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A note to Nocturne listeners from Robyn Johnston, December 2005

I'm sorry to have to confess that I'm relinquishing Nocturne in order to work on a new programme in 2006, which has precipitated a change in the Radio National schedule for Sunday nights.

I wanted a change (and a bit more interaction, given that Nocturne has been my solo pursuit), so I'll be presenting a new show called Into the Music, on Saturday afternoons at five, beginning on January 28.

This is Radio National's major music initiative for 2006 and will offer a prime timeslot for a diverse selection of long-form, thoughtful programs about some aspect of music. I'll be making some of the programs myself, as time allows, and presenting programs from other sources (made by other RN and freelance producers, with occasional programs and series from other public broadcasters internationally).

Thank you for listening to Nocturne. I have enjoyed making those musical juxtapositions and have discovered much along the way. Doug Spencer will be your host on Sunday nights in 2006 with The Weekend Planet and I hope you enjoy his music selections.

Best wishes and thanks again for listening to Radio National.

Always have the latest information about Radio National's music programs by subscribing to our weekly Music Mailing List.
Final Playlists

22/1/2006
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On Nocturne this week, we torture ourselves with operatic regrets; What if Desdemona hadn't gone to sleep? What if Katya Kabanova had been a strong swimmer? What if Tosca had been afraid of heights? We'll hear a song of warning for all doomed heroines, as well as some lovely arrangements of opera arias and some tunes by a Brazilian composer whose entire family was burdened with unlikely names from Verdi operas.
The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo lived a life operatic in its pain and passions. Tonight we'll hear musical settings of her writings and hear the work of two women who knew her; one an extraordinary singer and the other a musicologist who first travelled in Mexico in the early forties with an enormous recording machine and a mule of great forbearance.
15/1/2006
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Nocturne this week abounds in fables and fairytales, so you'd better listen all the way through or that glittering ballgown will revert to dirty rags and you'll be back to your wretched straw bed in the garrett.
We'll hear various takes on the Cinderella story, from Prokofiev's music for the ballet to a hilarious Australian rendition of the tale and a song from a woman who thinks the whole fair maid/handsome prince construct is a bit of a worry.
Composer Elena Kats-Chernin is under Hans Christian Andersen's spell, a guitarist makes Tom Thumb laugh, Igor Stravinsky rocks that pea-green boat and Michael Tippett dreams up an enchanting tale for harp and viola.
8/1/2006
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In 1903, Gustav Holst wrote a kind letter to his friend Ralph Vaughan Williams, reassuring him that his music created "an indescribable sort of feeling as if one were listening to very lovely lyrical poetry...the real RVW is more original than you think". We'll hear what he meant, with some RVW miniatures, his settings of Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry and a soaring Australian performance of his best-known work.
RVW's compatriot Rebecca Clarke may have needed reassurance that she existed at all, given that her first success as a composer in 1919 was greeted by press assertions that she was really a man. Miss Clarke is on Nocturne this week, and she offers one of a number of lullabies we'll hear, including a Benjamin Britten one you couldn't possibly fall asleep to because it's so dark and strange.
Also on the show, various love stories in song; some happy, some tragic and some just plain untidy, including one from a regretful Van Morrison, who's lonesome and blue but says he's learned a thing or two (yeah, sure).
1/1/2006
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Birdwatchers listening to Nocturne this week will be rewarded with glimpses of the rare piano brolga, the exuberant trad jazz magpie and the ubiquitous Messiaen blackbird, as well as quietly observing Rickie Lee Jones tending to a fragile creature with a broken wing. Research shows that the bird-music habitat is often frequented by flutes, but rarely by a flute of such rivetting intensity as that heard on a stunning piece by Australia's Mary Finsterer.
Elvis Costello, Billie Holiday and Mic Conway are on the show too, as well as a Scottish folksinger musing on motherhood (or how the birds that have flown the nest have a habit of coming back and giving you a really hard time).
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