Radio 3 in Concert

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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

Music: Classical

The best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Experience the best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Radio 3 in Concert: Wigmore Soloists play Beethoven, Berwald and Zemlinsky

Wigmore Soloists play Beethoven, Berwald and Zemlinsky

BBC Radio 3 - Radio 3 in Concert, Wigmore Soloists play Beethoven, Berwald and Zemlinsky

Wigmore Soloists play septets by Beethoven and Berwald, and Zemlinsky's Clarinet Trio.

Recorded at Wigmore Hall, the leading musicians of Wigmore Soloists play an engaging programme with septets by Beethoven and Franz Berwald, and Zemlinsky's Clarinet Trio.

Wigmore Soloists is a group of starry musicians originally formed just before the pandemic and lockdown. They first performed online but now, in happier times, they present their programmes as a communal experience, tonight with a programme bookended by jolly septets.  

Beethoven's Septet was premiered in Vienna in 1800. But much to his chagrin, and despite the next three decades of exacting effort and continual ground-breaking musical innovation, the affable and witty Septet stubbornly remained Beethoven's most popular work. Its then unusual combination of solo wind and strings was a direct model for the Swedish composer Franz Berwald whose own equally easy-going and good-humoured Septet premiered in Stockholm in 1818. In Vienna at the other end of the century, Zemlinsky's Clarinet Trio was composed very much in the shadow of Brahms and with the hope of his approval, which it duly received. Perhaps, whether unconsciously or not, the older composer was flattered by the pronounced similarities to his own music. 

Recorded last week at Wigmore Hall and introduced by Ian Skelly.

Franz Berwald: Septet in B flat
Alexander von Zemlinsky: Clarinet Trio in D minor, Op. 3

8.30 pm
Interval music (from CD)
Beethoven: 7 Bagatelles, Op. 33
Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano)

8.50 pm
Beethoven: Septet in E flat, Op. 20

Michael Collins (clarinet)
Robin O'Neill (bassoon)
Alberto Menéndez Escribano (horn)
Isabelle van Keulen (violin)
Adrien La Marca (viola)
Torleif Thedéen (cello)
Tim Gibbs double (double bass)
Michael McHale (piano)

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.

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Radio 3 in Concert

Wigmore Soloists play Beethoven, Berwald and Zemlinsky

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