Hear more. Feel more. Be more! Come with me and dive into some great classical music. For over 1000 years great musicians have explored what it means to live, love, die and everything in between: asking all our deep and universal questions. Escape the cacophony - the noise of your brain and daily life; tune into the music, your feelings and emotions ‘good’ and ‘bad’ …and find the space, stillness and love that underpins everything. NB: May include loud noise, surprises, challenges, cacophonous racket. May cause shock, comfort, discomfort, smiles, tears, peace, transcendence. www.cacophonyonline.com classical music Home of the Women’s World Cup of Classical Music
Episodes
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
Sometimes the best things happen by accident! Allegri's 'Miserere' is famously beautiful, ethereal and transports us out of ourselves - or maybe deeper within. But the 'best bit', when one of the singers soars high above the others, wasn't actually composed at all - could it be music's greatest mistake? And how did it happen? Let's find out...
Music here on Youtube or Spotify. (Listening time 20 mins: podcast 8', music 12')
Please help Cacophony grow and develop by doing some of these things:
Leave a comment to tell us what you think at Cacophony's website.
Subscribe to the podcast, rate it and share it widely.
If you like this piece, you can buy it here or elsewhere in top quality download (FLAC is ‘lossless quality’, MP3 is compressed, so might loose some impact). This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording, it's by The Sixteen. The artists get almost nothing via youtube/Spotify...
If you're enjoying Cacophony and want to help, you can support us, by 'buying me a ko-fi'!
Thanks for listening!
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
I'm always a bit surprised to find myself humming bits of Ma Vlast - My Country by one of the Czech's favourite sons. I guess I must really love it!
Feared by the Nazis, loved by the Czechs, this is the acceptable face of nationalism, and its full of great tunes and causes deep satisfaction.
Music here on Youtube or Spotify. (Listening time 32 mins: podcast 10', music 23')
Please help Cacophony grow and develop by doing some of these things:
Leave a comment to tell us what you think at Cacophony's website.
Subscribe to the podcast, rate it and share it widely.
If you like this piece, you can buy it here or elsewhere in top quality download (FLAC is ‘lossless quality’, MP3 is compressed, so might loose some impact). This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording: it's the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jakob Hruša. Please buy recordings! The artists get almost nothing via youtube/Spotify...
If you're enjoying Cacophony and want to help, you can support us, by 'buying me a ko-fi'!
Thanks for listening!
Saturday Feb 27, 2021
Saturday Feb 27, 2021
American composer Amy Beach was so popular that her followers held ‘Beach Clubs’* to play and listen to her music!
Her Quartet for strings is lean and powerful, as well as being a great jump-off into the world of string quartets: a place fraught with danger for the players, where composers go to bare their souls.
Take a listen and join the Beach Club!
Music here on Youtube or Spotify. (Listening time 21 mins: podcast 7', music 13')
Please leave a comment to tell us what you think at Cacophony's website.
Please subscribe to the podcast and share widely.
If you like this piece, you can buy it here or elsewhere in top quality download (FLAC is ‘lossless quality’, MP3 is compressed, so might loose some impact) for a couple of quid! This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording. It's the Ambache Chamber Ensemble. Please buy recordings! The artists get almost nothing via youtube/Spotify...
If you're enjoying Cacophony and want to help, you can support us, by 'buying me a ko-fi'!
Thanks for listening!
*This means I can milk the terrible Beach pun, cos it was used in her lifetime in the 1930s and 40s!
Saturday Feb 20, 2021
Saturday Feb 20, 2021
Poignant, peaceful, maybe even transcendental music for choir with cello: Svyati by John Tavener is the result of a lifetime of spiritual enquiry and of perfecting a simple and profound musical style. Beautiful.
Listening time 19 mins (Intro 5', music 14')
Please leave a comment to tell us what you think at Cacophony's website.
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If you like this piece, you can buy it here or elsewhere in top quality download for pennies! This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording. It's Tavener: Svyati 'O Holy One', played by cellist, Steven Isserlis with the Kiev Chamber Choir. It may only be a few p, but it's more than the artists would get via youtube/Spotify!
If you're enjoying Cacophony and want to help, you can support us, by 'buying me a ko-fi'!
Thanks for listening!
Sunday Feb 07, 2021
Sunday Feb 07, 2021
What's in a name? Not much it seems. An 'Intermezzo' is often a short piece that breaks up something bigger... but Brahms used it as his go to name for any short piano pieces where nothing else came to mind!
In any case, these three Intermezzos for solo piano from late in Brahms's life are beautiful, wistful, dreamy and give us a perfect break from whatever you've got going on...
Like all Brahms pieces they're musically perfect too.
Listening time 21 mins (Intro 6', music 15')
Please leave a comment to tell us what you think at cacophony's website.
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If you really like these pieces, why not buy them? Only 51p in the UK! This isn't an affiliate link, I just want to make sure you get a great recording. It's Brahms Intermezzi op.117 played by Maria João Pires.
Thanks for listening!
Friday Jan 29, 2021
Friday Jan 29, 2021
Delicate, sparkling and perhaps surprisingly touching, here are three short diversions from the various trials of modern life - written 300 years ago by Couperin and brilliantly rewritten in 2006 by Thomas Adès who takes obvious delight in the sound of music.
Listening time 20' [podcast intro 7', music 13']
Francois Couperin liked nice titles - we're listening to The amusements, Sleight of hand and The soul in torment from his Pieces for Harpsichord.
Music here on Youtube or Spotify.
Please let me know what you think at cacophonyonline.com or Facebook.
Please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast and tell everyone you know about it!
Thanks for listening!
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
Thursday Jan 21, 2021
Great music to mark the US Presidential hand-over!
Raucous fun alongside the deep and meaningful, Three Places in New England is challenging, confusing, complex, silly and surprising music that leaves me baffled but smiling and moved too! A hundred years old but way ahead of its time from one of America's first great composers, Charles Ives.
Listening time 28mins (10' intro, 18' music)
Listen to the music on Spotify or Youtube
Let me know what you think at cacophonyonline.com or Facebook.
Please rate and subscribe to the podcast and tell everyone you know about it!
Thanks for listening!
Thursday Jan 14, 2021
Thursday Jan 14, 2021
If you've got any new year sluggishness, sweep all that away with a blast of Respighi's Roman Festivals - four vivid musical pictures featuring love songs and folk dances, wine, religion and state-sponsored violence (lions eating Christians)!
Listening time c32 mins [8' podcast, 24' music]
Listen to the the music here on youtube or spotify
and also here with pictures, played by the same Italians (the fabulous and fabulously titled Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma and their conductor Antonio Pappano) or this awesome band of 18s and under, the National Youth Orchestra of GB(&NI)
Please like, rate and share the podcast. Please visit Cacophonyonline.com to let us know what you think!
Thanks for listening!
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Thursday Dec 24, 2020
Three musical geniuses really make the magic come alive in Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's adaptation of Tchaikovsky's classic, Nutcracker.
Essential Christmas listening to bring joy to the word!
For the original Tchaikovsky Nutcracker check out Episode 50 of Cacophony
Listening time 38 mins [8' podcast, 30' music]
Please like, rate and share the podcast. Please visit Cacophonyonline.com to let us know what you think!
Thanks for listening!
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
Thursday Dec 17, 2020
There's so much unknown great music out there!
You almost certainly won't have heard this great piece or have heard of its writer. I certainly hadn't. Henriëtte Bosman's wrote her Concert Piece for violin and orchestra for her fiancé. He died before he could play it, and in her grief she couldn't compose any more. Then the war and Nazi occupation of Amsterdam cut short her career as a performer too.
I'm joined by my friend, violinist Marina Solarek, who tells us the story of an amazing woman, her intense and passionate concerto, and why it's still so hard to hear great music by women composers. ...And the great music shows us that we're missing out.
Listening time 36 mins [18' each, podcast and music]
Marina's group, the Solarek Piano Trio, dedicates itself to the lives of extraordinary composers who happen to be women. Check them out!
Please like, rate and share the podcast. Please visit Cacophonyonline.com to leave a comment and see some cool pictures of Bosmans, Koene and Belinfante.
Thanks for listening!