Monthly Archives: February 2025
Modern Classical Music
Wednesday, 26th February: Today’s Featured Music is “Modern Classical Music” — but what does that mean, exactly? It’s not simply “modern orchestral music”: most people’s exposure to orchestral music is via movie soundtracks, and they have their own show.
Well, in the context of today’s programme, we’re talking about pieces of music written between around the mid-20th Century until the present day, that aren’t exactly “pop music” (though they may tip a hat to it from time to time).
This is a tricky definition, however. Mike Batt (some of whose work is in the playlist for today: there’s a lot more to his compositions than the Wombles! ) has remarked that there is no such distinction as “popular music” and “serious music” — there’s simply “popular” and “unpopular”, so the definition rather falls at the first fence.
Saturday At The Movies
Today, join us for a programme of music from movie and TV soundtracks — and now we’re including some computer game soundtracks, which have become as sophisticated as movie scores in recent years and include some of the same composers.
Movies are where most people hear orchestral music these days, and there will be plenty of that in this programme. But movie music is a much broader field than that, and today you’ll hear music from the movies of many different kinds, from the very start of the genre (with Camille Saint-Saens) to the latest blockbusters; from orchestral music to rock, to Fifties songs. There is a slight bias towards fantasy and SF movies, but never mind, we all need a bit of an escape these days.…
