Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik: ClassicFM

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Thursday, December 12, 2024

10 gifts for classical music lovers in Christmas 2024

6 December 2024, 10:55 | Updated: 9 December 2024, 17:38

By Classic FM

Looking for the ideal classical music gift? Look no further than these music books, puzzles and more – suitable for the whole family.

As Christmas draws ever nearer, our minds are starting to turn to those empty stockings.

If you’re after some Christmas gift ideas for the classical music fan in your life, be they young or old, we are here to help. Happy Christmas shopping...

Great Composers jigsaw
20 composers are featured in our charity jigsaw puzzle. Picture: Classic FM
Featuring 20 of the world’s beloved composers, Classic FM’s Great Composers jigsaw is the perfect Christmas pastime. We teamed up with UK artist and illustrator Sam Osborne to create this exclusive limited edition jigsaw, with beautiful designs of Bach and Price, Coleridge-Taylor and Beethoven.
Click here to find out more and buy a copy now.
The Very Young Person’s Guide to Christmas Carols
The Very Young Persons Guide to Christmas Carols. Picture: Classic FM / DK
Learn about the music and stories of Christmas carols in the third book of The Very Young Person’s Guide To… series.
Follow our heroes as they explore beautiful scenes inspired by some of the best-loved Christmas carols including ‘Silent Night’, ‘Once In Royal David’s City’, and ‘O Holy Night’. Original illustrations capture the beautiful story of the carols, while the sound button brings the iconic music pieces to life.
Click here to find out more or buy a copy now.
The Very Young Person’s Guide to Classical Music Collection
The Very Young Person’s Guide to Classical Music Collection. Picture: Classic FM
Classic FM’s interactive book collection, which now comprises an introduction to the orchestra, the ballet, and to the world of Christmas carols, is the perfect way to explore classical music in a fun and interactive setting – featuring beautiful illustrations, and sound buttons to bring the music to life.
Musical socks
Mozart socks. Picture: Chatty Feet
‘Music is good for your soles!’ claims Chatty Feet, the creator behind these lovely Mozart socks. You can either chop and change with their ‘Beethwoven’ foot warmers, for a fuller classical-themed present.
Click here to buy Mozart socks.
The Classic FM Puzzle Book – Relax
Classic FM Puzzle Book – Relax. Picture: Octopus Publishing / Classic FM
The Classic FM Puzzle Book – Relax is a new collection of mindful puzzles to help you relax and unwind, released on 6 October 2022 in celebration of Classic FM’s 30 years of broadcasting. Featuring a foreword by national treasure and Classic FM’s very own presenter, Alan Titchmarsh, The Classic FM Puzzle Book – Relax blends together basic trivia, devilish wordplay, and a range of visual teasers.
Click here to find out more and buy a copy now.
The Classic FM Puzzle Book 365
The Classic FM Puzzle Book 365. Picture: Classic FM
Do you know your Chopin from your Schubert? Your concerto from your cadenza?
The Classic FM Puzzle Book 365 will sharpen your musical knowledge with a fun and stimulating puzzle to challenge and entertain you every single day of the year.
From quizzes to word-searches, logic tests to missing symbols, our classical music experts have created a compendium of 365 puzzles to keep you guessing the whole year round.
Click here to find out more and buy a copy now.
Classic FM Pet Bandana
Classic FM Pet Bandana. Picture: Classic FM
Dress your furry friend in style with our special Classic FM all-over print bandana, which can also be used as a headband, necktie, or armband. Suitable for both humans and animals...
Click here to find out more and buy a copy now.
Limited Edition Classic FM mug
Classic FM mug. Picture: Classic FM
This commemorative, limited edition Classic FM mug is made from fine bone china and is the perfect way to enjoy a cup of tea and relax.
Click here to find out more and buy yours now.
Great Composers notebook
Our Great Composers collection includes a jigsaw, greetings cards and a notebook. Picture: Classic FM
Spend every day in the company of Bach, Brahms, Clara Schumann and more, with our ‘Great Composers’ notebook – a wonderful gift for your organised musical friends.
Click here to find out more or place an order now.
Bonus gift... a classic metronome
Wittner Metronome. Picture: Amazon
Help your muso friends keep time this Christmas, with a beautiful mahogany coloured metronome. Wittner does this lovely piece, which has an antique look.

Thursday, October 3, 2024

‘Mozart dropped a new single’ – classical fans queue to hear newly discovered work in Leipzig

3 October 2024, 23:04 | Updated: 3 October 2024, 23:08

Band in Leipzig perform Mozart piece

By Kyle Macdonald

Long lines of music lovers formed to hear a piece of history, as a previously unknown Mozart trio received its first public performance.

It‘s not often that you can hear new music from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But that’s just what modern audiences enjoyed last weekend, with performances of a newly discovered string trio.

Last Thursday, Leipzig municipal libraries revealed their discovery of a previously unknown work by the great Austrian composer.

The music was found in the collection of the Leipzig Municipal Library while researchers were completing a new edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s works.

Korina Kilian from the Leipzig Municipal Libraries, holds a music newly discovered manuscript. Picture: Alamy

Composed for string trio, the seven-movement piece is believed to have been written in the mid to late 1760s, when Mozart was a teenager. The manuscript features dark brown ink on off-white laid paper, with the title Serenate ex C.

The 12-minute piece has now been named Ganz kleine Nachtmusik. The first modern performance of it took place last week at the composer’s birthplace in Salzburg.

Mozart fans queue ahead of the previously unknown work’s premiere in Leipzig. Picture: Alamy

With huge excitement, Ganz kleine Nachtmusik received its German premiere at the Leipzig Opera. On Saturday, 400-metre-long queues formed in Augustusplatz outside the opera house with fans eager to hear the performance. It was played by graduates of the Johann Sebastian Bach Music School.

“Mozart dropped a new single,” commented one viewer on YouTube. Watch it being played above.

Graduates of the Johann Sebastian Bach Music School play the previously unknown work by Mozart. Picture: Alamy

“We are convinced that we can now present a completely unknown, charming piece by the young Mozart,” Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the Mozarteum Foundation, told the German Press Agency.

Leisinger said the piece displayed compositional characteristics which suggested Mozart would have been between 10 and 13 years old at the time of writing. Experts also suggested it was likely the piece was written for an outdoor performance, with the opening march intended to grab the audiences attention. Watch it in full below.

W.A. Mozart - Serenata ex C - Eine ganz kleine Nachtmusik (official release)

“Absolutely beautiful,” commented one Mozart fan, who made it to the Leipzig premiere.

“It’s an honour to be one of the first humans to hear this song in hundreds of years,” wrote another viewer on YouTube.

Later the musicians involved spoke to Classic FM and told of the ‘incredible honour’ of being selected to premiere the piece, but also the mysteriousness of the project, being handed the music without a title or explanation.

“Nobody could have ever imagined what it actually turned out to be,” Violinists David and Vincent Geer and cellist Elisabeth Zimmermann told Classic FM a week later.

“It didn't even occur to us that we might have been chosen for something this big,” Vincent told us. “We thought it would just be an ordinary little gig.”

LIttle did he or his musical partners know that they were going to be part of classical music history.

A close-up view of the manuscript discovered at Leipzig's municipal libraries. Picture: Alamy

The story of this rediscovered piece has gone viral and is surely now one of the biggest music stories of 2024.

In an era of streaming, international pop acts, and trending TikTok sounds, new music of a teenage Mozart still creates a moment like no other.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

10 best musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber – ranked

10 best musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber: from 'Phantom of the Opera' to 'Cats'. Picture: Getty/Alamy

By Maddy Shaw Roberts

Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of musical theatre’s most prolific voices. His famous stage works range from biblical to animal – we rank his 10 best.

Since Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat in the 1960s, Andrew Lloyd Webber has made a name for himself as King of the killer show tune, penning some of musical theatre’s catchiest melodies and most rousing choruses.

The subject matter he chooses is startlingly unpredictable. Who would have thought that an obscure Victorian gothic novel – Phantom of the Opera – or a collection of whimsical T.S. Eliot poems about feline psychology – Cats – would be the basis for two of the last half-century’s biggest musical hits?

The last 25 years have seen Lloyd Webber made a life peer, making him a Baron. He is the winner of 45 awards including seven Oliviers, seven Tonys and four Grammys, and owns a number of successful West End theatres through his theatre company.

And so, with more than 60 years of music to choose from, here are 10 of Lloyd Webber’s all-time greatest shows!

Love Never Dies
Love Never Dies, the fan favourite sequel to Lloyd Webber’s megahit Phantom of the Opera, was first previewed on the West End in 2010, but closed soon after and never made it to Broadway.
The musical was deemed to lack a bit of meat on the bone. But what it lacks in plot, it makes up for in music. The show has a sweeping score and soaring ballads which, when performed by the likes of Sierra Boggess and Ramin Karimloo, transport it to tenth place on the all-time best list.
'Love Never Dies' Anna O'Byrne | Love Never Dies
Aspects of Love
A revival of this 1989 musical reopened in London this year starring Michael Ball and Danielle De Niese but will soon be closing in West End, three months ahead of schedule.
Its slightly sinister plot includes multiple love affairs with a large age gap. But it has a great energy and a lovely piano-led score, with a strong hit song ‘Love Changes Everything’ – if you can turn a head to the subject matter…

'Love Changes Everything' Michael Ball | Aspects Of Love
School of Rock
Lloyd Webber’s rock musical had a strong foundation from the off, being based on the 2003 movie hit starring Jack Black as Dewey Finn, a rock guitarist-cum-substitute teacher.
It’s a classic lovable underdog story, featuring the almighty banger ‘Teacher’s Pet’, as well as an original new rebel anthem, ‘Stick it to the Man’. With a time-tested combination of driving rock rhythms, and soaring musical melodies, this is signature Lloyd Webber and remains a firm audience favourite.
Alex Brightman & the Cast Sing 'Stick it to the Man' From Broadway-Bound SCHOOL OF ROCK
Cinderella
Cinderella was Lloyd Webber’s 13th new musical, and it earned the composer some of the best reviews of his career. Its leading lady, powerhouse musical theatre star Carrie Hope Fletcher, delivers the heart-wrenching ballad ‘I Know I Have a Heart’ with aplomb, and the book, by Oscar-winning Emerald Fennel (The Crown) is funny and charming.
It was a musical hit by bad timing – not aided perhaps by its renaming to Bad Cinderella for a Broadway crowd – and Covid closures, over which the composer threatened to go to jail to save his show. But after that incredible run on Broadway, we reckon Lloyd Webber went out on a musical high.
Andrew Lloyd Webber & Carrie Hope Fletcher - Bad Cinderella (Official Music Video)
Cats
Neatly fitting into the Venn diagram of completely mad and total genius, Cats marked the end of Lloyd Webber’s run of successful shows with lyricist Tim Rice, instead being based on lyrics from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’. It’s filled with memorable moments including the glorious power ballad ‘Memory’.
Cats has made headlines in the last few years following a Hollywood film adaptation by which Lloyd Webber said he was so “emotionally damaged”, that he had to buy a therapy dog. “The one good thing to come out of it is my little Havanese puppy,” the composer dryly told a journalist.

'Memory' Elaine Paige | Cats The Musical
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a deliciously intense adaptation of Billy Wilder’s 1950 film. Coming back to the West End this year starring Nicole Scherzinger as the immortal Norma Desmond, its hit songs ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ and ‘With One Look’ put it up there with Lloyd Webber’s best. And no one does it like Glenn Close...
The Fabulous Glenn Close Sings 'With One Look' | Sunset Boulevard | The Shows Must Go On!
Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat
Now we move into the reliable realm of the longlasting Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice partnership. After meeting as teenagers, the duo would work prolifically together in a fruitful musical collaboration which produced three hit shows: Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Joseph.
Based on the Bible’s book of Genesis and originating from a cantata written for school choir, it’s one in a line of Lloyd Webber musicals with unpredictable origins that work startlingly well in musical form. Joseph is jam-packed with catchy tunes including the wide-eyed ballad ‘Any Dream Will Do’, and is a favourite at school productions today.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jason Donovan - Any Dream Will Do
Evita
Did you know this Tony-winning show started as a rock opera concept album? The unlikely 70s hit show, containing the heartaching ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ – which repeats rather a lot in various iterations throughout the musical, not that we’re complaining – has yet another unlikely subject matter, being based on the wife of an Argentinian president.
'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' Elaine Paige | EVITA
Jesus Christ Superstar
It’s hard to imagine this being written today, but boy does it have an impact. This adrenaline-pumping rock opera is well within the Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice partnership, and before it was taken over by Cats in the 80s and 90s, it was the West End’s longest running musical.
The music is thrilling, especially the moment Lloyd Webber forgot his ‘Jesus’ actor was human and gave him a stratospheric G5 to sing at the climax of ‘Gethsemane’.
Gethsemane (Steve Balsamo) - 'Musicals in Ahoy' Concert 2004 | Jesus Christ Superstar
The Phantom of the Opera
The most successful British musical in history, The Phantom of the Opera is an 80s extravaganza of decadent visuals and ageless music. It’s by far Lloyd Webber’s strongest score, from the delicate soprano plea ‘Think Of Me’ to the bare-chested, full throttle ‘The Point of No Return’. Devastatingly romantic, it’s been an incredible showcase over the years for some of the most dizzying soprano voices – from Lesley Garrett to Sierra Boggess.