1. Claiming the Classics

Available for 27 days

Goldie traces the ways Black British artists have engaged with classical music, from early attempts to capture its atmosphere through sampling, to commissioning orchestral musicians and creating records shaped by classical forms and ideas. Through a series of carefully chosen pairings, he reveals how composers and performers across genres have drawn inspiration from the classical tradition and transformed it into something new. Each pairing begins with a classical work before moving to its contemporary counterpart, uncovering connections between Elgar and Goldie’s Inner City Life, Ravel and Soul II Soul, and Samuel Barber and Massive Attack. Along the way, Goldie explores how Delibes’s celebrated Flower Duet found an unexpected new life in The Rapsody's Dear Mallika. The programme concludes with Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 and its direct influence on one of Goldie’s most personal and iconic recordings, Mother. Music featured: Elgar, Nimrod from Enigma Variations; Goldie, Inner City Life; Ravel, Daphnis et Chloé; Soul II Soul, African Dance; Barber, Adagio for Strings; Massive Attack, Unfinished Sympathy; the Flower Duet from Delibes’s Lakmé; The Rapsody featuring LL Cool J, Dear Mallika; Górecki, Symphony No. 3; and Goldie, Mother.