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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Monteverdi to Rossini - Italian Opera

Composer of the Week: Monteverdi to Rossini - Italian Opera: Episode 2

Monteverdi to Rossini - Italian Opera

Episode 2

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Monteverdi to Rossini - Italian Opera, Episode 2

Donald Macleod focuses on Italian opera in the 1720s, and the work of Vivaldi and Handel.

Donald Macleod explores Italian opera in the 1720s, focusing on the work of three giants whom history has treated differently - Alessandro Scarlatti, Vivaldi and Handel.

Continuing Donald Macleod's exploration of two centuries of Italian opera from Monteverdi to Rossini. The second programme focuses on a single decade, the 1720s, and the work of three giants of their day, whom history has treated rather differently: Alessandro Scarlatti; Antonio Vivaldi; and George Frideric Handel. Today Alessandro Scarlatti's reputation is outshone by that of his son Domenico, but he was one of the major musical figures of his time, with over 100 operas to his credit - of which very few are ever performed today. 

Unlike Scarlatti, Vivaldi's operatic 'rehabilitation' is well under way, but despite his considerable output - he's known to have composed at least 50 operas, 16 of which have survived - he's still far better known for his instrumental music. Time has been kinder to Handel's operas, many of which are regularly staged today. Handel was German by birth, but he spent a good chunk of his early professional life in Italy, writing opera in the Italian language and the Italian tradition, and he carried on doing so after he settled in London in 1712. 

It's a sign of the enormous international success of Italian opera that its leading exponent in the late Baroque, only a century or so after its invention, wasn't actually an Italian!

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod on two centuries and more of Italian opera, from Monteverdi to Rossini

As part of the BBC's focus on opera in 2010, Donald Macleod explores two centuries and more of Italian opera, from Monteverdi to Rossini

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