In My Own Time: Sir Humphrey Burton in conversation with Tasmin Little

Sir Humphrey Burton is one of Britain's most influential post-war music and arts broadcasters, having worked closely with Leonard Bernstein and Yehudi Menuhin, as well as establishing BBC Young Musician of the Year in 1978. Following the recent publication of his autobiography In My Own Time, Sir Humphrey spoke to the acclaimed violinist Tasmin Little about his extraordinary life in music.

If listeners to this podcast would like to purchase a copy of Sir Humphrey’s autobiography, signed and dedicated as instructed, they should contact Mrs Mary James at the Aldeburgh Bookshop.

The Aldeburgh Bookshop

42 High Street, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP15 5AB

01728 452389

[email protected]

www.aldeburghbookshop.co.uk

Jonathan Biss is joined by composer Sally Beamish who wrote a piano concerto, City Stanzas for him. Together they discuss how this works responds to Beethoven's music. 

Georgina Born, Professor of Music and Anthropology at Oxford University and Professorial Fellow of Mansfield College, joins Vijay Iyer for an exchange of ideas traversing the arts, the humanities, and the social and natural sciences. The two musician-scholars each give a brief mini-lecture, Iyer on ‘Musicality’ and Born on ‘Musical Experience’, followed by a dialogue considering the intersections of these two concepts.

Bringing together two intertwined stories – a performer’s lifelong passion for the mélodie, and its history at Wigmore Hall.

Dame Felicity Lott shares stories and highlights from her life as a performer and devotee of French song, in conversation with Wigmore Hall’s Archivist Emily Woolf. This unique interview interweaves these recollections with material from our Archive illustrating some of the Hall’s most significant moments as a venue for the mélodie, in a rich history spanning nearly 120 years.

Over the course of four years (excluding 2021) British pianist Christian Blackshaw will be performing the complete cycle of Mozart’s piano sonatas on the composer’s birthday, 27 January. In conversation with music critic and author Jessica Duchen, join Christian to explore the sonatas in this Wigmore Hall podcast.

The pair talk about what makes the cycle of piano sonatas special, how Christian has developed his programmes, and how much he feels the importance of being able to communicate Mozart’s spirit in the music (period instrument or not). We fantasise about how Mozart’s life and musical relationships might have been had the composer lived to 70 years old or more, and the musical reflections of tragedy following his mother’s death in Paris.

The frequently tragic life of the Polish-Jewish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) did not prevent him from composing prolifically in many forms; important to both his personal life and career was his friendship with Shostakovich, which began during the Second World War and continued until the latter’s death.

Ahead of Quatuor Danel’s two-season survey of Weinberg’s string quartets, Marc Danel and Daniel Elphick, musicologist and researcher, talk about the life of Weinberg and the Weinberg/Shostakovich Cycle at Wigmore Hall.

The frequently tragic life of the Polish-Jewish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) did not prevent him from composing prolifically in many forms; important to both his personal life and career was his friendship with Shostakovich, which began during the Second World War and continued until the latter’s death.

Ahead of Quatuor Danel’s two-season survey of Weinberg’s string quartets, Marc Danel and Daniel Elphick, musicologist and researcher, talk about the life of Weinberg and the Weinberg/Shostakovich Cycle at Wigmore Hall.

Following each concert in his Beethoven Piano Sonata series, Jonathan Biss will host a post-concert talk in the Hall. On Sunday 29 September, this took the form of a Question & Answer session with the audience.

Led by questions from the auditorium, Jonathan explores the evening concert programme and the development of Beethoven over the decade the performed works span. He discusses how teaching and preparing his Coursera lectures has affected his approach to playing the piano sonatas, and how an audience in Beethoven’s day might have reacted to the works.