Record Review

Original version

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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Magazines & Reviews

Music: Classical

A thorough look at the week's classical music releases, plus news and recommendations.

A thorough look at the week's classical music releases, plus news and the Radio 3 Disc of the Week recommendation.

Record Review: Andrew McGregor with Sarah Devonald and Elin Manahan Thomas

Andrew McGregor with Sarah Devonald and Elin Manahan Thomas

BBC Radio 3 - Record Review, Andrew McGregor with Sarah Devonald and Elin Manahan Thomas

Building a Library on Mozart's Serenade No.10 in B-flat, 'Gran Partita', K.361/370a.

The best new classical releases; Building a Library: Sarah Devonald compares recordings of Mozart's Serenade No.10 in B-flat, 'Gran Partita', K.361/370a - and picks a favourite.

09.30 
Building a Library: Sarah Devonald compares recordings of Mozart's Serenade No.10 in B-flat, 'Gran Partita', K.361/370a - and picks a favourite.

'Gran Partita' as a subtitle implies that Mozart's Serenade No.10 is a large ambitious work, and although the work is clearly conceived as a whole 'cycle', it was not ascribed to the score by the composer himself. Mozart's vast 7-movement work for 13 wind instruments has an elusive compositional history and was thought for a long time to have been composed in 1780 or 1781 for a performance in Munich. No mention of the Serenade appears in any of Mozart's letters from that time and, in the 1970s, when the new critical edition of Mozart's works was published, after exhaustive studies of the autograph, it is now believed that the work was first performed in 1784 at a benefit concert for the Vienna-based basset-horn player Anton Stadler. The Serenade also bears the hallmarks of Mozart's later writing and certainly postdates the two wind serenades in E flat and C minor that were definitely composed in 1782.

The mysterious circumstances of both the subtitle 'Gran Partita' and the many versions of the score give the performer some interesting challenges, which Sarah Devonold discusses with Andrew McGregor.

10.50
Soprano Elin Manahan Thomas reviews some new and recent recordings of Baroque music, including Handel's Brockes-Passion, Purcell's King Arthur and Bach's Suites for solo cello.

11.25
Andrew chooses an outstanding new release as his Recording of the Week.

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

Record Review

Andrew McGregor with Sarah Devonald and Elin Manahan Thomas

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3