Episode 9. 'And the night shall be filled with music...'

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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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A few weeks ago, we listened to some piano music by the Czech composer Dvorjak. And I want to start today by turning to his orchestral work. Many of you may already be familiar with his ninth symphony, the so-called New World, which took America by storm, and especially the Slow Movement, which has been used for countless TV adverts, most famously a particular brand of bread many years ago. But at the risk of stating the obvious, there are eight other symphonies, and several of them, especially the earlier ones, don't get much of an airing at all. One of the loveliest passages in all his symphonies is the Allegretto Grazioso from his eighth symphony. Allegoretto is one of those lesser useful musical markings, meaning moderately quick, which of course leaves it open to a wide range of interpretations. But the additional grazioso is an important idea, because without it you might not benefit from the intended mood. This is a pretty, sweet, and light music, but not in any way lightweight. And anyway, I love it, and I think it's easy to see why. The late Australian conductor Charles McCarras had a particular affinity with Czech music. Here he is directing the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra. And I mentioned how at the early age of nineteen the young man was already hinting at his extraordinary talents for orchestration. So now I want to scroll forward to 1942, right at the end of his life, and his last opera capriccious. Just imagine for a moment being at the first performance in 1942 in Munich, fully aware of what an appalling catastrophe could happen at any moment. The opera doesn't need a lengthy explanation here. It is quite simply a brief debate about which of the two art forms, poetry and words or music, is the most important. A debate played out between two rivals for a countess. The first time I saw it, I remember noticing no less than eight voices singing all at once with their own lines and all completely distinguishable from the others. And then along came this. As the Countess prepares to reflect on her dilemma, her stars slips in these few minutes of Mondoshine, moonshine music. Originally written for piano, the piece was unearthed by a friend who persuaded him to orchestrate it. A solo horn draws you in with this gorgeous melody, and soon you're hooked. The Countess's final aria, incidentally, is sometimes performed as a standalone concert piece. Many years ago I heard Kiddy de Carnoa sing it under the direction of Linda Bernstein, and was a privilege to meet them both in a small gathering afterwards. One of them left an indelible mark on me. Unless you're doing something which requires your total concentration like driving, close your eyes for a couple of minutes, because this is dreamy music at its best. Daniel Barrenboyne conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a live performance. Grimm's Tale of Hansel and Gretel is the only opera written by the German Engelbert Homperdink, and pretty well the only piece of which he's now known. Both parts are played by women. As the two of them go to sleep in the forest, they offer this prayer for their safety. The two voices of Frederike von Stade and her fellow American Kathleen Battle is quite a combination. And it strikes me an ideal piece to follow the moonshine music we've just heard. For a long time I used to think that listening to solo violin was a bit dull, and I even thought it other barkers sonaltas and partitas, three of each, because in the wrong hands they can come over as almost mechanical exercises. But in the right hands, you'll get an altogether different experience. So if you thought that listening to solo violin was boring, prepare to revise your opinion and feast your ears on this. The pieces were composed in 1720. One critic hailed them as a miracle of music, whereas a single violin embarks on some of the most remarkable musical discourses ever written. All the great virtuosas of the investment have recorded them, but it was only when I heard Alina Ibrahimova play them that I realized what I was missing. In her hands, they come out of any kind of exercise category, and into the realms of freedom, even improvisation. They come alive, full of colour, and different voices. Far from dull, they become thrilling and totally absorbing. We're going to listen to her play in the prelude of the third part Tita, which I'm sure will be familiar to many of you. But I wonder if you'll have heard anything quite like this. And I particularly like the way the last note doesn't linger, it just disappears into the air. It's really virtuosic stuff, and fully supports Benedict's observation in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Is it not strange that sheep's guns should hail souls out of men's bodies? And from one solo instrument to another. The piano. In the opening perfect picture podcast, I played you a chopin wall. And it's now time to introduce you to something a good deal more weighty. Although he did write some instrumental music, two piano concerto, Chopin wrote nothing in his brief life which did not include the piano. And brief it was. He was never particularly healthy, even from a young age, causing Burliers to observe that he was dying all his life. It was probably tuberculosis that killed him in an apartment immediately opposite the hotel from where the late diner Professor Wales made her last fateful journey nearly 150 years later. Even delicate, impeccably dressed and manned somewhat at odds with the writer George Sand, a dumpier, also wearing a cigar's working sexual predator with whom he had a troublesome love of the which did not end well. Although the woman who is probably the most central figure in his life, he was not even at his deathbed. I was a highly accomplished penetrate, but the third assetting of the child's apparent to the concept of quickly recognized those talent of gentlemen and genius, which demands early assessment of a prodigy, and many views after the most part. Apart from being born in Poland, there's nothing obviously nationalistic about his work. But it is filled with a broader spectrum of the most always imbued with simple and delightful tunes, even if sometimes too difficult difficult as you're about to hear. The term evil first applied to music composition, and we mean normally associated with poetry and songs. The first of these is a piece of photograma, the impact of which grows on every hearing. It doesn't appear to have any particular reference or story behind it. But unquestionably you can detect a story of thoughts unfolding with elements of despair, yearning, and hope all in the mix. It's not simply enough with a joyful climactic moment a few minutes in, preceded by the sweetest abilities, before launching into a blistering phase of speed and technical wizardry and ending in a downward scale of almost agonizing torment. If you've not heard this before, I wonder where it will take you. Chopin's Ballad Number One is played here by Yevgeny Kissin.

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