Music Matters

4 June 2006

Sunday 4 June 2006 17:45-18:30 (Radio 3)

Tom Service speaks to Danish composer Poul Ruders about his opera Kafka's Trial. Plus cellist Matthew Barley presents a special report from Uzbekistan on his Between the Notes project.

Duration:

45 minutes

In This Programme

Matthew Barley in Uzbekistan
Few can claim to have turned up in Tashkent with no idea what's going to happen next - but that's just what Matthew Barley wanted when he arrived in Uzbekistan with Between the Notes. Commissioned by the British Council, Between the Notes took their own brand of improvisatory magic to the Soviet trained musicians of the Omnibus ensemble. The week climaxed with a concert of the piece created by the two groups from improvised themes, performed from memory. Matthew Barley reports on the creative journey they took together, and the obstacles they overcame.


Boccherini's Body
American cellist and academic Elisabeth Le Guin tells of her intense relationship with composer Luigi Boccherini. In her new book Boccherini's Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology she tells of the depth of the physical and emotional relationship that she has developed through playing the music of the man who died nearly 200 years ago. Her new look at his music is informed not only by traditional musicology, but by the experience of playing his sonatas, the way they make her body move and sensually interact with the music.

Paul Rouders
As Danish composer Poul Ruder's latest opera is released on CD, he takes a look back on his career so far. From his serene Danish upbringing to becoming established as an opera composer he tells Tom of his slow burning, self-taught compositional development. Since his critically acclaimed Handmaid's Tale, Ruders has been working with librettist Paul Bentley, on his latest opera Kafka's Trial, which juxtaposes Kafka's own biography with the story of 'K', the anti-hero of Kafka's novel The Trial. Tom finds out what it was that first attracted him to Kafka's bleak vision of humanity?

Richard Egarr
As he prepares to succeed Christopher Hogwood in the post of Music Director at the Academy of Ancient Music , Richard Egarr is also one of the UKs most acclaimed harpsichord players. In the middle of a series of recordings that includes Bach's Goldberg Variations, and Well-Tempered Clavier, he talks to Tom Service about the way he feels the harpsichord should be played - what being a 'wet' player means and what he feels his role as a musical interpreter should be. He also tells of his love for Stokowski, and how rather than being an early music heretic, he played a crucial role in the dissemination of early music in America .

Music Matters

Episode and Playlist Information

• 18 June 2006
• 11 June 2006
• 4 June 2006
• 21 May 2006
• 14 May 2006
• 7 May 2006
• 23 Apr 06 English Music Day

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