CACOPHONY: GREAT CLASSICAL MUSIC

One of my very favourite things, Sibelius takes us on an all-encompassing journey from the musical spring to the wide open ocean: it's organic, generous, inevitable and uplifting.

Total listen: 35 mins (Intro podcast 7',  great music 28')

Music here on Youtube, or Spotify 

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Fully of exuberance and swagger, Roman Carnival is great music from Berlioz, the man who wrote the book on how to write for orchestra in glorious technicolour.

Total listen time: c14mins (5 mins intro plus 8/9' music)

The music:

Live concert performance with video here on Youtube

Or music only on Spotify

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George Gershwin spent two hectic weeks on holiday in Cuba and returned with a case full of percussion instruments, latin spirit and musical inspiration. 

The resulting Cuban Overture became an instant hit.

Total listening time c14 mins (3'30" podcast, 10' music)

The music:

There’s a fab concert performance on Youtube, with the Teresa Carreño Symphony Orchestra - one of Venezuela's top youth orchestras, playing with great style - check out the easy enjoyment of the percussionists. Youth Orchestras and classical music are a big deal in Venezuela, using music as a vehicle for social change in disadvantaged communities, thanks to a system (actually called The System - El Sistema) which has now been copied across the world.

My Spotify recommendation is the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by AndrewLitton

The 1930s Cuban hit, Echale salsita by Septeto Naconal De Ignacio Pineiro is on youtube too.

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https://youtu.be/kYr17m7mnM8

Erich Korngold was one of the composers who invented the sound of Hollywood - and his music for The Sea Hawk (a 1940 Erol Flynn swashbuckler) is passionate, exhilarating and hugely influences our very ideas of what film music should sound like.

Total listen time 36mins [podcast plus music]

I talk about all this with my pal, Lev Parikian.

Music here:

Though the "overture" gets played in concerts, it doesn't really exist as a thing that gets recorded! Mostly people record a suite - giving you more of Korngold's great music...

So here are my recommendations:

I've selected my favourite bits (all the stuff Lev and I talked about) on Spotify:

Top conductor Vladimir Jurowski has made a suite of his favourite bits and it's here on Youtube:

complete with clips from the film and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia.

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Hear more. Feel more. Be... more! Cacophony brings you great music you may or may not know, but we think you'll love.

If you've not heard any Cacophony, start with The Trailer!

...and then pick an episode and dive right in!

Visit: www.cacophonyonline.com  and let me know what you think, or use the Facebook page or Twitter @steve_cacophony

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Trailer music from:

Richard Strauss's opera: Elektra, Felix Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances

Vanessa's been humming a bit of Nutcracker, so I thought we should hear how it's meant to go - and there's so much great music to delight and enjoy.  And it turns out she knows the storyline better than I did!

Music here with pictures

or here on Spotify

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Fans of Rachmaninov describe his music as lush, passionate, romantic. They're right!

His Cello Sonata is a terrific piece, and I love it much more than his famous piano concertos.

 Music here.

or here on Spotify

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Maurice Ravel wanted his Piano Concerto to be lighthearted and brilliant, and not aim at profundity or at dramatic effects... and then wrote one of the most beautiful slow movements there is!

Listen here

or on Spotify 

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One of the great pieces of music for children, Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. Vanessa [7] loved this and is demanding repeat hearings, and I'm embarrassed at having resisted it so long...

Music here: https://youtu.be/6Kpytem6nX4

or on spotify: https://spoti.fi/2ZrjlPu

Listening time 31' total - but won't feel long at all!

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When the organisers of the Paris Universal Exposition in 1889 invited gamelan players from Indonesia they introduced French composers to a whole world of new and exciting possibilities and a new direction in music. 

Debussy led the way and his piano pieces Pagodas and Gardens in the rain are fabulous pieces of aural picture painting.

No separate music on this episode - it's in the podcast, played by François-Joël Thiollier, piano. The gamelan music is Ladrang Wilujeng, slendro manyura specially recorded for Cacophony by Southbank Gamelan Players, with thanks to Southbank Centre.

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