Classical For Everyone

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 hour when there is a glow in the sky, things are at their most quiet… and you have the world to yourself. The music is by Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Luys Milan, Josef Haydn, Georg Friedrich Handel, Rachel Portman, Nicholas Gombert, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach. Regular listeners to the podcast might recognise a couple of pieces from earlier episodes. Forgive me for playing favourites. Now, for this show I am going to be pretty sparing in talk; but I'll add a few paragraphs on each piece to the episode's page at classicalforeveryone.net.

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 its place as the earliest woodwind instrument through its high range and penetrating volume. And whilst it can be piercing when required, it can also be playful, can manage a soaring lyricism and can epitomise grace and beauty. Music from Jennifer Higdon, Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Camille Saint-Säens, Richard Strauss, Samuel Barber, Ross Edwards and Antonio Vivaldi. Plus… musicians with knives.

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 very short list. But if you ever wanted to get into a complicated debate about nature versus nurture, the Bach clan of what is now northern Germany would be an interesting place to start. Somewhere between twenty and thirty relatives of Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music still recorded and performed two and three centuries later. And these were not merchants who wrote a few choral works for fun — these were people who made their living from music. As an aside… Of the six Bach relatives you'll hear in this episode, there is only one whose first name is not Johann. This is not going to be confusing at all.

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 for the purposes of this show it is the recorded legacy that matters and Antal Dorati's ranks amongst the finest of his generation. Dorati (1906 - 1988) was a Hungarian Jew who was able to escape Europe as World War Two commenced and he made the USA his home for much of the rest of his life. Choosing Dorati is also an excellent way to play some of the music that has been missing from the last few episodes of the podcast… what you might call 'classic' classical music… music written for the colours, range and expressive opportunities of a full modern orchestra.  Music by Stravinsky, Haydn, Copland, Bartok, Szymanowski, Strauss and Ravel.

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 it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Johannes Brahms Fourth Symphony. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Manfred Honeck.