Piers Adams continues to celebrate CPE Bach's 300th anniversary year with a visit to Berlin's Charlottenburg Palace, where Emanuel Bach arrived as an optimistic 26 year old to join the court of Prussia's flute-playing King Frederick the Great. In a guided tour though the palace we hear how Emanuel Bach's adventurous musical style was not to the King's conservative tastes, and so he spent much of the next 28 years trying to leave the court - but not before he had established himself as Europe's m...
Jul 09, 2014•36 min
Lucie Skeaping celebrates the life and music of English composer Robert Fayrfax who flourished in the early 1500s and was born 550 years ago. More of Fayrfax's music survives than of any other English composer of the period, largely due to the existence of two large Tudor choir books in which his works were collected. Lucie Skeaping takes a look at one of these choir books housed in Lambeth Palace library with the help of musicologist David Skinner and plays recordings of some of the music featu...
Jul 01, 2014•27 min
Guillaume Dufay was one of the most famous and successful composers of the mid 15th century. Born in Cambrai in what is now northern France, he spent most of his career touring Europe, working in some of the most important and influential centres of his day. He found himself in the middle of many of the major political struggles comfronting the 15th century which inevitably had a profound impact both on his life and music. Lucie Skeaping reflects on Dufay's Europe.
Jun 01, 2014•18 min
In July 1772 Dr Charles Burney set off on his second European journey to gather information for his proposed mighty publication of A History of Music. Lucie Skeaping interviews musician and publisher Ian Gammie about Burney's musical perambulations through Germany and The Netherlands, and chooses music by some of the composers he met along the way, including Gluck, Hasse and Quantz.
May 25, 2014•27 min
Lucie Skeaping talks to members of the Hilliard Ensemble as they celebrate their 40th anniversary, and plays a selection of their many recordings. The Hilliard Ensemble established a reputation as an early music ensemble with a series of successful recordings in the 1980s, but it was when they began also to focus on new music that the world began to sit up and take notice. The 1988 recording of Arvo Pärt's "Passio" began a fruitful relationship with the Estonian composer, and the group has recen...
May 11, 2014•34 min
Catherine Bott visits Bath to mark the bicentenary of the death of one of its most famous adopted sons - the celebrated 18th century singer, teacher and composer, Venanzio Rauzzini. Rauzzini was born near Rome, and spent the early part of his career wowing audiences in Venice, Munich and Vienna. When the 16-year old Mozart heard Rauzzini sing for the first time, he was so dazzled by its beauty and by his acting ability that he decided to write the lead role in his new opera for him. Rauzzini gav...
May 04, 2014•27 min
As part of the BBC's 18th Century Season, Lucie Skeaping looks at the life and music of the German composer Carl Friedrich Abel, who spent most of his career in London. Abel arrived in London in 1754 as a virtuoso viola-da-gamba player, and soon became one of the biggest names on the London music scene. Along with his fellow German musician JC Bach, Abel set up England's first subscription concerts, which allowed them to promote not only their own pieces, but also those of other composers - incl...
Apr 27, 2014•17 min
18th-century life by Hogarth, and considers their musical references. Lucie is joined by Jeremy Barlow, an authority on music in the 18th Century, who has made several recordings with the Broadside Band and has written about music and Hogarth. The three featured pictures by Hogarth are: "The Enraged Musician" The 2nd picture from the series of "The Rakes Progress" "The Beggar's Opera" #BBC18C.
Apr 20, 2014•30 min
Lucie Skeaping looks at the music from Gluck's fifth operatic masterpiece, Iphigénie en Tauride - based on Euripides' play, and first performed in Paris in 1779. With Iphigénie, Gluck took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. The recitatives are shorter and accompanied by strings and other instruments (not just traditional continuo). The normal dance movements found in earlier French tragédie en musique are almost entirely absent. The drama is ultimately based on the play Iphigenia in ...
Apr 06, 2014•20 min
Live at Southbank Centre. Lucie Skeaping explores the life and works of Pietro Antonio Locatelli, who died 250 years ago. One of the violin giants of the eighteenth century, Locatelli was born in Bergamo in 1695, but by the age of sixteen had moved to Rome, perhaps to study with the famous but ailing Arcangelo Corelli, but more likely with another prominent virtuoso, Giuseppe Valentini. His growing reputation as a violinist soon began to take him further afield, however, and we know of concert a...
Mar 30, 2014•15 min
Lucie Skeaping takes a look at some of the composers who lived and worked in Salzburg, before it became the Mozartean shrine we know it as today! The city itself is the fourth largest in modern-day Austria, and sits neatly on the banks of the river Salzach, at the northern boundary of the Alps. The name Salzburg - literally "Salt Castle" - comes from the salt mines in the area that helped start the regeneration of the city in the 7th century. It was a holy man - Saint Rupert - who saw its potent...
Mar 23, 2014•20 min
Lucie Skeaping looks at Jean Philippe Rameau's comic masterpiece, the baroque opera Platée. Rameau wrote the opera when he was in his sixties, for an entertainment at a court wedding at Versailles. The story tells of a foolish and ugly nymph who believes she is loved by Jupiter. The sense of the absurd permeates Rameau's score, with the composer and his librettist managing to create a wonderfully imaginative and colourful piece which turn many of the operatic conventions of the time on their hea...
Mar 16, 2014•15 min
Piers Adams celebrates the 300th anniversary of the birth of CPE Bach with tracks from new CDs released to mark the occasion. There are also interviews with musicians in Leipzig, Hamburg and other cities around Bach's native Germany who reveal how they will be celebrating the year. In his time, CPE Bach was one of Europe's most famous and popular composers: a friend of English music scholar Charles Burney wrote to him in 1774, "I find the Carlophilipemanuelbachomania grow upon me so, that almost...
Mar 09, 2014•22 min
The multi-instrumentalist Clare Salaman presents a programme all about a once popular early instrument with Swedish origins that has all but dropped off the musical landscape in this country. However, the nyckelharpa (or 'keyed fiddle') makes a sound that delights audiences. Clare has delved into the best and most rare recordings of the instrument to cast some light on the nyckelharpa's beautiful and mysterious sound-world.
Mar 02, 2014•14 min
Lucie Skeaping plays recordings of the Cardinall's Musick and talks to its director Andrew Carwood as the group celebrates its 25th anniversary. Music played includes works by Byrd, Fayrfax, Ludford and Sheppard. (photo: Dmitri Gutjahr).
Feb 23, 2014•24 min
Lucie Skeaping takes expert advice from Simon Heighes to explore the background, purpose and music of JS Bach's last great masterpiece - The Art of Fugue. At the end of his life Johann Sebastian Bach set out to create a great summary of his thoughts and ideas about an intellectual musical form he'd made very much his own - the fugue. The result is the "Art of Fugue" which he left unfinished at his death - or did he? How should we regard this work? Was it intended for performance and if so, how? ...
Feb 16, 2014•24 min
The birth of Henry Purcell coincided with a hugely turbulent time in English political history, and went almost completely unnoticed. There are no baptismal records and we're not absolutely sure who his parents were, although it's likely that he was born in a house just a few hundred yards from Westminster Abbey, the place were he would eventually make much of his career and reputation. During his early years, the young Purcell came under the influence of several composers and church musicians, ...
Feb 09, 2014•15 min
Lucie Skeaping presents recordings of music by the 13th-century European composer Perotin, including performances by the Hilliard Ensemble, The Orlando Consort and Ensemble Organum. Probably French in origin, Perotin's music embodies the Notre Dame school of polyphony and the ars antiqua style.
Feb 02, 2014•15 min
Lucie Skeaping presents a concert of music by Bach, Rameau and Leclair given by the European Union Baroque Orchestra and director Lars Ulrik Mortensen at MediaCityUK in Salford. JS Bach: Suite No 2 in B minor, BWV.1067 (flute soloist Anne Freitag) Leclair: Concerto for Flute in C major, Op.7 No.3 (flute soloist Anne Freitag) Rameau: Suite from Acanthe et Céphise.
Jan 19, 2014•10 min
Lucie Skeaping talks to lutenist Elizabeth Kenny about two of the performers who most inspired her: Robert Spencer and Nigel North. Music is taken from recordings by both performers, including works by composers such as John Dowland and J.S Bach. (Photo: Richard Haughton).
Jan 12, 2014•22 min
Lucie Skeaping explores the story of the virtuoso German violinist Thomas Baltzar, nicknamed "The Incomparable Lubicer". He caused a storm in 17th-century England and was acclaimed as the greatest violinist in the world.
Jan 05, 2014•18 min
Early music stalwart, the soprano Dame Emma Kirkby is today's guest presenter of The Early Music Show, and chooses some of her favourite seasonal music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque. (photo: Bibi Basch).
Dec 29, 2013•13 min
Another chance to hear Lucie Skeaping in conversation with the late cook Clarissa Dickson-Wright about Handel's love of food. Contemporary pictures and biographers depicted Handel as being over-interested in food, having a "great appetite". From the famous London chop houses, and al fresco picnics along the Thames to new spices and curries, Lucie and Clarissa explore the eating and drinking habits in Handel's day. First broadcast in November 2009.
Dec 22, 2013•30 min
In 1609, one of the "most eccentric characters in an age of professed eccentics", one Thomas Ravenscroft edited Pammelia, the earliest English printed collection of rounds and catches. Lucie Skeaping explores the life and music of the man who wanted to produce "Harmony to please, varietie to delight".
Dec 15, 2013•14 min
Lucie Skeaping celebrates the 40th anniversary of the UK's pioneering period orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, in the company of Music Director Richard Egarr. Together they look back over the orchestra's history and listen to some of its most important recordings.
Dec 08, 2013•28 min
As part of Radio 3's Baroque Spring season and in the second of this weekend's Early Music Shows dedicated to French Baroque music, Lucie Skeaping explores the relationship between Jean-Philippe Rameau and his main patron Alexandre Le Riche de la Poupelinière.
Dec 01, 2013•18 min
Lucie Skeaping's guest is Peter Phillips, director of the Renaissance choral group the Tallis Scholars, which maintains its world wide popularity 40 years after it was founded. Over the years, many of their 60 or so CD recordings have reached iconic status and Peter will be choosing some of the highlights as he talks about the group's history, the important part it played in the early music revival during the 70s and 80s, and how they are now broadening their horizons by commissioning and perfor...
Nov 24, 2013•18 min
Chorales, or German hymn tunes, played a central role in the sacred music of German composers right from the time of Martin Luther (who wrote some of them himself) up to that of JS Bach. Lucie Skeaping explores some of the ways in which these composers used them, with examples from Praetorius, Pachelbel and Bach, including a complete performance of Bach's Advent cantata Nun komm, der heiden Heiland, BWV62, by the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner....
Nov 10, 2013•13 min
Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of one of the earliest and best-known English operas - Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas", the love story of the Queen of Carthage and her Trojan hero. Set to a libretto by Nahum Tate, Dido and Aeneas was first performed in Chelsea in July 1688, and although it wasn't staged again in the composer's lifetime, it received a brief revival in 1700 and then disappeared completely as a staged work, with only sporadic concert performances until 1895 when the first staged vers...
Nov 03, 2013•15 min
Lucie Skeaping talks to musicologist Ian Gammie about the life and travels of the inimitable Charles Burney. Burney, the 18th-century music-writer, teacher, organist and composer was well known for having opinions on just about everything, and, during his extensive travels through Europe, met some of the great musical luminaries of his day, including Padre Martini, Scarlatti and even the young Mozart.
Oct 27, 2013•25 min
