Discovering Music

I rediscovered another excellent site explaining the inner workings of classical pieces, this time from the ever wonderful BBC (whom I miss oh so much out here in Americaland). If you are a classical music newbie, or even if you have tens of years of listening under your belt, you'll get something great out of these recordings.

They are a series of excellent quality RealAudio streams of the radio show "Discovering Music". Each one lasts for about forty-five minutes and deals with one piece, usually getting particularly involved in the first movement. As expected from that fine British institution (feel the love!) the production values are exceptional, and every program I have listened to so far has been a gem. They talk about the historical background, the life of the composer, the large scale structure of the piece, and the fine structure: the musical themes, their development, how they interact, and where they end up.

I wish all my liner notes were in this much detail, with this much feeling! Now if only they'd do Shostakovich's string quartets 12 and 13, symphony 15, and cello concerto 2 for me...