Saturday Classics

Cerys Matthews takes us on a personal guided tour of the musical world, taking in Bellini and Blind Snooks Eaglin, Max Richter and the Rhos Male Voice Choir, with poetry too from Rumi, Dylan Thomas and W B Yeats.

The trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth with her personal choices, including music that inspired her when she was growing up in Norway.

Soprano Ailish Tynan explores the effect different languages have on songs and vocal works. Ailish feels that words are the foundation blocks to unlocking a song, and explores the fascinating way different languages (English, French, German) very often dictate the style of a song or vocal work. Her music choices include Reynaldo Hahn's Bach-flavoured A Chloris, the Irish folk-song The Last Rose of Summer, Handel's Messiah and the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, as well as works by Stanford, Poulenc and Carl Orff.

Sakari Oramo, Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, introduces a selection of music from his home country of Finland. His choices include piano music by the great symphonist Sibelius, music for orchestra and birds by Rautavaara, early choral music, a fine symphony by the little-known composer Ernst Mielck, and Songs from the Sea by Sallinen.

Soprano Ailish Tynan shares great moments in opera, including music by Handel, Mozart, Humperdinck, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Janacek and Benjamin Britten.

As part of the BBC Opera Season, one of the greatest singers of his generation, bass Robert Lloyd charts the cultural, social and technological changes of the opera stage through the music he has performed and experienced over the past 50 years.

In a special show in front of a live audience at Wellcome Collection, star soprano Lesley Garrett presents music that brings back memories for her - from the people, places and events that have shaped her life and career.

Part of Why Music? The Key to Memory, a weekend of live events, concerts and discussions exploring the implications of music's unique capacity to be remembered, produced by Radio 3 in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

As part of the BBC's autumn Opera Season, Danielle de Niese, hailed as "opera's coolest soprano" by New York Times Magazine presents a personal selection of the music closest to her heart.

Rob's selection this week includes music by Bartok, Verdi, Prokofiev and Monteverdi performed by Janos Starker, Margaret Price and Paul McCreesh.

Chi-chi Nwanoku profiles black composers and performers down the centuries, with their friends and contemporaries.