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A E Housman’s collection of poems, A Shropshire Lad, has inspired composers since it was first published in 1896. There are over 400 published musical settings of the poem. George Butterworth’s are the most famous - but the list also includes Vaughan Williams, Somervell, and Ireland, and more recently Stephen Hough, Jake Heggie and Ian Venables. In a new book, writer Peter Parker examines how A Shropshire Lad has permeated English life and culture for more than a century. He talks to Petroc about Housman’s impact on English music. 

Music Matters looks back at the main stories and issues of the classical music season with a panel of experts. Observer critic Fiona Maddocks, British Council Director of Arts Graham Sheffield, and European Union Youth Orchestra CEO Marshall Marcus join Petroc live to discuss the implications of Brexit on UK music, the prospects for the proposed new concert hall in London, the major new appointments and vacancies in the classical world, and which performers and events they are most excited about in the coming year.   

Cole Porter was born 125 years ago and is a towering figure of American music theatre.  In the latest Music Matters Composer Portrait, Petroc Trelawny talks with Cliff Eisen, the American musicologist who is currently editing a collection of Porter’s letters, Jo Davies, the theatre director who mounted an award-winning production of Kiss me Kate for Opera North and brings that same production to Welsh National Opera in the autumn, and the jazz singer and pianist Ian Shaw.  Together, they tell the story of how Cole Porter learnt his craft between the Schola Cantorum de Paris, where he took lessons with Vincent d’Indy, and the theatres of Broadway, the success of Kiss me Kate, and why his works have lent themselves so readily to jazz.