CD

The principle and importance of classical Sonata Form is aided with keyboard examples on an eighteenth-century traveling square piano. We move to Vienna for a discussion of opera and the reforms of Gluck, before looking ahead to the Romantic period through the music of Schubert and Weber. Hosted by Alan Hacker, lecturer of Music at the University of York. The recordings are performed by Peter Wilson, Associate Director of London's Lyric Theatre Hammersmith.

PART ONE:

The speakers examine the meaning of romanticism in music, while exploring the rise of Nationalism within the period and tracing the development of the orchestra. Hosted by conductor Norman Del Mar and broadcaster/musician John Amis.

PART ONE:

Post-war music has seen a wealth of innovations—many of then strikingly original, some exceedingly complex. This illuminating appraisal features illustrations from the music of such composers as Stockhausen and Peter Maxwell Davies. Hosted by Hugh Wood, composer, lecturer, and Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.

PART ONE:

The remarkable history of percussion instruments is traced through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the Classical Period. Hosted by James Blades, consultant Professor of Percussion at the University of Surrey.

From Wagner to Schoenberg, this enlightening discussion focuses on the change in musical language around 1900. You will also hear some of the less radical elements of twentieth century music, finishing with the place of jazz in the period. Hosted by Dr. Wilfrid Mellers, composer, author, and formerly Professor of Music at the University of York.