34. Maestros and Maestras at the very top of their game.

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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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In an earlier podcast, I played you Karl Maria von Weva's Invitation to the Dance and alluded to his influence on the development of German opera and orchestration, as well as a particular esteem in which he was held by none other than Beethoven. Amongst his other notable works are two concertos for clarinet. The final moment of his second concerto, marked Allapolaca, like Apollonese, is one of those passages in music which allows the soloist to show off her virtuosic skills. I've never picked up a clarinet in my life, but this sounds horribly difficult to me, especially in the demanding final flourish. Here is that lively and optimistic movement played by Sabine Meyer with a Schatzkapella orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomchett. Don't decide it's not my thing until you've tried. Huge strides have been made by all the leading opera houses and more recently formed the festivals up and down the country to make it accessible to everyone. Language is no longer a barrier either, thanks to the almost universal use of subtitles. And cost. Yes, you could spend a small fortune if you wanted to, but you could also attend one for considerably less than the average price of a Premier League football match or a West End musical. In other words, it just comes down to perception and preconceived baseless opinion. The trick, as a first-timer, is to find the right one. And then acknowledge that you're unlikely to love it all. But like your experience on a golf course or any other sporting endeavor, you will be teased just enough by a moment of such art of perfection and beauty that you're left with no choice but to return. Opera combines theatre, design, orchestra, singing, most of the major art forms are rolled into one. It might seem strange to sing the stories, but to burst into song is something we've all done at some time. So it is, in fact, not quite as crazy as it seems. To assert that you're not going to like opera before going is to say that you enjoy reading and refuse to go to a Shakespeare play. You're depriving yourself of an emotional response which you cannot imagine. Obvious candidates for a first try are most of the Mozart operas Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figueroa and Puccini's La Bohem, Bizet's Carmen, another, and La Traviata, which we've already heard, the prelude, another. But perhaps a less obvious contender by Traviata's composer Verdi is Regoletto. Verdi wrote 29 operas, and can reasonably be heralded as one of the most successful opera composers ever. Regoletto has a lot going for it. The moving story of a father's love for his daughter, Gilda, who is raped by his much reviled employer, the Duke of Mantua, and with whom she then falls in love. Rigoletto seeks his revenge with disastrous consequences. First performed in 1851, it was an enormous success. The hunchback Rigoletto is showing his daughter Gilda, here sung by the great Joan Sutherland, nicknamed La Stupenda, what a bounder the Duke is. He is seducing Madalena, the sister of Spadavacile, the assassin whom Rigoletto has hired to bump off his employer the Duke. Pavarotti, who described Sutherland as having the voice of a sentry, made this part of the Duke his own. Four voices. Madalena replying along the lines of, I bet you say that to all the girls, and Gilda observing that's what he said to me, so Madalena had a point. And Rigoletto doing his best to convince Gilda that the Duke is a wrong. What a mingling of voices this is. Joining Pavarotti and Sutherland are Leoncci and the part of Rigoletto, and Isola Jones as Madalena. This is a live performance, and it's utter perfection. No wonder the crowd went mad. And that last note from Sutherland, I don't know if it's in the score, but if you know you can do it like this, well, why wouldn't you? The second Aria I mentioned is one of the most famous in all opera. Everything has gone horribly wrong. Well, it's opera, isn't it? And on hearing this melody, Rigoletta realizes that his plans for getting rid of the Duke have failed. Worse still, he's about to discover that his daughter has been the victim. Verdi knew he was on to something here. The aria was rehearsed in great secrecy and only shown to the singer playing the Duke just days before. And the composer was right. It went down as the highlight of the first performance. Here is Pavarotti again singing La Donna Emobile. Because that was indeed the end of Leopold Mozart's horn concerto number one, played by probably the finest horn player this country has ever produced, Dennis Brain. If you thought it sounded a little rubbish, you might want to think again, and you'll almost certainly rewind it. When I tell you that Brain was having a bit of a laugh by playing it on a garden hose. That's how good he was. Brain was almost destined to play the horn. His father, uncle, and grandfather had all been players of the instrument, but he came to surpass them all, in a life cut short, as a consequence of his other passion fast cars in a fatal car accident in 1957 when he was just thirty-six. Every orchestra wanted him, and many composers wrote for him. Here he is, in a more familiar piece of Mozart's last home concert is fourth. Every time I hear this I marvel at the restraint. The notes are not as much played as they are correct. It's really as if Brain's horn is lined with a craft of velvet. But our fourth concerto is played here by Denis Brain, the Philomena Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Calyan.

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Thank you for listening to Perfect Pitch with Nick Ely 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.