This week’s selection comes from Mat Hart, World & Traditional Music volunteer for Unlocking our Sound Heritage. This beautiful song is composed and performed by Madi Lehbib, who sings and plays percussion on this track, with accompaniment from guitarist Mahmud Bara. The song is sung in local Arabic dialect –…

Dr Joshua Cohen uses the oral histories in the CPGB Biographical Project to look at the motivations of communists of Jewish heritage.

Chaliapin in the 1930s By Jonathan Summers, Curator of Classical Music Welcome to another in the occasional series of podcasts showcasing treasures from the classical collection of the British Library Sound Archive. Actor and author Simon Callow shares his passion for the great Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) whose recordings…

This week’s selection comes from Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English. H-dropping – the tendency for some speakers to omit the initial sound in words like house – has a long history. It’s extremely common in England, Wales and parts of the Caribbean, but rare in Scotland, Ireland…

Bohemian Quartet (Tully Potter collection) Guest blog by Edison Fellow Rosalind Ventris, a concert violist and teacher of viola and chamber music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music Listen to these two examples of the opening of Smetana’s String Quartet No.1 in E minor ‘From my life’. First, the…