Composer of the Week explained

Show Name:	Composer of the Week
Other Names:	This Week's Composer
Format:	Music, talk show
Runtime:	60 minutes
Start Time:	12:00
End Time:	13:00
Country:	United Kingdom
Language:	English
Home Station:	BBC Radio 3
Presenter:	Donald Macleod (1999–), Kate Molleson (2023–)
Audio Format:	Stereophonic sound

Composer of the Week is a biographical music programme produced by BBC Cymru Wales and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. It is broadcast daily from Monday to Friday at 4pm for an hour, each week's programmes being a self-contained series of five dedicated to a particular composer or a group of related composers.

With the "great composers", weeks dedicated to them tend to focus on a particular aspect of their life or works.

History

Originally titled This Week's Composer,^[1] the series was first broadcast on 2 August 1943 on the BBC Home Service, running from 7.30am to 7.55am, Monday to Saturday. There were some breaks in the schedule: for instance, Music Diary was used as a replacement from January to March 1945. But in terms of longevity, it is only surpassed by Desert Island Discs (first heard on 29 January 1942).^[2] From the beginning and for many years there was no regular host: it was presented live by the day’s duty continuity announcer. As a consequence, there are no recordings of the programme in the BBC archives from before the 1980s.^[3]

In December 1964 it was transferred to the BBC Third Programme, beginning at 9.04am on weekdays.^[4] The title was quietly changed to Composer of the Week on 18 January 1988.^{[3] [5]} From 9 October 1995 Composer of the Week was moved from its long-standing 9am slot to 12 noon, making way for a new morning schedule at Radio 3.

The series has been written and presented by Donald Macleod since 1999.^[6] Sometimes recordings are made on location with Macleod visiting composers at homesuch as the Harrison Birtwistle episodes in October 2019.^[7]

Since May 2023, some weeks have been presented by Kate Molleson. Molleson's first week was about György Ligeti.^[8] A schedule refresh in April 2024 moved the programme from its 12 noon slot to 4pm.^[9]

Notable episodes

• The first composer chosen, on 2 August 1943, was Mozart, followed over the following four weeks by Beethoven, Schubert, Bach and Haydn.^[10]
• Vaughan Williams was the first living composer to be featured, on 7 February 1944.^[11]
• The first group composer episodes were ‘The Elizabethans’ from 14 February 1944, followed by 'Three Seventeenth-Century Masters’ (Lully, Couperin and Rameau) the following week. John Ireland and Arnold Bax were joint composers on 6 March 1944, followed by Benjamin Britten and William Walton on 27 March 1944.
• The first composer to be chosen for a second set of episodes was Schumannfirst series 6 September 1943, second series 26 June 1944. Mozart was chosen for the second time on 10 July 1944. From then on the majority of choices were repeats, suggesting a core repertoire of around 60 composers.
• In July 2014 the first of a series of live editions with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was broadcast to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the programme.^[12]
• In 2020 the Beethoven Unleashed series of 25 weekly editions (broadcast on alternate weeks) marked the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth. There were 125 programmes in total, including a final personal highlights selection by Donald Macleod to conclude the series.^[13]
• Coverage of women composers and the spread of ethnicity have both been expanded in recent years. Donald Macleod cites the July 2022 episodes on Hélène de Montgeroult, whose music saved her from the guillotine, as "one of the best stories I’ve ever had to tell".^{[14] [15]}

External links

• Composer of the Week, BBC website
• Except from a 1988 edition of This Week's Composer on Mozart
• Donald MacleodBBC profile page

Notes and References

1. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cotw/cotw.pdf Alphabetical list of all composers featured on ‘Composer of the Week’ (formerly "This Week’s Composer") since 2 August 1943
2. Donald Macleod, Happy 70th birthday Composer of the Week, The Guardian 2 August 2013
3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/entries/e5ddb16f-cbf8-305c-a694-f0d10246ce34 BBC blogs: Composer of the Week at 70
4. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/5e40fedfc9f5db56533465330fc4a5b2 Radio Times Issue 2144, 12 December, 1964
5. Ben Lawrence, In praise of Composer of the Week, Daily Telegraph 2 August 2013
6. E. Jane Dickson Composer of the Week host Donald Macleod: I'm one of the world's great bluffers, Radio Times 29 July 2013
7. Web site: Harrison Birtwistle: Composer of the Week. BBC.
8. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lzg6 Ligeti, Composer of the Week, 22 May, 2023
9. https://www.classical-music.com/news/dramatic-new-changes-afoot-in-the-new-radio-3-schedule 'Dramatic new changes afoot in the new Radio 3 schedule'
10. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/05c1643b910145aa8a600d94e7b106cb?page=8 Radio Times Issue 1035, 1st August, 1943, p.8
11. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/page/93f9b54f112a4e058380a9e3ff00f0bc Radio Times Issue 1062, 6 February 1944, p.8
12. Franks, Rebecca. 'Radio 3’s Composer of the Week celebrates 70 years on air', in Classical Music, 2 August, 2013
13. https://uk-podcasts.co.uk/podcast/composer-of-the-week/beethoven-unleashed-in-perspective Beethoven Unleashed: In Perspective, UK Podcasts
14. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/01/radio-3-composer-of-the-week-turns-80-donald-macleod ‘The human stories behind the music we love’: Radio 3’s Composer of the Week turns 80', in The Guardian, 1 August, 2023
15. Web site: Hélène de Montgeroult (1764–1836) . 25 January 2023 . Composer of the Week.