CACOPHONY: GREAT CLASSICAL MUSIC

Poignant, peaceful, maybe even transcendental music for choir with cello: Svyati by John Tavener is the result of a lifetime of spiritual enquiry and of perfecting a simple and profound musical style. Beautiful.

Listening time 19 mins (Intro 5', music 14')

Music on youtube or Spotify

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If you like this piece, you can buy it here or elsewhere in top quality download for pennies! This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording. It's Tavener: Svyati 'O Holy One', played by cellist, Steven Isserlis with the Kiev Chamber Choir. It may only be a few p, but it's more than the artists would get via youtube/Spotify!

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What's in a name? Not much it seems. An 'Intermezzo' is often a short piece that breaks up something bigger... but Brahms used it as his go to name for any short piano pieces where nothing else came to mind! 

In any case, these three Intermezzos for solo piano from late in Brahms's life are beautiful, wistful, dreamy and give us a perfect break from whatever you've got going on...

Like all Brahms pieces they're musically perfect too.

Listening time 21 mins (Intro 6', music 15')

Music on youtube or Spotify

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If you really like these pieces, why not buy them? Only 51p in the UK! This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording. It's Brahms Intermezzi op.117 played by Maria João Pires.

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Delicate, sparkling and perhaps surprisingly touching, here are three short diversions from the various trials of modern life - written 300 years ago by Couperin and brilliantly rewritten in 2006 by Thomas Adès who takes obvious delight in the sound of music.

Listening time 20' [podcast intro 7', music 13']

Francois Couperin liked nice titles - we're listening to The amusements, Sleight of hand and The soul in torment from his Pieces for Harpsichord.

Music here on Youtube or Spotify.

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Great music to mark the US Presidential hand-over!

Raucous fun alongside the deep and meaningful, Three Places in New England is challenging, confusing, complex, silly and surprising music that leaves me baffled but smiling and moved too! A hundred years old but way ahead of its time from one of America's first great composers, Charles Ives.

Listening time 28mins (10' intro, 18' music)

Listen to the music on Spotify or Youtube

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If you've got any new year sluggishness, sweep all that away with a blast of Respighi's Roman Festivals - four vivid musical pictures featuring love songs and folk dances, wine, religion and state-sponsored violence (lions eating Christians)!

Listening time c32 mins [8' podcast, 24'  music]

Listen to the the music here on youtube or spotify

and also here with pictures, played by the same Italians (the fabulous and fabulously titled Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma and their conductor Antonio Pappano) or this awesome band of 18s and under, the National Youth Orchestra of GB(&NI)

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Three musical geniuses really make the magic come alive in Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's adaptation of Tchaikovsky's  classic, Nutcracker.

Essential Christmas listening to bring joy to the word!

For the original Tchaikovsky Nutcracker check out Episode 50 of Cacophony 

Music on Youtube or Spotify

Listening time 38 mins [8' podcast, 30'  music]

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There's so much unknown great music out there!

You almost certainly won't have heard this great piece or have heard of its writer. I certainly hadn't. Henriëtte Bosman's wrote her Concert Piece for violin and orchestra for her fiancé. He died before he could play it, and in her grief she couldn't compose any more. Then the war and Nazi occupation of Amsterdam cut short her career as a performer too.

I'm joined by my friend, violinist Marina Solarek, who tells us the story of an amazing woman, her intense and passionate concerto, and why it's still so hard to hear great music by women composers. ...And the great music shows us that we're missing out.

Music on Youtube or Spotify

Listening time 36 mins [18' each, podcast and music]

Marina's group, the Solarek Piano Trio, dedicates itself to the lives of extraordinary composers who happen to be women. Check them out!

Please like, rate and share the podcast. Please visit Cacophonyonline.com to leave a comment and see some cool pictures of Bosmans, Koene and Belinfante.

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In the dramatic final part of our drug-fuelled adventure with composer Hector Berlioz, the dreams turn to nightmare visions of murder, execution, witches and demons.

It's loud, exciting, brilliant and I love it.

Listening time: 21 mins (into 6'; music 15')

Music for part 3 on youtube with pictures (18 mins), or Spotify.

or the whole Fantastic Symphony: youtube or Spotify.

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Composer Hector Berlioz's love-struck young artist - in his drug induced dreams - escapes to the country. In the peaceful atmosphere he dreams of love and happiness - but can it last?

Listening time: 22 mins (into 4'; music 18')

Music on youtube with pictures (18 mins), or Spotify.

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Driven to distraction and to drugs by a woman he'd never even spoken to, Hector Berlioz was consumed with passion. His obsession and fevered mind produced the unique, Symphony Fantastique. It's brilliant, dramatic, original and gets three episodes of Cacophony!

Listening time: 31 mins (into 9.5'; music 21')

Music on youtube with pictures (first 22mins), or Spotify.

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