Episode 11: Protest and Rapture, with a sprinkling of Sweetness and Romance.

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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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If you aren't familiar with the music of the British composer Peter Maxwell Davis, who lived between 1934 and 2016, this podcast is unlikely to alter a state of affairs after today. That's because a farewell to Stromnetz, an interlude from the Yellow Cake Review, is quite unlike any of his other music, much of it angry and dissonant, and almost all of it multi-styled. As he was known to his friends, was a prolific composer and acclaimed conductor. He was a Republican, but changed his views on the monarchy after being made master of the Queen's music for ten years. He was also an environmentalist, and it's in this context that today's piece needs to be taken. The Yellow Cake Review is a collection of cabaret-style pieces in protest to plans for a uranium ore mine. The piece was written originally for piano, but his transcription to guitar was an inspiration. And it's that version we're going to listen to now, played by Matthew McAllister. We're told that the underlying pace is supposed to be representative of the villagers walking away from their contaminated homes. And so ultimately it's a brief piece about loss and protest. A matter that you might think of the global climate over forty years later, after its first performance in nineteen eighty. That's quite a bold assertion when you consider the huge competition. But my guess is that it would find a high level of support among the sopranos anyway, of which is why Pauline was one. She was about as fine a personification of a primodonna as you could expect a meet, and their marriage was volatile. But their mutual love of music probably accounts for Sostraza's exquisite compositions of the human voice. We're going to listen to a song now which lasts less than two minutes. But its three brief verses are all very slightly different, and a couple of hearings will reveal its subtle musical development. Strasa wrote over 200 songs, and many of those originally written for voice and piano were later orchestrated. It is a little gem, composed in 1885, set of the words by the poet Hermann von Gilmer. I remember seeing the American singer Renee Fleming perform Saturday's four larger songs of the promise many years ago, and mentally begging her to sing to Aigan as an encore. Never underestimate the power of wishful thinking. It is a good excuse to listen to that beautiful clarity of the voice of Lucia Pop again. The touching, pining lyrics end with a line that Heilig, Heilig and the heads of the other Dunker, Harbor Dunga, joy and bliss shall I love impart. There are some who argue that German is an unmusical language, not Lady Brackenall of all people, who, when commenting on a programming of songs in Oscar Wilde's importance of being earnest, said, French songs I cannot possibly allow. But German is not a thoroughly respectable language. Strauss's highly charged and dramatic opera was based on a play by Wilde. I hope you enjoy this as it's less than two minutes of gorgeous rapture. Speed and unity in this beast are what matters most. The movement is about allegor quickly, and anything falling short of that loses its logo and freshness of the music and what sweet and sweet music it is. You might think that unity is a given, but at the moment one instrument dominates the other, the notes are hard and they are all worth hearing. It is a dialogue between the two instruments. There are of course plenty of recordings I choose from, but this one from 1973 with Ada Harman on the violin and Vladimir Ashkenazi on piano, meeters that we heard so well. It is something of a dream team, both of them on equal terms with the other. Ashkenazi retired not all that long ago, and his Beethoven playing is amongst the very best. Is my favourite. Perhaps because it's often been observed that it's the one which comes closest to the human voice. It's an essential member of the orchestra not only for underlying accompaniment, but frequently as an introducer of melodies and as such a perfect candidate for solo pieces and concertos alike. There are countless works to choose from, but I can't resist starting with the cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach. Not least because these works not only explore the full virtuosity of the instrument, but demonstrate how close the cello really is to the human voice. Composed around 1720, they're based on different Baroque dances and apparently technically very difficult to play. As a result, they only really came to get wider recognition during the last century when a host of top players added them to their recording output. The prelude, which opens the first suite, is probably the most intimately recognized, but nonetheless beautiful for its familiarity. So we'll start with that one, here played by the popular cellist Yo Yo Ma, who has done as much as anyone to acquaint us with these suites. He takes it at a good pace, but the separate voices are clearly articulated, and he builds it up to a lovely conclusion. The genius of these pieces, just like the violin partitas, which we heard on a recent podcast, is that just one instrument seems to be playing several parts at the same time. We'll listen to a couple more in a few minutes. Here played by this country's top cellist, Stephen Isalis. The first one in the major key is full of fun, lively, bouncy and jolly, skipping along with his staccato rhythm. The second one, although having quite a similar rhythm, drops into the minor key and is altogether more melancholy. Bach almost eliminates the bounce and replaces it with longer yearning lines. But the mood is not allowed to prevail, and he soon rounds it off by returning to the original theme. This is joyful music and all on one instrument in the hands of one of its finest practitioners. Almost everyone, classical music lover or not, will have heard of, if not heard and seen, the three great tenors, Carrera, Domingo and Pavarotti, who first performed together in 1990 on the eve of the FIFA World Cup in Rome. But today I'm going to turn my attention to someone who died thirty years previously, Yussi Björling, often known as a Swedish caruso. One of Don Bassetti's most famous and widely performed operas, L'Elysia d'Amore, the Elixir of Love, had its first performance in 1832. Stick with me for just a couple of moments while I give you the briefest settings of this wonderful aria, because I do think it will help your enjoyment of it. Nemarino, a peasant, is madly in love with Edina, who, being well off and well read, is frankly also well out of his league. This doesn't dissuade him from trying to nerve Elder Winner over. Indeed, she initially accepts the proposal of somebody else. But the arrival of a quack doctor comes to his aid. Having overheard Edina reading about a magic potion which Tristan used to capture the heart of his older, Nemarino asks the doctor to symbol some. What he downs in one is in fact a cheap blonde, but it has the effect of giving him Dutch courage. For he is confident he will soon be irresistible to Edina. So much so that he's flirting with other girls up at her, and she realizes that she loves him after all. On noticing a tear in her eye, Emily noticing as one of Opera's most tender romances will not have already a laugh in my is where you can really hear the music coming to the aid of the message. Perhaps it doesn't suggest it's a regret that Edina's apparent sadness. But then Liz and Howard on its head opens it up into the major key when Nemarina affirms his knowledge that Edina loves him. Mama, Mama, a little Vader. It is a statement of pure happiness. The melody is repeated, and this time unfolding with even more confidence. It's measured rather than imagination, but the message is clear. There are few things in life better than to know we are loved, especially by those we love ourselves. And there are a few better examples in music of that feeling being conveyed. It's not only heart melting, it just happens to be happy to as well.

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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 in then. And you can subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the link below.