Richard Allinson on Scala Radio

Richard Allinson’s new evening shows have started. Richard will provide great company and a great soundtrack for your evening every Monday to Thursday from 7-10pm, playing new releases, the Piano Playlist at 8pm and Mindfulness Music at 9pm. We spoke to Richard to find out more about his new series on Scala Radio.

You're presenting a new show on Scala Radio every Monday to Thursday from 7 p.m. Tell us what we can expect?

We've moved the furniture around a little bit, but at that time, I've always thought it's a time when people make a conscious decision to listen to the radio.

A lot of people aren't working. Most people are listening at home. So they're probably not looking at the TV and they want, at that particular time of day, to concentrate on something else.

We have the piano playlist at 8pm. I saw somewhere that said the piano is one of the most popular instruments you'll come across. If a house has any musical instruments, it will most likely be a piano or a guitar. In public, you'll often find a piano in a church hall or a school. Even mainline railway stations have pianos lying around. So we thought, we need to have the piano playlist.

Mindfulness music at 9pm always works because it's the end of your day for a lot of people. It's a perfect time to wind down and take stock of the day and concentrate on the good bits rather than the lousy bits.

It's all too easy, I think, to miss those fleeting moments of, 'Hey, that was good', because the rest of the day, the commute and other things can take over.

So, expect a big melting pot of personalities and lifestyle with terrific music.

How are you feeling about your new show?

I love it. For the first time in a long time, I'm playing music that I haven't played on the radio before. And so I'm learning not just about the music, but the performances.

New conductors, new instrumentalists, new artists, and new orchestras playing their new versions of them. And there are always different interpretations. It's the biggest record collection in the world.

I started doing this in the early 1980s. So I suppose there are about 40 years of music that I've played as new releases and are now part of lots of people's collections. But if you go into the classical realm, we're going back hundreds of years.

I was talking to James Runcie, who's written a book about what it was like when Bach wrote St Matthew Passion in the 1700s. There was no way of recording back then, so you never knew what it actually sounded like. We only started recording about a hundred years ago. And it's phenomenal to see the number of recordings of pieces that were made, written two or three hundred years ago and only performed a handful of times. Every time I play a new piece, I learn something about it.

Hannah Cox - Big shoes to fill

I've known Hannah for years. We first met working for a British Broadcasting Service. She has the perfect radio voice because it feels like someone is talking to you and you feel like you've known them for ages.

It's this particular time in the evening I thought she made her own, and now she's moving to weekend breakfast from 7-10am. It's a special time of the day because a lot of people will be waking up to the same radio station on the weekend as they wake up to when they go to work.

Maybe you don't have to work. Maybe you've got a day off, or maybe you're just spending time with your family or friends. The weekend is an entirely different proposition to the Monday to Friday deals. And I think Hannah is the perfect host to get your weekend started.

Hannah Cox will be hosting the Weekend Breakfast Show from 7-10am on Saturday and Sunday from 23rd April.

Do you remember your earliest experience of classical music?

My parents didn't know a lot about classical music, but they liked musicals. And my first experience of classical music was when I was learning to play the piano and I was given my first piece by Chopin. The signatures were unbelievable, and the pace at which it was played was sensational. It took me an age to learn it and I suddenly had two ideas.

Number one, I can't do this for a living because there are people with bigger hands, long fingers who are better at playing the piano than me.

Number two, I had this rather twisted idea that maybe Chopin couldn't play his stuff either. But he just wrote it to confuse pianists and give them rheumatoid arthritis in their fingers for the rest of their lives. Because some of the stuff was so technically complex!

When was the last time a piece of classical music stopped you in your tracks?

The funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. I was on the radio that day. As they were taking her out of the abbey and putting her in the car the music playing was John Tavener's Song for Athene.

It must have been the context and the surroundings and the circumstances and the location as well. But there was something about the power of the human voice. Especially in a big abbey. And that just stopped me. I was entranced for the rest of that service by that piece by John Tavener.

How can listeners can get involved with your show?

Well, the usual email (richard@scalaradio.co.uk), via twitter (@scalaradio), and text (64100).

I like to know what people are doing between 7-10pm. You know why I'm here. I'm just nosey. I like to get involved, so we've introduced a couple of features in the first hour so that people can share what they've been doing with me.

I know that other people's days can be, shall we say, eventful. Share your day with us. And we will share our evening and our music with you. And the more the merrier!

When is Richard Allinson on Scala Radio?

Richard Allinson keeps you company with a great soundtrack to your Monday to Thursday evenings from 7-10pm. He features brand new releases in the first hour of the show and this evening his picks include the Maitris Notre-Dame de Paris, saxophonist Jonathan Radford and Eydis Evensen.

Listen To Scala Radio

Listen to Scala Radio on DAB nationwide, on our free app, online or via your smart speaker (“Play Scala Radio”).