Tag Archives: Classical

First Sundays: October 2025 – Ancient Journeys

October 4, 2025   Programming

This pro­gramme is now avail­able on Mix­cloud to Lis­ten Again.

In this mon­th’s edi­tion of First Sun­days, we’re tak­ing a musi­cal jour­ney through the Ancient World — and take a trip to the Moon!  Tune in at 2pm Sec­ond Life Time on Sun­day, Octo­ber 5th for a pro­gramme that lit­er­al­ly cov­ers a lot of ground, inspired by the mys­te­ri­ous Piri Reis map.

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First Sundays: September 2025 – Tarot

September 7, 2025   Programming

This pro­gramme is now avail­able to Lis­ten Again on Mixcloud.

In this mon­th’s edi­tion of First Sun­days, we’re fea­tur­ing an hour or so of music that evokes the eso­teric atmos­phere and insights of the Tarot cards, cov­er­ing a wide range of gen­res from clas­si­cal music to dance… and there’s even a piece by a mem­ber of the rock band Sta­tus Quo. Tune in at 2pm Sec­ond Life Time on Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 7th for some sur­pris­es as we delve into the mys­ter­ies of the Tarot in music.

Elrik Mer­lin presents.

At Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, we believe Sun­day after­noons are the per­fect time to treat your­self to some­thing spe­cial.  That’s why we invite you to join us at 2pm SLT on the First Sun­day after­noon of each month as we present a dif­fer­ent musi­cal treat: one hour of music on a theme. It could be any­thing from new age music, orches­tral clas­sics, sound­tracks, or music cel­e­brat­ing a par­tic­u­lar culture.
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First Sundays: August 2025 – Symphonic Seas

August 9, 2025   Programming

This pro­gramme is now avail­able on  Mixcloud.

“The Ocean has its silent caves, Deep, qui­et, and alone; Though there be fury on the waves, Beneath them there is none.” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s open­ing stan­za to “The Ocean” cap­tures the fas­ci­nat­ing enig­ma that is the sea: cat­a­clysmi­cal­ly destruc­tive, and serene­ly calm.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly, com­posers have sought to cap­ture the sea in her many moods and faces. Today we explore just a few of them — from “Fingal’s Cave” to “Vic­to­ry at Sea.” Cale­do­nia Sky­tow­er presents.

At Vir­tu­al Com­mu­ni­ty Radio, we believe Sun­day after­noons are the per­fect time to treat your­self to some­thing spe­cial.  That’s why we invite you to join us at 2pm SLT on the First (usu­al­ly) Sun­day after­noon of each month as we present a dif­fer­ent musi­cal treat: one hour of music on a theme. It could be any­thing from new age music, orches­tral clas­sics, sound­tracks, or music cel­e­brat­ing a par­tic­u­lar culture.
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Modern Classical Music

February 26, 2025   Programming

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.

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Modern Classical Music

May 22, 2024   Programming

Wednes­day, 22nd May: 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.

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Woodwinds

March 27, 2024   Programming

Today’s pro­gramme fea­tures mem­bers of the wood­wind fam­i­ly — oboe, clar­inet, flute, bas­soon, recorder and more, includ­ing the gamut of Ear­ly Music wood­winds like the shawn (the pre­de­ces­sor of the oboe), cur­tal (a pro­­to-bas­­soon) and crumhorn.

Of course, the major­i­ty of orches­tral music includes a wood­wind sec­tion, so the cri­te­ri­on for inclu­sion in today’s show was that a mem­ber of the wood­wind fam­i­ly is the lead instru­ment — a “wind band” is not suf­fi­cient (and they’re gen­er­al­ly usu­al­ly brass-heavy any­way), but a con­cer­to for bas­soon (yes there is at least one) counts.

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Classics On The Keys

December 13, 2023   Programming

Today we present a wealth of key­board pieces — pri­mar­i­ly on piano, harp­si­chord and organ, but you’ll hear some oth­er tra­di­tion­al key­board instru­ments too — both solo and with oth­er musi­cal forces back­ing them.

The main spread of the pro­gramme encom­pass­es the Baroque and Clas­si­cal peri­ods, but you’ll also hear some more mod­ern pieces includ­ing treat­ments of clas­si­cal pieces, and some engag­ing lit­tle 19th cen­tu­ry pieces that are less well-known. Most of the time, there is a clas­si­cal or baroque link in there some­where, even if it’s not imme­di­ate­ly obvious.

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Modern Classical Music

September 27, 2023   Programming

Today’s Fea­tured Music is “Mod­ern Clas­si­cal Music” — but what does that mean, exactly?

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.

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Music from the Time of Austen & Gainsborough

May 31, 2023   Programming

Today’s pro­gramme takes us back to the the 18th and the begin­ning of the 19th cen­turies, with music from the time of nov­el­ist Jane Austen (1775–1817) and the painter (Thomas) Gains­bor­ough (1728–1788) — in oth­er words, music that takes us from the late Baroque to the ear­ly Clas­si­cal period.

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La Musique Classique Française

April 26, 2023   Programming

Join us today for a pro­gramme of French clas­si­cal music from a wide vari­ety of com­posers, pri­mar­i­ly from the 18th and 19th cen­turies, includ­ing a nice col­lec­tion of the works of Erik Satie that goes well beyond the Gymnopédies.

Most of the com­posers today are pret­ty well-known, but keep your ears open for things like the Euro­vi­sion theme — actu­al­ly Extrait du Te Deum by Char­p­en­tier — and oth­er good­ies. There is some gor­geous music in today’s pro­gramme and we do hope you enjoy it.

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