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Rule-Breakers in Classical Music

Rule-breakers in classical music: Tom Service hosts a live debate from Sage Gateshead, with Kevin Volans, Stevie Wishart, John Butt and Nicholas Baragwanath.

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45 minutes

Rule breakers in Classical Music

How do composers challenge received ideas in classical music?

Tom Service hosts a debate with some of the leading musicians of today: the composer Kevin Volans, the composer and hurdy-gurdy performer Stevie Wishart, the Bach scholar and director of the Dunedin Consort, John Butt, and the musicologist Nicholas Baragwanath. They discuss composers as rule-breakers, past and present.

Some of the best-loved classical music today would have been shocking and innovative to the first audiences. Are these works memorable precisely because they challenged conventions of the time? In exploring the historical rule-breakers, and recognising that perceptions change over time, should that inform critical and public opinion of new work today?

Tom and guests debate whether composers need to have a thorough knowledge of the historical rules in order to break them, how much composers consciously seek to develop new ideas and go beyond the established rules, and consider whether rule-breaking is allied to innovation in the arts.

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Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Tom Service
Interviewed Guest Kevin Volans
Interviewed Guest Stevie Wishart
Interviewed Guest John Butt
Interviewed Guest Nicholas Baragwanath

Broadcast

  • Sat 7 Nov 2015 12:15

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