William Walton composed music for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and King George VI, pieces of pomp and circumstance. But Walton grew up far from Buckingham Palace and the world of the Windsors, in the northern working-class town of Oldham, seemingly destined to work at the cotton mill. Even when he escaped to Oxford and then London, making high-society friends such as the Sitwells, his early music was intense and avant-garde - not at all suitable for a royal affair. So how did Walton become the royal composer of choice? This week, we’ll find out. Music Featured: Coronation Te Deum Litany Façade: 2. En famille Portsmouth Point Sinfonia Concertante Façade (extracts) Viola Concerto As You Like It: A Poem for Orchestra after Shakespeare Symphony No 1 Crown Imperial Violin Concerto Henry V Hamlet Troilus and Cressida (excerpts) Orb and Sceptre Cello Concerto Presented by Donald Macleod Produced by Alice McKee For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for William Walton (1902-1983) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lbzn And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

The streets must have seemed like they were paved with gold when Haydn visited London in 1791. He was feted and applauded everywhere he went as one of Europe’s leading composers. He hobnobbed with royalty, the Prince of Wales commissioned a portrait of him from leading society portraitist John Hoppner. It’s still regarded as one of the best images we have today. Haydn could hardly have imagined all this as a boy. His really is a rags to riches story. Born in 1732 in humble circumstances, Haydn's musical talent won him a position as a choir boy in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral. However, he was forced to leave after his voice broke and, by the age of 17, he was on the streets, with only “three miserable shirts and a worn-out coat” to his name. Happily his life did then take an upward turn. Haydn was employed by the Esterhàzys, one of the most powerful and influential families in the Hapsburg monarchy for an astonishing 48 years. But this week, Donald Macleod puts the public face of this celebrated figure to one side. He’s going to be looking at Haydn through a narrower lens, drawing a picture of the composer through the relationships he enjoyed with some of his closest family and friends. Music Featured: Piano Trio No 4 in F major, Hob.XV:39 Signor voi sapete, Hob.XXIVb:7 Symphony No 1 in D major, Hob 1/1 (1st mvt) Salve Regina in E major, Hob. XXIIIb:1 (I. Salve Regina) Horn Concerto No 1 in D, Hob.VIId:3 Vada adagio, signorina, Hob.XXIVb:12 L'isola disabilitata, Act 2, sc 12 Sonata No 46 in A flat major Hob XVI/46 II (3rd mvt) L’infedeltà delusa, Act I. Scene 1: Introduction: Bella sera The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross (Sonata No 2) Armida, Act 1: Parti Rinaldo - Se pietade avete Mass in D minor, H.XXII:11 “Nelson Mass” (Gloria) Motetto "O ceolitum beati", Hob. XXIIIa:G9 Keyboard Concerto No 2 in D major, Hob.XVIII:2 String Quartet in E flat major, Op 33, No 2 'The Joke' (2nd mvt) Michael Haydn: Requiem in C minor (excerpts) String Quartet in G major, Op 33, No 5 (2nd & 4th mvts) Symphony No 82 in C major, 'The Bear' (1st mvt) Missa Cellensis in honorem Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ, Hob. XXII:5 (excerpts) String Quartet in D major, Op 64, No 5, 'The Lark' (1st mvt) Piano Trio No 39 in G major, Hob.XV:25 'Gypsy' (3rd mvt) Symphony No 91 in E flat major (2nd mvt) Piano Sonata No 59 in E flat major, HobXVI:49 (1st mvt) Piano Trio No 40 in F sharp minor, Hob: XV:26 (2nd mvt) Die Schöpfung, Part 3, (No 30) Presented by Donald Macleod Produced by Johannah Smith For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001l4cf And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Donal Macleod explores how, from childhood, Poulenc was exposed to two versions of Paris: one that was working class and religious, another that was high society, secular... and avant-garde. Francis Poulenc was the epitome of Parisian high society: suave, convivial and connected. Or was that how he wanted us to see him? The critic Claude Rostand famously commented that Poulenc was a combination of “moine et voyou” - monk and rogue. This week, we follow the composer from Paris’s artisanal upper class heartland, to the city’s dark underbelly, discovering the moments when the monk and the rogue met face-to-face. Music Featured: Piano Concerto in C-Sharp Minor, FP 146 (1st mvt) Sonata for Piano 4 Hands Gnossiennes Rapsodie Nègre L’Album des Six (5th mvt, ‘Valse’) Les Biches Concert Champêtre Les Soirées de Nazelles Les Litanies à la Vierge Noire Bleuet Les Animaux Modèles L’Histoire de Babar Les Mamelles de Tirésias La Fraîcheur et le Feu Les Dialogues des Carmelites La Voix Humaine Presented by Donald Macleod Produced by Alice McKee For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lkym And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

Sir Arthur Sullivan became the most renowned composer of the Victorian era, with his fame spreading across Europe and America too. His output spanned many genres including oratorios, a symphony, chamber music, hymns and anthems, but it was for his collaboration with the librettist W. S. Gilbert on operetta’s that he is best remembered today. He was a personal friend to royalty, and he was knighted when he was in his early forties. He also had a liking for playing cards, buying race horses and gambling, frequently loosing the substantial earnings from the stage works he’d composed. Sullivan became a pillar of the British musical establishment, so that when he died, despite wanting to be buried with his family in Brompton Cemetery, he was laid to rest in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, with an additional service at the Chapel Royal in St. James’s Palace. Music Featured: HMS Pinafore (Overture) HMS Pinafore (When I was a lad) O Israel Overture ‘In Memorium’ Will he come? Symphony in E major, ‘Irish Symphony’ (Andante espressivo) Cox and Box (excerpt) The Merry Wives of Windsor (excerpts) Lead Kindly Light HMS Pinafore (excerpts) Pirates of Penzance (excerpt) Who is like unto thee Mikado (excerpts) The Golden Legend (excerpt) Ruddigore (excerpts) The Yeomen of the Guard (excerpts) Ivanhoe (excerpt) Utopia Limited (Society has quite forsaken) The Long Day Closes Presented by Donald Macleod Produced by Luke Whitlock For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kpgh And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z

As Christians around the world prepare for Easter, Donald Macleod explores the life and music of two nuns who were also composers. Though Hildegard of Bingen and Isabella Leonarda lived five centuries apart, their stories and music are connected by their shared faith and their shared vocations. Both lived cloistered lives, shut away in convents and cut off from the everyday concerns of the societies in which they lived. Yet, they also enjoyed a profoundly rich and human connection with the world and with their God, revealed in the music and poetry they created and sent into the world. Music Featured: Hildegard: Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans Leonarda: Sonata, Op 16 No 8 Hildegard: Columba Aspexit Hildegard (ed Wishart): O frondens virga Hildegard: O virga ac diadema Leonarda: Memento rerum Leonarda: Volo Jesum, Op 3 No 4 Leonarda: Sonata, Op 16 No 3 Leonarda: O anima mea Leonarda: Dixit dominus, Op 19 Hildegard: Ordo Virtutum (Prologue and Scene 1) Hildegard: Antiphon, O quam mirabilis est Leonarda: Purpurei Flores, Op 20 Leonarda: Magnificat Op 19 Leonarda: Sonata Op 16, No 12 Leonarda: Ave suavis dilectio, Op 6 No 5 Hildegard: O rubor sanguinis Hildegard: O Ecclesia Presented by Donald Macleod Produced by Chris Taylor For full track listings, including artist and recording details, and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after broadcast) head to the series page for Hildegard of Bingen and Isabella Leonarda https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kh9p And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve featured on Composer of the Week here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z