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Podcasts · Music

Classical For Everyone

Peter Cudlipp

108 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 2 of 3

  1. 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…

  2. Sunday Night Special 5… 'Low' Symphony by Philip Glass

    · 48 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…

  3. Young Brahms… before the Symphonies.

    · 1 h 25 min

    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…

  4. Brilliant Women… No. 1

    · 1 h 23 min

    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…

  5. The Clarinet... Masters and Masterworks.

    · 1 h 05 min

    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…

  6. Handel… A very German Italian Englishman. Part Two.

    · 1 h 06 min

    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…

  7. Handel… A very German Italian Englishman. Part One.

    · 1 h 12 min

    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…

  8. A Different Halloween.

    · 1 h 12 min

    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…

  9. Sunday Night Special 4… Aaron Copland's Third Symphony

    · 49 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…

  10. Music for Small Spaces… Number Two

    · 1 h 07 min

    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…

  11. Music from the Upper West Side

    · 1 h 03 min

    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…

  12. Mozart's 1786… Music from a year of Success

    · 1 h 10 min

    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…

  13. Benjamin Britten… An Introduction to a 20th Century Great.

    · 1 h 01 min

    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…

  14. Sunday Night Special 3… John Luther Adams' 'Become Ocean'

    · 48 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…

  15. Highlights and Favourites.. Music That Stayed With Me

    · 1 h 23 min

    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.…

  16. Glenn Gould - Part 2 – The 1981 'Goldberg Variations' Recording

    · 59 min

    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…

  17. Glenn Gould - Part 1 – An introduction and an overview.

    · 1 h 25 min

    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…

  18. Astronomy… and a little bit of astrology

    · 1 h 23 min

    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…

  19. Vienna… 22/12/1808

    · 1 h 27 min

    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…

  20. South America… Chôros, Tangos and a little bit of Opera.

    · 1 h 14 min

    '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…

  21. Sunday Night Special 2… Bruckner's 7th Symphony

    · 1 h 11 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…

  22. Opera. An Introduction

    · 1 h 09 min

    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…

  23. Tchaikovsky. Deep Emotion Of A Russian Soul – Part Two

    · 1 h 16 min

    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…

  24. Tchaikovsky. Deep Emotion Of A Russian Soul – Part One

    · 1 h 11 min

    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…

  25. New York... Sounds of a City

    · 1 h 11 min

    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…

  26. The Violin... miracle of woodwork… and then there's the music.

    · 1 h 24 min

    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…

  27. Sunday Night Special 1… Mahler's 1st Symphony

    · 58 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…

  28. Music For Airports… Immersive, Architectural & Contemplative.

    · 1 h 22 min

    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…

  29. Secrets and Codes… Music with Hidden Meanings.

    · 1 h 07 min

    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…

  30. Italy… Violins, Operas and Popes.

    · 1 h 17 min

    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…

  31. The Ballet... Music in Pursuit of Beauty

    · 1 h 19 min

    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…

  32. Mozart's 1791… Music from his final year

    · 1 h 11 min

    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…

  33. Ghosts & Monsters… Music of the Supernatural

    · 1 h 17 min

    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…

  34. Aotearoa / New Zealand… New Sounds and Cultures for Classical Music

    · 1 h 18 min

    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…

  35. Early Beethoven... From Provincial Pianist to Vienna Celebrity

    · 1 h 16 min

    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…

  36. The Clarinet… In The Twentieth Century

    · 1 h 11 min

    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…

  37. Music for Small Spaces… aka 'Chamber Music'.

    · 1 h 03 min

    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…

  38. Stanley Kubrick's Music… The impact of a well-placed tune.

    · 1 h 28 min

    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…

  39. Antonio Vivaldi… So much more than changes in the weather.

    · 1 h 11 min

    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…

  40. The Guitar… From Spanish Courts to Global Stages.

    · 1 h 06 min

    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…

  41. Happiness… Music to make you feel good.

    · 1 h 09 min

    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…

  42. Muses. Six people who have inspired great music.

    · 1 h 10 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…

  43. Percussion. A loud episode.

    · 1 h 04 min

    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…

  44. Johann Sebastian Bach. An introduction in nine pieces.

    · 1 h 09 min

    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…

  45. The Cello. Music as expressive as the Human Voice.

    · 1 h 08 min

    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…

  46. Farewells. Music for Partings, Journeys & Goodbyes.

    · 1 h 05 min

    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…

  47. Not Dead Yet. Music from Living Composers.

    · 1 h 00 min

    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…

  48. Mini-episode: Why is some Classical Music so damn long?

    · 15 min

    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…

  49. Night… Classical music after the sun has set.

    · 1 h 03 min

    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,…

  50. An Introduction to the Podcast… with a little music.

    · 8:22 · Trailer

    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…

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