Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Thursday - Rob Cowan with Simon Sebag Montefiore

With Rob Cowan. Including My Favourite Duos; Musical challenge; Music in Time: Schoenberg: A Survivor from Warsaw; Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Overture (The Taming of the Shrew).

9am
My Favourite... Duos. Rob shares his favourite examples of these works for two musicians, where each artist's response to the other is put under the spotlight, creating what is perhaps the ultimate expression of chamber music. Rob's choices explore a selection of instrumental combinations including duos for strings by BartΓ³k, a duo for pianos by Schubert, and duos for percussion, and guitars.

9.30am
Take part in today's challenge: listen to the clues and identify the mystery music-related place.

10am
Rob's guest, historian, writer and television presenter Simon Sebag Montefiore, will be sharing a selection of his favourite classical music, including works by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky that link to his writing on Russia, every day at 10am. Simon's acclaimed history books have been published in over 45 languages and include Jerusalem: The Biography, Catherine the Great and Potemkin and Young Stalin. His latest book, The Romanovs 1613-1918, chronicles the stories of twenty tsars and tsarinas, and is already a bestseller in the UK, Australia and the USA. Simon has also won literary prizes for his fiction work. He has written the first two instalments of a trilogy of thriller-love-stories set in Russia. The second in the series, 'One Night in Winter', won the Best Political Novel of the Year Prize and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize.

10.30am
Music in Time: Modern
Rob places Music in Time. The focus is on the Modern period and the first significant musical outpouring reflecting the horrors of the Holocaust: Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw.

10.45am
Rob takes inspiration from tonight's Prom which features Shakespeare-themed music by composers on both sides of the pond including Finzi, Sullivan, Bernstein and Cole Porter. This morning Rob broadcasts one of the eleven overtures that the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote for the Bard's plays, before emigrating to the USA in the late 1930s to escape persecution in Mussolini's fascist state.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Overture: The Taming of the Shrew
West Australian Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Penny (conductor).

2 hours

Music Played

  • BΓ©la BartΓ³k

    Buciumeana (Romanian Folk Dances, No.4)

    Performer: Eudice Shapiro. Performer: Ralph Berkowitz.
    • VANGUARD CLASSICS.
  • AntonΓ­n DvoΕ™Γ‘k

    Slavonic Rhapsody, Op.45 No.1

    Orchestra: Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig. Conductor: Kurt Masur.
    • DECCA ELOQUENCE.
  • MY FAVOURITE...DUOS

    • Domenico Scarlatti

      Sonatas Kk.531 & Kk.54

      Performer: SΓ©rgio Assad. Performer: Odair Assad.
      • ELEKTRA NONESUCH.
  • Joseph Haydn

    The Seven Last Words of Christ: No.2

    Singer: Lisa Milne. Singer: Ruxandra Donose. Singer: Andrew Kennedy. Singer: Christopher Maltman. Orchestra: London Philharmonic Orchestra. Choir: London Philharmonic Choir. Conductor: Vladimir Jurowski.
    • LPO.
  • Clara Schumann

    Scherzo No.2, Op.14

    Performer: Susanne GrΓΌtzmann.
    • PROFIL.
  • George Butterworth

    A Shropshire Lad

    Orchestra: HallΓ©. Conductor: Adrian Boult.
    • WARNER CLASSICS.
  • Giovanni Battista Fontana

    Sonata Seconda

    Performer: Piers Adams. Performer: David Wright.
    • RED PRIEST RECORDINGS.
  • Constant Lambert

    Invocation to the Moon - Finale (Horoscope)

    Orchestra: ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Concert Orchestra. Conductor: Barry Wordsworth.
    • ARGO.
  • SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE'S CHOICE NO.1

    • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

      1812 Overture, Op 49

      Orchestra: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Choir: GΓΆteborgs Symfoniska KΓΆr. Ensemble: Gothenburg Symphony Brass Band. Ensemble: Gothenburg Artillery Division. Ensemble: Churchbells of Gothenburg. Conductor: Neeme JΓ€rvi.
      • Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin: Neeme Jarvi.
      • DG.
      • 1.
  • MUSIC IN TIME: MODERN

    • Arnold Schoenberg

      A Survivor from Warsaw, Op.46

      Narrator: Gottfried Hornik. Choir: Male Choir of the Concert Chorus of Vienna State Opera. Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic. Conductor: Claudio Abbado.
      • DG.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Toccata in G minor, BWV915

    Performer: Zuzana RůžičkovÑ.
    • WARNER.
  • Mario Castelnuovo‐Tedesco

    The Taming of the Shrew Op.61

    Orchestra: West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Andrew Penny.
    • NAXOS.

Mystery Place

Answer: the moon

Broadcast

  • Thu 18 Aug 2016 09:00

Our Classical Century

Our Classical Century

Radio 3 explores 100 key musical moments that shaped us, from 1918 to the present day.

Time Travellers: the podcast

Time Travellers: the podcast

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough presents quirky tales gathered from the corners of history.