A selection of Seasonal Music 2025
A selection of Seasonal Music 2025
MOST MUSIC CAN BE FOUND ON BBC SOUNDS
A service of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, on 24th December at 3pm
Every year during the Radio 4 news at 3 pm on the 24th December, a treble (boy soprano) at the back of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge is tapped on the shoulder. As the news finishes, listen, as that treble soloist sings ‘Once in Royal David’s City’…
It works every time!
BBC Sounds, Radio 4
Cosi Fan Tutte
Broadcast live from La Scala, Milan on Saturday 27th December. Excellent voices. Look out for ‘Soave sia il vento’ and ‘Un’aura amorosa’.
BBC Sounds, Radio 3
BBC3 Breakfast
Weekday programmes from 15th December with Tom McKinney and Hannah French. John Toal’s programmes, broadcast live from Belfast on Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th December, should on no account be missed. I suggest that the BBC keeps these programmes online for at least a year.
BBC Sounds, Radio 3
Fairy-tale of New York by the Pogues
I suggest that you listen to three versions in the following order.
i) The original version with film.
Freely available online
y ii) The recently re-released late eighties’ version live from the Barrowlands, sung at reckless speed by Kirstie McColl and Shane McGowan.
Search online
iii) The version which is heard and discussed near the end of ‘Two Doors Down 2025 Christmas Special.’
BBC iPlayer (TV)
Test Match Special Theme Tune (Soul Limbo)
A long-time favourite of mine, I didn’t hear this, or any of the Test Match Special Commentary during the two days of the 4th Ashes Test. Maybe some of you were braver!
BBC Sounds, Radio 5 extra
Christmas University Challenge Theme Tune
The University Challenge Christmas Specials celebrate their fifteenth anniversary this year. Hosted by Amol Rajan, it’s gone up to an entirely new level.
BBC iPlayer (TV)
Vienna New Year’s Day Concert, Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Petroc Trelawny introduces the programme live from Vienna from 9.30 am on Radio 3. I remember listening, with my father, to several of Willi Boskovsky’s concerts in the 1960s
Tickets are highly priced and prized, dress code unknown, but “real furs” will be much in evidence in the cloakrooms!
BBC Sounds, Radio 3.
And, we’ll always have ‘Casablanca’.
Sing along, and, if you are able, stand for ‘The Marseillaise’.
BBC iPlayer (TV)
Let’s hope 2026 sees the beginning of many beautiful friendships!
Please suggest your own favourite pieces of seasonal music in the Comments Section.
