| Programme Name: | Details: |
|---|
| Adventures In Poetry | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems.... |
| Archive Hour, The | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS presents a history of the diva, from the earliest opera stars of the bel canto to recent megastars of popular music. In an age when the term 'celebrity' is attached to some staggeringly minor talents, she takes a look at what makes a real star, and turns a singer into an iconic figure for a whole generation.... |
| Book Of The Year | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS looks back at a year in publishing history to discover the classics which have survived and the best sellers of the day which have disappeared from our bookshelves.... |
| Glyndebourne At 70 | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS presents the first of three programmes exploring the history of Glyndebourne to mark the 70th anniversary of the festival and 10 years in the new opera house. With extracts of operas staged there from the 1930s to the present day, and archive interview recordings of its founder John Christie, the series begins by charting Glyndebourne's close association with Mozart and John Christie's ambition to stage Wagner.... |
| Hidden History Of Sex, The | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS presents a series exploring the cultural history behind our changing attitudes to sexual behaviour and taboos over the centuries.... |
| How The Diva Lost Her Voice | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS investigates the silencing of the operatic heroine.... |
| Interval | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS tells the story of Marian Anderson, the American contralto who, fifty years ago this month, became the first black singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House.... |
| Lifestory | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS explores the conundrum of the last of the gentlemen-aesthetes. They called him Lord Clark of `Civilisation', cultural ambassador to the masses with his famous sixties television series. As author, lecturer, museum director and patron, he held British culture - and the hearts of society women - in the palm of his hand. Yet for some he was a middlebrow vulgariser, and for others an arrogant mandarin who discussed the Renaissance as though he had invented it.... |
| Magician's Wand, The | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS investigates the connection between the magic wand and the conductor's baton, with the help of Kevin Jackson, Tanya Peixoto and Marina Warner.... |
| Ninette De Valois | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS and guests - including ballerina Pamela May, conductor Barry Wordsworth and David Bintley, director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet - celebrate the one-hundredth birthday of one of the pioneers of English ballet. With music from the works she choreographed and commissioned, and birthday best wishes from generations of dances, directors and choreographers from Alicia Markova to Darcey Bussell.... |
| Off The Page | ...Matthew Parris is joined by Margi Clarke, PEGGY REYNOLDS and Martin Newell to discuss the misunderstandings caused by the body language of love.... |
| Office Politics | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS, John Carey and Nigel Smith discuss the forces that united and divided the 17th-century poets Milton, Marvell and Dryden. All three worked as part of Cromwell's government but had widely diverging careers after the restoration of Charles II.... |
| Opera In Action | ...Literary critic PEGGY REYNOLDS reads some well-known operas like a book, exploring the themes that run through them. Today: letter scenes.... |
| Out Of The Blue [documentary] | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS explores how writers have been inspired by incidents of strange weather.... |
| Out Of The Blue | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS explores how writers have been inspired by incidents of strange weather.... |
| Pick Of The Week | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS presents her selection of highlights from the past week on BBC Radio.... |
| Pied Piper Of Hamelin, The | ...In 1842, Robert Browning wrote a poem to cheer up the ill ten-year-old son of a friend. The poem has enchanted children and adults ever since. PEGGY REYNOLDS introduces a performance of `The Pied Piper' by Andrew Sachs ... |
| Portrait Of Ethel Smyth, A | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS looks back at the life and career of Ethel Smyth, composer, writer and friend to figures such as Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Virginia Woolf.... |
| Postscript | ...Each night this week, PEGGY REYNOLDS unravels the dramatic, musical and emotional impact of a favourite operatic aria. Tonight, `Abscheulicher' from Beethoven's revolutionary rescue opera `Fidelio'. Mark Elder, Kathryn Harries, Graham Vick and Annabel Arden explore the composer's path to understanding humanity through his cross-dressed heroine in her moment of crisis.... |
| Soul Music | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS, Ian Bradley and Raymond Head discuss the history of the carol.... |
| Sound Stories | ...With PEGGY REYNOLDS. 1: Walter Scott. With their dramatic plots, colourful characters and wild Highland settings, Scott's novels became popular throughout Europe and were easy meat for composers, from `The Lady of the Lake' to `The Heart of Midlothian'. Including excerpts from Rossini: La donna del lago. Soloists, Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Maurizio Pollini. Bizet: La jolie fille de Perth. Alfredo Kraus (tenor), New Philharmonic/Georges Pretre. MacCunn: Jeanie Deans. Soloists, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins.... |
| These You Have Loathed | ...Four-part series in which Petroc Trelawny invites two leading cultural figures to share the music they simply can't stand. Opera director Francesca Zambello and writer and broadcaster PEGGY REYNOLDS consider crimes committed in the name of music by the three tenors, Verdi and Michael Nyman ... |
| Thinking In Rhymes | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS examines the life and work of the poet Patience Strong, born 100 years ago. She talks to people who knew Strong to explore her enduring popularity. Contemporary poets also discuss the role of Strong's poetry in the modern world.... |
| Travels With Blavatsky | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS goes in search of the grandmother of the New Age, Madame Blavatsky, one of history's most enigmatic women, responsible for opening Western minds to Eastern thought.... |
| Twenty Minutes - A Sound Read | ...Ivan Hewett is joined by Roger Parker, the newly appointed professor of music at Cambridge University, and by the writer PEGGY REYNOLDS to review new books on music. This month's edition features the second volume in David Cairn's monumental study `Berlioz', Sir John Tooley's `In House - the Story of Covent Garden' and `The Birth of Bebop' by Scott DeVeaux.... |
| Word Of Mouth | ...PEGGY REYNOLDS presents the series that takes a close look at the words we use, where they come from and how we play with them (3/8).... |