Finished Saturday Music Appreciation today with Wagner. New term starts Sep. No prior knowledge req’d. On Zoom, or catchup video - widen yr knowledge of classical music. Well-known faves & hidden gems. Let me know if you’d like to be on the mailing list - early-bird signup avail later this month

Happy birthday to the Armenian composer Aram Ilyich Khachaturian, born 6th June 1903. He held the post of Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers and is regarded as one of the most important composers of the Soviet era. 1/3

Happy birthday to Martha Argerich - one of the world’s greatest pianists. Here she is playing Ravel’s marvellous Jeux d’eau. youtu.be/nSNGK6dJ0qs?...

It’s nearly 160 years since the premiere of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in June 1868. Like many of his works, this one had a long gestation with the scenario first considered around twenty years before. 1/4

Keir Starmer's response to Nigel Farage at PMQs just now was probably the most powerful and eloquent I have seen him in the Commons. The full answer is worth reading.

Florence Price died on this day, 3rd June 1953. Her music was lost for a couple of generations but following a miraculous discovery of scores in an abandoned house in Illinois in 2009, she is now becoming more widely known. 1/4

It’s Elgar’s birthday today. So many things I wanted to share, but in the end I landed on the Cello Concerto, a piece I have loved my whole life. The work’s disastrous premiere in 1919 meant it failed to gain a foothold in the repertoire for decades. 1/3

#TheCompleteBritten #102 Piano Concerto, Op. 13 (1938, rev. 1945) Premiered at the Proms with Britten himself at the keyboard. The critics gave it a mauling: "Mr. Britten's cleverness ... led him into all sorts of errors, the worst of which are errors of taste". Long live tastelessness, I say!

The Russian composer Glinka was born on 1st June 1804. He was the composer who began the tradition of Russian classical music. As Tchaikovsky would later note, Glinka’s music was “the acorn from which the oak" grew. 1/2

Happy 207th birthday to the American poet, Walt Whitman. His words have been set many times over by hundreds of different composers, but one of my favourites is Vaughan Williams’ Toward the unknown region. 1/5

The Sibelius Violin Concerto is probably my favourite of all violin concertos. It encompasses so much - from still, fragile beauty to heartbreak to rollicking, joyful dance. Perhaps, in this, it reflects something of his own personality and life story. 1/4

Can you believe that it’s 113 years since Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring premiered on 29th May 1913? How does it still sound so unnerving and fresh and exciting?! 1/3

Luigi Boccherini died on 28th May 1805. As you will guess from his name, he was Italian by birth but he spent a great deal of his working life in Spain at the court of the King’s brother. 1/3

Philip Glass wrote his opera Akhnaten in 1983. It concerns the reign of the Pharaoh thought to be the first ruler to pursue a monotheistic religion. His god was Aten - The Sun. 1/2

Respighi’s lovely Suite, Gli uccelli (the birds) consists of five short movements for small orchestra. Written in 1928, it is built using music from earlier composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. 1/2

Something different for a lovely sunny bank holiday Monday - the charming first movement of the Piano Concerto in A by Marianna Martines (1744 - 1812.) 1/3

Asturias by Albéniz - to get us in the summer mood. It’s one of the most famous pieces in the guitar repertoire but it wasn’t written for guitar. And nor was its original name Asturias. 1/2

This is a lovely listen. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

On 22nd May, 1950, Strauss’s Four Last Songs received their premiere at the Royal Albert Hall, sung by Kirsten Flagstad. The elderly composer died 8 months before the performance and his wife Pauline, lost without him, also died a week before the performance. 1/5

Delighted to talk AOTOS tonight - The Association of teachers of singing - about music appreciation and how it can add to the way we study, perform and listen to music. A lovely evening - I gave them Strauss and now have an ear worm.

Clara Schumann died 130 years ago on 20th May 1896. She was a remarkable musician and character, pushed to fame by her father who expected to profit from her reputation and earnings. After the mother of all rebellions, she married Robert Schumann in defiance of her father’s wishes. 1/3

Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa — 400 years old and still breaking hearts. A young woman abandoned in love, pours out her sorrow while three male singers narrate. It’s emotionally raw but also stunningly beautiful. 1/2

May 18th: Mahler died on this day in 1911. I couldn’t decide what to share, so in the end, it’s a “choose your own Mahler adventure!” If you have time, listen to an entire symphony - you are guaranteed an extraordinary journey. I’m linking to the 5th. 1/3

So sad to read the news of Felicity Lott who died on Friday. Such an elegant singer. Here she is singing Hahn’s Si mes vers avaient des ailes. If my verses had wings … they would fly to you, night and day, like love. youtu.be/AFy1EYW0a_4?...

Starting Saturday gently today with O vis enternitatis by Hildegard of Bingen. This incredible 12th century German nun defied every social limitation that could be placed on women at the time. 1/3

Beethoven’s String Quartet no 16 was the last full work he completed. It premiered a year after he died. The final movement bears the heading, Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß - The difficult decision. 1/2

Walton’s First Symphony is genuinely epic. The opening involves a long, long crescendo building from almost nothing as one instrument or group joins after another. 1/5

Goodness only knows what’s going on in Westminster, but here in Bristol I’ve been enjoying the wonderful hawthorn on a bright sunny day.

On 12th May 1832, L’elisir d’amore by Donizetti premiered in Milan. It’s a comedy in which Nemorino, a lowly peasant, desperately tries to win the love of the wealthy, but romantically distanced Adina. 1/3

Tonight’s Explore class will be listening to the famous E major quintet by Boccherini which was published in 1775 - just over 250 years ago. I say famous and you might raise an eyebrow. But I can almost guarantee you’ll know at least the 3rd movement minuet. 1/4

Dear friends I’ve spent some time planning a wonderful day of music in Clevedon on June 20th. It’s all music connected with water in some way. 1/4

Today, 10th May, in 1957, Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Concerto premiered. He wrote it for his 19 year-old son Maxim who played the premiere for his graduation ceremony in Moscow. The second movement is one of the most arrestingly beautiful things you’ll ever hear. youtu.be/pWe161Qz0-U?...

Today my music appreciation group will be listening to music by Delius so here’s a link to another of his works that we listened to a few years back: On hearing the first cuckoo of spring.

Yeah because once you’ve practiced your little heart out and shown up to a gig with two people total in the audience, nothing can possibly hurt you

What to listen to on election-results day? ODTAA - One damn thing after another by Doreen Carwithen (1922 - 2003.) Carwithen had remarkable early success as a film composer before dedicating much of the later part of her life to supporting her husband and his career. 1/2

Walk to The Paradise Garden by Delius is the subject of this Saturday’s Music Appreciation class. Delius’s music is “slippery” to describe or explain. He seems so English in many ways, and yet some of his biggest influences include Wagner, Debussy and African-American songs. 1/4

Today is the birthday of John Marsh - composer, organist, pianist conductor and all-round Bristol legend. His Quantocks Suite gets a fairly regular airing on radio 3 - here is the first movement, Intrada. Happy birthday John! youtu.be/_1jt7WCYoWA?...

Bristol looking as beautiful as ever.

Sharing another symphony by William Grant Still today. This is his second, subtitled “Song of a New Race”. The work was written in 1937 as a follow up to the earlier Afro-American Symphony. 1/4

What a fantastic night I had in Clevedon singing Elijah. The choir was astonishingly good, the conductor brilliant, the keyboard accompaniment dazzling and my fellow soloists just lovely. Huge standing ovation and well-deserved I think. Pretty knackered this morning but also high as a kite.

Concert day in Clevedon where I’m singing Elijah for Clevedon Choral Society. Just finished rehearsal and it’s sounding fabulous.

Now is the month of Maying by Thomas Morley was published in 1595 and is one of the best known balletts (very similar to a madrigal) from the Elizabethan era. There’s a lightness to the music which trips along, and a naughtiness to the text, which is packed with double-entendres. 1/2

More from Mendelssohn’s Elijah today, because I’m singing it tomorrow in Clevedon. Lift thine eyes, o lift thine eyes to the mountains - this exquisite trio for female voices shines radiantly with that Mendelssohnian lightness of touch. 1/2

In 1930, William Grant Still wrote what became the first symphony by an African-American composer to be performed by a major US orchestra. It’s called Afro-American Symphony and it brings together the classical orchestral genre with… 1/3

What were you writing when you were 15? Dmitri Shostakovich produced this delicious scherzo which started life as a part of a larger work for piano. Actually, the date is uncertain - he may even have been as young as 13 or nearer his 20s. 1/2

Something other-worldly today. This is by Johann Paul von Westhoff (1656 - 1705.) A German composer of the baroque era, Westhoff wrote what is considered to be the first published music for solo violin. He was much admired and would be a great influence on JS Bach. 1/2

Well now. On April 27th 1810, Beethoven composed his Für Elise, scourge of piano teachers ever since. Everybody wants to play this piece and consequently it’s easy for it to become mundane. 1/2

Sacred music or damned? On April 26th 1855, Rossini packed his bags, left Italy for good, and moved to Paris. His early career had followed an extraordinary trajectory of success piled on success, with a series of operas that dominated the musical world. 1/4

Exactly 100 years ago today, 25th April 1926, Puccini’s last opera, Turandot premiered in Milan. The composer died two years previously with the opera not quite finished and the last act was completed by Franco Alfano. 1/4

RIP the American conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, who died this week after an extended illness. He was a champion of modern American music in particular, so I thought this morning of The Unanswered Question by Ives. 1/3