Stephanie Hughes introduces arts news and music, including at
6.30 Gounod's Little Symphony for Wind Instruments; at 7.04 Berlioz's Overture: Beatrice et Benedict; and after the 8.00 news pianist Emil Gilels playing Brahms.
With Peter Hobday.
MacCunn Overture: The Land of the Mountain and the Rood
Scottish National Orchestra, conductor Alexander Gibson
9.12 Chopin Twelve Studies, Op 25 Louis Lortie (piano)
9.48 Schumann Three Romances, Op 94 Leon Goossens (oboe), George Malcolm (piano)
10.00 Borodin Symphony No 2 in B minor Royal Philharmonic, conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy
A Christmas Selection:
Barbara Bonney
Lyric soprano Barbara Bonney talks to Joan Bakewell about her vocal style and the technique involved when working with period-instrument orchestras and their conductors, including Nikolaus Harnoncourt and John Eliot Gardiner. The programme includes music by Bach, Handel and Haydn. Repeat
Ballets
With Peggy Reynolds.
3: La Fille Mal Gardee. Ferdinand
Herald's ballet La Fille Mal Gardee is the comic story, roughly translated, of The Unchaperoned Daughter. Lise is in love with the handsome Colas, but her mother Simone wants to marry her off to the son of a local vinegrower - the simple, bumbling Alain. They are both horrified at the suggestion, but their parents have made a deal. When Simone finds
Lise and Colas dancing together, she is furious, but pacified when the villagers ask her to dance - the clog dance immortalised by Frederick Ashton in his interpretation of the role. Music is taken from the recording by the Royal Liverpool PO, conductor Barry Wordsworth.
"For many, programme music is a necessarily inferior genre. Much has been written about it which I find impossible to understand. Is the music in itself good or bad? Everything depends on that. Whether it has a programme or not, it will neither be better nor worse." (Saint-Saens).
David Byers samples Saint-Saens's music with and without a storyline. Romance in F Michael Thompson (horn), Ulster Orchestra, conductor Kenneth Montgomery Danse Macabre Philharmonia , conductor Charles Dutoit
Romance in D flat Gary Arbuthnot (flute), Ulster Orchestra, conductor Kenneth Montgomery
Le Rouet d'Omphale Philharmonia, conductor Charles Dutoit
Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor
Jean-Philippe Collard , RPO, conductor Andre Previn
Repeated next Wednesday 12 midnight
Lucie Skeaping introduces a week of BBC invitation concerts from historic venues in Kent and Sussex.
3: In Penshurst Place in Kent. ancestral home of the Sidney family, Rufus Muller (tenor) and Christopher Wilson (lute/guitar) perform settings of the poetry of Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson by Dowland, Ferrabosco, Morley and Robert Johnson.
BBC Philharmonic
Conductors Owain Arwel Hughes and Yan Pascal Tortelier
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis ; Symphony No 9 Elgar Introduction and Allegro; Enigma Variations
6: Adrian Jack falls under the spell of the so-called Tristan chord and reaps the consequences.
Next programme 10.35pm
From St Bnde's Church,
Fleet Street, London. Introit: Dormi Jesus (Cooper) Responses (Clucas)
Psalms 147 and 148 (Marsh, Robinson)
First Lesson: Isaiah 61
Office Hymn: Bethelehem, of Noblest Cities (Stuttgart)
Canticles: Parry in D (Great Service) Second Lesson: Matthew 16, wl3-20
Anthem: 0 Holy Night (Adolphe Adam , arr Rutter)
Hymn: 0 Little Town of Bethlehem (Forest Green)
Organ Voluntary: Rapsodie sur des Noels (Gigout)
Director of music Robert Jones.
Organist David Soar.
Music for Christmas past and present.
Passing through Tuscany in this eighth programme, Natalie Wheen encounters an unusual musical partnership.
The Golden Cockerel
From Sadler's Wells, the new Royal Opera production of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera based on a story by Pushkin - a surrealistic fantasy in which doddery old King Dodon takes the advice of an astrologer and his magic golden cockerel and goes to war. He ends up defeated and seduced by the exotic Queen of Shemakha. The implied satire of the tsar caused the opera to be banned by the Russian censor: it was not performed until after the composer's death. Sung in Russian.
Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra, conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky Act
7.45 The Coq and the Tsar
An investigation into the satirical intent behind Belsky's adaptation of Pushkin's tale and Rimsky-Korsakov's further alterations.
8.10 Acts 2 and 3
Piano Quartet No 1 in C minor, Op 15 James Clark and Ruth Crouch (violins), Catherine Marwood (viola), Ursula Smith (cello),
Graeme McNaught (piano)
7: Adrian Jack keeps going in parallel motion.
Next programme tomorrow 10.35pm
5: In Memoriam: Ben Bagley and Jerome Robbins. A tribute to two musical theatre notables who died this year: Broadway's greatest director-choreographer and the creator of the Revisited record series, which preserved hundreds of fine and neglected songs.
Alyn Shipton presents another chance to hear the tribute to
Eddie Condon marking the 25th anniversary of his death. Repeat
For details see Wednesday 23rd 12 noon
With Donald Macleod.
1.00 Danish State Symphony
Orchestra, conductor Erik Tuxen ,
Victor Schioler (piano) Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 in B flat minor
Brahms Symphony No 1 in C minor
2.35 Handel Agrippina Condotta a Morire Johanna Koslowsky (soprano). Musica Alta Ripa
3.00 Strauss Suite in B flat, Op 4 Ottawa Winds/Michael Goodwin
3.25 Mozart String Quartet in B flat, K458 (Hunt) Virtuoso Quartet
4.10 Saint-Saens Cello Concerto
No 1 in A minor Shauna Rolston ,
Calgary Philharmonic/Mario Bernard!
5.05 Chopin Scherzo No 4 in E. Op 54 Valerie Tryon (piano)
5.20 Schubert Symphony No 6 in C Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste
