Saturday Classics

Cerys Matthews takes us on a personal guided tour of the musical world, taking in Bellini and Blind Snooks Eaglin, Max Richter and the Rhos Male Voice Choir, with poetry too from Rumi, Dylan Thomas and W B Yeats.

Conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier chooses music from Paris in the Belle Époque as part of "Debussy's Paris" marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Debussy this weekend. His choices include music by Maurice Ravel, Paul Dukas, Florent Schmitt, Jacques Offenbach, Camille Saint-Saens, Lili Boulanger, and Claude Debussy. 1.30-1.40 Debussy's Paris 4: "The Paris Expositions and Art Nouveau" Georgia Mann continues her journey through fin-de-siècle Paris at the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais with French art curator Emanuel Coquery and a look at the impact of the Great Paris Expositions and the explosion of the Art Nouveau.

Rosalind Plowright introduces the music that has been most influential on her life and operatic career. Including John Ogdon playing Beethoven, Maria Callas singing Puccini and Bernhard Klee conducting Mahler.

Baritone Roderick Williams chooses music concerned with different modes of transport, including works by Schubert, Wagner, Stanford, Liszt, Honegger, Vaughan Williams and John Adams.

Clarinettist Julian Bliss, who plays both classical and jazz clarinet, chooses pieces that show the influence of jazz on classical music. With compositions by Gershwin, Bartok, Bernstein, Copland and Stravinsky, who once agreed to write an 'easy-listening' piece for the Paul Whiteman band.

To mark Australia Day on 26th January, Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra Richard Tognetti chooses some of his favourite pieces and performers, including works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Grainger, Lutoslawski, Peter Sculthorpe and Brett Dean.

The composer, pianist and producer Max Richter introduces some of the music that has inspired him.

The trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth with her personal choices, including music that inspired her when she was growing up in Norway.

Baritone Sir Thomas Allen shares some of his favourite musical moments: works by Beethoven, Wagner and Humperdinck; treasured voices such as Nicolai Ghiaurov in Verdi's Don Carlo and Kenneth McKellar in Handel's Messiah; and festive treats, including Finzi's Christmas Scene, In Terra Pax.

Soprano Ailish Tynan explores the effect different languages have on songs and vocal works. Ailish feels that words are the foundation blocks to unlocking a song, and explores the fascinating way different languages (English, French, German) very often dictate the style of a song or vocal work. Her music choices include Reynaldo Hahn's Bach-flavoured A Chloris, the Irish folk-song The Last Rose of Summer, Handel's Messiah and the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, as well as works by Stanford, Poulenc and Carl Orff.

Sakari Oramo, Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, introduces a selection of music from his home country of Finland. His choices include piano music by the great symphonist Sibelius, music for orchestra and birds by Rautavaara, early choral music, a fine symphony by the little-known composer Ernst Mielck, and Songs from the Sea by Sallinen.

Soprano Ailish Tynan shares great moments in opera, including music by Handel, Mozart, Humperdinck, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Janacek and Benjamin Britten.

As part of the BBC Opera Season, one of the greatest singers of his generation, bass Robert Lloyd charts the cultural, social and technological changes of the opera stage through the music he has performed and experienced over the past 50 years.

In a special show in front of a live audience at Wellcome Collection, star soprano Lesley Garrett presents music that brings back memories for her - from the people, places and events that have shaped her life and career. Part of Why Music? The Key to Memory, a weekend of live events, concerts and discussions exploring the implications of music's unique capacity to be remembered, produced by Radio 3 in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

In the second of two programmes Rachel Podger, described by The Sunday Times as "Queen of the Baroque violin", shares the music that has helped to define her musical personality - much of it encountered during her childhood years in Kassel. Rachel's choices range from Tallis to Stravinsky via Monteverdi, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms and Vaughan Williams, and not forgetting her beloved Bach, of whose music she says "I don't think a day goes by when I don't play some or listen to some'. She talks engagingly about singing in her father's choir, The William Byrd Singers, where she absorbed Renaissance polyphony "by osmosis"; a memorable school-chamber orchestra trip round Eastern Europe in the declining years of the Ostblock; her love of Glenn Gould's idiosyncratic approach to the performance of Bach's music; her revelatory first encounter with 'authentic' performance practice; and much more.

In the first of two programmes, Rachel Podger, "queen of the Baroque violin", introduces some of the music that inspires her.

As part of the BBC's autumn Opera Season, Danielle de Niese, hailed as "opera's coolest soprano" by New York Times Magazine presents a personal selection of the music closest to her heart.

Rob's selection this week includes music by Bartok, Verdi, Prokofiev and Monteverdi performed by Janos Starker, Margaret Price and Paul McCreesh.

Chi-chi Nwanoku profiles black composers and performers down the centuries, with their friends and contemporaries.

Rob presents works by Mozart, Saint-Saens, Wagner and Dvorak from performers including Arturo Toscanini, Christian Zacharias, David Oistrakh and Il Giardino Armonico.