Sir Arthur Sullivan became the most renowned composer of the Victorian era, with his fame spreading across Europe and America too. His output spanned many genres including oratorios, a symphony, chamber music, hymns and anthems, but it was for his collaboration with the librettist W. S. Gilbert on operetta’s that he is best remembered today. He was a personal friend to royalty, and he was knighted when he was in his early forties. He also had a liking for playing cards, buying race horses and gambling, frequently loosing the substantial earnings from the stage works he’d composed. Sullivan became a pillar of the British musical establishment, so that when he died, despite wanting to be buried with his family in Brompton Cemetery, he was laid to rest in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, with an additional service at the Chapel Royal in St. James’s Palace.

Music Featured:

HMS Pinafore (Overture)

Presented by Donald Macleod

Produced by Luke Whitlock

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kpgh

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

As Christians around the world prepare for Easter, Donald Macleod explores the life and music of two nuns who were also composers. Though Hildegard of Bingen and Isabella Leonarda lived five centuries apart, their stories and music are connected by their shared faith and their shared vocations. Both lived cloistered lives, shut away in convents and cut off from the everyday concerns of the societies in which they lived. Yet, they also enjoyed a profoundly rich and human connection with the world and with their God, revealed in the music and poetry they created and sent into the world.

Music Featured:

Hildegard: Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans

Presented by Donald Macleod

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Johanna Müller-Hermann once held a significant place as a composer and teacher in Vienna, yet has been largely forgotten over the decades since her death in 1941. Radio 3 has been working to unearth her music and story through its Forgotten Women Composers project, in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Dr Carola Darwin. This week, Dr Darwin and Professor Robert Evans join Donald Macleod to explore this fascinating composer and her times. Their series includes many specially recorded works by Müller-Hermann that have sat neglected in dusty archives for decades.

Müller-Hermann was greatly celebrated in her own lifetime and moved in eminent musical circles. She studied with Zemlinsky, befriended Alma Mahler, and also corresponded with Arnold Schoenberg. She went on to teach at Austria’s New Vienna Conservatory where students travelled from as far away as America and the UK to study with her. She became a pivotal figure in Vienna’s cultural scene and her music was regularly performed and published during her lifetime.

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Johanna Müller-Hermann (1868-1941) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001h57j

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

The singer, and composer Barbara Strozzi neither held any position at church or court, nor had a consistant patron, and yet she published eight volumes of her own music, and had more secular music in print than any other composer of the era. Donald Macleod is joined by Professor Laurie Stras to explore the life of this extraordinary musician, and the world of 17th Century Venice in which she lived and worked. This was a world in which, despite the acknowledged successes of female artists in literature and music, being a successful composer seems to have aroused suspicion, and brought accusations of impropriety.

Music Featured:

Mi fa rider la speranze, Op.7’10

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Barbara Strozzi (1619 – 1677) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001h57j

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

“So great a musician are you.....that if the Fates carried you off.....music would be mute.” So wrote a contemporary of Thomas Tallis, showing us just how highly this composer was regarded in his own time. Over the course of this week, Donald Macleod traces the career of Tallis, unquestionably one of England's greatest ever composers. We follow him from the early faint mentions of the composer in Dover Priory, to his 40-plus years serving four successive monarchs as part of the Chapel Royal, and through the upheaval of one of the most tumultuous periods in all of English history.

O Sacrum Convivium

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Thomas Tallis (1505 – 1585) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001h57j

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Mel Bonis's name may not be a familiar one these days, but she produced somewhere in the region of three hundred compositions. There's no doubt that she was sensitive to gender discrimination. It's why she chose to publish her music under the name of Mel rather than her birth name Mélanie.

She was born in 1858 to parents of modest means. Her father worked for the watch company Breguet, still in business today, and her mother worked in the haberdashery trade. Neither of them held any particular interest in music, so it was down to young Mélanie to teach herself the play the family's piano. Her talent was recognised by a visiting friend who facilitated a meeting with one of the leading lights of the day, César Franck, an esteemed professor of organ at Paris's prestigious Conservatoire. Mélanie enrolled and showed great promise as a student, winning several end of year prizes. Her studies came to an abrupt end when her parents refused to give their consent to her marriage to a fellow student there, a poet, critic and singer, Amédée Hettich. Her life took a sharp turn two years later when, at the instigation of her parents, she married a twice widowed man of comfortable means. Thereafter her life as a composer had to take a back seat to the demands of raising five step-children and three of her own children with her husband, Albert Domange. Even so, she managed to continue to compose, producing music for her own instrument, the piano, and in almost every other genre as well.

Étiolles, Op 2

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Mel Bonis (1858 – 1937) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001h57j

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Donald Macleod presents another selection of composers who are most famous for a single work.

Last Easter, Composer of the Week explored the lives of ten composers whose music we adore but mainly only for a lone composition. This week, Donald Macleod makes a second selection of classical ‘One Hit Wonders’ - ten more composers who have been catapulted into the mainstream thanks to the surprising popularity of just one of their pieces. He’s joined by pianist and music director, Yshani Perinpanayagam, to uncover these composers' stories and to share examples of their best music. We’ll hear the familiar hits alongside plenty of captivating music that’s less well-known.

Music Featured:

John Cage: 4’33’’ (extract)

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for More One Hit Wonders https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g9nt

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Donald Macleod presents another selection of composers who are most famous for a single work.

Last Easter, Composer of the Week explored the lives of ten composers whose music we adore but mainly only for a lone composition. This week, Donald Macleod makes a second selection of classical ‘One Hit Wonders’ - ten more composers who have been catapulted into the mainstream thanks to the surprising popularity of just one of their pieces. He’s joined by pianist and music director, Yshani Perinpanayagam, to uncover these composers' stories and to share examples of their best music. We’ll hear the familiar hits alongside plenty of captivating music that’s less well-known.

Music Featured:

Ponchielli: Dance of the Hours (La Gioconda, Act III)

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for More One Hit Wonders https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001g9nt

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Donald Macleod explores the recently unearthed life and works of Leokadiya Kashperova, one of the most talented composers and pianists of her generation.

The name of Leokadiya Kashperova was, for many decades, recorded in mainstream musical history as a footnote: the piano teacher of Igor Stravinsky. Her full story as a musician and composer has finally now been unearthed, through the researches of Dr Graham Griffiths, supported by Radio 3’s Forgotten Women Composers project in collaboration with the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This week, in the year of her 150th anniversary, Donald Macleod is joined by Graham Griffiths to rediscover this once renowned musician. Featuring many specially made recordings and UK premieres.

Kashperova was one of the most talented composers and pianists of her generation, described as ‘a most welcome phenomenon of St Petersburg’s musical life’. She studied composition with Nikolay Solovyov and piano with Anton Rubinstein. Both Glazunov and Balakirev favoured Kashperova in the interpretation of their music and she travelled internationally as a soloist to destinations such as Berlin and London. She also often performed her own compositions. Prior to 1917 most of Kashperova’s works were published and heard, but the arrival of the Russian revolution caused her voice to be silenced. Public performances of Kashperova’s music stopped altogether because of her connections with the gentry. Private performances were rare. She continued to compose but now without any hope of hearing it played.

Music Featured:

Symphony in B minor, Op 4 (excerpt)

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fwz0

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Donald Macleod explores how Cesar Franck, who was, known for being retiring and unassuming, became a leading figure of French musical life.

It seems as if Franck's diffident character positively hindered his advancement. He wasn't interested in moving in glamorous social circles, and lived, according to one visitor who called on him the year before he died, "like a monk". This natural reticence may be why the composer of popular works such as the Violin Sonata, the Piano Quintet, a ground-breaking String Quartet and the glorious Symphony in D found that all too often his critics were quick to find fault and were slow to recognise his worth. He had some disappointments to bear, in an age when opera was thriving, none of his four operas saw the light of day in his lifetime. Recognition for his two major choral works, La Rédemption and Les Béatitudes was to come after his death in 1890 at the age of 67.

To mark the 200th anniversary of Franck's birth, Donald Macleod spends the week delving a bit deeper into this enigmatic and complex character from his early compositions which pay homage to Liszt and the pianistic tradition of Hummel, to the wonderfully vivid pictorial canvas of Le Chasseur Maudit.

Music Featured:

Panis angelicus (Messe á trois voix, Op 12 FVW 61)

Presented by Donald Macleod

For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for César Franck (1822-1890) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fnfs

And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z