The music of Our Classical Century

Over the course of the Our Classical Century season, BBC Radio 3’s Essential Classics has explored 100 key musical moments. Use this page to browse and listen to recordings as we count down through a century of exciting, inspirational and rule busting music.

Our Classical Century
Radio 3 explores 100 key musical moments that shaped us, from 1918 to the present day.
Zosha Di Castri: Long Is the Journey, Short Is the Memory
Our Classical Century comes to a close with fresh new music that premieres today.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 1
As played by Sheku Kanneh-Mason at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Lucy Pankhurst and Helen Pankhurst: The Pankhurst Anthem
A new work to mark the centenary of women's suffrage in the UK.
Judith Weir: Stars, night, music and light
The first female Master of the Queen's Music.
Gyorgy Ligeti: Nonsense Madrigals
This is an archive recording by the BBC Singers conducted by Sofi Jeannin.
George Benjamin: Written on Skin
A premiere of chilling beauty and a very adult fairy tale...
Alberto Ginastera: Estancia
A Proms party piece from the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel.
Colin Matthews: Pluto
A new eighth planet for Holst's The Planets suite.
Elliott Carter: What next?
The opera that started with a car crash - as illustrated in this clip.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No 3, "Eroica"
An archive recording by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with conductor Daniel Barenboim.
Edward Elgar/Anthony Payne: Symphony No 3
1998 saw the premiere of a symphony by Elgar, more than 60 years after his death.
John Tavener: Song for Athene
The work performed at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales on 6 September 1997.
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry: I was glad
On 14 September 1996, the BBC Proms took to the great outdoors for Proms in the Park.
Harrison Birtwistle: Panic
A lot of people really did panic during the premiere of this new piece in 1995.
Thomas Adès: Powder her face
The chamber opera that captured the camp, sleaze and glamour of a 1950s sex scandal.
Kaija Saariaho: Graal théâtre
A new violin concerto, and a new understanding of what a concerto could be.
John Williams: Theme from Schindler's List
One of the most instantly recognisable and most-loved film scores of the 20th century.
Henryk Górecki: Symphony No 3
The record-breaking symphony that sets three texts about loss and grief.
Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
The 1989 Nigel Kennedy recording that would become become a record-breaking best-seller.
Giacomo Puccini: Nessun dorma from Turandot
The aria that launched the worldwide phenomenon of The Three Tenors.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Ode to (Freedom)
An historic performance on Christmas Day 1989 - after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
John Tavener: The Protecting Veil
The story of a composer and his muse - Mother Thekla, an Orthodox nun.
Mark-Anthony Turnage: Greek
A masterpiece of music theatre. (Warning: features swearing and extreme Britishness.)
John Adams: Nixon in China
In 1987, amid the dying embers of the Cold War, politicians are put on the opera stage.