Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Embracing The Classical

Mark Tully and composer James MacMillan discuss the benefits of reaching out to new audiences with classical music. With music from the Scottish Symphony Orchestra tour of India.

Luciano Pavarotti said it was "so important at a young age to be invited to embrace classical music and opera." Mark Tully and composer James MacMillan discuss the cross-cultural benefits of sharing classical traditions with new audiences and the power of music to unite.

The two first met during the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's tour of India earlier this year. Most of the music in this programme is taken from those concerts, as well as from the family concerts which accompanied them, where young audiences got their first introduction to Western classical traditions.

Mark and James compare the classical traditions of East and West and consider the exciting opportunities for music in a new global culture.

With music by Bizet, Schoenberg and Tchaikovsky and readings from Coleridge, Joyce Grenfell and Alice Herz-Sommer.

The readers are Jane Whittenshaw, David Westhead and Francis Cadder.

Produced by Frank Stirling
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 27 Jun 202123:30
BBC Radio 4

More episodes

Previous

The Fragile Contract

Next

Commemoration

See all episodes from Something Understood

Music Played

  • Gordon Cree

    A medley of Eightsome Reels

    Performer: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Performer: James MacMillan.
    • Live recording by Radio 3 of a concert in Mumbai.

  • Georges Bizet

    Carmen

    Performer: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Performer: James MacMillan.
    • Live recording by Radio 3 of a concert in Mumbai.

  • Arnold Schoenberg

    De profundis (Psalm 130), Op. 50b

    Performer: Robert Craft.
    • Schoenberg: Violin Concerto; A Survivor from Warsaw.
    • Naxos.

  • Frédéric Chopin

    12 Etudes, Op. 10: No. 3 In E Major, "Tristesse" (Sadness)

    Performer: İdil Biret.
    • The Very Best Of Frederic Chopin.
    • Naxos.

  • Duke Ellington, Jimmy Hamilton

    Overture

    • Nutcracker Suite.
    • Hallmark Recordings.

  • Arturo Márquez

    Danzon No. 2

    Performer: Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Performer: Gustavo Dudamel.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • Fiesta.

  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

    Symphony No. 4

    Performer: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Performer: James MacMillan.
    • Live recording by Radio 3 of a concert in Mumbai.

Readings

Title: Nursery School
Author: Joyce Grenfell
Published in ‘George, Don't Do That’ by Hodder & Stoughton

Title: A Garden of Eden in Hell: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer
Author: Melissa Muller, Reinhard Piechocki
Published by Pan

Title: Lines Composed in a Concert-Room
Author: S.T. Coleridge
Published in The Music Lover's Literary Companion by JR Books Ltd

Title: Merchant of Venice
Author: William Shakespeare

Broadcasts

  • Sun 2 Nov 201406:05
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 2 Nov 201423:30
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 27 Jun 202106:05
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sun 27 Jun 202123:30
    BBC Radio 4