S.2. 8. Three rowdy doses of the familiar - Sibelius Karelia Suite; Bizet Carmen Suite; Offenbach Can Can.

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Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young. Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

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At the end of the 19th century, a little region in Finland called Karelia lay mostly in Russia. Jean Sibelius was commissioned by students to write a series of pieces to celebrate the area, and in particular, Finnish nationalism. The work originally comprised an overture and tenth substance parts. Its first performance, conducted by the composer and attended by hundreds of students, went almost completely unheard because there was so much clapping and cheering throughout. That anyway was according to the composer. I suspect others who were there might have thought it was just down to exuberant youth not paying a great deal of attention. Anyway, to avoid a repetition of the chaos, De Bellus reduced it to three parts, into what we now know as the Corelia Suite. Its melodies and rhythms, as well as its very strong nationalistic flavor, combined to make it one of its most popular works. And not just in his homeland, but the world over. All too often we tend to hear the first or the third part, so let's listen to it in its entirety, with its lovely ballade at its center. By the way, the first section, the intermezzo, is apparently supposed to reflect labourers on their way to paying their taxes. Who would have thought that such an expedition could give rise to such chirpy music? The Corelia suite is played here by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazi. About 20 years earlier in France, Bizet's opera Carmen was getting a right proper mauling from the critics, and the poor man went to his grave only three months later, believing it to have been an unmitigated disaster. Just one man stuck his neck out to say that it would go on to be a huge favourite, none other than Tchaikovsky. If you'd yet to go to an opera, you could do a lot worse than make this your first one. Set it to absolutely thrilling and sometimes deeply heartfelt music. It's an uncomplicated plot of a raunchy lady torn between a love of her childhood sweetheart, Don José, and a chewy, flamboyant bullfighter, Escamilla, with passion and jealousy in abundance, think we're never gonna look good for one of them. And Don José decides that if Carmen is not to be his, then she's not going to be anybody else's either. Out comes the knife. Having just listened to one suite, here's another, which captures all the fabulous tunes in the opera. The Carmen Suite number one, played by the St. Louis Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Jacques Offenbach was no scouched when it came to writing catchy tunes either. In mid-19th century France, he was probably the most popular composer of light-hearted operas, as well as had a good poker paris in society, an approach which paved the way for Gilbert and Sullivan. The finale of one of his most famous operators, Orfus in the Underworld, which is little more than a jolly romp, concludes with its famous can. As Culporter once famously wrote, in olden times, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Well, in Paris at the time, for a lady to show a leg was a most unseemly thing. So you can imagine the scandal of a high-kick dance, where the ladies, most likely prostitutes, revealed considerably more, on account of wearing pantalette, a form of underwear, with an opening, for reasons apparently, of hygiene. There were attempts to ban it, but eventually some decency came to the rescue, and it remains a core part of the entertainment at the Moulin Rouge today. So here is that finale played by the Johann Strauss Orchestra, conducted by Herbert Siebert.

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