An exploration of early music, looking at early developments in musical performance and composition in Britain and abroad. UK only: please note that not all episodes are podcast.
Guillaume de Machaut was one of the greatest composers and poets of the Middle Ages and Le Voir Dit is one of his most extraordinary works. Containing 9,094 lines of verse and 8 musical settings, it tells the tale of a blossoming love between the elderly Machaut and a young admirer: Péronne d' Armentières. Catherine Bott explores Machaut's "The True Story".
A profile of Maria Bárbara, the Portuguese Infanta and Spanish Queen, and the muse of Domenico Scarlatti, on the 300th anniversary of her birth. Catherine Bott looks back on the life of one Europe's most musically talented royal figures, the inspirational Maria Madalena Bárbara Xavier Leonor Teresa Antónia Josefa (4 December 1711 - 27 August 1758), whose gifts as a keyboard player and great love for music inspired Domenico Scarlatti to devote the best part of his life serving her and prompted hi...
Lucie Skeaping presents a programme about the 18thC Scottish composer James Oswald, who rose from humble beginnings in Fife to be the official chamber music composer to George III. The programme includes recordings by Concerto Caledonia, soprano Catherine Bott, tenor Iain Paton, the Broadside Band and guitarist Rob MacKillop.
Lucie Skeaping explores the life and extraordinary music of Salamone Rossi, a 17th-century Jewish composer based in Mantua. He wrote a collection of psalms and motets in Hebrew, for the Synagogue, drawing on the Italian polyphonic style of composition employed by the Christian Church. In a period of intense anti-Semitism, when the Jewish community in Italy were required by law to wear on their clothing a yellow 'badge of shame', Rossi's musical skills were highly regarded by the Mantuan court. H...
As part of Radio 3's month long celebration of Symphony, the Early Music Show traces the early history. Catherine Bott reflects on the trail-blazing work of the pioneering symphonists of the 18th century such as Sammartini, the Stamitz family, Holzbauer, JC Bach, Monn and Wagenseil. The 18th century saw a creative explosion in the development of instrumental music and in particular, one of the great innovations of the century was the orchestral symphony. Many of its origins can be traced to Ital...
The Early Music discovers the origins of Symphony, as part of Radio 3's month long celebration. We all know what is now called a Symphony, but the term has had many varied uses. Lucie Skeaping tracks down the origins of the Symphonie and encounters medieval hurdy-gurdys, spinets and virginals, a tale that the dulcimer is as old as the Bible and a royal wedding, not to mention a whole host of overtures, interludes, sonatas, canzonas and concertos.
Catherine Bott talks to scholar, musicologist and conductor Andrew Parrott about the complex process of reconstructions, including his most recent project: the reconstruction of JS Bach's Trauer-Music (Funeral Music). This work was composed in 1728 when Bach's patron, Prince Leopold of Cöthen, suddenly died at the age of 33, but the score has almost completely disappeared. Andrew talks to Catherine about how he reconstructed this work through various clues in other of Bach's works, and plays mus...
Catherine Bott explores the musical legacy of King Dinis I of Portugal. He was a remarkable man, born in the year 1261, and ruled Portugal for 46 years during which time he consolidated both his country's economy and its frontiers, limiting the powers of the aristocracy and resolving conflicts in the church. He was known for his wisdom, prudence and passion for justice, and not only was his court a refuge for poets and minstrels from all over the Iberian peninsula and beyond, he also joined them...
Lucie Skeaping explores the life and musical passions of one of the most important and influential women of the Italian Renaissance, Isabella d'Este. Featuring music from, amongst others, Ockeghem, Josquin, Cara and Tromboncino. First broadcast in October 2011.
Catherine Bott takes a look at the Wode Psalter, a hugely significant collection of part books that give a fascinating insight into Scottish music-making in the 16th Century. The collection was initially the work of Thomas Wode, a monk and cleric from St Andrews, who was commissioned to produce a series of harmonisations of psalm tunes for a protestant Scottish Psalter. Wode was more ambitious however, and he took it upon himself to gather as much of the music he then heard being played in Scotl...
In 1593 one of the great Tudor composers of keyboard music and vocal polyphony, Peter Philips found himself imprisoned in the Hague under allegations of being involved in a plot to kill Queen Elizabeth. In the composer's 450th anniversary year, Lucie Skeaping explores his life and work, and speculates on the allegations against him.
Lucie Skeaping examines the career and music of Shakespeare's regular musical collaborator, Robert Johnson, who famously created the music for The Tempest in 1611, as well as many other plays by the leading playwrights of his day.
King George III is now often remembered only as "the mad King", but he and his Queen Consort were passionate supporters of the arts and both loved music. In the second of two programmes, Catherine Bott continues her virtual tour of London, tracing the legacy of George's artistic patronage through his reign. Featuring music from Handel, Purcell and Steffani.
King George III is widely remembered as the British monarch who suffered a temporary, debilitating period of "madness" as depicted in the play and film by Alan Bennett, "The Madness of King George", but he was also a highly cultured man; he and his Queen Consort were passionate supporters of the arts and both loved music. In the first of two programmes, Catherine Bott begins a virtual tour of London to trace the legacy of George's artistic patronage through his reign. Featuring music from Handel...
On the 300th anniversary of the birth of William Boyce, Lucie Skeaping and Jeremy Barlow explore some of the places in London where he lived and worked. Their journey takes them from a church in central London where he had his first job, to the public gardens in south London where his music was enjoyed by many.
Catherine Bott in conversation with the late Gustav Leonhardt: keyboardist, conductor, musicologist and teacher, who was one of the great pioneers of Early music. With great sadness, we learn of the death of Gustav Leonhardt on 16th January. In a change to the schedule, we repeat an interview that Catherine Bott recorded with him last year about his life in music, his great love of Bach and about a variety of Early music issues whilst featuring some of his many recordings, including music by JS ...
Catherine Bott explores the history of the Collegium Musicum, the amateur music ensembles whose performances in Germany under such illustrious directors as Telemann and Bach paved the way for public concert series. First broadcast in August 2011.
Lucie Skeaping looks at Vivaldi's groundbreaking Op.3 set of concertos for one, two or four violins entitled "L'Estro Armonico", which were published 300 years ago. Vivaldi had them published in Amsterdam, which meant they were readily available throughout northern Europe. The 8 partbooks even landed on the desk of JS Bach, who found them so inspirational he set about making transcriptions of some of them for keyboard instruments. We'll hear some of Vivaldi's concertos in recordings by The Engli...
Giulio Caccini was one of the most successful composers and highly renowned singers of his age. But lesser known are his two daughters, Francesca and Settimia Caccini. Both women were highly accomplished singers in their own right, and composers as well, and they both rose to become the highest paid members of their respective courts. Francesca also holds another claim to fame, as the first ever female composer of an opera, and she has been lauded as the most important female composer between th...
Lucie Skeaping looks back on the life and music of the Jacobean prodigy, Orlando Gibbons. Should we be surprised that he was one of Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould's favourite composers? - the range and variety of Gibbons' remarkably accomplished output continues to inspire musicians from many different musical disciplines. Lucie Skeaping presents a cross-section of his works, not least his most famous piece, "The Silver Swan".
On 14 May 1610, France fell into a month and a half of mourning. Le bon roi Henri, King Henri IV of France was dead. Catherine Bott explores the life of the King they called the Green Gallant and the music which accompanied both his life and his death.
Catherine Bott presents a profile of the great Spanish composer, Tomás Luis de Victoria, who died in 1611. He dedicated his musical life to the Church, working both in his native Spain and in Italy; all his compositions are vocal, sacred and in Latin. Although he was not as prolific a composer as some of his contemporaries, Victoria is now generally regarded as one of the greatest of Renaissance composers, his music characterised by its emotional intensity. Catherine Bott celebrates the genius o...
Lucie Skeaping examines the background and music to Handel's moving 'Easter Oratorio' - La Resurrezione - which he wrote in his early twenties during his formative years in Rome. Composed for Easter Day 1708, for a gala performance at the opulent Ruspoli Palace, featuring the finest musicians to hand, including an orchestra led by Archangelo Corelli, La Resurrezione (The Resurrection) is a dramatic recollection of events following Christ's crucifixion. In recent years Handel's "Easter Oratorio" ...
Catherine Bott talks to Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet about the extraordinary travels of Thomas Coryate. Coryate was an English eccentric who as well as being credited with introducing the table fork and the umbrella to England, journeyed to Venice and back mainly on foot, and whose travel writings provide music historians with invaluable details of the activities of the Venetian school. First broadcast in July 2011.
Lucie Skeaping plays a selection of music by Niccolo Jommelli. Considered a pathfinder, steering music from the traditions of Baroque opera to the immediacy of Mozart's stage works, Jommelli's operatic reforms in the mid-eighteenth century made him a widely regarded figure in his day - ground-breaking and influential. His true significance is only now starting to be valued.
Lucie Skeaping presents a programme exploring Purcell's semi-opera, The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Purcell did not set any of Shakespeare's original text, and instead added self-contained masques in each of the acts, which include some of Purcell's finest music. Lucie plays musical extracts from each of the masques from various recordings, directed by Ton Koopman, Roger Norrington, Harry Christophers and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Music at the Russian Imperial Court in the mid 18th century was largely provided by itinerant Italian masters like Paisiello, Galuppi & Manfredini, but by the end of the century a group of three talented Ukrainians began to take St Petersburg by storm. Maxim Berezovsky, Artemy Vedel and Dimitri Bortniansky became known as The Golden Three, and provided four successive monarchs with chamber music, choruses and operatic entertainments. Lucie Skeaping looks at the lives and music of these three...
Henry Desmarest was obviously a talented musican and composer, first boy page and then musician in Louis XIV's court, he began ghost-writing Grands Motets for one of the chapel directors Nicholas Goupillet when he was in his early twenties. After a decade, this scandal was uncovered, but it was not the last of Desmarest's woes! A few years later, he fell in love with one of his pupils, who also happened to be the daughter of a wealthy and powerful man who managed to get the composer sentenced to...
Lucie Skeaping explores the music of the 16th century Flemish composer Jacobus Clemens non Papa. In the hierarchy of the Flemish school, you could say that Clemens was of the fourth generation - if Dufay is taken as the first, Ockeghem as the second, Josquin the third, with Orlando di Lassus still to come. He was one of the few successful Flemish musicians not to travel to Italy, he spent his entire life in Flanders, working in towns such as Bruges, Dordrecht and Ypres. Also unlike most other co...
Lucie Skeaping explores the extraordinary story behind the earliest known medieval composer for whom a compositional autograph survives: Adémar de Chabannes and his 11th Century Mass for St Martial.
