12. Romance, virtuosity, humour, and menace.

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Do you think that classical music is not for you and you don't know where to start? Or maybe you're a fan already and would welcome a fresh approach. You've come to the right place. A perfect pitch is for everyone. Beginners or experts, whatever your age. Lend Nick Healy Hutchinson your ears for his weekly dose of classical music that will enrich your life.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Many people venturing into classical music often avoid composers who might have a reputation for being inaccessible. This is perfectly reasonable. But the adage to never judge a book by its cover might just as easily apply to a C D or an LP if you've still got any of either of those, or for that matter, even know what they are. I've certainly been guilty of prejudging music from the name of the composer alone, probably as a result of just one bad experience. But have, thankfully, had my hasty prejudice frequently overturned when pointed elsewhere. Before the pandemic, for example, I attended a concert given by the Belgique Quartet, in which they performed Shostokovich's 15th and Final Zodging Quartet. Had I so much as overheard it on the radio, there's absolutely no doubt that I would have turned it off in an instant. But to listen to, and indeed to watch it being played in the flesh, was an extraordinary experience. Dmitry Shoshotkovich, who lived between 1906 and 1975, had a complicated personality, and a few composers explored quite as many different styles, old and new, as he. While being obsessed with blendness, he was also a heavy smoker, and generally of a nervous disposition. He was something of a football nut, and was even a qualified referee. If you're more prone to tunable harmonies than experimental forays, it is easy to see why the mention of his name alone might put you off if your first experience was to be exposed to something similar to the 1510 quartet, of which there was no shortage. But composing in the Stalin-led regime was a tricky balancing act. He was expected to provide propaganda in an upbeat manner, which was wholly at odds with his instincts to deliver melancholy. His work is full of despair. But he knew which side his bread was buttered too, so crowdfusers were required to stay in the favour. The short of it, however, is that he spent his entire life wrestling with this conflict, and ultimately veered more on the side of the inconservable. Amongst his extensive and varied repertoire is a substantial film score output, 36 in all, and his work with the Gaddafly, later also used in Riley Ace of Spies, might surely include one of the most delightful melodies ever written. So we're going to start today with a charming lighter music that he could produce in the romance of that sweet, which is by no means limited to this. We've just got to dig a little. Many famous violinists have recorded it, but most seem to have a slight tendency to take it as a little bit too far. Not so in this recording by Jonathan Carney, using Australia's violin with a role philharmonic orchestra. It's a really fine rendition, starting with a melody, then dipping briefly into a passage of orchestral doubt in the minor key before returning triumphantly and peacefully to the original theme. His dates, as of 1685 to 1757, make him a near exact contemporary of the great man himself, Johann Sebastian Bach. Although there's no concrete evidence that Bach had even heard of the Italian not much is known of Domenico, one of ten children and the son of a musician. So we don't need to tarry on biographical details. He is now most famous for having composed over 500 sonatas for the Harpsichord. That's a fair amount. So unsurprisingly, many of them last only a few minutes and all of them in one continuous movement, unlike their classical equivalent of fifty to a hundred years later. So there's no need for you to be concerned at the prospect of me playing an entire sonata by Sagarlatti for it lasts barely three minutes. She performs live only rarely these days, and in truth has always been something of a recluse, despite her tempestuous and colourful life. But what a gift in absolutely everything she touches. Here is a sonata K141, which I have seen and heard her play as an encore on more than one occasion, which is what she's doing here. Following it of a good measure with a bar capita or BWV 826. When you consider that this is a live performance, it's astonishing that there isn't a single duff note. And the bark which follows it is more than just unbelievable technique. There's lots of colour and contrast at play here too. It's hard not to marvel at these, and I hope that they'll be new to many of you. Many of you will be familiar with his Carol Symphony, but he wrote plenty of other lovely stuff as well, which is underrated. I suppose I would say that, wouldn't I? But Victor was a child prodigy who could play all the thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas by heart, played Beethoven's fourth piano concerto, the promise, and became an accomplished conductor in Birmingham with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in his foundation, and very survival. He played a perfect little role, and later a broadcaster with the BBC in London, before going on to become its director of music and a co-founder of its program, or what we now call Radio 3. As head of music in the department, he did not feel he could indulge in the luxury of his office radiator when everyone else was having to cut back in a particularly cruel winter in 1946 and he contracted pneumonia and died at just 47. Everything I read about him makes me wish I had known him. The words of both songs are well known. Old Mother Hubbard is often sung as an uncle, as it is here by counter tenor David Daniels in a live concert in 1996. Old Mother Hubbard sets often emission full of optimism, but as she approaches her destination, Victor makes it very clear in the music with a foreboding outcome away. Is it just a bit of fun, but it's clever fun. The second, the Owl and the Pussycat is also a live performance done by Mark Padamore and Roderick Williams with Julius Drake at the piano. It's a lovely blending of two of the great voices around today. You can tell that the dramatis persona are in a boat from the very first lilting chords on the piano. Again, it's just a bit of fun, but it's charming and perceptive.

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And the pussy cat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a fine hot. What a beautiful to see you. You are what a beautiful to see you are. But what should we do for a free?

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Enough of this frivolity, I hear you say. We started with the violin, and that's how I'd like to conclude today's podcast. With a final movement of my second favourite violin concerto by Jean Sibelius. My favourite is Beethoven's, but we've played a fair amount of his music, and we've not heard any Sibelius. A polynades for polar bears is how the legendary music writer Sir Donald Tovey, who lived between 1875 and 1940, described this final movement of Sibelius' only concerto for solo instrument and orchestra. Sebelius had himself always aspire to becoming a virtuoso violinist, but it just never happened that way, probably because he wasn't fortunate enough to have access to good enough teachers in the countryside. And excuse my children would doubtless they are my door one day. Nowadays, Sibelius is best known for works such as Finlandia and the Corelia Suite, the former eventually becoming a national anthem for that country, as well as his seven symphonies, the fifth of which is highly popular. But all of them are characterized by broad sweeping themes, often beginning with a brief melody and building out of fabulous final moments. And we'll delve into those in the future podcasts. The average temperature in Finland at the time Sibelius was born was just at four degrees Celsius, and minus seventeen on the day of his birth in December. The countryside was a fairly brilliant place in which to live, and it can't have been easy for the young boy who was brought up by an early widowed mother, her mother, and two aunts. Throw in the enormous political difficulties with Russia at the time, and you have a dire context for survival. All completely delightful, I'm sure, but there's a conspicuous lack of male company here, which may account for his partiality to cigars and vulgar for much of his life. There's definitely a cold darkness to be found in some of his music, especially his old symphony, which is a plain griminate mood for specific reasons, but the opposite is generally more true. And Sibelius was enormously popular in England and the US, reaping the financial benefits of the recent dimensional recording. This concerto did not have an autobicious debut. Sibelius had to revise it because it was just far too difficult, and it was much better reasoned when Ricardo Strauss conducted the revision in 1905. That it remains difficult is not hard to see, especially in this final moment where the solo is kept busy pretty much the whole way through. The school is marked Allegro Mananthropo, which means quicker, but not too much, as interpretations tend to vary enormously. The nickname which Hovig described it is perfect. Right from its opening seconds there is this menacing beat, while the solo violin dances relentlessly above the orchestra, building to an exquisite moment a couple of minutes in, which is later repeated as adequate. Interestingly, the word allegor has a more general meaning in English, closer to good humoured or high tones, and some solo is have a tendency to attack this moment too heavily. The result can be harsh and even brash, and worst of all, the dancing and melody are sacrificed. Here is a common with a Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Andre Bradley. The closing bars are wonderful. It is an exuberant account. By the way, although Sebelius had numerous operations to care about the photo tumour, cigars and vodka obviously didn't harm him too much in the long term. At the time of his birth, the life expectancy in that cruel climate was barely thirty-six.

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So please do join him then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.