Classical For Everyone

Ravel was born in the Basque borderlands of France in 1875 and much of his music can be thought of as Spanish rhythms meeting French elegance. He was accepted into the Paris Conservatory as a teenager to study piano but instead focused on composition. For the first couple of decades of his adult career he was not welcomed by the musical establishment of the day. But especially after the First World War he came to be seen as a major figure and with increasing international success he was by the 1930s

Sonata, cantata, concerto, adagio... for English speakers approaching classical music, these Italian terms can feel like an unnecessary barrier. This mini-episode explores how Italian became classical music's universal language… its journey from the cultural power of Renaissance Italy to today's international concert halls. A short look at why these terms are still with us, and (annoyingly) why knowing the names of six types of pasta isn't quite enough Italian for classical music.

Like many terms in classical music ‘woodwind’ is a vague catch all that is now a little out of date. After all, modern flutes aren't even made of wood anymore. But tradition is strong and everyone is going to keep calling them ‘woodwinds’. More importantly, these instruments, whether crafted from wood, metal, or modern materials, have drawn composers to their distinct voices for over two centuries… including the music in this episode by John Adams, Claude Debussy, Carl Maria von Weber, Wolfgang

Composers respond to ideas, emotions, literature, people, history… and places. Places they’ve lived, places they’ve been and places they’ve only dreamed of. In this episode Felix Mendelssohn captures the echoes of Fingal's Cave, Peter Sculthorpe and William Barton evoke a rocky outcrop in Australia’s Northern Territory, Charles Ives wanders through Central Park, Peter Maxwell Davies celebrates the town of Stromness in the Orkney Islands, and Ralph Vaughan Williams conjures the frozen wilderness of

Welcome to the Classical For Everyone Podcast.