Composer of the Week: Cherubini

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

Migrated podcast image for: Composer Of The Week

Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

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

Composer of the Week: Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842): The Dawning of a Revolution

The Dawning of a Revolution

Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842), The Dawning of a Revolution

Cherubini faces problems as events of the French Revolution take over. With Donald Macleod

Cherubini's career as an operatic composer is suspended, as the terrifying events of the French Revolution take over Paris. With Donald Macleod.

Cherubini's career as an operatic composer is temporarily suspended, as the terrifying events of the French Revolution take over Paris. With Donald Macleod.

An octogenarian when he died in 1842, Cherubini's long life places him alongside three giants of the age, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. When he was born in 1760, Mozart was four years old, and Haydn was in his thirties. Beethoven was born a decade after Cherubini. Standing among these luminaries, all of whom he admired, Cherubini was a composer, conductor, teacher, administrator, theorist and music publisher, who enjoyed a much higher standing in his own lifetime than his present day reputation might suggest. Beethoven and latterly Wagner are just two of a long list of notables who hugely admired his music. These days it's perhaps through his masses that many people come to his music, so it may be a surprise to discover that he followed the fashion of his day, and produced a considerable number of successful operas. This week Donald Macleod follows Cherubini's progress from his Florentine childhood to Paris, where he was to settle and see his theatrical ambitions realised, in addition to taking on the directorship of the Paris Conservatoire, a position that gave him considerable influence over successive generations.

Within months of signing a new theatrical contract in 1792, France declared war on Austria and Prussia.  Cherubini was going to need every ounce of his charm to survive the terrifying events that followed. 

Lodoïska, Act 1 
Aria: Triomphons avec noblesse 
Thomas Mozer, tenor, Titzikan
Orchestra of la Scala, Milan 
Riccardo Muti, director 

Démophon: Overture 
Auser Musici
Carlo Ipata, conductor 

Lodoiska, Act 2 (excerpts) 
Recit: Que dis…. 
Hélas! Dans ce cruel asile ….. non, non perdez cette ésperance 
Mariella Devia, soprano, Lodoiska
Bernard Lombardo, tenor, Floreski 
Alessandro Corbelli, baritone, Varbel 
Mario Luperi, bass, Altamoras 
Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala, Milan 
Riccardo Muti, director 

Overture to Eliza, ou Le voyage aux glaciers du Mont St. Bernard 
Academy of St. Martin-in-the Fields 
Neville Marriner, director 

Clytemnestre, recit Aux lois d’Agamemnon  
Ursula Ettinger, alto 
Cologne Academy
Michael Alexander Willens, conductor


Composer of the Week: Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)

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 follows Cherubini's progress from Florence to Paris via London and Vienna.

Donald Macleod follows Cherubini's progress as composer, conductor, teacher, administrator, theorist and music publisher from his Florentine childhood to Paris, where he settled.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Composer of the Week

Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)

The Dawning of a Revolution

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3