Radio 3 and Martinu

There really are no words to express how much I love Radio 3. When I returned from Ireland and the Diversus Ensemble tour, I left my mp3 player there, and I won't now have it till Christmas. But last week I also bought a new phone (which I love inordinately), which has a radio. So I've been listening to Radio 3 on the daily half-hour walk in and out of college, and've been listening to it much more intently than I had been before. (Before, you see, I only listened to it while going to sleep, and as I share a wall it has to be on at a very low volume, so low that it's very hard to hear a lot of what's going on.) The range of music they play is astonishing - everything from Renaissance madrigals to brand new operas, radio plays and fascinating interviews; and they rarely play commonly-played stuff, and everything I hear is a revelation of sorts; and they play everything in its entirety!

I mention this partly because something so amazing should be shared, but mainly because I today heard Martinu's first piano concerto for the first time, and it's amazing and you should go buy it. It's astonishingly rich in influence, from ragtime and jazz to Beethoven and Stravinsky. It's full of life and fun. I wish I could find it online, but you'll just have to trust me and keep an eye out for it.

This piano concerto was played in a live concert broadcast from Glasgow, and as an encore the pianist, Piers Lane (whom I'm sure I've seen play Chopin's Préludes in London's Wigmore Hall over the summer), played the below piece.