Music Matters Folgen

Pianist Igor Levit talks to Tom Service about his latest epic recording project – three and a half hours of music by Dmitri Shostakovich and the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson. No stranger to large-scale works he live-streamed Erik Satie’s Vexations during lockdown playing 840 repetitions over 16 hours as part of his online House Concerts. He discusses the huge challenges on every page of Stevenson’s Passacaglia and the contradictions of his life as a pianist and his political beliefs.Folk singer Martin Carthy and former High Court judge and part-time song collector Stephen Sedley join Tom to talk about their new book, ‘Who Killed Cock Robin: British Folk Songs of Crime and Punishment’, which explores the legal and moral basis of some of the most moving songs in the folk traditions of the country. We hear recordings by Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins, Rachel Newton and a 1953 archive recording of Ewan MacColl singing ‘McCaffery’, provided by the School of Scottish Studies Archives.As Russians go to the polls, we look at what the recent decline in freedoms means for artists and musicians in and out of the country. Tom speaks to Masha Alekhina, co-founder of the musical and protest collective Pussy Riot, who has just been sentenced to a year of ‘restricted freedom’ for promoting protests in support of the jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. We’re also joined by the BBC's Moscow correspondent Sarah Rainsford who was recently expelled from Russia after more than 20 years of reporting from Moscow, and pianist Katya Apekisheva who, alongside hundreds of other classical musicians, signed a letter to Vladimir Putin in February calling for the release of Alexei Navalny. And composer Joseph Horovitz shares stories from his life in music. Having fled Vienna as a child in 1938, he began his musical career in Britain as a music lecturer for the army before working as a ballet conductor and finally a composer. His music draws on a huge range of styles, especially jazz, as can be heard in his Jazz Harpsichord Concerto which was performed by Mahan Esfahani and the Manchester Collective at this year’s Proms. He talks to Tom about how his deeply personal fifth string quartet reflects his experiences of escaping Vienna, and how he finds new inspiration every day from the music around him.

As Music Matters returns to the airwaves for the Autumn, and classical music emerges from Covid along with the rest of the world, Tom Service assesses the current state of play with musicians and industry leaders, and asks them how much has really changed in the last eighteen months and what the future holds. Gillian Moore, Director of Music at the Southbank Centre in London, and Roger Wright, Chief Executive of the newly-merged Britten Pears Arts in Suffolk, explain how they navigated the issues raised for their organisations by Covid restrictions, and what they take from these experiences moving forward. Freelance trumpeter Chris Cotter spoke to Music Matters last year about finding a new living from painting and decorating when his concerts dried up in lockdowns, and he updates Tom now on his return to live music. Soprano Juliet Fraser talks, too, about her adventures with the TC Helicon during lockdown and her experiences of returning to the stage. Tom Service also speaks to Igor Toronyi-Lalic, arts editor of the Spectator and director of the London Contemporary Music Festival, who points out what went wrong for classical music in its digital online ventures.To discuss the many issues raised by these experiences of the classical music world during the Covid era, Tom Service is joined by Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, Chief Executive of UK Music, Stephen Maddock, Chief Executive of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Sarah Willis, horn player with the Berlin Philharmonic. When the Taliban held power in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, they banned music and persecuted musicians. Two decades later as they regain control of the country, we speak the Director of Afghanistan's National Institute of Music, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, about his fears of a clampdown on music by the new regime. We talk to the BBC reporter Yalda Hakim about the evolving situation inside the country and hear from Afghanistan’s most famous pop-star, Aryana Sayeed, about why musicians’ lives may be endangered as they become political targets. We speak, too, to Massood Sanjer, who’s in charge of Afghanistan’s Tolo TV network, and hear how the Taliban’s disapproval of music affects their output.

Kate Molleson looks back on a year of musical connection and reflection as she revisits some of the guests we have featured on Music Matters.Kate talks to American composer, vocalist, dancer and film artist, Meredith Monk and she shares her thoughts on nature, art and resilience through the age of pandemic. Tom Service and South African soprano, Golda Schultz look back on Golda’s memorable appearance at the 2020 Last Night of the Proms. Earlier this month, the celebrated opera director Sir Graham Vick died at the age of 67. He founded Birmingham Opera Company in 1987, and we hear Tom Service’s report from the community production of Verdi’s Otello.And finally, Kate talks to Betsy Jolas, the French composer who moved to the US in the 1940s, as she approaches her 95th birthday in August. They talk about composition, analysis and how to start writing a new piece.