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Music Matters (Classical)

  • Next available on BBC Radio 3 91.3
  • Petroc Trelawny is joined by Robert Tear, Elaine Padmore and David Nice to review new books about Sergei Diaghilev, English National Opera and Benjamin Britten.
  • in 6 days 19 hours 26 minutes
  • Find another station or time for this show on one of 37 other stations & times
  • Host: Tom Service, Petroc Trelawny
  • The latest news on classical music. Interviews with key UK and international performers, composers, directors, conductors and musicians. With features on opera, jazz, world and community music making. BBC Radio 3's 45 minute music magazine show presented by Tom Service and Petroc Trelawny.
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  • Genres: Classical
  • Location: London, United Kingdom
  • Language: English
  • Networks: BBC
Last updated 41 days ago Update show info

MusicMat: Purcell Special Nov '09

Sat, Nov 21 Listen
This is a Music Matters special edition celebrating the 350th anniversary of Henry Purcells birth. Tom Service looks at Purcells legacy, and how his music has continued to influence British composers until the present day with contributions from Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Michael Nyman and from the archives Britten and Tippett. Other contributions include Andrew Parrott talking about Purcells reputation at the time of his death, the American choreographer Mark Morris talking...

MusicMat: Richard Rodney Bennett & Lukas Ligeti

Sat, Nov 14 Listen
Tom Service talks to composer Richard Rodney Bennett. Impresario Lilian Hochhauser tells Tom how she and her husband brought famous Russian musicians to Britain during the Cold War. Tom meets composer Lukas Ligeti, son of Gyorgy, who is attracting a following as one of the most adventurous young musical pioneers. And ahead of a residency at London's Southbank Centre, Tom meets violinist Leonidas Kavakos. He talks about his concept of 'Source' - the inspiration which he says lies at the heart...

MusicMat: Berlin

Fri, Nov 6 Listen
Petroc Trelawny presents a special edition from the studios of Deutschlandradio Kultur to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. With the help of some of the key players in the city's musical life over the past two decades, Petroc goes back to the immediate aftermath of the events of November 1989, when a city that had been divided for so long suddenly found itself with a least two of everything - including three opera houses and a surfeit of professional orchestras....

MusicMat: South Africa

Sat, Oct 24 Listen
Presented by Tom Service. Including Cape Town Opera's UK debut with Porgy and Bess, the life of Scottish composer Erik Chisholm, South African born composer Kevin Volans and Katya Kabanova performed by Scottish Opera on their tour of the Highlands.

MusicMat: Terry Reily's In C - 17 Oct 09

Sat, Oct 17 Listen
This edition Music Matters reviews the book 'Terry Reily's In C' by the academic Robert Carl, a study on the American composer's pioneering composition. Also, an interview with Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang, the founder members of 'Bang on A Can', the New-York based ensemble specializing in modern music, ahead of their forthcoming concert in London. The programme also interviews controversial British composer Steve Martland, who turns 50 this month, and eavesdrop into an...

MusicMat: Peter Maxwell Davies

Sat, Oct 10 Listen
Tom Service travels to Sanday, one of the northernmost Orkney Isles, to meet the Master of the Queen’s Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Max shows Tom around his home on the west coast of Sanday, and during a windy and wet walk on the coral white beach at Start Point on Sanday explains to Tom some of the inspirations behind his music. Back at home, Max and Tom talk about the role of spirituality in his music, and about the ancient icons above each door in his house, placed there to ward off...

MusicMat: Kenneth MacMillan

Fri, Oct 2 Listen
Tom Service travels to Liverpool to meet the dynamic young Russian conductor at the helm of the RLPO, Vasily Petrenko, and find out about In Harmony Liverpool, one of three pilot projects in England modelled on the Venezuelan El Sistema for music education and social well-being. As a new biography of the great choreographer Kenneth MacMillan is published, Tom talks to his widow as well as people who worked closely with him, about his response to the music of his time, and how far his...

MusicMat: Hungary

Sat, Sep 19 Listen
To start the new season of Music Matters, Tom Service reports from the Hungarian capital Budapest. Twenty years since the fall of communism, this year also marks the 125th anniversary of the opera house, the 5th since Hungary joined the EU, and a year since the International Monetary Fund bailed out Hungary’s economy. Hungary is a country in which society, politics, and music are inextricably linked - Tom was there to experience one of the richest musical cultures in the world, and to find...

MusicMat: Neville Cardus

Mon, Jul 13 Listen
French music figures large today as Petroc Trelawny meets mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, one of the world's great exponents of French song, and finds out about a new book on French piano music by Roy Howat. Manchester-born writer on music and cricket (1889-1975) Neville Cardus is the subject of a new book by his friend and fellow Lancastrian Robin Daniels. Considered by some to have invented sports journalism, Cardus's reviews of the Halle's concerts in 1930s were an inspiration to countless...

MusicMat: Perceptions of classical music

Sat, Jul 4 Listen
Tom Service investigates the story of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande through the lives of the women so closely involved in the opera's creation, as a new book examining the work is published. As Kaija Saariaho's opera L'Amour de loin opens at English National Opera, Tom meets the composer and the director Daniele Finzi Pasca. Sound artist Martin Parker discusses his new works for headphones, designed specially for locations around East Neuk in Scotland. Tom explores perceptions of classical...

MusicMat: American Song

Sat, Jun 20 Listen
Baritone Thomas Hampson performs exclusively for Music Matters - songs from his American Song Project. There's the latest on Leonard Bernstein's political activities with a new book looking at files held on the composer by the FBI and the Bernstein Archive at the Library of Congress. Tom Service talks to tenors John Potter, Ian Bostridge and Robert Tear about the role of the tenor, and news of an opera unperformed for over 40 years by Donald Swann on the novel Perelandra by CS Lewis.

MusicMat: Music and Morality

Sat, Jun 13 Listen
Music Matters talks to Sir Colin Davis on 50 years of conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; also, music and morality, first at the Royal Opera House, as two production based on controversial subjects get under way: Alban Berg’s ‘Lulu’, the tale of the femme fatale per excellence, a seductress and murderess who in the end pays for her sins, and ‘Parthenogenesis’ by James McMillan, the true story of a woman who gave birth to her own twin, as a consequence of bombings during the Second...

MusicMat:Haydn Special

Sat, Jun 6 Listen
As part of Radio 3's continuing Haydn season, Tom Service goes in search of the music behind the man. With contributions from some of the great Haydn aficionados - including pianists Robert Levin and Alfred Brendel, conductor Trevor Pinnock and ex-leader of the Lindsays, Peter Cropper - Tom finds out just how limited the image of the benign "Papa Haydn" really is in helping us achieve a deep understanding of one of the 18th century's most daring and innovative composers.

MusicMat: Maw / Penderecki

Sat, May 23 Listen
Petroc Trelawny with a tribute to British composer Nicholas Maw who died last Tuesday, aged 73. Also interviews with Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki and Oscar winning playwright Ronald Harwood. And the household business names commissioning new music.

MusicMat: Glyndebourne at 75

Sat, May 16 Listen
As Glyndebourne celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2009, Tom Service explores the role of this unique private opera house in the 21st century, with contributions from Executive Chairman Gus Christie, General Director David Pickard, Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, director David McVicar and singers Sarah Connolly and Danielle de Niese.

MusicMat: Mendelssohn's Scotland

Sat, May 9 Listen
Tom Service traces Felix Mendelssohn’s journey around the highlands of Scotland, which he took with his friend Carl Klingemann in the summer of 1829. Tom starts his Scottish journey in Edinburgh, where he is joined by social historian Alison Hiley. From there he travels west to the Hebrides, where he is joined by musicologist John Purser. Between them they imagine the connections between landscape and music. The climax of Mendelssohn’s trip was a visit to Fingal’s Cave on the Isle of Staffa...

MusicMat: Felicity Palmer

Sat, May 2 Listen
Mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer is at the summit of her career. She's been used to singing the 'witches and bitches' (her words) of opera. She talks with Tom about her early career as a soprano, the traumatic turning point when she realised she was really a mezzo, and her passion for those characters on stage. Anish Kapoor is the new Guest Artistic Director of this year's Brighton Festival, and joins Tom in his London studio to talk about sculpture and music. The Britten Sinfonia plays two...

MusicMat: Handel

Sat, Apr 18 Listen
Petroc Trelawny is joined by Sunday Times classical music critic Hugh Canning and musicologist Berta Joncus to discuss Handel now, and how far things have moved on since the tercentenary celebrations of 1985. Taking as a starting point English National Opera's landmark production of Xerxes in 1984, Petroc and guests debate the relative merits of whacky productions of the operas, conductor and harpsichordist Christopher Hogwood talks about the music of Handel that's still to be discovered, we...

MusicMat: Imogen Cooper

Sat, Apr 11 Listen
Tom Service talks to pianist Imogen Cooper about her life-long passion for the music of Schubert. He visits Cambridge, ahead of a week of choral concerts marking the university's 800th anniversary. He also discusses the role of music in cancer care with Don Campbell of Mozart Effect fame.

MusicMat: Simon Rattle 4 April 09

Sat, Apr 4 Listen
This week on Music Matters Tom Service travels to Berlin for an exclusive interview with Sir Simon Rattle, Principal Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He chats openly about what the orchestra -and what conducting- really means to him.

MusicMat: Purcell in London

Sat, Mar 21 Listen
Tom Service goes in search of Purcell, as BBC Radio 3 celebrates the 350th anniversary in 2009 of the English composer's birth. Experts, musicians and historians take him through a journey back in time, tracing what little is known about the composer, and what the latest research and findings suggest.

MusicMat: Roger Norrington

Sat, Mar 14 Listen
In this week's programme Tom Service talks to conductor Roger Norrington as he celebrates his 75th birthday, and Petroc Trelawny meets pianist Richard Goode to discuss his new recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos. Tom is joined in the studio by conductor Jane Glover and musicologist Cliff Eisen to review a new book by Daniel Heartz about Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and a new film by Phil Grabsky, In Search of Beethoven.

MusicMat: Education Special

Sat, Mar 7 Listen
Tom Service chairs a debate about the future of music education from the MusicLearningLive! festival of music education, hosted by the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. On the panel: Dick Hallam, National Music Participation Director; Katherine Zeserson, Director of Participation and Learning at the Sage, Gateshead; cellist and educationalist Zoe Martlew; Christina Coker, Chief Executive of Youth Music and Richard Morrison, Chief Culture Writer and Music Critic of the Times...

MusicMat: Bryn Terfel

Sat, Feb 21 Listen
As bass-baritone Bryn Terfel prepares to open as Wagner's Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, he talks to Tom Service about balancing the demands of being a superstar with family life. Tom travels to Leeds to find out more about jazz pianist and composer Matthew Bourne's latest project, Songs from a Lost Piano, and a new book about the Paris Opera during the French Revolution falls under the Music Matters spotlight.

MusicMat: Mikhail Rudy

Sat, Feb 14 Listen
Tom Services meets Russian pianist Mikhail Rudy ahead of his series of concerts at Kings Place in London with Misha Alperin. As the global financial crisis deepens, Music Matters convenes an international panel to assess the effects on the classical music world. And a new community opera in Suffolk: Anna Meredith's Tarantula in Petrol Blue is a new piece for the stage involving local teenagers and young professionals.

MusicMat: Jonathan Miller

Sat, Feb 7 Listen
Music and science meet in this week's programme. 200 years after the birth of Charles Darwin, Petroc Trelawny convenes a transatlantic panel to discuss the degree to which Darwin's theory of evolution can be applied to music. Jonathan Miller talks about his new production of La Boheme at ENO and there's a new book by Christina Shewell called Voice Work, reviewed by Mary King and Henry Goodman.

MusicMat: Gerald Finley

Sat, Jan 24 Listen
Tom Service compares two visions of death about to open on the London stage - Korngold's Die Tote Stadt and John Adams' Doctor Atomic - and Canadian baritone Gerald Finley talks about singing in both. Tom also surveys the Royal Academy of Music's cycle of Bach's complete sacred cantatas, and Michael Church visits Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to report on efforts to preserve traditional music in Central Asia.

MusicMat: The Beggar's Opera

Sat, Jan 17 Listen
Tom Service previews a new production of Britten's reworking of the Beggar's Opera by John Gay. He meets pianist Stephen Hough and talks to Mayor of London Boris Johnson about his musical instruments amnesty. And Nicholas Kenyon and Paul Griffiths review a new book by Richard Taruskin called The Danger of Music.

MusicMat: Thomas Quasthoff

Sat, Jan 10 Listen
Tom Service talks to German baritone Thomas Quasthoff, who appears in Haydn's oratorio The Creation as part of his residency at London's Barbican Centre throughout 2009. Tom also eavesdrops on a rehearsal of Skin Deep, a new comic operetta staged by Opera North in Leeds, with libretto by Armando Iannucci and music by David Sawer. And academic David Fanning, musicologist Niels Krabbe and Danish composer Karl Aage Rasmussen reflect on Carl Nielsen and his music, as the CBSO and Halle embark on...

MusicMat: Puccini Special

Sat, Dec 20 2008 Listen
In a special edition to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Puccini, Tom Service visits some of the locations in Tuscany that meant so much to the composer even when he achieved international stardom. In the company of musicologist Roger Parker he assesses Puccini's legacy, his complicated relationships with women and the question of how modern Puccini was.

Petroc Trelawny and guests review three new books about music.

Sat, Dec 5
Petroc Trelawny is joined by Robert Tear, Elaine Padmore and David Nice to review new books about Sergei Diaghilev, English National Opera and Benjamin Britten.

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