Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benjamin Franklin's iPod | 20101218 | Benjamin Franklin, scientist, inventor and founding father of the USA was also a song-writer. He wrote drinking songs for his friends, love songs to his wife, and songs of political protest.
David Owen Norris recreates the songs and explores what they reveal about a great eccentric. On location in Franklin's house in London, he talks to historians Lady Joan Reid, Dr Catherine Jones and Dr Julie Flavell and plays on Franklin's proudest invention - the glass armonica. With singers Gwyneth Herbert, Thomas Guthrie and Laura Crowther.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
Discover the songs written by Benjamin Franklin, scientist, inventor, and founding father. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods | |
| Charles Dickens' iPod | 20101225 | Charles Dickens wrote and performed songs all his life. As a little boy, his mother stood him on the table in the local pub to sing; as a successful writer he sang to his guests after dinner. He also wrote the libretto for an opera.
David Owen Norris re-imagines his favourite tunes, beginning with his party piece as a little boy ending with the carol in 'A Christmas Carol'. Recorded on location in Dickens's drawing room, with biographers Claire Tomalin and Michael Slater and actor and writer Simon Callow. With singers Gwyneth Herbert, Thomas Guthrie and Laura Crowther.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
David Owen Norris recreates Charles Dickens's favourite music. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods | |
| Charles Dickens' iPod | 20101225 | 20120101 (R4) | Charles Dickens wrote and performed songs all his life. As a little boy, his mother stood him on the table in the local pub to sing; as a successful writer he sang to his guests after dinner. He also wrote the libretto for an opera.
David Owen Norris re-imagines his favourite tunes, beginning with his party piece as a little boy ending with the carol in 'A Christmas Carol'. Recorded on location in Dickens's drawing room, with biographers Claire Tomalin and Michael Slater and actor and writer Simon Callow. With singers Gwyneth Herbert, Thomas Guthrie and Laura Crowther.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
David Owen Norris recreates Charles Dickens's favourite music. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods |
| Emma Hamilton's iPod | 20101211 | Emma Hamilton, Nelson's mistress, was an accomplished singer and a famous dancer- at the height of her fame, women all over Europe were dancing to her tunes. Haydn wrote specially for her.
David Owen Norris discovers how her favourite songs reflect an extraordinary life. With biographer Kate Williams and historians Quintin Colville and Rachel Cowgill, he looks through Emma's songbooks and recreates the music she loved all her life. Recorded at the National Maritime Museum. With singers Gwyneth Herbert, Thomas Guthrie and Laura Crowther.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
The extraordinary life of Nelson's mistress reflected in her favourite songs. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods | |
| Jane Austen's iPod | 20100102 | A rare insight into the family life of Jane Austen through her favourite songs. She collected songs all her life, but many of them have only just come to light, in manuscripts inherited by one of her descendants. Jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert performs some of these songs.
Professor Richard Jenkyns inherited a pile of music manuscripts which are only just being looked at by the Austen scholars. He shows us what he found: some have been laboriously copied out by Jane herself - among the music manuscripts in Jane's handwriting is a piano piece which he believes she composed.
David Owen Norris brings him together with scholars Deirdre Le Faye and Samantha Carrasco at Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire. Together they cast a new light on one of our best-loved and most enigmatic writers.
Some of the songs included are:
A romantic song by Robert Burns, to which she changed the words, so that the final words referred to herself -"the charms of your Jane."
A tragic French song, "Les Hirondelles", which ends with imprisonment and death. Jane's sister in law Eliza had lived in France, and her first husband was guillotined in the Terror.
"The Ploughboy" - a popular song of the time, witty, and with a politically subversive message about corrupt politicians who are only interested in money, and manage to buy their way into power.
"Goosey Goosey Gander" - Jane had a lot of nursery rhymes, and was constantly surrounded by boisterous nephews and nieces.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
Jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert performs Jane Austen's favourite songs. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods | |
| Jane Austen's iPod | 20100102 | 20100606 (R4) | A rare insight into the family life of Jane Austen through her favourite songs. She collected songs all her life, but many of them have only just come to light, in manuscripts inherited by one of her descendants. Jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert performs some of these songs.
Professor Richard Jenkyns inherited a pile of music manuscripts which are only just being looked at by the Austen scholars. He shows us what he found: some have been laboriously copied out by Jane herself - among the music manuscripts in Jane's handwriting is a piano piece which he believes she composed.
David Owen Norris brings him together with scholars Deirdre Le Faye and Samantha Carrasco at Jane Austen's house in Chawton, Hampshire. Together they cast a new light on one of our best-loved and most enigmatic writers.
Some of the songs included are:
A romantic song by Robert Burns, to which she changed the words, so that the final words referred to herself -"the charms of your Jane."
A tragic French song, "Les Hirondelles", which ends with imprisonment and death. Jane's sister in law Eliza had lived in France, and her first husband was guillotined in the Terror.
"The Ploughboy" - a popular song of the time, witty, and with a politically subversive message about corrupt politicians who are only interested in money, and manage to buy their way into power.
"Goosey Goosey Gander" - Jane had a lot of nursery rhymes, and was constantly surrounded by boisterous nephews and nieces.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
Jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert performs Jane Austen's favourite songs. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods |
| Oscar Wilde's iPod | 20111203 | David Owen Norris and guests listen to Oscar Wilde's favourite songs, in the room in the Cadogan Hotel, Knightsbridge, where he was arrested. The guests include Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland, who has unearthed a whole series of popular songs about Wilde.
This was before his disgrace, while Wilde was a celebrity, and the songs are satirical but affectionate - we hear 'The Flippety Flop Man' and 'Quite Too Utterly Utter'. Other guests are Wilde scholar Owen Dudley Edwards and Franny Moyle, the author of the recent biography of Wilde's wife Constance.
Constance and Oscar gave great parties in their 'house beautiful' in Chelsea, and visitors would write poems - and songs - in their autograph books. David Owen Norris digs these out of the British Library, and discovers a song written by George Grossmith of 'Diary of a Nobody' fame - a song about a party, so we hear it, 'Keep on Talking.' Also from the autograph books comes a song about Mrs Wilde and her baby son; a now-forgotten side of Wilde, as a family man. We hear too the favourite song of Wilde's lover and nemesis 'Bosie', Alfred Lord Douglas, a Mozart aria about seduction, deception, and ruin.
Presenter David Owen Norris is a broadcaster, composer and concert pianist. He has arranged the songs, which are performed by Thomas Guthrie and jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
David Owen Norris hears Oscar Wilde's favourite songs, in the room where he was arrested. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods | |
| Samuel Pepys' Playlist | 20111204 | 20101204 (R4) | Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, loved music. It outlasted all his other passions- even his passion for women. He left hundreds of his favourite songs, some covered in wine stains, relics of drunken musical evenings.
David Owen Norris explores the songs in the Pepys Library in Cambridge with historians Richard Luckett, Jenny Uglow and Basie Gitlin, and recreates the music he loved best. With singers Gwyneth Herbert, Thomas Guthrie and Laura Crowther.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
Samuel Pepys, diarist, politician and womaniser, as revealed in his favourite songs. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods |
| Thomas Hardy's iPod | 20111210 | David Owen Norris and guests listen to Thomas Hardy's favourite songs in the house he built for himself - Max Gate, in Dorset. Hardy's playlist is extraordinarily varied; it begins with music his violinist father played, and which he later used in one of the great novels.
We hear Hardy's favourite song as a young man about town, 'How Oft Louis', a song which obsessed him because he was in love with an unobtainable girl called Louisa. There is the now-forgotten opera version of 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles', which Hardy thought was so good that he considered a career as a professional song-writer.
And there is the music he listened to with his friend Lawrence of Arabia, on a wind-up gramophone with a huge horn, the two men spending evenings together in a tiny attic room in Lawrence's house 'Cloud's Hill'.
Guests for this programme are Professor John Mullan, Professor Derek Scott, and Dr Jacqueline Dillion, a Hardy scholar who lives at Max Gate. They listen to the music and discuss what it reveals about Hardy's life.
Presenter David Owen Norris is a broadcaster, composer and concert pianist. He has arranged the songs, which are performed by Thomas Guthrie and jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert.
Producer: Elizabeth Burke
David Owen Norris hears Thomas Hardy's favourite songs in his house Max Gate in Dorset. David Owen Norris asks which tunes famous historical figures would have had on their iPods |