Episodes
Oct. 26, 2025
Sunday Night Special 4… Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps ...
Oct. 24, 2025
Music for Small Spaces… Number Two
This corner of classical music is more generally known by the odd term ‘chamber music’ but please don’t let that stop you from experiencing some incredible music. This is music originally intended for smaller performance spac...
Oct. 18, 2025
Music from the Upper West Side
I am looking out at the New York skyline as I record this episode and in the distance in particular I can glimpse the Ansonia Building. Completed in 1904 as an apartment hotel, it was for the early decades of the 20 th centur...
Oct. 11, 2025
Mozart’s 1786… Music from a year of Success
On January 27 th 1786 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart turned 30. He had already written an astonishing amount of music of an incredible standard. He had been happily married to Constanze Weber for three years and their son Karl Thoma...
Oct. 3, 2025
Benjamin Britten… An Introduction to a 20th Century Great.
Benjamin Britten is today perhaps best known for his operas which included ‘Peter Grimes’, ‘The Turn of The Screw’, ‘Billy Budd’ and ‘Death In Venice’. But I am actually going to feature more of his orchestral work in this ep...
Sept. 29, 2025
Sunday Night Special 3… John Luther Adams’ ‘Become Ocean’
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps ...
Sept. 25, 2025
Highlights and Favourites.. Music That Stayed With Me
Wondering if I could produce an episode without my AI pal Claude and I going down too many rabbit holes… I thought I’d see what I could come up with if I revisited past episodes and cherry-picked some favourite pieces. To be ...
Sept. 23, 2025
Glenn Gould - Part 2 – The 1981 ‘Goldberg Variations’ Recording
Johann Sebastian Bach’s‘ The Goldberg Variations’ was the only work that Glenn Gould recorded twice. Now, he died only about a year after this recording so it’s not possible to say that he would not have re-recorded other wor...
Sept. 21, 2025
Glenn Gould - Part 1 – An introduction and an overview.
This is the first episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’ devoted to just one musician so I better have some good reasons… apart from just a personal affection for his recordings. In the English speaking world, the Canadian Glenn...
Sept. 11, 2025
Astronomy… and a little bit of astrology
Music that takes its inspiration from humanity’s gaze out into the cosmos and from our attempts to reach beyond this fragile planet we call home. And to access some music that predated the quite modern science of ‘astronomy’ ...
Sept. 5, 2025
Vienna… 22/12/1808
I am being a little deliberately opaque with the title of this episode. There is a certain logic to letting people know what they are going to get. But not today. Because I am hoping that for a good selection of listeners out...
Aug. 28, 2025
South America… Chôros, Tangos and a little bit of Opera.
‘Unfairly neglected’ is a bit of a cliché and pretty subjective but I do think it could describe a mass of great music that a lot of us (us Anglos at least) are missing out on… music from South America. Before I put this epis...
Aug. 23, 2025
Sunday Night Special 2… Bruckner’s 7th Symphony
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps ...
Aug. 21, 2025
Opera. An Introduction
I get it that for some people opera is just noise that they are not ever going to enjoy but if there are listeners out there with a bit of curiousity and an inquiring mind… and that is how I would describe anyone listening to...
Aug. 14, 2025
Tchaikovsky. Deep Emotion Of A Russian Soul – Part Two
The second of a two episode special. His music uniquely blended Western European compositional techniques with distinctly Russian melodic and harmonic elements, creating a style that was both internationally appealing and unm...
Aug. 14, 2025
Tchaikovsky. Deep Emotion Of A Russian Soul – Part One
The first of a two episode special. His music uniquely blended Western European compositional techniques with distinctly Russian melodic and harmonic elements, creating a style that was both internationally appealing and unmi...
Aug. 7, 2025
New York... Sounds of a City
Why New York? Well, mainly because I love the city… and I’m here. I’m recording this episode in a hotel room on West 56 th Street in Manhattan around the corner from Carnegie Hall and up the road from The Museum of Modern Art...
Aug. 1, 2025
The Violin... miracle of woodwork… and then there’s the music.
I’m going to start with a question. If one thinks of musical instruments as tools… as things humans create to perform tasks… other than the violin, is there any other tool you can think of used in an area of incredibly comple...
July 27, 2025
Sunday Night Special 1… Mahler’s 1st Symphony
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the demon of insomnia hits the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps ...
July 24, 2025
Music For Airports… Immersive, Architectural & Contemplative.
Brian Eno’s 1979 LP ‘Music For Airports’ launched the genre of ‘Ambient Music’… an alternative to the dreadful ‘muzak’ inflicted on humans in most public spaces… music that reduced stress rather than added to it… music for co...
July 17, 2025
Secrets and Codes… Music with Hidden Meanings.
I nstances where composers have hidden something in their works… sometimes for the sheer ingeniousness of being able to do it… sometimes to send a secret message to someone… sometime to create a puzzle for generations to come...
July 10, 2025
Italy… Violins, Operas and Popes.
Can something of a survey of the music of Italy… including music of the city states, republics and kingdoms that became the nation of Italy in the late nineteenth century… be done in a little over an hour? Absolutely not. But...
July 4, 2025
The Ballet... Music in Pursuit of Beauty
From fairy tale romances to dark psychological dramas, discover how ballet music evolved while maintaining its essential power to match the poetry of human movement with unforgettable musical expression… what I’m calling gras...
June 26, 2025
Mozart’s 1791… Music from his final year
You could take almost any year of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life, probably from the age of fifteen onwards and be staggered by both the scale of his output… AND the quality… but his final year… 1791.. was a truly ast...