Backtrack of the week. Prokofiev.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Ondine label (ODE1060-2) features a short piano movement by Sergei Prokofiev. In 1940, the Bolshoi Theatre commissioned Prokofiev to write a new full-length ballet, Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Richard Strauss.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Dynamic label (CDS499) is an extract from Richard Strauss’ tragic opera Daphne in a scene featuring the conflicting characters of Daphne, a nymph (soprano), Read More …

Classical Discoveries: KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI – Life in Four Quartets

The whole stylistic world of Krysztof Penderecki in just over 70 minutes! Fear not, that’s not the length of our podcast today, it’s the time it takes to perform all his compositions involving string quartet and string trio. And they conveniently trace the composer’s startlingly divergent stylistic output, from the wild-as-it-comes 1960 String Quartet No.1 Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Caldara.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Capriccio label (C67124) is supplied by Italian Baroque composer Antonio Caldara (1670–1736), one of the most famous and glittering personalities of his time. Featuring Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Hoffmeister

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Orfeo label (C622051A) is a movement from Franz Anton Hoffmeister’s Sinfonia concertante No. 1 for two clarinets and orchestra. Hoffmeister, both a composer and Read More …

Classical Discoveries: KURT WEILL – From Brecht to Broadway

If you know that sharks have teeth, dear, then that’s probably because Kurt Weill told you so in his song “Mack the Knife”. Pearly white they may be, too, but what else did Kurt Weill do? Mahagonny-something. Right. If you’re as ignorant as Jens, when it comes to matters Weill, join our podcast and let Read More …

Backtrack of the Week. Tippett.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Naxos label (8.557611) features British composer Michael Tippett’s piano sonatas, specifically the neo-classical First Sonata which, in Tippett’s own words, is “a young man’s Read More …

Backtrack of the week. Rautavaara.

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Ondine label (ODE1041-2) is a movement from Cantus arcticus by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016). It’s a highly original orchestral work that incorporates recorded Read More …

Podcast: Composer Ronald Stevenson. A fantastically original musical mind.

Scottish father, Welsh mother, born in England, polyglot, highly intellectual, educator, composer, phenomenal pianist and a fantastically original musical mind. Introductions such as this don’t crop up too often, so take time out to listen to this podcast about Ronald Stevenson’s highly engaging piano music as performed and introduced by Peter Jablonski in conversation with Read More …

Podcast: Florence Price’s choral works. An introduction.

Florence Price’s abiding interest in the literary arts helps explain the extraordinarily large number of vocal compositions in her catalogue – well over one hundred – as well as the fact that she occasionally supplied texts of her own for these pieces. Conductor John Jeter discusses with Raymond Bisha his latest album of Price’s music Read More …