Tag Archives: Classical

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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Woodwinds

March 15, 2023   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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Sounding Brass

February 15, 2023   Programming

Today’s pro­gramme — Wednes­day Feb­ru­ary 15th — focus­es on brass instru­ments, with gen­res that range from Ear­ly Music to con­tem­po­rary pieces.

Thus the pieces you’ll hear today range from ancient and ear­ly music, through Baroque and clas­si­cal, to Vic­to­ri­an brass bands, to rag­time, trad jazz, a touch of big band, right up to mod­ern works includ­ing a mar­vel­lous suite of pieces for wind band inspired by the works of Shakespeare.

This will all lead to some remark­able jux­ta­po­si­tions — and a few sur­pris­es. Plus “Where Have You Been?” re-vis­its Svar­ga, and more!

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Classics On The Keys

January 18, 2023   Programming

Today, Wednes­day Jan­u­ary 18, 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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Classical Landscapes

January 14, 2023   Programming

Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 14th: Today’s pro­gramme, “Clas­si­cal Land­scapes”, con­sists of music from some of the Great Mas­ters of Clas­si­cal and Roman­tic music (and a few from the Baroque), includ­ing Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and many more.

Sit back and enjoy some of the great­est music ever writ­ten, per­formed by the lead­ing orches­tras and solo per­form­ers of the world.

“Where Have You Been?”, where we sug­gest things to do and places to vis­it around the Sec­ond Life Grid, will be back for a new series in March. In the mean­time we’ll be re-broad­cast­ing a few pro­grammes from Series 2, start­ing with Seren­i­ty Val­ley (S02E08). While “WYB” includes quite a few time-relat­ed items like gallery exhi­bi­tions and places based around the time of year, there are some places we’ve vis­it­ed which are longer-term in scope and we’ll be revis­it­ing a few of them in the show’s reg­u­lar times­lots of 12 noon and 4pm Pacific/SLT, on Wednes­days and Saturdays.

You can also hear “Engines of Our Inge­nu­ity” at the usu­al time, every 4 hours from 4am Pacific.

“Orches­tra” by foil­man is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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