BBC Radio 3 Podcasts

Max Roach was one of the architects of modern jazz drumming in the 1940s, and continued to innovate until his death in 2007. In this week's Jazz Library Podcast, Richard Pite joins Alyn Shipton to trace Roach's career. As well as work with Miles Davis (a seminal side from Birth Of The Cool) and Sonny Rollins (that St Thomas groove is hard to beat), Pite's picks from the catalogue include the drummer's own groups including the quintet with Clifford Brown and the later Double Quartet that fused chamber strings and jazz players. To close, an amazing scat-drum duet with the inimitable Dizzy Gillespie.

Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s bicentenary celebrated in highlights from five Composer of the Week programmes presented by Donald Macleod. SS Wesley was rated highly by the likes of Gounod, Parry and Elgar in his time but is largely forgotten today. His father was also a celebrated composer – other relatives of note include his great uncle John Wesley - the preacher, and his grandfather Charles - the hymn writer.

Susan Hitch celebrates the work of Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, one hundred years after his death. Susan also explores the writings of Boris Pasternak and discusses Dr Zhivago and also his poetry.

Norman Lebrecht meets the acclaimed American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. The sixth child of an Irish Catholic family in Prairie Village, Kansas, she married young and was almost thirty before anyone was prepared to back her talent. In the decade since then, she has taken on mezzo roles in Rossini and Handel with a wide-eyed zest that audiences find irresistible, and an openness that appears to be innate. The very model of a 21st-century communicator, Joyce DiDonato writes a chatty blog and decorates it with photographs that she snaps wherever she goes. She tells Norman Lebrecht about her early life in Kansas, her studies in Philadelphia and Houston, and how she bounced back from a string of rejections to become one of the world's great operatic stars.

Handel's beginnings, his skilful ability to impress and control his employers, and his tendency to recycle music. Highlights from five Composer of the Week programmes presented by Donald Macleod joined by Handel expert Suzanne Aspden. Faced with hours of Handel's sublime music and the composer's eventful life story they've whisked up a focus on Handel the borrower of his own and others' music - with a look at Agrippina the opera that so impressed Venice, and an electric performance of Dixit Dominus. They discuss Handel the politician, how the composer was adopted in England and found long-term favour with the new Hanoverian monarchy.

Max Reinhardt introduces this month's Late Junction Session, featuring singer Cevanne and harpist Ruth Wall - with additional harp and vocals provided by Nina Horrocks-Hopayian. The session includes new pieces by Cevanne (If I Could Say) and Ruth (The Coffin Trail) plus interviews with the artists, recorded at the BBC's Maida Vale studios.

This week, Matthew Sweet explored Byron's poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Ian McMillan was joined by journalist and author Max Hastings and historian Jenny Uglow to mark the 350 years since Samuel Pepys started the most influential diary in British history.

Sir Roger Norrington has been one of the major movers and shakers on the classical music scene for nearly half a century. He founded the Schutz Choir and the London Classical Players, and was Music Director of Kent Opera for 15 years before taking his place on the podium with some of the great orchestras of Europe and America. The son of an Oxford Vice-Chancellor, Norrington was put to work in academic publishing before the musical imperative took over. His approach differed from other historically informed leaders, concentrating less on old instruments and more on texture of sound. He has outlasted many of his noisier contemporaries, a fact more remarkable since he was told two decades ago that he'd developed a brain tumour and had only months to live. Norrington talks to Norman Lebrecht about his early years growing up in Oxford and Canada, how he made the decision to become a musician, and how he battled ill health to come through fighting.

The legendary guitarist Julian Bream is Petroc Trelawny's guest in today's programme. Born in 1933, the list of composers inspired to write music for Bream reads like a Who's Who of 20th-century music, including Malcolm Arnold, Lennox Berkeley, Britten, Henze, Tippett and Walton. A near contemporary of Bream's, renowned American musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen has just published a new book, Music and Sentiment. Petroc is joined by Nicholas Kenyon and Nigel Simeone to review it, and to assess Rosen's importance and stature as a writer on music. French opera also falls under the Music Matters spotlight this week, as a new book by Vincent Giroud takes us on a tour of this remarkably rich repertoire, from Lully to Poulenc and beyond, via Rameau, Bizet, Gounod, Massenet and Debussy.

Jonathan Swain compares the available recordings of Stravinsky's ballet The Fairy's Kiss

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is Z for Zarzuela. Our guides are Placido Domingo and Andrew Lamb. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ss3h8

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is Y for Youth. Our guides are Sarah Lenton, Steuart Bedford and Nicholas Chalmers. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ss3bp

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is X for X-Rated (Censorship). Our guides are Sarah Lenton, Alexandra Wilson and Adrian Mourby. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ss2cb

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is W for Wings. Our guides are Sarah Lenton, Nicholas Chalmers, Steuart Bedford and Joyce Didonato. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq5s1

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is V for Verismo. Our guides are Sarah Lenton, Alexandra Wilson and Adrian Mourby. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq5qk

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is U for Understudy. Our guides are Mary King, Robert Lloyd, Gerald Martin-Moore and Elizabeth Meister. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq5fs

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is T for Tenor. Our guides are John Mark Ainsley, Rolando Villazón and Sir Mark Elder. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq57n

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is R for Recitative. Our guides are Sir Mark Elder, Mary King, Joyce DiDonato and Danielle De Niese. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq4zv

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is R for Recitative. Our guides are Danielle de Niese, Laurence Cummings, Gerald Martin-Moore and Graham Vick. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00smvbg

The In Tune A-Z of Opera. Today's letter is Q for Queens. Our guides are Sarah Lenton and Joyce DiDonato. For details of the music used in today's podcast please visit the In Tune playlist pages http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00smv7t