16. You CAN like opera!

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. 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.

Starting your day with a bit of Johann Sebastian Bach will never do you any harm, and this sort of music can only put a spring in your step. Bach wrote four orchestral suites to mimic dances in the French Baroque style. The pedinery of number two will doubtless be familiar to many of you. But it's something of a showpiece for the flautist. To take a piano comparison, it's almost a similar challenge to see how quickly you can dash off Chopin's so-called one-minute waltz, a misnomer, if ever there was one. So let's open with a little fun. Listen to this a lovely, clear, and fresh account played by Anastasia Fetchenko. Breathtaking, quite literally. From one master to another. Mozart wrote twenty-three concertos of a piano and orchestra. They're filled with tunes which are sometimes impossible to get out of your head. But unlike nagging commercial jingles, are never too bothered if they linger. Number ten, probably written in 1799 when Wolfgang was all of twenty, was a composer for two pianos and is about as exuberant a piece of music as you'll ever hear. His older sister, Maria Anna, was every bit as talented as a gifted sibling, and their pushy dad, Leopold, was at pains to advance both their talents at every opportunity. They'd often perform together, so it's quite possible that Mozart wrote the concerto for that purpose. It's unlikely, however, that such an occasion took place, because by 1779, Naneri, as she was known, was of a marriageable age, and it simply wasn't done for ladies in that position to be covorting their talents in public. And Leopold would have known this, which does make his helicopter apparent approach somewhat questionable. We do know that Mozart played it with one of his pupils a few years later. The last of the three movements is a joyous rondo. The unusual aspect of this work is that most of the dialogue is concentrated between the two pianos, rather than between instrument and orchestra, as with the norm. The mingling of the soloists is exquisite. If you shut your eyes, you can barely separate them. The players here are Alfred Brendel and Imogen Cooper with the Academy of St. Martin and the Fields conducted by Neville Mariner. Nor I doubt or ever could be. It's an opera about love, exploring the joys and heartaches that it brings, to which Mozart sets truly beautiful and tender music. In summary, it's the tale of two engaged couples, Donna Bella to Fernando, and Fiordiligi to Guillemo, and a bet which the mischievous bachelor Don Alfonso has with both men that their respective fiancees would be incapable of being faithful to them if they were away. He arranges for them to be summoned away to war, but also for them to reappear disguised as Albanians and flirt with each other's hearts with somewhat alarming success. So much so that a double wedding to the wrong women is about to proceed, whereupon Alfonso has won his bet, and their true identities are revealed. Perhaps rather implausibly, all is forgiven, and the status of royalty is restored. This exquisite trio is sung by Dorabella, Fiordeligi and Alfonso, as they see the men sail away into the distance. From the very first note, you can instantly sense a gentle breeze on calm waters as they wish them a safe travel. Meaning, may the wind be gentle, may the waves be calm. It brings our three voices together in a few minutes of harmonic bliss and ranks as one of Mozart's very finest passages in all his operas. I have no doubt it will be recognised by almost everyone having been used in the film Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and, as I said earlier, countless commercial since. But only Heart of a Stone could not be moved by the melody and the way the voices mingle with each other over a gently rocking orchestration. The three singers here are Christa Ludwig, Elizabeth Schwarzkoff, and Walter Berry, with a Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Carl Byrne. If you've not taken this step yet, for perfectly understandable premisconceptions, you could do a lot worse than seek out a performance of this opera for your first visit. We took my son, who I'm sure would not be overly offended if I stated that he was found out of tune in a football crowd, to see it with a friend a few years ago. And it was his reaction which made me realize that if he could respond like this to classical music and opera, anyone could. Afterwards, his friend even commented that at one stage the music was so lovely that I didn't even bother to look at the other titles to know what was being sung. Carmen, a French opera composed by Georges Bizet, is the story of a raunchy gypsy with an insatiable appetite for seduction. He lures the vulnerable Don Jose, a soldier who is already attached to his childhood sweetheart, and then, once he's heads over and heels with love with her, dumps him for the more alluring bullfighter Escamillo. In a jealous rage, Jose declares that if he can't have her, no one else will and stabs her to make absolutely sure of it. That's probably the shortest synopsis of a four-act opera you're ever likely to get. But it really doesn't matter. All you need to know is that this work is stuffed with passion and wonderful tunes throughout, which ease were the most defiant of ears. When it was first performed in 1875, it was not received well, since its subject was deemed far too unseemly, and Bizet died only a few months later, believing it to be a failure. It was the lone voice of Tchaikovsky who predicted that within a matter of years Carmen would become one of the most popular in the repertory. And how right he was. There's so much to choose from in this opera, but these two minutes are truly heart-wrenching. Don Jose, here performed by Rolando Villason, in a live performance who sings of his love for Carmen. The Russian composer, Modest Mosulski, had a brief life between 1839 and 1881. It's a strange name, modest. At first, you commit perhaps the most selfish thing possible by giving in the world a reflection of yourself, and then you voiced upon your creation a name meaning moderate or restrained, as if by way of an apology. Sadly, his musical advert did little to remedy this. Nowadays, he's chiefly known for his works like A Night on a Bald Mountain and his opera about another Boris Chieftain, Boris Goodenough. He was a highly gifted pianist, but he struggled with the subtleties of orchestration, causing many, including Tchaikovsky, to be uncharitable in their assessments of him. Even his teacher concurred, Yes, Mosulski is a little child of an idiot. Despite other success at Boris, he did not get a good press. But in 1874, Mazulsky composed a fiendly difficult piano piece in ten movements to celebrate the pictures of his friend Victor Hartman, known as Pictures at an Exhibition. Its main theme, the promenade, which filters in and out of the piece to reflect the different mood of the viewer as he wanders through the exhibition, was used in the 1980s political sitcom The New Statement, featuring an MP called Alan Bastard, whose irreverent views some may now think to have turned out to be alarmingly present. It was a part specifically created for and acted by the late Erica Male, and his comedy at its very best. Quite often it's ways like this that many of us get exposed to classical music for the first time without knowing its origin. And then a little more digging adds to its appreciation. And at the moment, it is just seemed as a fitting piece of the play. This is the last of the ten. A picture of the design of the gate at Kia. This final part comes from the orchestrated version by Maurice Ravel in 1922. But as you listen to it patiently, you will hear how it expands and unfolds, bringing back the original theme and culminating in a thundering but majestic finish. I suspect Mazulski's life was not a particularly happy one, and a high dependence on alcohol from an early age for him at just forty-two. His grave has long been undercovered by Tarmak, but he certainly gets a lot more visitors. It's now a bus stop in St. Petersburg. Vladimir Ashkenazi conducts the Swedish Radio Orchestra. I saw him conducted at the BBC Proms many years ago, and he clearly loves the piece.