27. Comedy, purity, love, and JAZZ!

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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. 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.

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Those of us of a certain vintage will remember with great affection and admiration the talent and comedy of Dudley Moore. It's a name which you might be surprised to hear in a podcast about classical music. But he was a very talented musician at the keyboard, winning an organ scholarship at the Maudlin College, Oxford, where he later took up composition in jazz. His career took a comedy and acting path, most notably with Peter Cooker, but his skills at the keyboard never left him. Here's something not a lower tone, but a lighter mood. Moore's parody on a Beethoven sonata is now well established as an encore favourite in piano recitals. Taking in the well-known theme of Colonel Bogie, which has long since has been irreverently renamed, Moore examples a full range of Beethoven's atypical characteristics. The attention to detail is not just a funny, it's a brilliantly clever. He then goes on to develop all of the Beethoven's language, in the chords, and the scales, and the pauses, and a tranquil and melodic reflection, and finally a Beethoven's seeming inability sometimes to bring a piece to an end, with a physically being a prime example. Another clever thing about this piece, which is a live performance by Piers Lane, is that it actually incorporates specific references from other Beethoven sonatas. If you've heard it before, you know what's coming. But if you haven't, you can't help but giggle. The redhead Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1678, where he spent much of his life composing music for an orphanage. As the firstborn of nine children, it was the custom at the time to think that about for the priesthood. A tradition that I can be glad has long gone into a bed. But as someone who suffered from a mild form of asthma, he managed to discharge his priestly duties only rarely. His output was indeed substantial, and he was by far the leading Baroque composer of his day. His music had a clear influence on Bach but a voluminous legacy is not enough to guarantee you contemporary popularity, and he died in poverty in Vienna. That reputation, of course, has long been since restored. Stravinsky was perhaps the most scathing about him, calling him greatly overrated and a dull fellow, who could compose the same form over and so many times over. The house in which he lived has since been taken over by the Hotel Zacha, and I can personally vouch for the excellence of its Zacha torter. If you've seen the film Shine about the pianist David Helfgod, you'll remember that the closing credits were accompanied by Vivaldi's Nullah in Munda Pax in Chella. The rather gloomy title which translates into There is no peace in this world without bitterness is wholly at odds with his perfectly lovely tune sung by Emma Kirkway. We sometimes forget that 18th century Europe was a time so rich in all the arts that to stand out above your peers and really excel, quantity alone was just not enough. Haydn, as we now know, wrote oodles of music, and he's one of those quantity exceptions. But have you ever heard of Thomas O'Giordani, who lived between about 1730 and 1800? He didn't write as much as Haydn, but he did write a very great deal in all sorts of forms, particularly opera, when he came to live in Ireland, one called Genius of Ireland, quiet at the back. And you'd struggle to find much of it before now. Part of the reason for that may be that he stood at charge of plagiarism. Be that as it may, I think you'll agree this is a rather lovely declaration of love, and I just felt the urge to play it. Carol Mio Ben, my darling one, believe me, my heart languishes without you. It's sung here by Cecilia Bartoli with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on the piano. Shostukovych was a man I singled out. So here's something completely different to disability that myth even further. And in 1938 he wrote a jazz suite, especially for the newly formed state of jazz orchestra in Moscow. You never know what you're going to get on this podcast, and to be honest, I'm not sure myself sometimes, but it's all about showing you that classical composers aren't all the stuff here. The suite is made up of five parts a wolf, a polka, a foxtrot, a flame of eternal glory for orchestra, and a festive overture. It's played here by the National Orchestra of Ukraine, conducted by Theodore Kucha.

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That's it for now. Thank you for listening to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson. He'll be back again next week with some more treasures for you, so please do join him then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.