Presto Music Classical Podcast
Conversations from the world of classical music hosted by Presto Music's Paul Thomas, David Smith, Rob Cowan, Matt Ash and more. Guests have included artists such as Jess Gillam, Anna Lapwood and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and respected writers and critics like Rob Cowan, David Hurwitz and Andrew Mellor. Visit us at www.prestomusic.com
Episodes
57 episodes
James Rhodes shares some of his MANíA
Matthew Ash enjoyed a wide-ranging and free-wheeling conversation with pianist James Rhodes, coinciding with the release of new album, MANíA. In a coming together of two people passionate about piano music, they discuss everything from romance ...
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55:33
Rufus Wainwright on his Dream Requiem
Matthew Ash chats with Rufus Wainwright about the premiere recording of his Dream Requiem, the recordings of Verdi's Requiem that captured his attention from an early age, and some of the other inspirations behind his diverse musical e...
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24:24
Manfred Honeck talks to Rob Cowan about Bruckner Symphony No.7
Amid the plethora of Bruckner recordings released to mark the composer’s bicentenary this year, Manfred Honeck’s account of Symphony No. 7 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (coupled with a new commission by Mason Bates) stands out for what...
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1:09:31
Rebeca Omordia talks African Pianism
Pianist Rebeca Omordia recently released her second album of African piano music, African Pianism Volume 2, bringing the classical music of native composers the attention it deserves. I had the pleasure of chatting with her to find out...
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23:10
Twenty-Five Years of LSO Live
To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the London Symphony Orchestra's own label, Head of LSO Live Becky Lees, first violinist Maxine Kwok, and principal percussionist Neil Percy talk to James about how the label came to exist, the proces...
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51:12
Nunconventional - The Poor Clares of Arundel on their second album for Decca
Another second-album episode! A follow-up not to a trailblazingly exploratory recording (as when we spoke to Heloïse Werner last episode) but to a quietly uplifting one, filled with spirituality and peace. The Poor Clares of Arundel...
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22:20
A Close-Up Look - Heloïse Werner on her latest solo album
Hot on the heels of 2022's Phases comes a second album from acclaimed young singer-composer Heloïse Werner, Close-Ups. Drawing together works by Bingen, Strozzi, the French Baroque composer Julie Pinel, and Errollyn Wallen, it...
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36:47
Berliner Philharmoniker celebrates a double anniversary
This year the Berliner Philharmoniker celebrates two anniversaries, with the online Digital Concert Hall turning 15, and the Berliner Philharmoniker label marking its first decade. Rob Cowan spoke to Olaf Maninger, who alongside a busy schedule...
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25:09
Doubling Brahms - Busoni and his violin concerto with Francesca Dego
Violinist Francesca Dego kicks off the Busoni centenary celebrations with her new album, pairing his concerto with that of Brahms - a juxtaposition that might seem strange, until you realise (as Francesca describes) the deep connections between...
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37:09
An Invitation to the Dance - Storming the ‘barricades mystérieuses’ with Martin James Bartlett
Pianist Martin James Bartlett first came to many people’s attention in 2014, when he won the BBC Young Musician Award. A Proms debut followed the next year, and a recording contract with Warner Classics not long after. To date, both of Martin’s...
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28:55
La Divina - Rob Cowan and Alain Lanceron on the centenary of Maria Callas's birth
As every opera-fan must surely be aware by now, December saw the centenary of Maria Callas’s birth, and Warner Classics marked the occasion by issuing the most comprehensive collection of her recordings ever released – clocking in at a whopping...
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56:18
Tudor Wild Child - Thomas Weelkes with Dr Katie Bank
Although plenty of attention has been lavished on the four hundredth anniversary of the death of William Byrd, his contemporary Thomas Weelkes also died in 1623 - on the 30th of November - and has seen rather less in the way of commemoration.
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27:29
Take me to your Lieder - Schubert in English with Roderick Williams, Rowan Pierce and Christopher Glynn
The 'Schubert in English' series on Signum Classics sees its fourth instalment this year - following up Winter Journey, Swansong and The Fair Maid of the Mill with a wider-ranging collection of songs, sung by Roderick...
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45:00
Sound the Trombone! Onyx Brass at 30 with Amos Miller
As "the classiest brass ensemble in Britain" turns 30, Onyx Brass's trombonist Amos Miller looks back over three decades of brass quintet music-making, with an eye on exploring contemporary repertoire. We discuss the group's latest album, 'The ...
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25:16
A Great Musical Dett - Choral Music by Black Composers with Dr Marques Garrett
A discussion of the OUP's recently-published collection of sacred and secular choral works by Black composers, with its editor Dr Marques Garrett - taking in Vicente Lusitano, Undine Smith Moore, R Nathaniel Dett (Dr Garrett's own particular la...
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Season 3
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Episode 42
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34:56
Standing out from the Crowd - Arthur Bliss with Paul Spicer
Arthur Bliss was one of the most important British musicians of his age. Having served with distinction in the Great War, in which he was both injured and gassed, he subsequently became the most performed British composer abroad. He served as D...
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Season 3
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Episode 41
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50:54
A Russian Soul in Exile - Rachmaninoff with Fiona Maddocks
The great Russian Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff declared that his music was "the product of his temperament, therefore Russian", but he spent the final 26 years of life in exile after fleeing Russia in 1917. While in exile ...
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Season 3
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Episode 40
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51:26
A Mercury Legend - Antal Doráti with Rob Cowan and Thomas Fine
Earlier this year we saw the release of not one, but two box sets dedicated to recordings by the Minnesota Orchestra under their Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti, recordings made by the Mercury Record Company in the 1950's. To disc...
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Season 3
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Episode 39
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1:11:35
Belle de nuit – Chatting to Emmanuel Despax about 'Après un rêve'
Some "concept" albums can seem a little contrived – with themes not so much neatly interwoven as crudely welded onto one another. Not so Emmanuel Despax's new album Après un rêve, which draws together its three main ideas so naturally ...
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Season 3
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Episode 38
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18:29
Brahms In The Time Machine – Ein Deutsches Barockrequiem with Lionel Meunier
Over the nearly twenty years since its formation, Vox Luminis has appeared in our metaphorical pages plenty of times – the Belgian early music ensemble consistently combines original and exploratory programming with impeccable musicianship. Eve...
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Season 3
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Episode 37
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34:40
I've Started, So I'll Finish – A Return to Mozart with Robert Levin
Robert Levin set out to record a complete set of Mozart's works for keyboard and orchestra. After several highly successful and critically-acclaimed volumes over the following decade, fate eventually intervened to force the project into t...
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Season 3
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Episode 36
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26:50
Tom & Will (& Jimmy & Roddy) – Tudor Anniversaries with Fretwork and The King's Singers
2023 sees the quadricentennials of the deaths of both William Byrd - sacred polyphonist, virginalist and recusant Catholic - and Thomas Weelkes, remembered especially for his madrigals, his verse services and his repeated tellings-off by his bo...
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Season 3
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Episode 35
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17:45
Golden Oldies - The Brodsky Quartet at 50
Founded by four ambitious teenagers in Middlesbrough in 1972, the Brodsky Quartet’s extraordinary fifty-year career has encompassed collaborations with musicians including Sting, Björk and Sir Paul McCartney as well as a whole host of superb re...
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Season 3
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Episode 34
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56:04
Four with Scores - Quartet with Leah Broad
One of the most keenly anticipated music biographies in 2023 has been 'Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World' a wonderfully vivid account of the lives, times and music of 4 extraordinarily talented composers from the late 19th and 2...
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Season 5
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Episode 33
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38:24