Accidental Beauties Of Silly Songs

First broadcast 20070403.

Best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith explores WH Auden's fascination with music and song. He looks at Auden's collaboration with Benjamin Britten on cabaret songs and the musical Paul Bunyan, as well as his libretto for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress.

Including interviews with Stephen Spender's widow Lady Natasha Spender, the poet Peter Porter, archive of Stravinsky and commentary from Auden himself.