Music Matters

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

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The stories that matter, the people that matter, the music that matters

Music Matters: Ewa Pobłocka

Ewa Pobłocka

BBC Radio 3 - Music Matters, Ewa Pobłocka

Pianist Ewa Poblocka; Casseptember; Jeremy Eichler's book about the Holocaust and music.

Polish pianist Ewa Poblocka discusses Bach. Kate explores why cassette tapes are making a comeback. Jeremy Eichler's new book. And what the Hollywood strike means for the UK.

Described as the purveyor of ‘some of the greatest… Bach pianism on record’, Kate Molleson speaks to the doyenne of the Polish piano world, Ewa Pobłocka, about the release of her second instalment of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. She tells Kate about her childhood in Gdańsk, the sonic temples she envisages building during performance, and the influence of the German Baroque master on Chopin. 

Marking 60-years of the humble cassette tape, Kate explores the medium’s unlikely revival as part of Radio 3’s Casseptember season.  She talks to the British Phonographic Industry’s representative, Gennaro Castaldo, about the 443% increase in sales the cassette tape has seen over the past decade, and hears from the ethnomusicologist, DJ and filmmaker Arlen Dilsizian about the new releases he distributes on both the Hakuna Kulala and Nyege Nyege Tape label. She learns, too, how the blogger Brian Shimkovitz is using the analogue medium’s creative potential to build audiences for the artists he works with at his Awesome Tapes from Africa label.

The music critic Jeremy Eichler joins Kate to discuss his new book ‘Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance’. He argues against the passive consumption of music ‘for relaxation’, tells Kate why certain areas of the repertoire require active engagement, and examines music’s ability to transcend physical monuments and act instead as one of the most profound forms of memorial. 

And as Hollywood writers vote on an agreement the Writers Guild of America have reached with studios to end their five-month strike, we hear from the General Secretary of the Musicians' Union, Naomi Pohl, and Interim Chief Executive of UK Music, Tom Kiehl, about what the deal means for music professionals on this side of the Atlantic.

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 Matters

Ewa Pobłocka

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3