Do we need heroes in music? In tonight's RTÉ lyric Live Interval, David Vivian Russell wonders where better to find heroes than in music...

When the subject of female composers of classical music comes up, it's often said that there aren't very many to choose from... but, in reality, history just didn't get round to telling us about them.

Sandy Burnett takes a look at four intriguing examples of what we now consider great classical hits to see how they went down in their own time.

Vlad Smishkewych talks about how and why people have considered certain voices beautiful across the ages in Western art music, drawing a few important ideas from other traditions along the way.

Michael Lee catches up with Sharon Carty about her new release ‘Stanford: Cushendall, Irish Song Cycles’ helping to mark the Stanford Centenary.

Michael Lee travels back in time to 1862 where a young 'Charlie' Stanford is already beginning to get noticed in Dublin as a bit of a prodigy.

Looking back over the past 250 years, Sandy Burnett believes that it was Mozart who put the piano concerto genre on its feet, starting with his Piano Concerto No. 9 'Jeunehomme'.

When we think of Edward Elgar, who never received a composition lesson in his life, it is his large scale works that come to mind. However, Michael Lee believes that Elgar's smaller compositions shed a view into a more private side of his music-making.

Michael Lee observes that while changes in the work of other composers are obvious over time, Fauré's career follows a more insular pattern.

Sandy Burnett takes a snapshot look at the world of Russian art critic Sergei Diaghilev and composer Igor Stravinsky.