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
Tuesday Sep 20, 2022
Tuesday Sep 20, 2022
In his Cello Suites, JS Bach catapulted the instrument into the solo spotlight and discovered new worlds of sound and possibilities, full of riches to explore. Nominally it's dance music but its depth and beauty bring us stillness and solace.
Listening time: 25 mins (podcast 7', music 18')
Performances here on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Music (whole album link) played by the wonderful David Watkin. If you like it, you can buy a recording as a high quality download here. The proper title for the piece is: JS Bach: Cello Suite no. 1 in G, BWV1007
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode with someone you know
- share the 100 second trailer
- send us a little something at ko-fi.com
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Thanks for listening!
Tuesday Aug 30, 2022
Tuesday Aug 30, 2022
Carrying a fragile flower whilst walking a tightrope. Finding the balance between beauty and chaos. Being pulled along by forces outside of our control. On Cacophony we talk about 'diving into great music': Anna Thorvaldsdottir's Metacosmos might be the biggest dive yet - into a black hole! Universal and yet personal, her music is distinctive, compelling, moving and profound.
Listening time: 23 mins (podcast 9', music 14')
Performances here on Youtube (with video), Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp played by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daníel Bjarnason.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode with someone you know
- share the 100 second trailer
- send us a little something at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Saturday Aug 20, 2022
Saturday Aug 20, 2022
With the wonders of our imagination and some great music to help, all things are possible - so let's enjoy the views from the top of a mountain: leaving the house (or even getting out of bed) is entirely optional. Richard Strauss takes us over the top (in every sense) in his epic, excessive, exuberant Alpine Symphony, with great views and plenty of thrills but also moments that inspire deeper contemplation on the glories of nature. It's a trip you don't want to miss.
Listening time: 62 mins (Podcast, 11', music 51')
In 1982 Herbert von Karajan conducted An Alpine Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. It was the first thing to be put on cd, and those who know these things maintain that it's still one of the best:
Links here to performances on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Music . If you can, try to listen without adverts, which are particularly interrupting in this piece!
If you like to see huge orchestras in action, there are good films performances on youtube. I like the Oslo Philharmonic with Vasily Petrenko and the WDR Symphony and Semyon Bychkov.
Picture credit: Thanks to Melanie Stefan for providing the picture, it's the Alps in France, as seen from the Charmant Som in the Chartreuse Mountains.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode with someone you know
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Wednesday Aug 10, 2022
Wednesday Aug 10, 2022
Brilliant and meaningful, North by Southwest may have been the initial name for Billy Strayhorn's Suite for The Duo, a brilliant, late work for horn and piano: it's a title that suggests confusion and conflicting ideas about the dying composers direction of travel. It's a great piece: virtuosic but raw and written with a total understanding of both horn and piano and what they can do.
It's a longer episode than normal because (amazingly) I was able to speak with Willie Ruff, the horn player for whom it was written. Willie, now in his nineties, joined me from his home in Alabama and he talked about his life and career, the Mitchell-Ruff duo, Strayhorn and how Suite for The Duo came to life.
Listening time 37 mins (podcast 25', music 12')
The Suite for The Duo can be found here on Apple Music, Youtube and Spotify.
Other music clips in the episode: Take the A-Train [Strayhorn], All the things you are [Jerome Kern], Serenade for tenor, horn and strings [Benjamin Britten]
Willieruff.com has further info on Willie as well as links to buy this and other recordings on cd and his biography A Call to Assembly.
Another episode of Cacophony will feature more from Willie in due course!
Are you a horn player or fab pianist? You can buy the sheet music for the Suite too. Get this in your repertoire! (Be sure to buy parts 1-4, the other edition is incomplete.)
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode with someone you know
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Photo credit: Vincent Oneppo (pic from WillieRuff.com)
Saturday Jul 30, 2022
Saturday Jul 30, 2022
Heat, danger, emptiness and space. Plenty of all of this in Peter Sculthorpe's excellent Kakadu - inspired by northern Australia but featuring universal themes of humanity, life, death, and timelessness.
Listening time c22 minutes (podcast 6', music 16')
Music here: on Youtube, on Spotify or Apple Music played by the Queensland Orchestra, conducted by Michael Christie with William Barton on didgeridoo.
You can buy this recording as a download here (though you have to buy a whole album, but this recording is the one that I think does best justice to the piece and gives the didgeridoo proper prominence).
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Wednesday Jul 20, 2022
Wednesday Jul 20, 2022
It's not about that sort of passion, but this symphony La Passione is intense, dark, thrilling, and one of Haydn's best!
Listening time c30 minutes (podcast 5.5', music 23')
Music here: on Youtube, live in concert with video, on Spotify or Apple Music (Apple Music is a link to the first track only, sorry) played by Il Giardino Armonico, conductor, Giovanni Antonini.
You can buy this recording as a download here.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Monday Jul 11, 2022
Monday Jul 11, 2022
One of my favourite joyful but heavyweight quick fixes, Robert Schumann's original Symphony no.4 is an intense and inventive stream of consciousness full of light and life. It's a thrill. Shame Schumann didn't see it that way...
Listening time c35 minutes (podcast 10', music 25')
Music here: on Youtube, Spotify or Apple Music (Apple Music is a link to the first track only, sorry) played by the brilliant Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (from London!) conductor, John Eliot Gardiner.
The later version of the symphony is out there too (earlier in the same youtube clip).
You can buy this recording as a download for less than £9 here. Be careful to get the right version!
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Friday Jul 01, 2022
Friday Jul 01, 2022
Another forgotten gem from a late 18th century woman composer, Marie Emmanuelle Bayon Louis's overture to d'Épine is boisterous and brilliant.
You can listen to the piece here played by the excellent and stylish Academy of Ancient Music.
Listening time 11 minutes (podcast 5', music 6')
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If female French composers are your thing check out others on Cacophony, Lili Boulanger (featuring an interview with champion of female composers, Diana Ambache) or Louise Farrenc.
The picture isn't a Mayflower...but does look a bit like one...
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
So much more than just a famous TV theme tune, Prokofiev's music for Romeo and Juliet is full of intensity, drama, passion, wit and the occasional brilliantly pure dance number. Simultaneously draining and energising it's a fabulous demonstration of the sheer power of music. I love it.
Listening time 41 minutes (podcast 11', music 30')
There's a mistake: Tybalt is Juliet's cousin, not her brother. Oops! There goes my GCSE English grade!
Here are complete performances of Prokofiev's 2nd suite from Romeo and Juliet on Youtube and Spotify and (maybe only a link to the first track?) on Apple Music, played by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi. You can buy the recordings as a download here.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Friday Jun 10, 2022
Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (Cacophony ep.117) features the driving funky rhythms at the expense of the wit, poetry and driving funky rhythms of the song numbers... so this episode features four of my favourites.
Listening time 22 minutes (podcast 7', music 15')
Here are complete performances of my choices on Youtube and Spotify from the soundtrack album of Steven Spielberg's 2021 movie.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are easy, great, ways:
- share this episode
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe/ review and keep listening!
Thanks to NY resident, Emma Cotter for the photo - actually taken from Queensboro bridge, so it's an East Side Manhattan photo, but in the right uptown/ downtown area!
Thanks for listening!