Saturday Classics

Music from Finzi, Mozart, Prokofiev and Elgar with performers including David Oistrakh, Eugene Ormandy, Fritz Reiner and Karl Richter.

Conductor Jessica Cottis was born in Australia and grew up there. Now based in the UK she regularly returns to conduct in Sydney, Queensland and Adelaide. Ahead of Australia Day later this week she presents a personal selection of contemporary music from her homeland, including orchestral works by Peter Sculthorpe and Richard Meale, and the didgeridoo playing of the virtuosic William Barton.

Image Credit: MJ Cruz.

Rob Cowan's hand-picked selection this afternoon includes Smetana's Czech Song and a work by Brahms for the unusual combination of choir, two horns and harp, as well as Bach from pianist Friedrich Gulda and a major orchestral piece by Edward Gregson.

Dance critic Mark Monahan presents music for the ballet from the 1930s to the present day. Including music by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Khachaturian and Philip Glass.

Michel Roux Jr does not allow music in his restaurants nor in their kitchens. For him the food is the music. However, he is a great music lover - of both classical music and, in particular, of the mainly French chanson tradition. In this edition of Saturday Classics he presents a selection of music including Wagner, Vivaldi, Mozart, Brassens, Piaf, Brel and Trenet.

First broadcast in December 2013.

Dance critic Mark Monahan goes on a whistle-stop tour through the first 100 years of the ballet as we know it today, looking at the ground-breaking works that took cities such as Paris and St Petersburg by storm. He traces the history of ballets such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake which were - surprisingly - both resounding flops when Tchaikovsky premiered them, only being rescued later by the dance-maker Marius Petipa. And he looks at the enormous influence of Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, beginning with Mikhail Fokine's 1907 ballet Chopiniana, leading to famous scores by Stravinsky and Ravel.

Image of Mark Monahan courtesy of David Rose.

Rob Cowan's selection this week includes Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli playing Liszt, Vaclav Neumann conducting Milhaud and George Szell in Mozart.

Deborah Bull is a former Royal Ballet principal dancer and was a Creative Director of the Royal Opera House. She is currently assistant principal at King's College London. Deborah chooses music which was not originally written for the ballet but was later appropriated by choreographers for the ballet stage. Her choices include music by Tchaikovsky, Bach, Ravel, Schubert, Stravinsky and Max Richter.

In the second of two programmes, journalist Simon Heffer charts a chronological profile of the life and music of the French composer Maurice Ravel. Today's programme includes "Le Tombeau de Couperin" and "La Valse", plus excerpts from Ravel's two piano concertos and the opera "L'Enfant et les sortilèges".

In the first of two programmes, journalist Simon Heffer offers a chronological profile of the life and music of the French composer Maurice Ravel. Today's programme includes recordings of some of Ravel's early songs and piano pieces as well as chamber music, including his String Quartet and Piano Trio, and his first forays into the orchestral world with excerpts from Daphnis et Chloé and Ma Mere L'Oye.