Songs My Mother Taught Me

This hour long special celebrates a quarter of a century of the programme and charts the course of a human life through pieces of music. Cerys Matthews introduces a compilation of some of the diverse pieces of music we've featured throughout the years - together with stories of t ...  Show more

The Mexican pianist and composer Consuelo Velázquez was only 16 years old when she wrote Bésame Mucho, and she was yet to have her first kiss. Composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez remembers hearing the song on the radio as a child in Cuba. She translates the Spanish lyri ...  Show more

In this emotional episode, Chiquis breaks down two very special songs: “Paloma Blanca” and “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Not only was “Paloma Blanca” her first single, but it was a song written in response to her late mother Jenni Rivera’s “Paloma Negra.” A refreshed Mariachi version ...  Show more

Compositeur et oudiste franco-arménien, Tigrane Kazazian s’appuie sur la musique traditionnelle arabe pour la transcender et proposer des paysages sonores innovants. Son dernier album en est un parfait exemple avec des morceaux qui évoquent aussi bien la marche dans le désert à l ...  Show more

Very few people in the world are blessed with exceptional musical talent that is apparent from an early age. What is childhood like in the spotlight, especially as a young woman? To find out, Kim Chakanetsa meets two musicians whose careers began when they were children. To ...

Synopsis On today’s date in 1871, Hermann Levi conducted the premiere of a new choral work by Johannes Brahms titled Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny. It’s a setting of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, contrasting in its first part the blissful Greek gods on Mount Olympus and in ...  Show more