In "Key Matters" Ivan Hewett explores the way in which different musical keys appear to have unique characteristics of their own. In this first programme, Ivan is joined by choral conductor, Simon Halsey, to explore the serious and somewhat austere key of B minor. This key seemed to acquire its flavour from Bach's use of it in his famous B Minor Mass and this tradition continued through Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor and the final heartbreaking movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony.

Producer: Rosie Boulton. Show less