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
Monday May 30, 2022
Monday May 30, 2022
I played this over a week ago and still the tunes dance around inside my head - it's the jazz- and latin-fuelled brilliance of the Symphonic Dances from Leonard Bernstein's smash hit musical, West Side Story - perhaps the greatest musical there is? Let me know!
Listening time 34 minutes (podcast 10', music 24')
Complete performances of the music on Youtube (filmed concert performance with The Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, conducted by Mikko Franck), Spotify and Apple Music (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Christian Lindberg, conductor). The Apple link only plays the first track - you'll have to work out the rest, sorry.
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
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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!
Wednesday May 11, 2022
Wednesday May 11, 2022
I'm no fan of horror films - too scary for me - but, in any case, nothing really scares us more than the thoughts in our heads! I do love scary music though and Béla Bartók wrote the best. Music for strings, percussion and celesta is unusual, gripping, terrifying and thrilling. It's also brilliant at clearing my mind of any 'unneccessary' thinking.
Listening time 40 mins (podcast 11', music 29').
Listen to the complete music, played by the awesome Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer on Spotify or Youtube, or Susanna Mälkki conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic on Apple Music (where you have to find the tracks after track 1, sorry)
Sometimes, especially with unfamiliar, complex, music I find it's good to have something to watch - it can help guide our ears a bit, and make concentration easier. There's are two exellent filmed performances on youtube: this one shot during the pandemic with no audience, with the Oslo Philharmonic and conductor Vasily Petrenko, and
this one from The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Alan Gilbert. It's got a noisy audience, but the France Musique cameracrews are allowed to move around the stage, which makes for much more interesting video than you often get with orchestras on tv. Which means they catch things like this fantastic smile of musical- and colleague- enjoyment from the harpist too: Watch these few seconds anyway!
You can buy the recordings as downloads, here (Fischer) (& here (Mälkki))
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 May 02, 2022
Monday May 02, 2022
When Haydn came to London he was treated like a superstar: wined and dined by the great and good, and his concerts were the hottest ticket in town. The 'Miracle' Symphony, no.96, was Haydn's first written for Londoners and is designed to win us over with its charms. Music to put a smile on our faces and a spring in our step! Listening time c32 mins (podcast 10', music 22')
Click here for complete performances of the Symphony on Youtube, Spotify or Apple Music, (I can only link to the first track on Apple, so you'll need to figure it out from there!). Performances are all by the thrilling Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Claudio Abbado, which you can buy for less than a UK fiver 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 Apr 25, 2022
Monday Apr 25, 2022
A mix of grit, swagger and persistence help us to make it through in the big city. Shirley Thompson's Urban Livinggives us all this plus, perhaps, a tinge of fear and some pheonmenal piano sounds in 7 minutes of [mainly] self-assured city beats.
The only performance of the music I can find is here, on Soundcloud, played by the Shirley Thompson Ensemble.
Listening time 12 mins (podcast 5', music 7')
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!
Sunday Apr 10, 2022
Sunday Apr 10, 2022
I've come over all nostalgic at the prospect of returning to London in a few days, so here's a swaggering piece of escapism back to the heady optimistic days of the 1930s in Eric Coates London Suite.
Listening time 21 mins (podcast 7’, music, 14’)
Music here on youtube, Apple Music or Spotify, conducted by John Wilson, who's unbeatable at this sort of thing, with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
You can buy a recording as a download here.
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!
Thursday Mar 31, 2022
Thursday Mar 31, 2022
Bursting full of life, Ravel’s music for this everyday love story of shepherd meets goatherd meets Greek god of nature is dreamy, sensual, and downright thrilling, all delivered in glorious orchestral technicolor. Meet Daphnis & Chloé! Listening time: 25 mins (podcast 9', music 16
Complete music is here on Spotify or Apple Music played by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung. (Start at Track 16 on Apple Music.)
Music here on Youtube with pictures but (no choir) played by the London Symphony Orchestra with conductor Simon Rattle.
There is a video of a great performance conducted by Mr Chung, but the sound is a bit dodgy. It's on Youtube 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!
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Comfortably crossing cultural boundaries, composer Reena Esmail draws on both western and Indian traditions to write distinctive music that is at home in both. Darshan is a terrific solo violin piece which transports us to a timeless state and may even offer a glimpse of the divine! Listening time 21 mins (Podcast 9', Music 12')
Music on Youtube (video performance), Spotify or Apple Music (Bihag and Charukeshi)
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
You can buy a recording as a download of Vijay Gupta's performance on Bandcamp.
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!
Extract from The Americans for the Arts 33rd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy given by Vijay Gupta provided by AmericansForTheArts.org.
Thanks for listening!
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
Thursday Mar 10, 2022
Shakespeare reaches people across the world with his insights into our shared humanity and his plays have inspired countless composers to write music - providing their own way for us to connect to Shakespeare, each other and ourselves. Tchaikovsky’s The Tempest overture gives us a torrential storm, a big love theme that beats Romeo & Juliet, and one of the most atmospheric, goose-bump-inducing beginning and end to any piece of music. And almost no one knows it at all!
Listening time 33 mins (podcast 9’, music, 24’)
Music here youtube with pictures and then here, brilliantly played by the Orchestra of St Luke's with conductor Pablo Heras-Casado on Spotify or Apple Music.
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
You can buy a recording as a download here, but you have to buy a whole album to get the brilliant Spotify/Apple recording. A cheaper alternative is the equally assuredly brilliant Berlin Philharmonic and Claudio Abbado
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 Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
How is it that when an artist shares their pain we can all feel it? And how does listening to music full of suffering make us feel better? I don't know how or why, but I know that it does. Dmitri Shostakovich knew all about war, loss, and suffering. His 8th string quartet is desperate but defiant and deeply moving, bleak but often beautiful and whilst it doesn't provide any answers it somehow gives consolation to us all. Listening time 28 mins (podcast 8', music 20')
Music here youtube, and then here on Spotify or Apple Music. If you use Spotify with adverts I'd avoid it for this piece, because this is really a piece you don't want interrupted!
What do you think? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
You can buy a recording as a download here.
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!
Sunday Feb 20, 2022
Sunday Feb 20, 2022
We've all got pieces of music that instantly remind us of special times and places in our lives. What are yours I wonder? (Tell me!) We're in Sri Lanka at the moment and, bizarrely, the piece of music we've heard more than any other in the last few months has been Beethoven's perfect little piano piece, Für Elise, but perhaps not as we're used to hearing it... Here's the story of why, and how it's in the ears of everyone Sri Lanka. (Listening time 8 mins: podcast 5', music 3')
Apologies for the gratuitous idyllic beach photo.
Listen to the piece played by Rudolf Buchbinder on Spotify or Apple Music or on Youtube (Georgii Cherkin).
What do you think? What are the pieces of music from the soundtrack to your life? Let me know with an easy voicemail or comment at Cacophonyonline.com, Facebook or Twitter.
If you'd like to support Cacophony there are four easy great ways
- share this episode with everyone you know.
- share the 100 second trailer
- buy us a cuppa at ko-fi.com
- subscribe and keep listening!
Thanks for listening!