Kate Molleson explores the life and music of Florence Price, joined by pianist and scholar Samantha Ege. From her childhood in Little Rock, where family, education and the realities of racial segregation shaped her early ambitions, Price’s story unfolds through persistence, reinvention and growing recognition. Moving through her years of study and early career, we hear how she drew on African American musical traditions while navigating the social and political pressures around her. In Chicago, she found a vibrant artistic community and new opportunities, leading to orchestral success and national visibility. In her later years, recognition remained uneven, and her music continued to evolve in the face of resistance and neglect, with works still coming to light long after her death.

Music featured includes:

Presented by Kate Molleson

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 Florence Price (1887-1953) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002vw41.

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

Béla Bartók was regarded as one of Hungary’s greatest composers. His fellow countryman, the pianist Andras Schiff, called him “one of the giants in the history of music.” But he was also one of the founders of what we now call ethnomusicology, spending much of his time immersed in peasant life, collecting folk songs. As around him Europe was torn apart by conflict, Bartók found relief in rural life and took inspiration from these traditional tunes, incorporating them into his own compositions.

Music featured:

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 Béla Bartók (1881-1945) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002vl6f

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 life and music of Camille Saint‑Saëns, a composer whose career was shaped as much by personality and circumstance as by precocious talent. Raised in Paris by strong‑minded women who recognised his gifts early, Saint‑Saëns grew into a formidable pianist and an alert observer of the musical world around him. He moved easily through the city’s salons, where reputations were made, ideas exchanged, and music absorbed as a social force as much as an art. Alongside influential relationships, including a lasting creative bond with Gabriel Fauré, Saint‑Saëns was drawn into a life increasingly shaped by travel.

Music featured includes:

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 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002v8nk.

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.

This week, Donald Macleod traces the making of Joseph Haydn – from his long years of service to the Eszterházy princes on a remote Hungarian estate to his emergence as one of the most celebrated composers in Europe. Working in relative isolation, Haydn developed a distinctive musical voice while managing opera houses, orchestras and singers, gradually attracting attention far beyond the court. As new freedoms allowed him to publish and sell his music more widely, commissions came from Paris, Spain and London, and friendships in Vienna – most notably with Mozart – reshaped his artistic world. The programmes follow Haydn at a moment of transition, as growing fame sits alongside frustration, ambition and a readiness for change that would soon alter his life completely.

Music featured includes:

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 Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002typ2.

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 talks to British composer, pianist and conductor Thomas Adès.

Music featured:

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 Thomas Adès: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002sq64

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

Gaetano Donizetti was one of Italy’s most prolific tunesmiths, with almost 70 operas to his name – about as many as Rossini, Bellini and Verdi all combined - whose arias still cut straight to the heart today. Donald Macleod follows his irresistible rise: from a child brought up in a dark, cramped cellar to become a pioneering master of the style known as bel canto. And like any opera plot, there’s triumph and tragedy, headaches and heartbreak…

Music featured:

Produced by Amelia Parker for BBC Audio Wales and West.

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 Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002sd9n

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 five classical composers from the land of the long white cloud, New Zealand: Douglas Lilburn, Jenny McLeod, Dame Gillian Whitehead, John Psathas, and Gareth Farr.

Music featured:

Douglas Lilburn:

Jenny McLeod:

Dame Gillian Whitehead:

John Psathas:

Gareth Farr:

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 New Zealand Composers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002s3nm

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

This week, Kate Molleson traces the development of Jean Sibelius’s symphonies. Set against Finland’s changing political climate and Sibelius’s own, turbulent personal circumstances, the podcast explores what shaped each symphony’s character – from the nationalism surrounding Nos. 1 and 2, to the renewed sense of form in the Third, the more inward Fourth, and the reworked Fifth. The week concludes with the distinctive Sixth and the single‑movement Seventh, composed during a period of uncertainty both for Finland and Sibelius himself.

Music featured includes:

Presented by Kate Molleson

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 Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002rr2j

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 Amy Beach railed against the sexism of her time to journey from a child piano prodigy to a respected composer.

Young Birches

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 Amy Beach (1867-1944): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002rf45

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

Producer: Steven Rajam / Sam Phillips

Donald Macleod delves into the life of the great German composer Heinrich Schütz.

Music featured:

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 Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002qqry

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