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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: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Composer of the Week: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643): Episode 5: The Coronation of Poppea

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Episode 5

Episode 5: The Coronation of Poppea

The Coronation of Poppea

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), The Coronation of Poppea

Monteverdi's masterpiece, the thrillingly immoral Coronation of Poppea.

In the last of our programmes about Monteverdi in Venice, Donald Macleod looks at the composer's final masterwork, the thrillingly immoral Coronation of Poppea.

In the last of this week's programmes about Monteverdi in Venice, Donald Macleod looks at the composer's last masterwork - the thrillingly immoral Coronation of Poppea.

In his seventies, Monteverdi was coaxed back to writing for the operatic stage, and had a hit with The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland. To satisfy the demand for yet more, he wrote what many consider his masterpiece, The Coronation of Poppea, the world's first opera to be based on a real historical incident, and featuring real people on stage. The gossipy, scurrilous tone of much of the opera chimes very well with modern audiences, and seems to have done so with Monteverdi's contemporaries too. Today, we hear passages taken from a classic recording, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, given in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank, in 1993.

We end the week with an unbridled, joyous recording of one of his best loved duets - the wonderful "Zefiro torna" from the ensemble L'Arpeggiata.

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 explores the life and music of Claudio Monteverdi

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Episode 5: The Coronation of Poppea

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