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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Music Feature

Music

Music: Classical

Programmes exploring music and music-related subjects

Music Feature: Music at the Court of Catherine the Great

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Music at the Court of Catherine the Great

29/10/2011

BBC Radio 3 - Music Feature, Music at the Court of Catherine the Great

Virginia Rounding explores the music of Catherine the Great's court and charts its legacy.

Biographer Virginia Rounding explores the music of Catherine the Great's court and assesses its legacy. Including music by Giuseppe Sarti and Tommaso Traetta Baldassare Galuppi.

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia from 1762 until her death in 1796, didn't portray herself as naturally musical. In her letters and memoirs she makes it clear that, when it came to music, she could make neither head nor tail of it - a rather unpromising patron of music, to say the least.

But, argues Virginia Rounding, who has written a biography of the Empress, though it may be true that she was not much of a musician herself, music was central not only to Catherine's determination to establish Russia as a leading cultural - and political - force, but also in her effort to reshape the education and role of women in her court and in aristocratic society. And, it is arguably under Catherine that a distinctively Russian classical music tradition began to emerge.

With music by Giuseppe Sarti, Tommaso Traetta Baldassare Galuppi, Vasily Pashkevich, Dmitry Bortniansky and by a number of princesses at her court, including Natalia Kourakine, Maria Zubova and Maria Naryshkin. 

Produced by Hannah Rosenfelder
This is a Just Radio Ltd production for Radio 3

First broadcast in October 2011.

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Music Feature

Music at the Court of Catherine the Great

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3