Podcast · Music

Classical For Everyone

by Peter Cudlipp · English · Music

Five hundred years of incredible music. No expertise is necessary. All you need are ears. If you've ever been even slightly curious about classical music then this is the podcast for you.

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 15 min
Latest: 10 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

10 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 25 min

Mozart Opera Overtures

Why Mozart Opera Overtures? Well, whilst they were not really intended to be stand-alone pieces they have in many instances become favourites of concert programmers and broadcasters, not to mention the public. And with most of them being about five minutes long you can fit eleven of them into a podcast episode! They are also in a way an interesting lens into the development of a composer… since Mozart wrote his first opera very early and completed two in the final year of his life. And in between he wrote another 15 to 20 operas depending on how you define them. So I'm going to play them in…

Play episodeWhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 29 most recent

4 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
Film Music
Who knew that Camille Saint-Saens of 'Carnival of the Animals' fame wrote the world's first film score? Or that the Pulitzer Prize for music has been given to only one work for the screen. Or that five composers, including the American music theatre legend Richard Rodgers, were approached for 'Lawrence of Arabia' before the job fell to an unknown Frenchman who was given six weeks to get the job done. Or that one of the great 20 th century symphonies started out as music for a movie. Well I certainly didn't… until I started working on the 'Film Music' episode of 'Classical For Everyone'.…
25 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Diving For Pearls – Part Two
[Please feel free to leap straight into this second part of the 'Diving for Pearls' episode but there's background information in the first half you might enjoy if by chance you have missed it.] How did the term 'baroque', the French version of a very old Portuguese word for a misshapen pearl… which became an insult applied to complicated music… and was then rehabilitated as a description of an ornate style of art and architecture… become the term now almost universally used to describe music written between 1600 and 1750? And what has 'diving' got to do with anything? The answers are in…
25 Sep 2026 · 48 min
Diving For Pearls – Part One
How did 'baroque', the French version of a very old Portuguese term for a misshapen pearl… which became an insult applied to complicated music… and was then rehabilitated as a description of an ornate style of art and architecture… become the term now almost universally used to describe music written between 1600 and 1750? And what has 'diving' got to do with anything? The answers are in this two part episode of Classical For Everyone exploring lesser known Baroque composers. And there's a merman. But way more importantly… there is amazing music by Rameau, Rebel, Caldara, von Biber, Marais,…
13 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
Night and Darkness
It could be argued that Night and Darkness are sort of the same. The Night is Dark. That's kind of the point. But there are brightly moonlit nights and there are very dark nights; in more ways than one, and then there is darkness that is as black as night. So it's "Night and Darkness"… including symphonic night music from Gustav Mahler, a song of a rose on a summer night from Hector Berlioz, a night of love from Augusta Holmès, Ludwig van Beethoven's political prisoner crying out from a pitch black dungeon, Sergei Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil and Arnold Schoenberg's music of two lovers…
6 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
Frederic Chopin
I have been asking myself why it has taken close to a hundred episodes before I got around to one devoted to Chopin. When I was chatting with Claude about doing the episode he described my neglect of the composer as, and I quote, 'an alarming gap… genuinely startling given Chopin's centrality to the repertoire and his obvious appeal to audiences'. So, if even my AI buddy is scratching his virtual head (and frankly being a little pretentious and unsupportive); then there may be listeners to the show who feel the same. So, with the help of eight pianists, a couple of cellists, a conductor and…
30 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Germans In Italy
L et's be fair, this is a deeply flawed title. Why? Well the idea is to play music written by German composers when they were living in or visiting Italy. But in the 18 th century… which is when most of the music comes from… Germany and Italy as we know them today did not exist. And to make things worse… the whole episode is really an excuse to play some music by a man now well and truly owned by modern Austria… which also didn't exist. What became Italy, Germany and Austria were a wonderfully confusing collection of kingdoms, republics, city states, free imperial trading centres,…
23 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 18 min
Chamber Music Three + A Festival Conversation
In two earlier episodes I have referred to Chamber Music as 'Music For Small Spaces'. But if you search more broadly for that term you will come up with very little. If you want music for small groups of instruments often performed in intimate spaces then, in English at least, you are going to be looking for 'chamber music'. And in this episode there will be chamber music from Maurice Ravel, Douglas Lilburn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Karol Szymanowski, Laurie Anderson, Johannes Brahms, Michael Norris and Antonin Dvorak. Plus I will be talking a little about chamber music festivals and playing…
17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 31 min
Felix Mendelssohn
In the latest episode of the 'Classical For Everyone' podcast… Scottish caves and rescuing Bach, becalmed boats and banking intrigue, Shakespearean fairies and a garment sellers' orchestra, a prophet in the wilderness… and a stolen statue. And… if that wasn't enough… eleven pieces of music from Felix Mendelssohn... perhaps the most gifted and quietly underrated composer of the nineteenth century.[Episode image: Portrait of Mendelssohn by Wilhelm Friedrich von Schadow, 1834.]
6 Aug 2026 · 46 min
Music For The Very, Very Young
A good friend asked if I could do an episode of music for her very young daughter. So, welcome to a bit of a Classical For Everyone podcast experiment. On the plus side for the intended audience… There's not a lot of talking. And the show is well under an hour. This might be balanced by the host's attempt to channel the children's books of his (distant) youth. Like I said, it's an experiment. But the music is terrific… Some perhaps expected… some not so much… The beginning of Michael Haydn's Toy Symphony, Edvard Greig's 'In the Hall of The Mountain King', 'Aquarium' from Camille Saint-Saëns'…
31 Jul 2026 · 42 min
Sunday Night Special … Camille Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony)
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Camille Saint-Saën's 3 rd Symphony. Known as the Organ Symphony for reasons that will become pretty obvious. In this performance…
25 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 5 min
Neglected Beethoven
Is Ludwig van Beethoven neglected? No, not at all. But with the well-deserved emphasis on his symphonies, a couple of piano concertos and a handful of piano sonatas and string quartets; there is another roughly eighty hours of music to explore. And in the same way that maybe Picasso, Rembrandt, Shakespeare and Dickens created very little that is not of extraordinary quality… there is a bunch of incredible music that is not going to be encountered by the casual listener and that is what I want to feature in this show. An overture, excerpts from a misnumbered piano concerto, a string quartet,…
19 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 18 min
Not Dead Yet - Two
When a podcast is about five hundred years of music, there is going to be a reasonable amount of music from people who are no longer with us. Now if you combine that with the baggage of the term 'classical' then you can kind of forget that there is a lot of music being written, performed, recorded and released right now. Music by composers who are still very much amongst the living. And you are going to hear from seven of them in this episode… Gabriela Ortiz, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Maria Grenfell, Unsuk Chin, Anna Clyne, Paul Stanhope and Joe Hisaishi. I hope you enjoy the second 'Not Dead Yet'…
12 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
Winter
Winter... Now if you are in the northern hemisphere maybe think of this as a form of aural air conditioning. But if, like me, you are near the bottom of the planet then the music will be bringing up sensations you are all too familiar with. I hope that wherever you are listening to this you are not shivering too much or sweating too much and that for the next hour and a quarter some wintery music will bring you some pleasure. Music from Geirr Tveitt, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Frederic Delius, Frederic Chopin, Sergei Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten, Josef Haydn, Johannes Brahms, Jabra Latham, Morten…
3 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 6 min
Music For Pets
There may have been wine involved when the decision to put together a show of music for pets was first discussed. But when I was presented with art for the episode featuring a the surprisingly gifted cavoodle, Bob; it was too late to go back. So, music for pets it is. But I don't imagine you lining up your Spots, Tiggers, Fidos, Nuggets and Bobs for them to listen appreciatively to your audio device. No, the music is really more about a selection of the animals that we happen to enjoy as pets. And like all the themes for Classical for Everyone it is an excuse to find some wonderful music……
25 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
The Other Russians
Who are 'the other Russians'? Well, I've played a fair bit of music by Russian and Soviet era composers in the show. Tchaikovsky got two whole episodes and there has been relatively frequent appearances by Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. But there are a quite a number of other composers more than worthy of a good listen who I have largely ignored… 'the other Russians'. So for this episode I have music by Glinka, Balakirev, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Scriabin. Most of it is orchestral but there is nine minutes of opera and some very sweet miniatures for…
21 Jun 2026 · 39 min
Sunday Night Special … Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 6
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sixth Symphony. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Andrew Davis.
12 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
Franz Schubert 1
He was taught by Antonio Salieri and his music was admired by Ludwig van Beethoven… but he enjoyed very little success in his short lifetime. It would take decades after his death for his music to make its way onto concert stages… and for him to become one of the best loved composers who ever lived. If you are new to his music I hope that over the next hour and a bit I'll give you a sense of why that is the case. I'm going to concentrate on music Schubert wrote between 1814 and 1822, that is between the ages of 17 and 25, including sections from two symphonies, two piano sonatas and a piano…
6 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 22 min
Pieter Wispelwey - Cellist
This episode features a living musician, still very much in his prime… the Dutch cellist, Pieter Wispelwey. So, what prompted me to choose him? Well, a few things. I've been a fan for a long while and have been lucky enough to hear him play a number of times over the last three decades. And about 18 months ago the record company Channel Classics released a big box of CDs of recordings he made for the company… and they're terrific. And Wispelwey is equally at home with music from any of the last several centuries. Plus he is still touring… so for many of you listening to this podcast… he will…
28 May 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
Seville… Love and Dreams
Music from and about Seville, the city of Carmen's tobacco factory and Figaro's barber shop; the city of flamenco and fiestas; the city where more operas are set than any other; and the city where almost eight centuries of Spanish dominance does not seem to have been able to erase the sense of the proximity of North Africa and the cultural heritage of the Moorish world. Music by Isaac Albeniz, Joaquin Rodrigo, Georges Bizet, Joaquin Turina, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Francisco Guerrero and Giochhino Rossini. All of whom revel in the shifting mirage and extravagant reality that is Seville. [The…
21 May 2026 · 1 hr 11 min
Muses... Worth Repeating*
Much music has been inspired by love, passion or obsession… but only in a handful of cases has the person who was the inspiration… the muse… become publicly linked to a work. Here are the stories of six of them… Alma Schindler, Josephine Brunsvik, Kamila Stösslová, Peter Pears, Clara Wieck and Mathilde Wesendonck. And the music they inspired… by Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Leos Janacek, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. [The episode image is a photographic portrait of Alma Schindler taken about eighteen months before she met Mahler. It is likely the image was…
14 May 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
The Sea… Worth Repeating*
Composers have drawn inspiration from the sea for centuries but only with the rise of the larger orchestras of the 1800s did they get the palate needed to create fully persuasive depictions of it. So, apart from one piece for solo piano, major orchestral works are what you will hear in this episode... 'The Sea and Sinbad's Ship' from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Sheherazade', an unfairly short interlude from Benjamin Britten's opera 'Peter Grimes', the overture to Richard Wagner's 'The Flying Dutchman', Claude Debussy's 'The Sunken Cathedral', New Zealander Gareth Farr's massive 'From the…
8 May 2026 · 1 hr 7 min
Maurice Ravel... Worth Repeating*
Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937) is arguably the most beloved composer France has given the world… able to take classical and pre-classical forms, absorb the harmonic colours of Impressionism, draw on the dance traditions of his Basque mother's heritage, and infuse his later work with the energy of early jazz. All of it synthesised into a language that is quite distinctly his own. In this episode… a section of his first Piano Concerto, the Pavane for a Dead Princess, a little taste of his String Quartet, the amazing orchestral work La Valse, or The Waltz, the 'Blues' section of his second Violin…
2 May 2026 · 1 hr 31 min
Recent Discoveries Two
Recent Discoveries Two T his episode is the second one called 'recent discoveries'. And that should only be taken in the very personal sense of 'recent discoveries' for me. Some of it is indeed recent but in addition to music written in the last few years, there are a couple of pieces that date back to the early and mid-20 th century so they were well and truly discovered before I encountered them. I want to apply a little bit of gentle pressure on behalf of the unfamiliar. I am going to hope that you will be pleasantly surprised by how good music by people whose names might not know can be……
25 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 8 min
Before Dawn
Music for the hour before dawn. Which is in no way intended to be too prescriptive… the episode can be listened to any time… but I hope it is music that has a calmness and perhaps a contemplative tone that suits the hour when there is a glow in the sky, things are at their most quiet… and you have the world to yourself. The music is by Felix Mendelssohn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Luys Milan, Josef Haydn, Georg Friedrich Handel, Rachel Portman, Nicholas Gombert, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach. Regular listeners to the podcast might recognise a couple of pieces from earlier…
18 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 28 min
The Oboe
Time for some music from one of the oldest instruments in the orchestra. True to the Old French word its English name came from… 'hautbois' with 'haut' meaning both high and loud and 'bois' meaning wood… the oboe found its place as the earliest woodwind instrument through its high range and penetrating volume. And whilst it can be piercing when required, it can also be playful, can manage a soaring lyricism and can epitomise grace and beauty. Music from Jennifer Higdon, Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Camille Saint-Säens, Richard Strauss, Samuel Barber, Ross Edwards and Antonio…
11 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 12 min
An Exaltation of Bachs
Music written by people related to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. That may seem an odd way put a show together. If you were to make a playlist of the greatest hits of people related to Taylor Swift, it would be a very short list. But if you ever wanted to get into a complicated debate about nature versus nurture, the Bach clan of what is now northern Germany would be an interesting place to start. Somewhere between twenty and thirty relatives of Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music still recorded and performed two and three centuries later. And these were not merchants who wrote a few…
5 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 20 min
Conductors 1 – Antal Dorati
Why a conductor? The outcomes of the complicated relationships conductors have with orchestras and ensembles, with record companies and the public; and with composers living and dead, are in themselves interesting… but for the purposes of this show it is the recorded legacy that matters and Antal Dorati's ranks amongst the finest of his generation. Dorati (1906 - 1988) was a Hungarian Jew who was able to escape Europe as World War Two commenced and he made the USA his home for much of the rest of his life. Choosing Dorati is also an excellent way to play some of the music that has been…
29 Mar 2026 · 45 min
Sunday Night Special … Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 4
The name comes from the night of the week when for some of us, the frustrations of insomnia hit the hardest… and because my preferred antidote is getting lost in some music. Of course this series is for everyone… but it is perhaps intended a little more for those of you whose sleep has been troubled. The idea of the special is to play just one piece, uninterrupted and in its entirety… with a few minutes of background explained at the end of the episode. This month… Johannes Brahms Fourth Symphony. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Manfred Honeck.
27 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 19 min
Solace… Music To Hold You
I was listening to the conductor Joshua Weilerstein's podcast 'Sticky Notes' the other day. It was an episode on Ludwig van Beethoven's 8th string quartet. He was playing the second section and he described the music as having a sense of 'consolation'… and there was something about that which really struck me. So I started looking into music connected to the idea of consolation but the more I delved the more I realised that wasn't quite what I was hearing in the Beethoven. For me it was not about the small gift or healing gesture to balance a loss… it was more about the small supportive joys…

About Classical For Everyone

Five hundred years of incredible music. No expertise is necessary. All you need are ears. If you've ever been even slightly curious about classical music then this is the podcast for you.

Classical For Everyone is a English music podcast from Peter Cudlipp. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Peter Cudlipp
Language: English
Category: Music
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 1 hr 15 min
Latest episode: 10 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1795489421
Rights: 2025

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English music

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.