattan around the corner from Carnegie Hall and up the road from The Museum of Modern Art… which is incidentally a very popular place to make TikTok videos. I think there might still be some paintings there… but it was hard to tell today. More importantly… the music in this episode is from Steve Reich, Charles Ives, Jessie Montgomery, Leonard Bernstein, Phillip Glass and George Gershwin.

I'm going to start with a question. If one thinks of musical instruments as tools… as things humans create to perform tasks… other than the violin, is there any other tool you can think of used in an area of incredibly complex human endeavour where the design and construction of it reached its zenith over three hundred years ago and has not been improved upon since? Whilst you ponder that, enjoy music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Josef Haydn, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Johann Sebastain Bach, Samuel Barber, Ross Edwards & Johann Joseph Vilsmayr in this episode of Classical For Everyone.

The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whom distractions and apprehensions… racing imaginations and freewheeling thoughts hold suspended at the edge of sleep. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This week… Gustav Mahler's 1st Symphony.

Brian Eno's 1979 LP 'Music For Airports' launched the genre of 'Ambient Music'… an alternative to the dreadful 'muzak' inflicted on humans in most public spaces… music that reduced stress rather than added to it… music for contemplation that rewarded attention but did not require it. This episode takes that idea and rummages around classical music to see if there are works that might do the same… with thanks to Gavin Bryars, Erik Satie, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Phillip Glass, Richard Wagner, John Adams, Arvo Pärt and Gabriel Fauré.

Instances where composers have hidden something in their works… sometimes for the sheer ingeniousness of being able to do it… sometimes to send a secret message to someone… sometime to create a puzzle for generations to come… sometimes to create a tortured ambiguity of meaning. The music is from a pretty eclectic mix… Johann Sebastain Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Alban Berg, Dmitri Shostakovich and Edward Elgar. Lots of Secrets.

Can something of a survey of the music of Italy… including music of the city states, republics and kingdoms that became the nation of Italy in the late nineteenth century… be done in a little over an hour? Absolutely not. But what I have chosen does perhaps suggest a few themes that can be found in the music made on the Italian Peninsula over the last several centuries. Please enjoy… Giuseppe Verdi, Archangelo Corelli, Claudio Monteverdi, Ottorino Respighi, Carlo Gesualdo, Tomaso Albinoni, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Gioachino Rossini, Pietro Mascagni and Alessandro Scarlatti.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna in late 1792 as a 22-year-old from the town of Bonn to study with Josef Haydn who was at the time undeniably Europe's most celebrated living composer. Beethoven also quickly established himself in Viennese aristocratic circles, securing patronage from nobles who recognized his extraordinary talent both as a virtuoso pianist and as a composer of startling originality. This episode is a collection of music from Beethoven's first decade in Vienna.

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.

There's no way around the fact that this entire corner of classical music is generally known by the term 'chamber music' but please don't let that stop you from experiencing some incredible music… even if you find the term, as I do, just plain odd. This is music originally intended for smaller performance spaces… sometimes even just a dining room… and by virtue of that the connection between players and audience is more 'intimate'. The music in the episode is by Phillip Glass, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Paul Stanhope.

No other filmmaker has used classical music to better effect than the American director Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999). Whilst composers did score some of his films, Kubrick frequently used existing classical pieces… in particular for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon & The Shining. Kubrick's choices are fascinating and did a lot to get classical music to new audiences. And, besides, how else could I get Schubert, Handel, Ligeti, Penderecki and two Strausses into the one episode of Classical For Everyone?

If you have hit play for this episode then that means you are in that part of the population who have not been entirely turned off Vivaldi by the overuse of his deservedly popular set of violin concertos… 'The Four Seasons'. I am glad you are going to join me for an hour of exquisite music… a concerto for two violins and cello, a mandolin concerto, a song from his semi-opera Andromeda liberata, a cello sonata, a section from his Stabat Mater for solo voice and small ensemble, and because it has to be done… a concerto for violin that is all about 'Winter'

This first adventure with the guitar on Classical For Everyone features quite a bit of music from Spain.. probably the country that was most closely identified with the instrument until companies in America popularised the electric guitar. But as well as Spain there's music from Austria-Hungary, Italy and Brazil with works by Albeniz, Mudarra, Haydn, Granados, Rodrigo, Scarlatti, Villa-Lobos and Falla.

Sometimes music can just be for pleasure and if that is the composer and the performers' intention, then good for them… and good for us listeners. If most music is created to make you 'feel'… then some music can just be to make you feel good. And from time to time happiness can be in short supply… and if that is the case then I hope the music I am going to play you over the next hour can at least give you a smile. In service of that objective… in this episode will be music by Beethoven, Rossini, Bach, Schubert, Westlake, Bizet, Mozart, Gershwin and Vivaldi. Enjoy.

Much music has been inspired by love, passion or obsession… but only in a handful of cases has the person who was the inspiration… the muse… become publicly linked to a work. Here are the stories of six of them… Alma Schindler, Josephine Brunsvik, Kamila Stösslová, Peter Pears, Clara Wieck and Mathilde Wesendonck. And the music they inspired… by Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leos Janacek, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner.

A percussion instrument is pretty much anything that can be hit, tapped, scraped, scratched or banged. In an orchestra it is generally the responsibility of the individual or small group of people up the back… the ones who get to make the most noise and have to master the most instruments and who, in this episode, help give us armies fighting on an ice covered lake, a peasant girl dancing herself to death, big gates, small rocks and a visit to The Overlook Hotel… with works from the composers Prokofiev, Sculthorpe, Bartok, Stravinsky and Mussorgsky.

If you've ever been puzzled why once you scratch the surface of classical music the name Johann Sebastian Bach seems to just keep turning up… this episode might offer some clues… beyond the fact that the music is pretty good. With the assistance of The English Concert, Maurizio Pollini, John Eliot Gardiner, Wolfgang Rübsam, Masaaki Suzuki, Glenn Gould, Itzhak Perlman, Christophe Rousset, Helena Rathbone & Richard Tognetti.

Amongst all the instruments in the modern string family… violins, violas, cellos and double basses… it is the cello that most closely approximates the range of the human voice… from the lowest bass to the highest soprano and that may be one reason why it seems especially popular. Music from Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edward Elgar, Sergei Prokofiev, Samuel Barber, Dmitri Shostakovich; and, to finish, something for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.

This episode of Classical For Everyone includes musicians slowly leaving the stage… lovers separated by the call of duty… music for beginning a journey… and music for a sad and very final farewell. A section of a symphony by Josef Haydn, eight minutes of a Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart opera, a Felix Mendelssohn overture, maybe one of the saddest farewells ever written… from Henry Purcell, and the Adagio For Strings by Samuel Barber.

This episode is all music written by people who have the particular distinction of still breathing. I think it's important to say that nowhere near all classical music is written by dead men from Vienna. One of the unintended consequences of a whole genre of music being called 'classical' is that associations with past eras can disguise the fact that exciting and brilliant new music is being written and performed every day and here are works by Jennifer Higdon, John Adams, Gillian Whitehead, Ross Edwards and Brett Dean.

There's a string quartet written by the American composer Morton Feldman in the 1980s that is about 6 hours long. 'Einstein on the Beach', the opera by Phillip Glass and Robert Wilson, is about five hours long and is performed without an interval. There is of course plenty of classical music that is well under these eye-watering durations. A Vivaldi concerto can be over in ten minutes… Aaron Copland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man' is under four minutes and most Chopin Nocturnes are three to five minutes long. But there is still a perception and an understandable one… that classical music is long. And it is a quick leap to the conclusion that it is too long. Well, there might be another way of looking at it.

This episode of Classical For Everyone is all about Night.. music that evokes the night… that captures the different moods of nighttime, and music written to be performed at night. Night in the Gardens of Spain, Moonlight over the Suffolk Coast, Midnight in a Chapel, Goblins in the bedroom, a walk in a deep, dark forest at night… a Nocturne… and a little night music. Sixty minutes of music by Manuel De Falla, Frederic Chopin, Benjamin Britten, Marc-Antione Charpentier, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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.

Ravel was born in the Basque borderlands of France in 1875 and much of his music can be thought of as Spanish rhythms meeting French elegance. He was accepted into the Paris Conservatory as a teenager to study piano but instead focused on composition. For the first couple of decades of his adult career he was not welcomed by the musical establishment of the day. But especially after the First World War he came to be seen as a major figure and with increasing international success he was by the 1930s considered France's greatest living composer. Ravel's music in this episode is a section of his first Piano Concerto, the Pavane for a Dead Princess, a little taste of his String Quartet, his amazing orchestral work, La Valse or The Waltz, the 'Blues' section of his second Violin Sonata… and his rather popular 'Bolero'.

Sonata, cantata, concerto, adagio... for English speakers approaching classical music, these Italian terms can feel like an unnecessary barrier. This mini-episode explores how Italian became classical music's universal language… its journey from the cultural power of Renaissance Italy to today's international concert halls. A short look at why these terms are still with us, and (annoyingly) why knowing the names of six types of pasta isn't quite enough Italian for classical music.

Like many terms in classical music 'woodwind' is a vague catch all that is now a little out of date. After all, modern flutes aren't even made of wood anymore. But tradition is strong and everyone is going to keep calling them 'woodwinds'. More importantly, these instruments, whether crafted from wood, metal, or modern materials, have drawn composers to their distinct voices for over two centuries… including the music in this episode by John Adams, Claude Debussy, Carl Maria von Weber, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Vivaldi and Carl Vine.