Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Part 1 | 20090722 | Tom Service presents a celebration of Cambridge University's 800th anniversary with a concert of music given by a convocation of the university's college choirs, featuring two soloists and a conductor who are among its graduates. As professor of music, Thomas Stanford taught Vaughan Williams, who wrote his Wasps Overture for a university staging of Aristophanes's comedy, and later set verses by a former University Orator, George Herbert, in his Five Mystical Songs. Ryan Wigglesworth went to Oxford but is now a Cambridge lecturer and fellow of Corpus Christi College. Simon Keenlyside (baritone) Choirs of King's, St John's, Clare, Gonville and Caius and Trinity Colleges BBC Symphony Orchestra Andrew Davis (conductor) Vaughan Williams: Overture (The Wasps) Ryan Wigglesworth: The Genesis of Secrecy (BBC commission; world premiere) Vaughan Williams: Five Mystical Songs. Vaughan Williams: The Wasps; 5 songs. Ryan Wigglesworth: The Genesis of Secrecy. |
| 02 | Part 2 | 20090722 | Presented by Tom Service. The celebration of Cambridge University's 800th anniversary continues, with music by Jonathan Harvey and Judith Weir, who studied at Cambridge, and Camille Saint-Saens, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in 1893. Thomas Trotter (organ) Choirs of King's and St John's colleges (Harvey and Weir) Choirs of Clare, Gonville and Caius, and Trinity colleges (Stanford only) BBC Symphony Orchestra Andrew Davis (conductor, Stanford and Saint-Saens) Stephen Cleobury (conductor, Weir only) Andrew Nethsingha (conductor, Harvey only) Stanford: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in A Jonathan Harvey: Come, Holy Ghost Judith Weir: Ascending into Heaven Saint-Saens: Symphony No 3 (Organ). Stanford: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in A. Saint-Saens: Symphony No 3 (Organ). |