During his time with the BBC, Burger pioneered a new genre which he called "Radio Potpourri" – a collage of multiple musical melodies grouped together around a central theme. Ross explained that "Burger did not by any means invent the genre: composers had been making potpourris since the 18th Century. He took what were usually 10-minute melanges of music and expanded them into hour-long epics for the medium of radio. These incorporate a storyline and narration over a tapestry of musical themes."

Conductor Stanford Robinson (1904-1984) was on the BBC music staff for 42 years. He was the BBC's first chorus master and from 1932 to 1946 conducted the BBC Theatre Orchestra. In a Radio Times article in June 1935, he wrote:

Musical Potpourri? It doesn’t sound a very original idea. But a Julius Burger potpourri for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, lasting an hour, is to the ordinary potpourri, which plays for nine or ten minutes, as a modern Cunarder to a primitive paddle-steamer. Burger has specialised in this type of programme, peculiarly suitable for the medium of radio, and has brought it to a point very near perfection.

Ross went on to note that "the potpourri provided potential for a tailored work to fit any occasion. The Geographic Potpourri, for example, took the listener on a journey by utilising music from a travel itinerary. Burger’s Holiday in Europe (1934) followed a honeymooning couple as they travelled from country to country across the continent; World Tour (1935) followed a group on a cruise ship around the globe; The Empire Sings (1938) explored the sights and sounds of the British Empire, then at it geographic height. Some focused on a single city – Vienna – in the 1935 work City of Music. Other potpourris told the life stories of composers through their own music, as in The Life of Offenbach (1935) and Johann Strauss: A Biography in Music (1936). Burger even wrote one to celebrate the Allied victory in Europe, Victory Rhapsody (1945). Only one offered a journey through time and space: Themes of London (1937)."

Now, with the co-operation of the British Library, it has been possible to piece together recordings cut into 78rpm sides of the original 1937 performance of Burger's Themes of London.

Ryan Hugh Ross sets the scene: "After an introduction by narrator Henrik Ege, the chimes of Big Ben and the Changing of the Guard announce the opening of the potpourri before dipping back into the 17th century with Street Seller cries and the National Anthem. Burger then guides the listener into Baroque London, with the incorporation of themes by Henry Purcell and George Friedrich Handel as well as folk melodies from all parts of the British Isles.

"The piece then segues to the Victorian ballroom as Burger weaves dance music and polkas together before transporting the listener to the Hyde Park bandstand with the incorporation of military marches. Forward again onto Edwardian London with the inclusion of popular period pieces until the work reaches its exciting climax in contemporary 1930s London with popular jazz tunes On your Toes and I’m in a Dancing Mood. What would the contemporary period be without at least an homage to the cinema organ performed by Reginald Foort? The work comes to a peaceful conclusion with an echo of the Westminster chimes as the sun sets over the Thames and God Save the King plays serenely in the background..."

The 1937 BBC broadcast of Julius Burger's Themes of London

We played Themes of London to conductor, composer and arranger Tom Higgins, former principal with the ENO Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra under Iain Sutherland. As an oboist, he also performed as a chamber music soloist for the Scottish Home Service. Later, with the return of Grand Hotel on the national network, he worked with Max Jaffa and took part in recordings of the BBC’s Music While You Work sessions towards the end of the programme’s life. He conducted BBC Music Magazine’s debut recording of Arthur Sullivan’s The Rose of Persia which subsequently was reissued by German record company CPO. His recent recordings – including Elgar’s rarely-performed Fringes of the Fleet – have been on the SOMM label.  Here are Tom's notes:

"Archival recordings tell us much. This one reminds us that its conductor, Stanford Robinson spent his entire working life in the service of the BBC. The reminder is actually two-fold. There is Robinson the conductor and the part he played in shaping the BBC’s light music output during its early days, and then my own recollections of briefly working with him much later, by which time his career was coming to an end and mine was just starting.

"But first, Themes of London, the archival recording. Burger’s task in this BBC commission was to find suitable music to illustrate London’s history during the previous two centuries. It was an hour-long programme, so he was required to do more than just put well-known tunes end-to-end. To give the project continuity he needed to re-fashion other composers’ material, giving it mini-symphonic proportions. His expertise as an orchestrator of light music was also suited to then contemporary tastes and his sophisticated style was easily traced back to his Viennese background.

"All that said, Burger was a foreigner in Britain and unlikely to have all the nation’s favourite tunes at his finger tips. It was likely then that Robinson, who was part-producer of the project and scheduled to conduct the music, became involved in programme content. As it turned out the BBC Theatre Orchestra was an integral part of the programme and by the late 1930s, Robinson was the ensemble’s conductor. Together they were well suited to this light music project.

"In reviewing Robinson’s BBC career, it’s clear that he directed an enormous variety of music, yet opera, operetta and light music seemed to hold a particular interest for him. About half-way through the broadcast there is a lengthy section devoted to London’s Edwardian music theatre. Edward German’s Merrie England and selections from Lionel Monckton’s musical comedies feature heavily. By the time of the BBC’s 1937 transmission, Robinson had already published, separately, a skilful collection of pieces by Monckton entitled Lionel Monckton Melodies and here the listener to Themes of London may sense Robinson’s possible input into the programme.

"Many years later, long after Robinson’s official retirement, I had the opportunity to ask him about Lionel Monckton and his publication of the Melodies. At this point in his career, Robinson was appearing as a guest conductor and during my time as principal oboe of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra he worked with us briefly in Glasgow. I was keen to talk to him about Monckton, but that required a quiet moment away from the studio.

"Happily Robinson was a well-honed corporation man and soon found his way to the BBC Club across the road from Queen Margaret Drive. Normally the club was full during the early afternoon, but by the time Robinson looked in it was empty – except for me! I quizzed him about Lionel Monckton, explaining that I had bought a copy of his (Robinson’s) Melodies years ago. Unfortunately, Robinson was not particularly communicative, but did reveal that as a very young man he had met Monckton. The young man part is important because Monkton died when Robinson was just 19 years old.

"In the studio, Robinson was not a noticeably flamboyant conductor, but then studio sessions don’t tend to having anyone to play to in the gallery. And at this point I should mention further that I had worked with Robinson a few years earlier than Glasgow when I was a student. This time he came as a guest to the Guildhall School of Music to conduct the orchestra in Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. I played first oboe and, as I was soon to leave Guildhall, plucked up the courage to ask Robinson for a reference.

"If he was not particularly forthcoming on a personal level, he made up for it with the written word, saying that as a student I ‘had done very well’ and that I was, ‘well worthy of consideration in the professional world.’"

All material © BBC

The New Year is also a time to look to the future, and ours will be framed around the 250th anniversary of one of the greatest composers of all time with Beethoven Unleashed. Throughout the year we will be unleashing his brilliance and unlocking new perspectives, examining all aspects of Beethoven’s life, the music he created and the influence that it has had, including on music being created today. The full line-up is now confirmed.

I think Beethoven is a composer whose works have many possibilities for fresh listening. From the way his piano sonatas expanded the possibility of what that instrument could do, to the way that he played with orchestras’ tempi and colour, often presenting us with things seemingly impossible and extreme. Works you think you know are always worth a listen to – be it a new performance or an old one listened to with fresh insight.

I’d like to take this moment to nod to Donald Macleod, who kick-started his 125-hour Beethoven marathon this week. It is the single biggest composer profile ever on Composer of the Week, alternate weeks throughout 2020 dedicated to a different, in- depth aspect of the composer’s life. If you are not sure where to begin with our Beethoven celebrations, the Beethoven Unleashed Collection page is a brilliant place to start: but I’ll also run you through some particular highlights.

This weekend a very special concert  with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales recreates Beethoven’s infamous 1808 concert. Lasting four hours, the concert featured the premieres of his 5th and 6th symphonies as well as his 4th Piano concerto. Prof David Wyn Jones's article explains the background to the 1808 concert and what it was like to be there. That kind of experience is what we aim to bring across the BBC and its Orchestras and Choirs, with Radio 3 at its heart.

The BBC Philharmonic will join forces with the Hallé for a complete Manchester/ Salford cycle of the symphonies starting this month.  Later in the year, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Dausgaard will present a Glasgow cycle of the symphonies as part of its Beethoven Roots festival. The orchestra will also present forgotten works by some of Beethoven’s female contemporaries so that his symphonies can be re-evaluated in their contemporary context. 

All this and much more. And do catch up with David Lang’s Prisoner of the State – a re-imagining of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, with students from the Guildhall School of Music too. And I can’t possibly talk about the BBC Proms yet… but needless to say you might imagine there will be a Beethoven-shaped footprint in the schedule… but there, I’ve said too much already.

Elsewhere, in our arts content, I’m also particularly excited to bring Timothy X Atack of Forest 404 fame to BBC Radio 3 with an immersive drama called Beethoven Can Hear You, following Beethoven’s journey of hearing loss. Meanwhile Dissecting Beethoven, a Sunday Feature presented by the eminent neurosurgeon Henry Marsh CBE and Radio 3’s Georgia Mann, uses Beethoven’s autopsy as a key to an exploration of his health. The Listening Service will provide an essential guide to the composer – all you need to know in 30 minutes.

This Beethoven season is an example of what we can do at Radio 3 – not just giving you a cursory glance at something, but allowing you to look properly, to take in and consider something that may seem to be familiar. We do this because we believe arts and music make the world a better place. They bring people together through different perspectives and shared experiences, providing a place of inspiration, as well as a way to navigate a complex world. We want to enable as many people as possible to have life-changing Beethoven and other musical and arts experiences at the touch of a Radio 3-shaped button on their phone, radio, computer or television.

Our in-depth focus on Beethoven's 250th anniversary will also allow us to see Beethoven for what he was – an enlightenment figure, a composer who pushed the boundaries of music despite or perhaps because of physical and mental anguish. He was a man who left an impression on the world. The music he created lives for us and helps us understand humanity and what it means to be human more acutely. 

It’s the very essence of what Radio 3 is about – presenting music that is live and recorded in new contexts, giving listeners time to think about the music and what it means for them, always listening afresh. Together with BBC Orchestras and Choirs, our New Generation Artists (in their 20th anniversary year), the BBC Proms and BBC Ten Pieces, we can allow many people to discover and to re-evaluate Beethoven and what he says to us; greater understanding of one composer’s struggle through his art can help us better understand the complex world in which we live. That’s why we present the complex culture we do on Radio 3.  It’s all about living. From classical music to arts discussion, documentaries to essays, drama to sound art, video games and film music, to jazz, world, ambient, electronic and the avant garde, there is a Radio 3 for everybody – we welcome you to join us on BBC Sounds, DAB, online, and on FM.  

Let Beethoven be unleashed….

Alan Davey, Controller BBC Radio 3, BBC Orchestras and Choirs, and the BBC Proms

Last week the quarterly UK radio audience figures (RAJAR) were released for April – June of this year (Quarter 2), with some fantastic news for Radio 3. Last quarter our overall reach, at 2.12m, was the highest in 3 years. I'm delighted to say that our reach has now increased to 2.20m, the highest in 5 years, and a record for Quarter 2.

Many of Radio 3’s individual shows performed excellently in a quarter where we brought listeners some remarkable broadcasting, from Stratford to Aldeburgh, Hay and The Great Escape festivals. Breakfast and Essential Classics were particularly strong, with record-breaking audience figures. Firm favourites Composer of the Week and In Tune also continue to flourish.

New additions to the Radio 3 schedule have been very successful, including introducing longer pieces of music into Breakfast and playing contemporary classical music in some of our mainstream programmes, such as our ‘Open Ear’ concerts in the main evening concert slot. And we mustn’t forget birds, with the introduction of extended dawn chorus clips on Breakfast, professional musicians ‘duetting’ with nightingales deep in the Sussex countryside, and a rare performance of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux interspersed with birdsong recordings along the Suffolk coast – an example of our ability to take the time to let things happen.

Listening figures are also up for our new programme The Listening Service, in which presenter Tom Service embarks on regular journeys of the imagination, exploring various aspects of music. New-look Monday night jazz show Jazz Now, which launched in April fronted by saxophonist Soweto Kinch, vocalist Emma Smith and trumpeter and broadcaster Al Ryan, is also thriving, as is the recently revamped Late Junction programme.

As Radio 3 prepares to celebrate 70 years since its launch as The Third Programme in 1946, we will be looking both to the past and the future to maintain and grow our longstanding reputation as a cultural pioneer. These brilliant RAJAR results are testament to Radio 3’s immense value as a rich, diverse and imaginative hub of ideas, poetry, drama and – of course – great music from around the world.

Radio 3’s latest listening figures (RAJAR) reveal that the network has performed strongly during Controller Alan Davey’s first year in post, recording its highest audience total in three years, with the highest Breakfast figures since 2013, the highest morning figures on record (Essential Classics) and the second highest drivetime (In Tune) figures in the shows’ history.

In my first year it’s been an honour to lead the BBC Radio 3 family which includes BBC Radio 3, BBC Proms and the BBC performing groups, all of whom play an essential part in our purpose to connect audiences with remarkable music and culture.

I’m really proud of our constantly evolving offer which is unique, and lovingly curated by our brilliant team of experts and passionate producers.

We’ve enjoyed a strong year of special programming including Why Music? with the Wellcome Collection, a great Proms season, WOMAD, EFG London Jazz Festival, Northern Lights, New Year New Music and our International Women’s Day composers’ focus, as well as the programmes we do day in, day out, with live music on every night and more than 90 opera relays – more than any other broadcaster in the world.

We’ve also created a 'late night zone' of experimentation with a new Jazz programme (Jazz Now), a revamped Late Junction, and developed the idea of 'slow radio' with full-length dramas, operas, symphonies and special pieces of music like Max Richter’s 8-hour through-the-night lullaby, Sleep, or 'The Well Tuned Piano' – a 5-hour piano meditation on the colour magenta by La Monte Young, broadcast through the night... or the first full broadcast in surround sound of Stockhausen’s Hymnen.

The record figure for our morning show, Essential Classics – the highest in 10 years – shows the tweaks we’ve made there are really paying off.  These include introducing contemporary music and fixed features such as 'Music in Time'.

I’m also proud of Breakfast’s highest reach in three years: we’ve intentionally set out to let the music breathe, cutting back on news bulletins and allowing longer pieces of music. And our drivetime show, In Tune, with its unique live music and culture news, has delivered its second highest audience figure on record.

As we move into our 70th anniversary year, I’m delighted that Radio 3 – broadcast and streamed as always in beautiful uncompressed sound – continues to play such a special role in the daily lives of our listeners. That is down to the people who work here – knowledgeable, enthusiastic individuals who make great programmes with consummate skill and pride in what they do. 

So, despite battles with unhappy unions, a weak signal from Droitwich, a stronger blocking signal from the Soviet Union who claimed the wavelength, resultant reception problems, uncertain budgets and print media sneering, ‘The Third Programme’ came to life at 6pm on 29 September 1946.

The name was chosen purely because it was the only one everyone could agree on. For a short, alarming time, it was destined to be named ‘The Droitwich Programme’ after the transmitter. 'Controller, Droitwich' could have been misinterpreted...

That first night, the network opened with a new comedy – How To Listen – which got in the self-deprecation before the press did. It gently made fun of high-minded, obscure concerts and imagined listeners turning off the wireless to read the racing news or play cards. It was followed by, amongst other things, Bach harpsichord music, a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert of a new work by Benjamin Britten and 25 minutes of Monteverdi madrigals. The Third may have been aware of its image problem but it had no intention of being swayed from its purpose.

In September we are going use the excuse of our birthday to draw on the strength of our past and forge a new way forward: one that is confident that its mix of great music and culture is serving the audience that is curious and adventurous, well.

Radio 3 staff have come up with some great ideas for new commissions, mad concepts, all night musical raves, all centred round another pop-up residency at Southbank Centre. We are all driven by one concern – to draw from the spirit of the Third Programme in a contemporary way, better to get audiences engaged and connected with remarkable music and culture.   

Find details of Radio 3's 70th anniversary season

Read an introduction to the Third Programme by Sir William Haley KCMG, BBC director-general, in 1946

Read an article about Radio 3's 40th anniversary in 2007

I’ll be honest with you. I never used to like folk music very much. If it wasn’t all rumpty-tumpty, four square tunes in a wincingly sour D major, it was notes relentlessly whizzing by at such a speed it left me feeling faintly nauseous. Where was the subtlety, the depth, the point? 

Enlightenment came in stages. The first was witnessing Bruce Molsky and Norwegian Hardanger fiddler Annbjørg Lien trading tunes in a bar late one night. Over three thousand miles separate New York and Oslo, and these two had barely met, and yet from the way they were playing music together you’d think they’d known each other since birth.  As one old time fiddle tune after another twined itself around those of the Hardanger, I began to fully appreciate what that old cliché of 'music being able to transcend language' really meant. These two were rapt in note-to-note, heart-to-heart dialogue, creating a bubble around them that grew as more of us gathered round to listen. This was love made audible. Love of people, love of music, love of the moment.  

The second stage was discovering the work of Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, a man who didn’t feel the need to show off his considerable virtuosity by playing Irish jigs and reels at breakneck speed: instead, with exquisite care, he slowed them right down to take a good look at what was under their skin. What he found was a sadness, a longing ‒ the kind of thing flamenco singers call 'duende', but in County Clare they call 'the lonesome touch'. 'The word lonesome expresses a sadness, a blue note, a sour note,' wrote Martin, 'even though the music bares the trace of struggle and of pain, it is also the means of uplift, transcendence to joy and celebration.' So here was music that could, in the right hands, weave a tantalising tapestry out of both elation and depression.  I was becoming hooked.

Finally, through time spent at the English Acoustic Collective summer school, I began to make sense of what my own country’s music meant to me personally as an English citizen living in the 21st century. There was no need to be embarrassed by it. It was a part of my history whether I liked it or not, but by embracing it rather than fearing it, I could benefit from its many pearls of common wisdom. There was truth in this music. And that’s really why it mattered.  Course leader Chris Wood talked not just about songs and tunes, but of all the people who had shared in it down the ages, and how becoming a link in that human chain was a powerful way to feel connected. 

And I do now feel connected to history in a way that’s far more tangible than studying the lives of kings and queens. It turns out that history’s not all about fact. It’s also about feel.

If you'd like to dip your toe in the water, here are ten tracks to try…..

• Martin Hayes The Lonesome Touch
• Chris Wood The Lark Descending
• Leveret New Anything
• Sam Lee The Fade in Time
• Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick Prince Heathen
• Karine Polwart Traces 
• Shirley Collins Sweet England
• Furrow Collective At Our Next Meeting
• Kathryn Tickell Debateable Lands
• Steve Turner Rim of the Wheel

Folk Connections runs from Friday 29 January to Sunday 31 January on BBC Radio 3. A special Collection of Radio 3's Folk programming, including Celtic Connections, is available here. 

January begins in the most  traditional way for BBC Radio 3, with the New Year's Day concert from Vienna, Well known waltzes and a touch of Viennese glamour – a Broadcast tradition of many years.

But then we want to begin something new – a week long season called New Year, New Music, which will celebrate and present music of the last 60 years, and hopefully will help to demystify contemporary classical music, music that some find it hard to find a way into, but which in reality offers a world of beauty and intellectual challenge that is well worth an investment in time and effort to appreciate.

We will have  a great range of new music which will be woven throughout the day  in the heart of the schedule.

I remember Harrison Birtwistle’s The Minotaur, which when it was first performed at the Royal Opera House created a bit of a stir and even a violent reaction against it.  When it was revived a few years later, it was greeted by enthusiastic audiences as the return of a much love masterpiece.  Somehow our attitude to the piece and its complex sound world had changed.  Or we had realised it wasn’t so scary really. 

That’s what we want to do through our programming in this special week ‒ to present new, challenging and avant garde masterpieces in all their musical glory, but to contextualise the work and to present it in such a way that audiences can be drawn in and hopefully discover some new and marvellous things. 

We will begin on 1 January with Stockhausen’s great work from 1961, Hymnen, using the original four-channel tapes and a recording from a recent performance by the London Sinfonietta, so that audiences can for the first time, in broadcasting, hear the work as it was meant to be heard, in 4.0 surround sound.  This famous piece blends and transforms recordings of national anthems from around the world with other sounds to create a unique experience for the audience. 

Then in the week following Stockhausen will be Composer of the Week, with Donald Macleod exploring the life and work of this influential figure of the 20th century, and a way into his ethereal and spiritual sound world – which has influenced many other people in different genres of music in the 20th and 21st centuries. 

Other great things include a 5-hour piece by La Monte Young: The Well-Tuned Piano. This will be an overnight broadcast , our very own 'slow radio', taking its time. Incidentally, the composer intended that audiences might best appreciate it by immersing themselves in the colour magenta.  

Other highlights will include the composer Tansy Davies making a personal choice of contemporary music on Saturday Classics, and a daily Essay on ‘seismic moments’ in musical history.  In Tune will make its debut broadcast from the Turbine Hall in Tate Modern.  And we welcome to BBC Radio 3 the London Contemporary Orchestra, who will be part of a concert of cutting edge modern music from St John’s Church Hackney, presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch, and featuring Leafcutter John. Late Junction will present new music throughout the week – as is its wont. Contemporary composers will feature and talk about their work on Essential Classics. 

Through all this Tom Service and Sara Mohr-Pietsch will be providing the odd guide to how to listen – helping the modern listener orient themselves towards music that they might have   thought to be too 'difficult'. 

So that’s New Year, New Music – all part of our mission to get more great works of musical art understood, better accepted and enjoyed by more people. Tune in with an open mind and turn on to new music with BBC Radio 3.  A great way to start a New Year! 

The nights are long in Tromsø at this time of year.  The North Norwegian city’s residents are halfway through the season of Polar Night, when they bid farewell to the sun for more than six weeks.

Recording Music Matters there, producer Andy King and I made the most of the three hour long stretch of twilight that falls in late morning.  For a brief period,  the view across the bay that divides the city in two was spectacular; once or twice, in between snow showers,  a few random patches of blue sky would appear. By one o' clock, faint reds and oranges suggested that, somewhere out there,  the sun was setting. An hour later, pitch dark had returned,  and my body clock was urging me to consider dinner and bed. 

Those living north of the Arctic Circle (Tromsø is inside it by a good three degrees) are used to these long days of darkness, just as they cope with the 24-hour light in midsummer. Most of the people we met while recording admitted to sleeping more in the winter, but they also told how they were determined to remain active well into the evening. Popular restaurants are booked weeks in advance, a jazz concert we attend at the University Student Union is packed, and Tromsø’s 70,000 residents have a choice of more than 20 choirs to join. We recorded one of them, Arctic Voices, as they rehearsed in the so-called Arctic Cathedral.  Technically a parish church, it is the building that dominates the skyline, its triangular structure, with concrete panels folding into each other, captured on a myriad tourist photographs.

Formed originally for staff at the local hospital (and still partly funded by the health authority),  Arctic Voices’ 30 singers are directed with great energy by veteran Tromsø conductor and organist Guttorm Lindquist. 'Many people use music as a therapy,' he says. 'It snows a lot here and it’s very dark – depression is quite common at this time of the year, so music is very important for us.'  

For Radio 3’s Northern Light’s season, we wanted to take Music Matters to the most culturally vibrant city within the Arctic Circle. Murmansk in Russia is bigger, and has a rich Orthodox Church musical tradition; we fleetingly considered Longyearbyen (78 degrees north) with its annual Blues Festival. And its polar bears...  But nowhere else offers the musical diversity and variety of Tromsø.  Several cutting edge musical figures familiar to listeners of Late Junction have made their home there. Former bel canto and Röyksopp singer Anneli Drecker has returned to her birthplace after two decades in Oslo.  For Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) the city has become almost too lively.  He has moved to a tiny fishing settlement on the island of Senja.  We went to visit him there (an hour on a ferry, then an hour as the sole passengers on the local bus) and recorded with him on windswept beaches, in deep tunnels and by frozen lakes.

Back in the city we heard about the unconventional structure of the Arctic Philharmonic. Its management, and half its players are in Tromsø,  the rest are 500 kilometres south in Bodø.  Sometimes they play as two chamber ensembles, sometimes they come together as a full orchestra.  We heard them accompanying the local ballet school’s production of Delibes’ Coppelia. Then there is the Joik – the great, emotional cry of the Sami people.  For years church and state tried to suppress the Sami’s way of life;  now their music,  each Joik unique to an individual, is enjoying a renaissance,  as we report in the programme.

'The Paris of the North' was the nickname for Tromsø in the 19th century –  and to this day it remains a bright beacon of civilisation, its cultural light shining out across the dark, cold north. 

Petroc Trelawny presents Music Matters on Saturday at 1215pm, repeated on Monday Jan 4^th at 10pm.

This weekend Radio 3 begins its celebrations of the culture of Northern countries, places which spend the winter months in darkness (compensated by long summer nights).  This is triggered by the anniversary of the birth of Sibelius, Finland's best known composer, and a composer who is played a lot on Radio 3 and by the BBC Performing Groups. 

But instead of just concentrating on Sibelius, we decided to look at artistic responses to 'the North' in many different ways, and to examine what 'the North' means in human imagination.  As a triangulation point to this line of thought we are broadcasting on Sunday at 11.30pm a 'contrapuntal documentary' made by pianist Glenn Gould for CBC in 1967, called 'The Idea of North'. 

My own fascination with the extreme North began when at university and I discovered the great Sagas of Iceland.  Iceland is a nation with a great literary heritage which literally is based in the soil. From around the 10th century are the great Poetic Eddas: mythological poems that tell of the Gods - Oðin, Loki and so on - the mythology of which was brought together by a priest in 12th century Iceland called Snorri Sturlusson. Then there are the Scaldic poems - complex and compact works that use mythological images to convey emotion and thought - the medieval poet Egil Skallagrimsson uses this style in his great poem Sonnatorrek on the death of his son.

But the Sagas are different.  Laconic in style, they tell of people who lived in real places, and who quarrelled and feuded and killed one another for reasons that might be personal, legal or to do with relationships - always rooted in real places in Iceland you can visit today. The greatest of these sagas is Njals Saga - the story of a good man who tries to maintain his moral centre in a world where others kill and feud, which ends with he and his wife being burned alive in their farmhouse. But read the text and there is no emotion, only understatement, with the story told clearly and unflinchingly. My favourite is Laxdæla Saga, a story which revolves around strong women and fighting men - the two main characters, Kjartan, every inch the blonde warrior who is killed due to some complicated machinations around the magnificent Guðrun, who, when as a matriarch looking back on her life comments to her son 'Þeim var ek verst, er ek unna mest' - 'I was worst to the one I loved the most'. That's it in terms of summing up the emotions - a whole world of pain and life of regret is summarised in that one sentence. 

As a student I ended up editing a saga called Gautreks Saga, a later work that combines the supposed history in Sweden of a community who are so poor that the eldest commit suicide every time a guest arrives - reflecting ancient traditions of hospitality, with a story of a man who gets on by being generous and giving gifts.

And these brilliant stories are told in one of the most beautiful languages in the word, Icelandic.  The old language is still recognisably the language people speak in Iceland today.  It is a Scandinavian language with an earthy, animated burr to it.  If you want to hear it, listen to Icelandic musician Ásgeir's album Ðyrð í Dauðaþögn (literally 'Glory in the silence of death').  An English language version was made with the words translated by John Grant called in the Silence.  You can hear the beauty of the language, and in the words, written by his 70-year-old father, you sense a link back to the great Icelandic Viking literary tradition, as in the song Hlòða Nótt (with a hard to translate first line of the last chorus)

Sum var gott en annað fylgi með
Reisir sverð og skjöld

(Some was good and wrapped with the other [ie bad]
Raise your sword and shield).

This is one aspect of the culture of the North.  In 'Northern Lights' we'll be exploring the culture of many Northern countries, from Inuit singer Tanya Tagaq's music for the 1922 documentary Nanook of the North next Friday, to Sibelius's great Finnish epic, Kullervo - hope you'll join us on Radio 3 to explore Northern Culture of all kinds, through December.  

• Radio 3 Northern Lights Season
• Northern Lights programmes
• Discover more about the season

A quick survey across some of my colleagues in the orchestra revealed that apart from the odd concert in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, most of us had not toured the Netherlands since our youth orchestra days. A pity, since the country possesses some excellent concert halls and some of the most affable people on the planet, plus it's easy to get to by train. 

So it was that the BBCSO boarded the Brussels-bound Eurostar, thence to Eindhoven. There we rehearsed Herbert Howells's Hymnus Paradisi with the small but splendid Rotterdam Symphony Chorus, conducted by the UK's very own Martyn Brabbins. Now it so happens that Eindhoven is in the Dutch province of North Brabant, so I put it to Martyn that he was possibly once a local lad?  'Absolutely!' He cried. 'Hundreds of years ago the Brabbins ancestors must have originated from here.'  The next morning his theory is proved as we stumble across a 'Brabantia' shop, selling, you've guessed it, bins!

But other esteemed things originated from the area - on a morning off I'm torn between visiting the Philips Museum, the Daf Museum (pronounced Duff) or the van Abbé Museum of Modern Art. I settle upon the latter which has an extraordinary collection of pictures and installations, including (ominously) Vangelis Gokas's oil painting of a dead orchestral conductor!

 The concert that evening is in the bright acoustics of the Eindhoven Muzikgebouw. Taiwanese violinist Ray Chen wows the locals with the evergreen Bruch concerto. He's a lucky lad as he plays on the Stradivarius once owned by the work's dedicatee, Joseph Joachim. The second half comprises Elgar's nostalgic second symphony which gets a rousing reception.

Next day we head north to the picturesque town of Den Bosch ('s-Hertogenbosch). It is the 500th anniversary of the death of the extraordinary painter Hieronymus Bosch who hails from these parts. As part of a ten-year celebration, the orchestra has been invited to perform Howells's Hymnus Paradisi in the beautiful Gothic cathedral of Sint Jan in the centre of Den Bosch. The concert is filmed for DVD and as a consequence the sanctuary is full of cameras and cables. The choir is positioned behind the orchestra with the disadvantage of not being able to see Martyn Brabbins. He asks for a box to stand on, and then promptly asks for a bigger box... The work is quite thickly scored and the orchestra has to try to be as transparent as possible in order not to cover the choir and soloists. But at the same time the piece is on a constant emotional simmer, occasionally rising to boiling point, and one has to play with considerable restraint.

As with our September trip to Finland, the Netherlands seems to possess bus drivers who view the coach as a vehicle for entertainment rather than just for driving. In Lahti the driver had informed us that we would be cruising at a speed of 100 kmh and at an altitude of approximately 50 centimetres...  On this trip  our droll Dutch coach driver reminds us that, like yesterday, his name is still Olaf, following that up with 'well, you never know in Holland...things can change rapidly.' But Olaf delivers us smoothly to Rotterdam which boasts the fine de Doelen concert hall. The concert goes very well and Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia sounds radiant in the warm acoustics. Ray Chen's performance of the Bruch Violin Concerto inspires an immediate standing ovation from the friendly audience and he follows this with an impressive version of Paganini's 21st Caprice.

After a moving performance of the Howells we are treated to a reception where I get chatting with Neil Wallace, the director of programming at de Doelen. He's an ex-chorister at Lincoln Cathedral where he developed a passion for Howells's choral music: 'I think he is right up there with Elgar and Vaughan Williams in terms of his genius,' he says. 'I've wanted to schedule Hymnus Paradisi for 20 years, but it had to be with a British orchestra. Plenty of Dutch orchestras can play Elgar but this requires an English sensitivity.' 

Our final concert takes place in the beautiful mediaeval city of Utrecht. Resplendent with canals and ancient buildings it looks gorgeous in the autumnal colours. The concert hall is in part of an extraordinary complex, Tivoli Vredenburg, comprising no fewer than five performance spaces.

The Sunday afternoon concert is a reprise of our first, and time is taken to site the second orchestra for the Tallis Fantasia. It can be tricky to get the balance right with this; too loud and the echo effect is lost, too far away and you get a delay between the groups. But all is well by the concert and after another Bruch and Elgar, it's time to clamber aboard the amusing Olaf's bus one last time and head for Schiphol Airport for a late flight home.

Photos by Nikos Zarb

• Martyn Brabbins
• BBC Symphony Orchestra
• Herbert Howells

It’s a familiar sight in offices around the world: the intense stare at the screen, the reluctance to get up for a coffee, the sustained quiet. Yes – there’s a major sporting event and everyone is following the online commentary. Not everyone can be at Centre Court or in Monaco, but they get up-to-the-minute reaction, images, highlights and conversation through the BBC website.

Our Network Radio team here in Cardiff regularly broadcasts productions from Welsh National Opera – great national events of another kind that we want to share with our audiences. But if you miss the beginning of the opera when the presenter explains the plot, how do you catch up if you can’t understand the Italian and don’t know the work? How do you appreciate the work of the costume and set designers? And what about the background to the story – often a really important part of understanding the real meaning behind the opera.

So, for Saturday’s Opera on 3 we’ve teamed up with BBC Connected Studio, Live Events and Welsh National Opera to run a live commentary on the broadcast of Handel’s opera Orlando. 

As the opera plays out on Radio 3 we’re trying to put our radio audience in the theatre itself, and go one better. Thanks to WNO we have a series of fantastic productions shots which not only capture the magical 1940s costumes and design of the show, but also take us through the action scene-by-scene. There will also be things the theatre audience will never see – shots from backstage and selfies by the artists in their dressing rooms. Not only that – we’ve spoken to the cast too and as the opera goes on and their stories play out they’ll be telling us about the rehearsal process and what it’s like to perform the music.

We don’t think that anyone has ever done this for an opera before. And there are certainly a lot of editorial and technical issues which we’re all having to grapple with for the very first time. However, I’m writing this in the final run through and as I sit round the table with Robin Moore from Connected Studio, David Massey and Sophie Rashbrook from WNO and several empty coffee cups, there’s a sense of excitement in the air. It’s going to be a long afternoon, but we’re very excited about how we can make the best of working across platforms, departments and genres within the BBC, and also building a new dimension onto the well-established partnership between BBC Wales and WNO. 

• Handel's Orlando is broadcast on Radio 3 at 6.30pm on Saturday 7 November.
• Connect with the Live Commentary, from 6pm.
• Opera on 3

Visiting Patagonia in Argentina has been quite bizarre! I’ve just spent a week and a half with 11 other BBC NOW musicians working with schools, special schools and local orchestras in the Welsh colony of Patagonia. Although I was brought up in England, I was born in Aberystwyth in Wales and we kept the Welsh tradition going very strongly at home. Walking about this South American town (over 7000 miles from home) and suddenly coming across a Welsh flag outside a house is quite incredible. I’m very proud of being Welsh, and being here brings on that feeling of ‘Hiraeth’ that we have in Wales – which is a longing for your homeland – I think they feel it here, even though it’s the other side of the world, they’re extremely proud to be Welsh.

I’m fairly new to the experience of working in special schools and it was amazing to get such immediate reactions from the children. They wanted to play the instruments, interacting with rhythms that we were giving them; they took to all of it, just soaked it all up. In fact, there was a boy who had a riff of his own going: some of our players tried to play along with him and improvise around it and he really wasn’t happy ‒ he wanted to do it on his own! We later saw him going to another child in a wheelchair, put the scroll of the violin on to this boy’s arm and start playing to him, because he’d seen us do that with other children ‒ he got what we were trying to do, that it was something worthwhile, and that was very moving. 

During the week we also played with a string group from the small town of Trevelin who travelled to Gaiman, which is an eight-hour drive, in order to play with us. This string group was very impressive, they had some good violins, but generally in Patagonia they don’t have the instruments, or the facilities to develop; so we hope by us being here that it will inspire them to keep finding ways to carry on with classical music.

When we’re in the orchestra we’re quite removed from our audience so we don’t see how much it means to them, but out here we’ve really had an effect on the community; we’ve contributed to the cultural life and they’ve really contributed to our experience as well.

Lots of people from Wales have visited Patagonia this year because of the anniversary – it’s 150 years since the Welsh settlers arrived, but the teacher at one of the Welsh schools said to us she could sense that our visit had meant so much more. We hadn’t just come here for the celebrations – it was about the music and about engaging with the local communities.

We arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday where we have two concerts, which is very exciting because the Teatro Colón is such a famous concert hall. I played there, probably about 18 years ago with the English Chamber Orchestra so it will be interesting to see how it’s changed. I haven’t been to the other concert halls we’ll be playing, but I’ve heard that Santiago and Montevideo are supposed to be remarkable places to visit, and I’m looking forward to seeing a bit more of Argentina as well. With our week in Patagonia it’s only been a small group of us, so it’s going to be strange and fantastic for the full orchestra to be back to together again. It’s going to be just as rewarding, but in a different way. 

Hear the BBC National Orchestra of Wales tonight from 7.30pm on Radio 3 from the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, and hear more about the residency. 

• Watch Petroc Trelawny as he tours the Teatro Colon
• BBC National Orchestra of Wales
• BBC Performing Groups