Episode 10. 'A Ray of Sunshine.' And a taste of heaven.

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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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We're going to open today's podcast with some Mozart, who lived such a short life between 1756 and 1791. There's very little that an amateur enthusiast such as myself can add to the millions of words which have been written about this child prodigy, who was composing whilst other his age were learning to read. Many of his pieces, such as the clarinet concerto, the horn concertos, Anna Kleininach Musik, the Jupiter Symphony, Piano Concerto No. 21, Elvira Magdalena Music, to name just a handful, are now so overplayed and so familiar to us that we risk overlooking a great amount which gets less coverage. Obviously, we'll have lots to listen to in future podcasts. In 1788, Mozart composed what were to be his last three symphonies 39, 40, and 41. Of these forty-one, The Jupiter is unquestionably the most famous, first heard by many of us as backing for the Wombles. But it is number 39, which stands out as my personal favourite of all his symphonies, in fact. Today's piece is the final movement of that symphony, written a year after his father had died, his wife was ill, his daughter had also died recently, and Mozart was deeply in debt. And yet this movement, a rondo, is a passage of unalloyed optimism and sheer love of life. It's a perfect example of how the real genius, in whatever art form, is there a creator who can evoke any mood or emotion without necessarily having to be either a miserable geezer or a stand-up comedian. There's only one theme in this piece, even if it's very dislikely, and it's a ray of sunshine which just makes you want to dance. It has a wonderful momentum with occasional breezes, but to me it almost feels like a whistle stop ride on a fast steam train. As the brass joins in, you get this real sense of a train hurtling through the countryside. It's also quite a good piece to use for musical chairs, and I think you'll see why. Charles McCarras conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. This is a perfect example of a piece which you may think will never do anything new for you again. I thought so myself until I stumbled on this recording. It moved me so much that I played it four times in a row. So what's so special about this version, you may ask? It's a simple answer. The singer. Lucia Popp was a Slovak soprano who died far too young from brain cancer in 1993 at the age of 54. She had enjoyed a glittering operatic career in many famous roles, including some of the heavy ones of Wagner and Ricard Strasser, with leading conductors at the world's top opera houses. But for me, it's in the music of Mozart where she truly shines. There's a purity in her voice which seems to fit so perfectly with his music. And it's easier to imagine that Mozart himself would have been beside himself with excitement had she been around a couple of hundred years ago. It really is. It's clean and beautifully controlled. Just wait for the Amen as it emerges from the choir. It's extraordinary. Without excessive vibrato, that's wobbling to you and me. It's a stunning account of one of the most famous of all tunes, and proves that however hardened you are, however well you think you know something, you can always be blown away by someone who's on a completely different level. Well, as they say, everything comes to he who waits, and I can certainly wait no longer. And if you are new to his music or have some build him prejudice against him, hear me out. To have come this far without having been exposed to the music of Richard Wagner, who lived between 1813 and 1883, might be considered by some to be something of a relief. But to spout on matters musical without reference to this extraordinary man would be akin to showing a love of literature without referring to Shakespeare. He can't be ignored, however divisive his music still is, and was in his own lifetime. As an individual, he had little, if anything, to commend him. Few would deny that he was a genius, perhaps even one of the greatest that ever was. But his less favourable characteristics make it the more remarkable that he was capable of conceiving music of exceptional beauty, as I hope that this piece I'm going to share with you today will demonstrate. Wagner is now most infamously known for his anti-Semitic views and for being Hitler's favourite composer. But that's just the sugarless icing on an already unpalatable cake. He was a renowned liar, unpopular political rebel, bad-tempered, financially irresponsible and inept, egotistic, autocratic, and a first-class adulterer. He and his first wife Minna were separated three times and reconciled twice. And it was only when he had fathered three children with Cosima, married to the conductor Hans von Bullo, that the wretched cockold rolled over, as it were, and conceded defeat. Cosima became Wagner's second wife at twenty-four years his junior. I doubt that any composer has a divided opinion quite like Wagner. There's no shortage of anecdotes to support his own popularity. Rossini apparently observed that Wagner has some beautiful moments, but some awful quarter of an hour's. Tchaikovsky likened the end of one of his operas to being released from prison, and Mark Twain quipped that Wagner's music was better than it sounds. By contrast, more recently, Bernard Levin was a passionate Wagner, as is Stephen Fry. Schulte recorded the first ring cycle, and Daniel Barrenboim conducts his music in Israel. By virtue of their own beliefs and upbringing, all four had every reason to eschew the man's music altogether. But if you can't bring yourself to sit through one of his operas, and yes, they are very long, you can adopt the Rossini approach by listening to orchestral passages like this and find yourself transported. This is the prelude to Act One of Lone Gren. I'm not going to bother with the synopsis here because it won't add to your enjoyment. I'm just going to focus on what we're about to listen. There's really no other way of putting this, and I don't mean it in any way frivolously. This is nothing less than musical foreplay, and not, if you'll excuse me for saying so, a bracious self-header approach. The pacing and control of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Simon Rattle is truly astonishing. It's worth taking time out for this. And it's a making myself completely.

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Thank you for listening to Perfect Page with Nick Haley Hutchinson. He'll be back again next week with some more treasures for you. So please do join in then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.