Radio 3's Fifty Modern Classics
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Radio 3's Fifty Modern Classics
Artists, musicians and composers introduce fifty key pieces of classical music composed between 1950 and 2000. As featured in the BBC Radio 3 programme, Hear & Now.
Neueste Episoden
50 EpisodenWitold Lutoslawski's Jeux Venitiens
Conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen celebrates the music of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski and his landmark work from the early 1960s, Jeux...
Bernhard Lang's Differenz/Wiederholung 2
Composer Matthew Shlomowitz makes the case for Austrian composer Bernhard Lang’s Differenz/Wiederholung 2, a setting of texts by Gilles Deleuze, Willi...
Eliane Radigue's Songs of Milarepa
Author and journalist Rob Young nominates French composer Eliane Radigue's Songs of Milarepa, which combines drone-like electronics with the voices of...
Heiner Goebbels's Surrogate Cities
Hear and Now presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch celebrates the music of German composer Heiner Goebbels, focusing on the Suite for Sampler and Orchestra from...
Gerard Grisey's Partiels
Composer Julian Anderson singles out Partiels for orchestra, from French spectralist Gerard Grisey’s cycle of works Les Espaces Acoustiques. With comm...
Igor Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles
Composer John Woolrich nominates Stravinsky's last completed work with orchestra, Requiem Canticles. Commentator Paul Griffiths explains how this spar...
Per Norgard's Symphony No.2
Novelist and critic Philip Hensher makes the case for Per Norgard's Symphony No.2, one of the first works in which the Danish composer used his own 'i...
John Zorn's Carny
Critic and Hear and Now presenter Tom Service nominates American composer John Zorn’s Carny, a work for solo piano from 1989. The piece assembles a w...
Jean Barraque's Chant apres chant
Pianist Nicolas Hodges nominates Jean Barraque's Chant apres chant, one of just a handful of surviving works by this contemporary of Boulez and Stockh...
Alvin Lucier's I am sitting in a room
Sound artist Kaffe Matthews on Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room and how it’s provided an inspiration for her own work in the field of site specif...
Gyorgy Kurtag's Officium Breve
Critic and Hear and Now presenter Ivan Hewett nominates Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag's Officium Breve in memoriam Andreae Szervanszky for string q...
Terry Riley's In C
Singer and conductor Paul Hillier celebrates Terry Riley’s icon of musical minimalism and monument to the experimental atmosphere of 60s West Coast Am...
Pauline Oliveros's V of IV
Composer and Hear and Now presenter Robert Worby singles out V of IV, an early electronic work by American pioneer Pauline Oliveros; author and journa...
Gavin Bryars's Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet
Gavin Bryars's mould-breaking 1971 score Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet is a work which came about almost accidentally, when Bryars found a recordin...
Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples of the Moon
Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden explains why Silver Apples of the Moon by the American composer Morton Subotnick stands out for him as a classic of early ele...
Giacinto Scelsi's Ygghur
Cellist Frances-Marie Uitti celebrates the music of Giacinto Scelsi, the Italian composer from an aristocratic background whose work looks to the East...
Helmut Lachenmann's Mouvement
Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard champions the music of maverick German composer Helmut Lachenmann and his 1980s work for ensemble Mouvement (- vor der E...
Michael Nyman's The Draughtsman's Contract
Violinist Alexander Balanescu recounts his part in Michael Nyman's groundbreaking score for Peter Greenaway's 1982 feature film The Draughtsman's Cont...
Hans Abrahamsen's Winternacht
Author Paul Griffiths singles out this early work for ensemble by Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, a sonic evocation of nature which takes its name fr...
Claude Vivier's Lonely Child
The soprano Barbara Hannigan celebrates Claude Vivier’s profoundly moving work for soprano and orchestra, Lonely Child. Vivier conceived the piece as...
Galina Ustvolskaya's Octet
Composer and writer Gerard McBurney nominates the austere and uncompromising Octet by Galina Ustvolskaya, which changed his ideas of modern Russian mu...
Harrison Birtwistle's The Triumph of Time
Pianist Joanna MacGregor celebrates Harrison Birtwistle’s The Triumph of Time, an orchestral work she describes as “sculpted, dream-like and mesmeric”...
Kevin Volans's White Man Sleeps
Choreographer Siobhan Davies nominates White Man Sleeps by the South African-born composer Kevin Volans, and describes the experience of her collabora...
George Benjamin's At First Light
Gillian Moore champions George Benjamin’s early orchestral score At First Light, praising its “extraordinary detail and skill”; while writer and criti...
Olivier Messiaen's Chronochromie
Composer George Benjamin advocates the "exuberant, thrilling and virtuosic" orchestral piece Chronochromie by his former teacher, Olivier Messiaen; wh...
Schaeffer & Henry's Symphonie pour un homme seul
Hollywood sound designer and film editor Walter Murch nominates Symphonie pour un homme seul by Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, music he first hear...
Philip Glass's Music in Twelve Parts
Composer Nico Muhly nominates Philip Glass's Music in Twelve Parts, a large-scale set of pieces for electric organs, voice, flutes and saxophones whic...
Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King
Writer and critic Paul Driver explains why Maxwell Davies’s 8 Songs For A Mad King is so uniquely important in the development of music theatre; and t...
George Crumb's Black Angels
Violinist David Harrington celebrates George Crumb's groundbreaking 1970 work for electric string quartet, Black Angels - the work which inspired him...
Gerald Barry's Piano Quartet No.1
Composer Anna Meredith nominates Gerald Barry's "bold and daring" Piano Quartet No.1, with commentary from an established interpreter of Barry's music...
Toru Takemitsu's Kwaidan
Writer and musician David Toop celebrates Toru Takemitsu's soundtrack for Masaki Kobayashi's 1964 chiller Kwaidan, based on Lefcadio Hearn's retelling...
Luigi Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore
Theatre director Katie Mitchell describes her first encounter with the music of Italian composer Luigi Nono and her subsequent staging of Al gran sole...
Milton Babbitt's Philomel
Jazz pianist Ethan Iverson nominates Milton Babbitt's Philomel for soprano and tape, "a classic record that should be owned by all fans of the avant-g...
Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco
Film director Barrie Gavin selects Jonathan Harvey's Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco, an electroacoustic piece made from the sound of the largest bell at W...
Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen
Finnish conductor and music director of Ensemble InterContemporain Susanna Malkki pays tribute to Stockhausen's 1950s masterpiece Gruppen for 3 orches...
Luciano Berio's Sinfonia
Conductor Richard Bernas recalls his momentous first encounter with Berio's Sinfonia, a work which reflected and commented on the events of its time,...
Arvo Part's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Roxanna Panufnik nominates Arvo Part's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, "beautifully simple and spiritual" music that she feels a strong connectio...
Morton Feldman's Extensions 3
Howard Skempton singles out Extensions 3 by the American composer Morton Feldman, a piece he found "liberating, inspiring, and radically different"....
Conlon Nancarrow's Study No.21
Stephen Fry describes his delight and bewilderment at first hearing Conlon Nancarrow's Study No. 21 - also known as Canon X - for player piano. Nanca...
Brian Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet
Percussionist Steven Schick recalls how a chance meeting with Brian Ferneyhough led to the commission of Bone Alphabet, the composer's only piece for...