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.
Lucie Skeaping joins in the New Year festivities from Vienna with a programme looking at the city's early musical history, including works by the 13th-century minnesinger Neidhart von Reuental along with composers from Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Isaac all the way to Fux, Schmelzer and Haydn.
Lucie Skeaping talks to Radio 3's embedded composer Matthew Kaner, New York-based composer Caroline Shaw and viola da gamba player Liam Byrne about how early music pieces and performance practice influence their styles as contemporary composers and performers.
Fiona Talkington looks at the legacy of Carlo Gesualdo and the fascination that his life and music held for certain 20th-century cultural figures, including composers Igor Stravinsky and Peter Maxwell Davies, novelist Aldous Huxley and film maker Werner Herzog. The programme includes an interview with Professor Glenn Watkins, who has written extensively about Gesualdo's life, work and influence.
Fiona Talkington looks at the life and music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) - the son of a French plantation owner and his slave mistress - who became a virtuoso violinist and composer, close friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, and was known in 18th-century Paris as "The Black Mozart".
Lucie Skeaping is joined by guests Delma Tomlin (Director of the National Centre for Early Music in York), Steven Devine (keyboard player and Professor at Trinity Laban College of Music in London), Greg Skidmore (academic and singer with ensembles such as The Sixteen, Ex Cathedra and Alamire) and Tabea Debus (recorder player, recently graduated from the Royal Academy of Music) to discuss how the early music scene is likely to develop and change in coming years in terms of performance practice, e...
Lucie Skeaping is joined by guests, violinist Catherine Mackintosh, director Peter Holman and Nick Wilson from King's College London to discuss how Radio 3 helped to support and shape the Early Music movement in its early years from the 1950s through to the 1990s. Part of Radio 3's 70th season, celebrating seven decades of pioneering music and culture since the founding of the Third Programme. Photo courtesy of Will Dyson.
Hannah French is in Toronto to meet members of the Canadian ensemble Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra about their projects and recordings since the early 1980s, including contributions from their long-serving artistic director, Jeanne Lamon. Music includes pieces by Bach, Purcell, Geminiani, Telemann, Beethoven, Zelenka and Leonardo Leo.
Hannah French looks at the tradition of Tafelmusik. Musique de Table. Table Music. It's music composed to divert, entertain, and yes, be performed around a table. Hannah visits the British Library to talk to the Curator of Music Manuscripts Andra Patterson about an incredible manuscript of Table Music held there: a 'booke of In nomines and other solfainge songs of 5, 6, 7 and 8 parts for voyces or Instruments'. The programme includes pieces by William Byrd, Johann Schein, Michael Praetorius, Viv...
Hannah French presents a profile of the hugely influential Flemish composer Cipriano de Rore, marking the 500th anniversary of his birth this year. The programme includes recordings by Bruce Dickey, The Huelgas Ensemble, The Tallis Scholars, the Brabant Ensembleand Cinquecento Renaissance Vokal.
In the second of her two programmes from New York city, Hannah French meets Jeffrey Grossman - harpsichordist and artistic director of The Sebastians, Wen Yang of New York Baroque Incorporated and Jolle Greenleaf from the vocal ensemble Tenet, and she visits the Julliard School of Music to hear about the early music education programme there from violinist Robert Mealy.
Hannah French visits New York for the first of two programmes, in which she learns about the vibrant early music scene in the city. She meets Gene Murrow of the Gotham Early Music Scene, Julian Wachner - music director of Trinity Wall Street, and Gwendolyn Toth of the ensemble Artek, and she chats to violinist Robert Mealy about his work with the ensemble Quicksilver.
Lucie Skeaping looks at the plot, history, performances and recordings of one of Handel’s most enduring operas, Giulio Cesare - first performed at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1724. The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym who used an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani. The opera, which starred two of Europe's most famous performers - the castrato Senesino and soprano Francesca Cuzzoni - was an immediate success at its first performances, and was frequently revived by Handel...
Robert Hollingworth introduces specially made recordings of music from the Medici Codex - a music book prepared for Pope Leo X in 1518. Leo was the second son of Lorenzo "The Magnificent" of the Medici family, who was Pope from 1513 to 1521. The codex contains 53 motets and was presented to Leo's nephew, the Duke of Urbino at his wedding to a French princess in 1518. In discussion with Tim Shepherd of Sheffield University.
Harpsichordist Sophie Yates looks at the life and music of the German keyboard virtuoso Johann Jakob Froberger, who was born 400 years ago this month.
Lucie Skeaping chats to the award-winning flautist and recorder player Ashley Solomon, professor and Head of Historical Performance at the Royal College of Music and director of the ensemble Florilegium. The group, founded in 1991, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. In the last quarter of a century, Florilegium has toured worldwide, released an impressive number of recordings and embarked on a fascinating (and ongoing) project working with native Indians in Bolivia. The programme include...
As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, Lucie Skeaping is joined by dance historian Barbara Segal to discuss the finer points of Renaissance terpsichore. European theatrical extravaganzas - Italian Intermedi, French Ballet de Cour and English Masques swirl effortlessly alongside traditional Branles and even Morris Dances. Meanwhile, to the accompaniment of The City Waites, Lucie tries out some of the dances herself, under Barbara Segal's expert guidance, of course!
As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, baroque dance specialist Philippa Waite looks at the styles and affects of various dances, illustrating with music by composers such as Lully, who was an excellent dancer himself, JS Bach, Handel, Weiss, Rebel and Rameau.
Lucie Skeaping looks at some of the music penned at the court of Mannheim in the latter half of the 18th century, which had such a thriving and influential orchestra. Composers such as Johann Stamitz, Franz Xaver Richter, Christian Cannabich, Carl Stamitz and Franz Danzi really took the symphonic genre by the horns, helped to shape it into what we now think of as the Classical symphony, and, as such, were a huge influence on the likes of Mozart and Haydn.
Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the blind Spanish renaissance organist and composer Antonio de Cabezon, marking the 450th anniversary of his death in 1566.
No-one knows for sure the birth-date of Tudor composer John Sheppard, but it is thought to have been around 500 years ago in 1515-16. Lucie Skeaping is joined by singer and musicologist Sally Dunkley to explore the life and work of one of England's finest composers, with performances by The Sixteen, The Tallis Scholars, Stile Antico, the Gabrieli Consort, The Clerkes of Oxenford and the Choir of Westminster Abbey. John Sheppard: Libera nos I The Sixteen Harry Christophers (director) John Sheppar...
Lucie Skeaping explores the life and music of the lesser-known Scarlatti: Francesco – brother of Alessandro and uncle of Domenico, who spent much of his later career in Dublin.
Stevie Wishart presents a special New Year New Music programme. She takes a look at how early music resonates through the contemporary music of our time as "Echoes of the Past in the Present". Stevie features her own performances and compositions as well as music by early music exponents such as Garth Knox and Philippe Malfeyt and performances by Voice, St Catharine's Girls' Choir Cambridge and the ensemble, Tied & Nycklet.
Lucie Skeaping introduces music written for this day by J.S. Bach - music composed for the 27th December, the Third Day of Christmas and the First Sunday after Christmas - including the six-voice Santus composed for the Christmas service in 1724, during second year of Bach's tenure in Leipzig, which eventually became part of the B minor Mass; music from the Christmas Oratorio; and Cantatas BWV 122, Das neugeborne Kindelein (The new-born little babe), and BWV 133, Ich freue mich in dir (I find my...
Sophie Yates talks to Benjamin Narvey about the relationship between lutes harpsichords.
Fiona Talkington introduces a performance of Bach's 'Wedding Cantata,' Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten and finds out whether Anna Magdalena might have sung this very cantata at her wedding to JS Bach in 1721. The cantata's central aria: 'To practise sweet courtship, to cuddle joyously,' features a solo oboe. Today's programme also includes an oboe concerto and a suite for seven instruments written a few years after Bach's cantata. Telemann Oboe Concerto in D minor, TWV 51:d1 Bach Cantata: Weichet...
Lucie Skeaping and Dr James Porter of Aberdeen University investigate the musical world of Huguenot composer Jean Servin, and find out what he was doing in 1579 at the Edinburgh court of King James VI of Scotland (later to be King James I of England), with lovingly bound copies of his Psalmi Davidis in his luggage. With music by Servin, Lassus, David Peebles, Andrew Blackhall and others in performances by Cappella Nova, Ensemble Clément Janequin and Sang Scule.
Fiona Talkington presents a profile of Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his group Barokksolistene.
Lucie Skeaping marks the 450th anniversary of the Portuguese Renaissance composer, Duarte Lobo. She is joined by scholar and performer Professor Owen Rees of Queen's College, Oxford, who has edited, performed and recorded music by Duarte Lobo. Duarte Lobo was among the foremost Portuguese composers of the early 17th century. He spent most of his life in Lisbon where he became a renowned teacher. He became maestro de capilla at the Hospital Real, Lisbon, and from about 1591 until at least 1639 an...
Lucie Skeaping talks to Rosemary Southey of Newcastle University about the musical scene in the north east of England in the eighteenth century, with works by Charles Avison, John Garth and William Herschel.
As part of the BBC's current focus on Dance, Lucie Skeaping is joined by choreographer and early dance expert Darren Royston to discover some of the delights of medieval dance moves.
