Radio 3's Fifty Modern Classics
By BBC Radio 3
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Podcast Description
Artists, musicians and composers introduce fifty key pieces of classical music composed between 1950 and 2000. As featured in the Radio 3 programme, Hear & Now.
| Name | Description | Released | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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1 |
R3MC: Kevin Volans's White Man Sleeps | Choreographer Siobhan Davies nominates White Man Sleeps by the South African-born composer Kevin Volans, and describes the experience of her collaboration with the composer; writer Paul Griffiths puts the work in the context of Cologne in the late... | 5/26/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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2 |
R3MC: George Benjamin's At First Light | Gillian Moore champions George Benjamin’s early orchestral score At First Light, praising its “extraordinary detail and skill”; while writer and critic Paul Griffiths assesses the significance of the work for British composing in the 1980s.... | 5/12/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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3 |
R3MC: Olivier Messiaen's Chronochromie | Composer George Benjamin advocates the "exuberant, thrilling and virtuosic" orchestral piece Chronochromie by his former teacher, Olivier Messiaen; while Paul Griffiths describes the significance of this work in the European avant-garde scene of the... | 5/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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4 |
R3MC: Schaeffer & Henry's Symphonie pour un homme seul | Hollywood sound designer and film editor Walter Murch nominates Symphonie pour un homme seul by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, music he first heard on the radio as a schoolboy and which influenced his subsequent work in the field of film sound.... | 4/28/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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5 |
R3MC: Philip Glass's Music in Twelve Parts | Composer Nico Muhly nominates Philip Glass's Music in Twelve Parts, a large-scale set of pieces for electric organs, voice, flutes and saxophones which is considered to be an early masterpiece of the New York minimalist. Gillian Moore puts the work in... | 4/7/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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6 |
R3MC: Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King | Writer and critic Paul Driver explains why Maxwell Davies’s 8 Songs For A Mad King is so uniquely important in the development of music theatre; and the Viennese composer and chansonnier HK Gruber describes the work from the inside, as a performer who.. | 3/17/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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7 |
R3MC: George Crumb's Black Angels | Violinist David Harrington celebrates George Crumb's groundbreaking 1970 work for electric string quartet, Black Angels - the work which inspired him to form the Kronos Quartet. Gillian Moore puts the piece in context, as a work full of dark... | 3/10/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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8 |
R3MC: Gerald Barry's Piano Quartet No.1 | Composer Anna Meredith nominates Gerald Barry's "bold and daring" Piano Quartet No.1, with commentary from an established interpreter of Barry's music, conductor Richard Baker.... | 3/3/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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9 |
R3MC: Toru Takemitsu's Kwaidan | Writer and musician David Toop celebrates Toru Takemitsu's soundtrack for Masaki Kobayashi's 1964 chiller Kwaidan, based on Lefcadio Hearn's retelling of Japanese ghost stories; film scholar Peter Grilli describes how the composer worked closely with... | 2/25/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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10 |
R3MC: Luigi Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore | Theatre director Katie Mitchell describes her first encounter with the music of Italian composer Luigi Nono and her subsequent staging of Al gran sole carico d'amore, an operatic work which interweaves stories from the 1871 Paris Commune and the... | 2/18/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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11 |
R3MC: Milton Babbitt's Philomel | Jazz pianist Ethan Iverson nominates Milton Babbitt's Philomel for soprano and tape, "a classic record that should be owned by all fans of the avant-garde"; Paul Griffiths explains how Babbitt used the timbral and rhythmic resources of the Mark II RCA... | 2/11/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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12 |
R3MC: Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco | Film director Barrie Gavin selects Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, an electroacoustic piece made from the sound of the largest bell at Winchester Cathedral and the voice of the composer's chorister son. Commentator Gillian Moore... | 1/21/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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13 |
R3MC: Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen | Finnish conductor and music director of Ensemble InterContemporain Susanna Malkki pays tribute to Stockhausen's 1950s masterpiece Gruppen for 3 orchestras, and highlights some of the challenges to conductors in performing it; commentator Paul... | 1/14/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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14 |
R3MC: Luciano Berio's Sinfonia | Conductor Richard Bernas recalls his momentous first encounter with Berio's Sinfonia, a work which reflected and commented on the events of its time, from the Paris riots to the assassination of Martin Luther King, and whose third movement is an... | 1/7/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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15 |
R3MC: Arvo Part's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten | Roxanna Panufnik nominates Arvo Part's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, "beautifully simple and spiritual" music that she feels a strong connection to; while Paul Griffiths tells of Part's early struggle to find his own voice in Soviet Estonia and... | 12/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
R3MC: Morton Feldman's Extensions 3 | Howard Skempton singles out Extensions 3 by the American composer Morton Feldman, a piece he found "liberating, inspiring, and radically different". Paul Griffiths places the work in Feldman's early output and highlights the challenges to performers... | 12/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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17 |
R3MC: Conlon Nancarrow's Study No.21 | Stephen Fry describes his delight and bewilderment at first hearing Conlon Nancarrow's Study No. 21 - also known as Canon X - for player piano. Nancarrow devoted his composing life to creating futuristic canonic studies for his custom-altered 1920s... | 12/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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18 |
R3MC: Brian Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet | Percussionist Steven Schick recalls how a chance meeting with Brian Ferneyhough led to the commission of Bone Alphabet, the composer's only piece for non-pitched instruments; and writer Paul Griffiths describes the work's physicality and rhythmic... | 12/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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19 |
R3MC: Howard Skempton's Lento | Artist Tom Phillips on Howard Skempton's Lento for orchestra, a completely tonal piece that he admires for achieving "content with simplicity"; Gillian Moore puts it in the context of the English experimentalist tradition; and the composer himself... | 11/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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20 |
R3MC: Edgard Varese's Poeme electronique | Composer and former Battles frontman Tyondai Braxton nominates Poeme electronique by Edgard Varese, whose soundworld has been a continuing influence on his own work; while Gillian Moore tells the story of Varese's long struggle to create a futuristic... | 11/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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21 |
R3MC: John Cage's 4'33" | Artist Tacita Dean on John Cage's legendary 4'33" and how it provided an inspiration for Stillness, her 2007 project with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Conductor and Cage collaborator Richard Bernas underlines some important but often neglected... | 11/5/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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22 |
R3MC: Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning | Pianist and Scratch Orchestra member John Tilbury speaks up for The Great Learning by the radical British composer and political activist Cornelius Cardew. Paul Griffiths explains its place in Cardew's musical and political thinking, and the composer... | 10/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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23 |
R3MC: Iannis Xenakis's Nomos Alpha | Mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains how Iannis Xenakis uses the symmetry of a cube to determine musical parameters in Nomos Alpha for solo cello; Paul Griffiths highlights the composer's innovations in the fields of sound and instrumental writing;... | 10/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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24 |
R3MC: Louis Andriessen's De Staat | Dutch composer Michel van der Aa salutes compatriot Louis Andriessen's 1976 work for amplified voices and large ensemble, De Staat. Gillian Moore highlights the modern scoring of the work, informed as much by rock music as Stravinsky, while the... | 10/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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25 |
R3MC: Pierre Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre | Sir Harrison Birtwistle singles out Pierre Boulez's 1950s cycle for voice and mixed ensemble, and describes encountering the score for the first time, while Paul Griffiths explains how the composer employed total serialism and a radical new approach... | 10/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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26 |
R3MC: Elliott Carter's String Quartet No.3 | Novelist and poet Mark Haddon explains what it is about Elliott Carter's String Quartet No.3 that reminds him of an argumentative family meal; the composer himself describes with relish his 'eclipses' of sound; and Paul Griffiths explains Carter's use... | 10/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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27 |
R3MC: Gyorgy Ligeti's Atmospheres | Film-maker Sophie Fiennes explains why she chose György Ligeti's Atmosphères for the soundtrack of a film about artist Anselm Kiefer, and Paul Griffiths explains its significance in Ligeti's development of cloud-like musical structures. And we also... | 9/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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28 |
R3MC: Steve Reich's Different Trains | Matthew Herbert, songwriter and electronic music producer, reflects on the continuing relevance of Steve Reich's seminal 1988 piece for string quartet and tape, where recorded speech leads the melodic lines to create a remarkable and evocative... | 9/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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29 |
R3MC: Welcome | Welcome to this new BBC podcast. If you subscribe to the podcast feed, you should receive the first episode of this series automatically within the next seven days. To find other podcasts from the BBC, visit www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts.... | 9/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 29 Episodes |
