Nearly launch time. Monday 1st December at 12 midnight GMT, discover a sequence of Mahler recordings dating from 1903 - 1929, in Episode 13 of the Classic Music Podcast.

Launching 1st November, Episode 12 of our Classic Music Podcast, relives the life of violinist Josef Hassid who recorded nine 78s and then began a descent into a very dark place. Listen on many podcasting platforms.

Hector Berlioz created a drug induced world of dreams and psions in his Symphonie Fantastique. Episode 9 of our Classic Music Podcast - Five Fantastic, Fantastic's - looks at five very different versions of this extraordinary music.

In our latedt Classic Music Podcast, go behind the microphone with the early recordings made by legendary producer John Culshaw. Includes some surprises!

From 12am UK time on Tuesday Episode 4 of our Classic Music Podcast asks the question "Who Was Dinu Lipatti?" Hear some of the greatest piano recordings of all time, made during the late 1940s at Abbey Road studios. Listen on many of the usual podcasting platforms.

Saturday 1st March, from 12am (UK time), catch Episode 3 of our Classic Music Podcast - A Pile of Planets - in which Laurence Lewis goes into deep space with Sir Adrian Boult's many recordings of Gustav Holst's Planets Suite. Listen on all the usual Podcasting platforms.

Within the next few hours an interview with conductor Jakub Hrusa and features on Vinyl Vanguard and James Brawn recording Beethoven Piano Sonatas will be leaving our Classic Music Podcast. Launching on 1st February, A Tale of Two Exhibitions - sounds from the dawn of LP and Hi-Fi!

Our new Classic Music Podcast - nearly 100 plays since 1st Jan! Sounds of Smetana conducted by Rafael Kubelik.

It's nearly time for Episode 1 of the new series of our Classic Music Podcast. Picking up on Smetana and Kubelik after our six month break . Find it where you get your podcasts.

Wednesday 11th December, is the 15th anniversary since our unforgettable Helen left us. We'd been together for 15 years, so that makes 30 years Helen's been a part of my life. It's been remarked that "Helen was everywhere," so here's a photo of her in the grounds of an imposing palace in Dresden.

For us it's that time of the year, and this time it's a special anniversary due on Wednesday 11th.

Marvelling at the imagination and poetry of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea stories. Prompting the thought - who is the greater story teller, Ursula K. Le Guin or James Joyce?

Schubert's Symphony No. 9 doesn't get performed as much as it used to. Is it an extended bucolic ramble around old Vienna or something darker? Thoughts prompted by an historic live performance by the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Guido Cantelli, and William Walton conducting his 1st Symphony.

Cancelled scan at hospital this morning due to technical problem. It's surprising how rarely this happens at classical concerts and in cinemas. I can recall an incident at a Philharmonia concert with a missing instrument. Conductor Simon Rattle turned to the audience and said "you may talk!"

Of course, Czech music did not stop with Smetana and Martinu, but later 20th century contemporaries also got sidelined, while the atonal composers flourished. Cinema went in the opposite direction as a viewing of Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage and Young and Innocent show what he could do in the 1930s.

If you follow our Classic Music Podcast, we'll be back on 1st Jan 2025, after our enforced six month break, with the second part of our Smetana celebration. Did Czech music stop there? Begging the question, why the the so called "giants" of mid 20th century conducting bypassed Martinu?