Episodes
| Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suppression and Survival | 20190425 | Singer and song collector Sam Lee travels to Tbilisi to explore the ancient polyphonic folk songs and sacred chants of Georgia. He discovers a nation where singing is in the blood.
With some of Georgia's finest singers and musicologists as his guides, Sam is introduced to the ritualistic folk songs that are said to the control the weather and even cure the sick. He is invited to a feast, high on a mountainside above Tbilisi, where he meets the Chamgelianis - a singing family from the remote region of Svaneti who are keeping the tradition of age-old pre-Christian folk songs alive.
At the beautiful Kashveti Church in the heart of Tbilisi, Sam meets singer and ethno-musicologist John Graham who introduces him to the liturgical chanting tradition. These orthodox Christian chants feature sacrosanct melodies that are said to have been passed down by God and transmitted orally over the centuries.
Bordered by powerful neighbours including Russia and Turkey, Georgia has been attacked and invaded persistently over the centuries, its traditional songs suppressed. Sam learns that, under Soviet rule, sacred chanting was banned in Georgia and chanters threatened with exile and even death. Practitioners were forced to go underground from the early 1920s.
The tradition might have died out entirely were it not for the efforts of a single monk who buried manuscripts containing the forbidden sacred songs in order to keep them safe. Many years later, following the end of the Soviet stranglehold, the buried manuscripts were rediscovered and became the backbone of a chant revival that has seen Georgian singing spread around the world.
Presenter: Sam Lee
Singer Sam Lee explores the ancient folk songs and sacred chants of Georgia. Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. | |
| Suppression and Survival | 20190425 | 20190609 (R4) | Singer and song collector Sam Lee travels to Tbilisi to explore the ancient polyphonic folk songs and sacred chants of Georgia. He discovers a nation where singing is in the blood.
With some of Georgia's finest singers and musicologists as his guides, Sam is introduced to the ritualistic folk songs that are said to the control the weather and even cure the sick. He is invited to a feast, high on a mountainside above Tbilisi, where he meets the Chamgelianis - a singing family from the remote region of Svaneti who are keeping the tradition of age-old pre-Christian folk songs alive.
At the beautiful Kashveti Church in the heart of Tbilisi, Sam meets singer and ethno-musicologist John Graham who introduces him to the liturgical chanting tradition. These orthodox Christian chants feature sacrosanct melodies that are said to have been passed down by God and transmitted orally over the centuries.
Bordered by powerful neighbours including Russia and Turkey, Georgia has been attacked and invaded persistently over the centuries, its traditional songs suppressed. Sam learns that, under Soviet rule, sacred chanting was banned in Georgia and chanters threatened with exile and even death. Practitioners were forced to go underground from the early 1920s.
The tradition might have died out entirely were it not for the efforts of a single monk who buried manuscripts containing the forbidden sacred songs in order to keep them safe. Many years later, following the end of the Soviet stranglehold, the buried manuscripts were rediscovered and became the backbone of a chant revival that has seen Georgian singing spread around the world.
Presenter: Sam Lee
Singer Sam Lee explores the ancient folk songs and sacred chants of Georgia. Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. |
| The Age Of Extinction | 20180507 | 20180712 (R4) | We are living in an age of extinction, a twilight period for the oral traditions of our ancestors. Singer and song collector Sam Lee sets out on a mission to seek out and record the last of the traditional singers with a connection to the ancient oral culture of the British Isles. In conversation with legendary folk singer Shirley Collins, Sam reveals that the singers of the old songs are still with us and they are still singing, most notably in the traveller community. It's up to us to find them, and then to listen. Sam travels to Hampshire to meet Freda Black, a 90 year old Romany Gypsy singer, born in a horse-drawn caravan on Christmas Day. Freda has a repertoire of well over 100 traditional songs which she proudly states she will sing until she dies. With the race against time so apparent, Sam recruits twelve folk music enthusiasts to join him on a collecting mission in Ireland. The collectors fan out across the country, tasked with recording elderly travellers with knowledge of the old songs. We follow Sam as he hunts for new singers and returns copies of recordings to singers he's previously met. What's clear at the end of the trip is that, if you're willing to spend long days in the car, knocking on doors and chasing shadows, there are still songs out there teetering on the verge of extinction. Sam concludes that, if these ancient songs are to thrive in today's cultural landscape, our responsibility is to transmit both what they have meant to the generations who've carried them and all that they can be now. How better to do that than to learn straight from the source whilst we still can? Presenter: Sam Lee Producer: Max O'Brien A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4. Sam Lee searches for the last folk singers with a connection to our ancient oral culture. Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. We are living in an age of extinction, a twilight period for the oral traditions of our ancestors. Singer and song collector Sam Lee sets out on a mission to seek out and record the last of the traditional singers with a connection to the ancient oral culture of the British Isles. In conversation with legendary folk singer Shirley Collins, Sam reveals that the singers of the old songs are still with us and they are still singing, most notably in the traveller community. It's up to us to find them, and then to listen. Sam travels to Hampshire to meet Freda Black, a 90 year old Romany Gypsy singer, born in a horse-drawn caravan on Christmas Day. Freda has a repertoire of well over 100 traditional songs which she proudly states she will sing until she dies. With the race against time so apparent, Sam recruits twelve folk music enthusiasts to join him on a collecting mission in Ireland. The collectors fan out across the country, tasked with recording elderly travellers with knowledge of the old songs. We follow Sam as he hunts for new singers and returns copies of recordings to singers he's previously met. What's clear at the end of the trip is that, if you're willing to spend long days in the car, knocking on doors and chasing shadows, there are still songs out there teetering on the verge of extinction. Sam concludes that, if these ancient songs are to thrive in today's cultural landscape, our responsibility is to transmit both what they have meant to the generations who've carried them and all that they can be now. How better to do that than to learn straight from the source whilst we still can? Presenter: Sam Lee Producer: Max O'Brien A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4. Sam Lee searches for the last folk singers with a connection to our ancient oral culture. Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. |
| The Black Mountains' Lament | 20190502 | 20190616 (R4) | Singer and song collector Sam Lee travels to the remote mountains of Greece and discovers the haunting sound of Europe's oldest folk music. High in the black mountains of Epirus, close to the northwestern tip of Greece, winding its way through the thick forest, is the river Acheron, the river of woe. According to Greek mythology, the newly dead must travel across this river before entering Hades - the underworld. An otherworldly music pours from these mountains. It's an ancient music. Filled with sadness. Filled with longing. Filled with dread. Sam journeys to Epirus, an unforgiving mountain range housing 46 tiny villages, each with its own distinct style of folk music. The nature of the harsh terrain means that the ancient musical tradition of these villages is remarkably well preserved - an intoxicating blend of violin and clarinet dancing between wild frenzy and hypnotic solemnity. Speaking to writer, record producer and song collector Chris King, whose book A Lament From Epirus first brought the strange music of this region to a wider audience, Sam hears about the riotous festivals in Epirus when musicians play around the clock for three days straight while entire villages come together to dance. Sam discovers that the sadness saturating the music of Epirus is often attributed to "xenitia", the pain and longing caused by the separation of emigration. In a region plagued by dwindling population as people abandon traditional village life for jobs in urban centres, the sadness of the music looks set only to intensify. Presenter: Sam Lee Producer: Max O'Brien A TBI production for BBC Radio 4 Sam Lee travels to remote mountains of Greece and discovers Europe's oldest folk music. Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. Singer and song collector Sam Lee travels to the remote mountains of Greece and discovers the haunting sound of Europe's oldest folk music. High in the black mountains of Epirus, close to the northwestern tip of Greece, winding its way through the thick forest, is the river Acheron, the river of woe. According to Greek mythology, the newly dead must travel across this river before entering Hades - the underworld. An otherworldly music pours from these mountains. It's an ancient music. Filled with sadness. Filled with longing. Filled with dread. Sam journeys to Epirus, an unforgiving mountain range housing 46 tiny villages, each with its own distinct style of folk music. The nature of the harsh terrain means that the ancient musical tradition of these villages is remarkably well preserved - an intoxicating blend of violin and clarinet dancing between wild frenzy and hypnotic solemnity. Speaking to writer, record producer and song collector Chris King, whose book A Lament From Epirus first brought the strange music of this region to a wider audience, Sam hears about the riotous festivals in Epirus when musicians play around the clock for three days straight while entire villages come together to dance. Sam discovers that the sadness saturating the music of Epirus is often attributed to "xenitia", the pain and longing caused by the separation of emigration. In a region plagued by dwindling population as people abandon traditional village life for jobs in urban centres, the sadness of the music looks set only to intensify. Presenter: Sam Lee Producer: Max O'Brien A TBI production for BBC Radio 4 Sam Lee travels to remote mountains of Greece and discovers Europe's oldest folk music. Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. |
| The Land Without Music | 20180430 | Singer and song collector Sam Lee celebrates the work of those who have fought to save the ancient folk songs of Britain from extinction.
In 1904, the German critic Oscar Schmitz declared that England was "the land without music". This is the story of the men and women who refused to accept this cultural slight and set out on a mission to rediscover the soul of our island. In doing so they found a river of ancient song flowing through it.
In the first episode, Sam Lee reveals that some of the early song collectors wanted to document the traditional songs before the suffocating effects of popular music extinguished their memory. Other collectors wanted to use folk melodies as inspiration for classical music that was "authentically British" in order to combat the sentiment of Europeans like Schmitz.
In the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Sam describes how the early collectors had to painstakingly transcribe every song by hand. The practice of collecting was eventually revolutionised when the composer Percy Grainger started using the Edison Phonograph to record his subjects in 1906. These early recordings, scratchy and distorted though they are, offer us a vital window into the past.
Legendary folk singer and collector Shirley Collins describes the differing motivations of a fresh wave of collectors whose work fuelled a second folk music revival between the mid-1940s and 1970s. Sam concludes by arguing that, while the second folk revival waned after the 1970s, the work of the song collectors has never been more vital.
Presenter: Sam Lee
Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. | |
| The Land Without Music | 20180430 | 20180705 (R4) | Singer and song collector Sam Lee celebrates the work of those who have fought to save the ancient folk songs of Britain from extinction.
In 1904, the German critic Oscar Schmitz declared that England was "the land without music". This is the story of the men and women who refused to accept this cultural slight and set out on a mission to rediscover the soul of our island. In doing so they found a river of ancient song flowing through it.
In the first episode, Sam Lee reveals that some of the early song collectors wanted to document the traditional songs before the suffocating effects of popular music extinguished their memory. Other collectors wanted to use folk melodies as inspiration for classical music that was "authentically British" in order to combat the sentiment of Europeans like Schmitz.
In the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Sam describes how the early collectors had to painstakingly transcribe every song by hand. The practice of collecting was eventually revolutionised when the composer Percy Grainger started using the Edison Phonograph to record his subjects in 1906. These early recordings, scratchy and distorted though they are, offer us a vital window into the past.
Legendary folk singer and collector Shirley Collins describes the differing motivations of a fresh wave of collectors whose work fuelled a second folk music revival between the mid-1940s and 1970s. Sam concludes by arguing that, while the second folk revival waned after the 1970s, the work of the song collectors has never been more vital.
Presenter: Sam Lee
Sam Lee celebrates the song collectors who have fought to save folk music from extinction. |