Music – Page 2 – CACOPHONY

Super excited and hyped up! Sage Shurman/ USA

16/07/2023 by Steve

It’s Cacophony …at the Women’s Football World Cup! A glorious celebration of music from around the world, all written by women, and chosen specially for Cacophony by leading female musicians.

This epsiode we hear top young composer, Sage Shurman, getting super excited – in a pretty chilled Californian kind of way – for both the World Cup football and her choices of pieces by living women American composers for the Women’s World Cup of Classical Music. Can the USA win both? – That will be down to you to decide!

Listening time: podcast 19mins, music playlist 16 mins… Listen

Music | Women's World Cup of Classical Music

“Planting women’s music in the collective memory of society” Katharina Nohl/ Switzerland

15/07/2023 by Steve

It’s Cacophony …at the Women’s Football World Cup! A glorious celebration of music from around the world, all written by women, and chosen specially for Cacophony by leading female musicians.

In this episode we hear from Katharina Nohl, founder of the Swiss Female Composers Festival, with her choices of music from Switzerland and how giving female composers greater exposure helps plant their music in the collective memory of society. Listening time: Podcast 26 mins, music playlist 30 mins… Listen

Music

150. Nine is the magic number! Farrenc, Nonet

22/06/2023 by Steve

By turns grand and genial with moments of great inventiveness and wit, Louise Farrenc’s Nonet for wind and strings is a bit of magic!

Listening time 37 mins (podcast 7′, music 30′)… Listen

149. Keeping us fresh since 1784: Haydn, Piano trio No.19

11/06/2023 by Steve

Meeting his boss’s insatiable desire for new content ‘forced’ [his word] Joseph Haydn to write original, inventive music that sounds as fresh and full of life today as when it was written. And he wrote so much great music that I only heard this piano trio for the first time this week – and it’s wonderful stuff. Listening time 19 mins.… Listen

Music | Orchestra | transcendent

148. Rituals, a riot and a revolution: Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring

31/05/2023 by Steve

110 years ago in Paris, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring caused a furore and changed music forever. Did the police have to be called? It’s still a piece that shocks and stuns and is filled with something amazing every second.

Listening time c45 mins … Listen

147. Music in the blood and poetry in the soul: Williams, Penillion

21/05/2023 by Steve

A rarity from Wales (a Welsh rare-bit?), Grace Williams’s orchestral piece Penillion surprises, delights and has an epic grandeur. It’s terrific stuff and I think you’ll love it! (25 mins)… Listen

Family friendly | Fun | Joyful | Just-is-ness | Music

146. Risk and adventure: Tower, Fanfare for the uncommon woman

10/05/2023 by Steve

Another great, short piece, here’s the first of Joan Tower’s Fanfares celebrating risk-taking and adventurous women. This is both celebratory and substantial, plus a workout for brass and percussion. Listening time 8 mins (podcast 5.5′, music 2.5′)… Listen

Music | Piano

144. On the edge of possibility: Beethoven, “Appassionata” Sonata

20/04/2023 by Steve

Often on the edge, in life and music, Beethoven goes to extremes on the piano to show us the extreme depth of his feelings. His Appassionata Sonata is every bit as intense as its name suggests! Listening time 33 mins (podcast 10′, music 23′)… Listen

Just-is-ness | meditative | Music | Piano

143. Genesis and Resurrection: Fanny Mendelssohn, Easter Sonata

10/04/2023 by Steve

Lost for 150 years and then, because it was so good, presumed to have been written by her brother, Fanny Mendelssohn’s Easter Sonata for piano is passionate, intense, lyrical and dramatic… and the story of its rediscovery is no less compelling. Listening time c36 mins… Listen