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Artists take part in impromptu concerts, including Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and other international performers. Jonathan Swain presents.

A day-long festival of Christmas music and singing from across Europe and Canada in the European Broadcasting Union’s annual Christmas music day. Choirs and ensembles come together to celebrate the wonder of Christmas. First we travel to Montreal with L’Harmonie des Saisons; then to Lleida in Spain, with María Espada and Bach Collegium Barcelona, and then from Prague we hear Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and Children's Choir, and from Copenhagen in Denmark, festive music by British composers. Then we travel to Germany for music from Munich, including Praetorius, and Frankfurt.

Andrew McGregor (presenter)

A day-long festival of Christmas music from across Europe, in the European Broadcasting Union’s annual Christmas music day, continues with concerts from Saarbrucken, Gothenburg, Utrecht, Hamburg, Reykjavik and London, presented by Hannah French.

Over six decades, Ken Loach has forged a reputation as Britain’s foremost politically-engaged filmmaker, exploring issues of social justice, freedom and power. He has twice won the prestigious Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, in 2006 for The Wind That Shakes The Barley, set amidst the Irish struggle for independence, and twenty years later for I, Daniel Blake, a contemporary British story about unemployment and poverty.

Ken Loach recalls his Midlands childhood as the son of a factory worker, and annual summer holidays in Blackpool. It was there that he saw end-of-pier variety acts and comedians, including Jewell and Warris, Nat Jackley and Frank Randle, all of whom helped ignited an early passion for storytelling and performance. He recalls how, after studying law at Oxford, he joined the BBC’s Wednesday Play production team, with the aim of creating television drama out of contemporary social issues. His television films Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home, which tackled abortion, unemployment and homlessness, were each seen by over 10 million people, and played an influential part in the public debate about the issues. Loach reveals that Czech cinema of the 1960s, including the films of Miloš Forman, were a huge inspiration on his own filmmaking career, with the use of the naturalistic performances and camera-work that captured the environment from a distance most clearly seen in his classic 1969 film Kes.

Ken Loach also chooses as a major influence, the real lives of people whose stories have inspired his films throughout his career, including veterans of the Spanish civil war and Nicaraguans who had seen schools and health centres destroyed by the Contra rebels.
Producer: Edwina Pitman

Reinhard Goebel conducts the Swedish Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra in Handel's Messiah from the 2021 Baltic Sea Festival, with soloists including Camilla Tilling and Matthew Rose. John Shea presents.

Georg Friedrich Handel’s oratorio Messiah, crowned by the famous Hallelujah Choir – a magnificent finale in which the joy of resurrection also frames this year’s festival theme, rebirth. Conductor Reinhard Goebel leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Choir, and soloists.


The Messiah oratorio is probably to be considered Georg Friedrich Handel’s best-known work, especially outside of England. Messiah is likely one of the world’s most famous and performed oratorios; a brilliant setting of texts from the Old and New Testaments to music, by one of the truly great masters of the baroque era.

Messiah had a triumphant premiere in Dublin in 1742. When it was first performed in London in 1745, the reception was decidedly cooler, which meant that only three concerts of the planned six took place. But when the piece was performed again, having been on ice for four years, it gained ground once more. The year thereafter saw the beginning of the annual Messiah charity concerts, which continued even after Handel’s death. In 1755, Handel’s poor eyesight stopped him from leading the performances, and the baton was handed over to one of the composer’s students. Fate wanted the Messiah concert in London, 1759, to be the final concert Handel attended, eight days before he died.

Handel reworked Messiah a number of times, sometimes to adapt the piece for the various soloists that were at his disposal at the time. Others, such as Mozart, have also reworked the oratorio. Several versions, modified for the tastes of the time, were created in the 1800s, sometimes leading to monumental performances with up to 800 performers. These days, as is the case here, a more ‘Handel-faithful’ version is often performed. A complete Messiah with 68 movements and a concert length of two and a half hours is a rare occurrence.

In the 1750s, Messiah went into the world to convert new concert audiences. The piece spread from England to the European continent and the US. The oratorio, or parts of it, started being performed at concerts, festivals and religious services, and this has continued ever since. A strong tradition of performing Messiah at Christmas – if not the whole oratorio, then at least the now iconic Hallelujah chorus – has also developed.

Karin Ekedahl

The Renaissance Men recreate a Saxon Christmas from the 16th century with unaccompanied church music by Heinrich Isaac, Johannes Reusch and Wolfgang Figulus. Presented by John Shea.

Judith Weir: Drop down ye heavens
Byrd: Rorate caeli
Margaret Rizza: Ave Generosa
Joanna Marsh: In Winter’s House
Bob Chilcott: The Pear-Tree Carol
Kerensa Briggs: A tender shoot
Judith Bingham: O Oriens
Hildegard von Bingen: O Frondens virga
Owain Park: O magnum mysterium
Eriks Ešenvalds: O Emmanuel
Alison Willis: There is no rose
Cecilia McDowall: Now may we singen

BBC Singers
Owain Park, conductor

Ian Skelly presents a live Good Friday concert from King's College, Cambridge. In January 1783 Mozart wrote to his father saying he had promised to complete a setting of the Mass. It was performed later that year in Salzburg with his new wife Constanze as one of the soprano soloists, but in fact remains unfinished, suggesting that Mozart perhaps borrowed bits from existing works for that performance.