Podcasts · Music

Classical For Everyone

Peter Cudlipp

107 episodes

Five hundred years of incredible music. No expertise is necessary. All you need are ears. If you've ever been even slightly curious about classical music then this is the podcast for you.

Episodes page 1 of 3

  1. Longing

    · 1 h 17 min

    We bring meanings to music that the composers often didn't intend. And this episode is going to be an example of that. There is something in some music that for me triggers a sort of longing. The writer and composer…

  2. Sviatoslav Richter - Part One

    · 1 h 14 min

    The Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter, as I hope this and the following episode will illustrate, is one of the greatest musicians of the recording era… unsurpassed technical expertise matched with a profound depth of…

  3. Mozart Opera Overtures

    · 1 h 25 min

    Why Mozart Opera Overtures? Well, whilst they were not really intended to be stand-alone pieces they have in many instances become favourites of concert programmers and broadcasters, not to mention the public. And with…

  4. Film Music

    · 1 h 25 min

    Who knew that Camille Saint-Saens of 'Carnival of the Animals' fame wrote the world's first film score? Or that the Pulitzer Prize for music has been given to only one work for the screen. Or that five composers,…

  5. Diving For Pearls – Part Two

    · 42 min

    [Please feel free to leap straight into this second part of the 'Diving for Pearls' episode but there's background information in the first half you might enjoy if by chance you have missed it.] How did the term…

  6. Diving For Pearls – Part One

    · 48 min

    How did 'baroque', the French version of a very old Portuguese term for a misshapen pearl… which became an insult applied to complicated music… and was then rehabilitated as a description of an ornate style of art and…

  7. Night and Darkness

    · 1 h 08 min

    It could be argued that Night and Darkness are sort of the same. The Night is Dark. That's kind of the point. But there are brightly moonlit nights and there are very dark nights; in more ways than one, and then there…

  8. Frederic Chopin

    · 1 h 15 min

    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,…

  9. Germans In Italy

    · 1 h 22 min

    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…

  10. Chamber Music Three + A Festival Conversation

    · 1 h 18 min

    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…

  11. Felix Mendelssohn

    · 1 h 31 min

    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……

  12. Music For The Very, Very Young

    · 46 min

    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…

  13. Sunday Night Special … Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony)

    · 42 min

    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…

  14. Neglected Beethoven

    · 1 h 05 min

    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…

  15. Not Dead Yet - Two

    · 1 h 18 min

    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…

  16. Winter

    · 1 h 25 min

    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…

  17. Music For Pets

    · 1 h 06 min

    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…

  18. The Other Russians

    · 1 h 16 min

    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…

  19. Sunday Night Special … Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 6

    · 39 min

    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…

  20. Franz Schubert 1

    · 1 h 16 min

    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…

  21. Pieter Wispelwey - Cellist

    · 1 h 22 min

    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…

  22. Seville… Love and Dreams

    · 1 h 15 min

    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…

  23. Muses... Worth Repeating*

    · 1 h 11 min

    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…

  24. The Sea… Worth Repeating*

    · 1 h 01 min

    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…

  25. Maurice Ravel... Worth Repeating*

    · 1 h 07 min

    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…

  26. Recent Discoveries Two

    · 1 h 31 min

    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…

  27. Before Dawn

    · 1 h 08 min

    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…

  28. The Oboe

    · 1 h 28 min

    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…

  29. An Exaltation of Bachs

    · 1 h 12 min

    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…

  30. Conductors 1 – Antal Dorati

    · 1 h 20 min

    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…

  31. Sunday Night Special … Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 4

    · 45 min

    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…

  32. Solace… Music To Hold You

    · 1 h 19 min

    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…

  33. Music for Shakespeare… Dreams, Lovers and Ghosts

    · 1 h 28 min

    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…

  34. Joseph Haydn: The Early Years.

    · 1 h 15 min

    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.…

  35. More Brilliant Women.

    · 1 h 21 min

    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…

  36. Mozart… Farewell Salzburg, Hello Vienna

    · 1 h 26 min

    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…

  37. Sunday Night Special 7… Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3 – 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs'

    · 1 h 03 min

    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…

  38. The Ballets Russes… Firebirds, Fauns and Fighting

    · 1 h 22 min

    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…

  39. Beethoven's 9th Symphony

    · 1 h 25 min

    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…

  40. Very Old (Incredible) Music

    · 1 h 22 min

    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…

  41. The Music of Philip Glass

    · 1 h 14 min

    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…

  42. Recent Discoveries

    · 1 h 19 min

    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…

  43. Stormy Weather

    · 1 h 10 min

    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…

  44. Sunday Night Special 6… Cesar Franck's Symphony in D minor

    · 43 min

    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…

  45. Antonio Salieri – An Injustice Redressed

    · 1 h 17 min

    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…

  46. Sunrise (Music for The New Year)

    · 1 h 06 min

    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…

  47. Music For Young People (and their grown-ups)

    · 1 h 25 min

    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…

  48. Holiday Music (You Can Actually Listen To)

    · 1 h 23 min

    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…

  49. Lullabies and Reveries

    · 59 min

    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…

  50. Forgotten Vivaldi… and the Rescue of his Music

    · 1 h 26 min

    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…

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