What happens when it all goes wrong? What’s the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a conductor? Conducting with your flies down? And have Joanna or Stephen ever dozed off during a show?

Got questions for Joanna and Stephen? Drop them a line [email protected]

Captain, We Hit A Schoenberg! Did Arnold Schoenberg break Classical music? Widely considered the greatest composer of the 20th century, Schoenburg’s innovations in ‘atonality’ (a term he detested throughout his life) changed the trajectory of music forever. In this episode, Joanna and Stephen explore the ripples of Schoenberg’s (much preferred) ‘emancipated dissonances’, through modern British composers such as Tippet, Turnage, Weir and Maxwell Davies.

Its question time again! This week Joanna and Stephen discuss your questions on nicknames for operas and where to start with listening to them. Stephen also reveals how one becomes a Maestro…

In this episode the Maestro turns the tables on Joanna and asks her questions about her life, her career as an actress and how she became a diarist for the Times. Joanna talks about why she wanted to become an actress, how being a model held her back and why she’ll keep wearing make up till the day she dies. We also hear why her favourite ever part was playing Hedda Gabler at the Dundee Repertory Theatre and why Stephen and Joanna never go on holiday.

What drove 16th century composer, Carlo Gesualdo, to commit homicide? To baton or not to baton? And how do composers really interpret a score?

Have you ever wondered how a conductor deciphers the individual musical parts and melodies from a whole opera score? In this episode, Stephen and Joanna deconstruct Richard Strauss’ monumental opera, Salome - a score which contains the so-called “most sickening chord in all opera”.

What did Joanna and Stephen play at their wedding? Why does everyone die in opera? And what the heck does Pythagoras have to do with music?

Love them or hate them, everyone has one. In this episode, we’re discussing National Anthems. In Japan they sing of generations reigning eight thousand years. The French sing of slaughtering enemies until their ‘blood should water our fields’ and in New Zealand they celebrate ‘the hairy man who summons the sun and makes it shine’. Joanna and Stephen reveal the stories behind these bombastic pieces of music.

We’ve turned the tables! Welcome to a mini episode where you get to ask Joanna & The Maestro your absolutely fabulous musical questions.

Ade Edmondson joins Joanna and Stephen to kick off season two! The actor, comedian and musician discusses his own complicated relationship with classical music, his jack-of-all-trades mentality to learning instruments and why his Dad never approved of Led Zeppelin. We also hear about Ade’s own experience making music and reveal Jennifer Saunders’ top driving anthems.