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Words And Music

First broadcast from 20070218 to 20100314.

Sundays, around 10.15pm.

Every Sunday evening Radio 3 brings you a sequence of classical music, interspersed with well-loved and less familiar poems and prose read by leading actors.

Each week the selection of readings and music is chosen broadly to illustrate or complement a theme.

Full details of all the pieces in the programme are published on the website ahead of broadcast.

Also on the website, alongside each programme, will be a note from the sequence's producer giving an insight into their choice of words and music.

  • There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the sequencing of the repeats.
 

Radio 3  Radio 3

Official Site

131 episodes

 
EpisodeTitleFirst
Broadcast		RepeatedDescription
01The Truth About Love2007021820071007Derek Jacobi and Juliet Stevenson read poetry and prose around the theme of love, including Marvell's To His Coy Mistress, Philip Larkin's Arundel Tomb and Auden's poems Lullaby and Oh Tell me the truth about love.
Music includes Britten's Auden settings, Elgar's Salut d'amour, madrigals by De Rore and Dufay, and Wagner's Prelude to Tristan und Isolde.
With Derek Jacobi and Juliet Stevenson.
Readings include some of the great love poetry - Marvell's To His Coy Mistress, Philip Larkin's Arundel Tomb and Auden's Lullaby and Oh Tell Me the Truth about Love.
Music related to the theme includes Britten's Auden settings, Elgar's Salut d'amour, madrigals by De Rore and Dufay and Wagner's Prelude to Tristan and Isolde.
02From London To Paris2007022520071202With the opening of London's new international terminal to Paris, Sophie Okonedo and Kenneth Cranham read a selection of poetry and prose around the theme of these two great cities.
Readings include words by Samuel Johnson, Wordsworth, Verlaine, George Orwell and Fleur Adcock, and a range of music from Gibbons, Noel Coward, Elgar, Boulez and Yves Montand.
Sophie Okonedo and Kenneth Cranham read a selection of poetry and prose around the theme of two great cities, from Samuel Johnson, Wordsworth and Verlaine to George Orwell and Fleur Adcock. The programme includes music by Gibbons, Noel Coward, Elgar, Pierre Boulez and Yves Montand.
03Innocence And Experience 20070304 Imogen Stubbs and Bill Paterson read a selection of poetry and prose around the theme of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
Featured writers include Emily Dickinson, John Clare, Robert Herrick, Thomas Mann and George Herbert. Sylvia Plath reads her poem Ariel and Brian Patten's A Blade of Grass, a poem about the loss of innocence.
The programme includes Blake settings by Vaughan Williams, Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety and Tallis's Spem in Alium.
04Transfigured Night 2007031120070624A sequence of poetry and music taking Richard Dehmel's poem Transfigured Night as a starting point for a theme around night and dreams.
Simon Russell Beale and Emma Fielding read a selection from Longfellow, Poe, Milton, Gerald Manley Hopkins with archive readings from Dylan Thomas and Michael Longley. Music includes Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht, Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and Takemitsu's Dreamtime.
An unpresented sequence of poetry and music that takes Richard Dehmel's poem Transfigured Night as a starting point for a theme around night and dreams.
Simon Russell Beale and Emma Fielding read a selection from Longfellow, Poe, Milton, Gerald Manley Hopkins with archive readings from Dylan Thomas and Michael Longley.
Music includes Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht, Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and Takemitsu's Dreamtime.
05By The Sea 2007031820071118Fiona Shaw and Alex Jennings read a selection of poetry and prose on a sea theme from Elizabeth Bishop, Michael Longley, Charles Dickens, John Masefield and Hugo Williams, with music inspired by the sea by Charles Trenet, Benjamin Britten, Mozart and Mendelssohn.
06Slavery And Freedom20070325 The poet and novelist Jackie Kay introduces a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of slavery and freedom including work by Langston Hughes, Fred D'Aguiar, Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Including music inspired by slavery and freedom by Bessie Smith, Paul Robeson, Beethoven and The Blind Boys of Alabama.
07Ode To Gaia2007040120080113Sian Thomas and Jamie Glover read poetry and prose on a theme of the state of the planet, including work by Ted Hughes, WH Auden, John Clare, Alice Oswald, Rachel Carson and Philip Larkin. With music inspired by our landscape by Peter Maxwell Davies, John Cage and Mahler.
08Two Americas2007040820080420William Hope and Yolanda Vasquez read poetry and prose on a theme of Two Americas, North and South including work by Walt Whitman, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda. With music inspired by the Americas from Villa-Lobos, Aaron Copland, Astor Piazzolla and Charles Ives.
09Say, What Shall We Dance? 2007041520080316To tie in with the Sunday Feature on Akram Khan, Words and Music is an uninterrupted sequence of music, poetry and prose on the theme of dance.
Including works by Thomas Moore, Laurence Binyon, Rainer Maria Rilke, Philip Larkin, Roger Mcgough and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and music by Johann Strauss, Claude Debussy, Louis Andriessen and Benjamin Britten 
10To Music2007042220071216Diana Rigg and Samuel West read a selection of poetry on the theme of music. Including Elizabeth Jennings's First Music, Andrew Marvell's The Empire of Music, DH Lawrence's Piano and TS Eliot's Four Quartets, and WB Yeats reading his poem The Fiddler of Donney.
Music includes Webern's arrangement of Bach's A Musical Offering, songs by Dowland and Schubert and Seamus Heaney's reading of The Given Note accompanied by piper Liam O'Flynn.
11A Song Of The Seasons2007042920070805Anthony Calf and Rebecca Saire read poems in an uninterrupted sequence of music, poetry and prose on the theme of the seasons. Including Thomas Hardy's During Wind and Rain, Philip Larkin's And now the leaves suddenly lose strength, and AE Housman's Loveliest of Trees.
With music by Vivaldi, Piazzolla, Debussy and Britten.
Anthony Calf and Keeley Hawes read poems in an uninterrupted sequence of music, poetry and prose on the theme of the seasons. Including A Song of the Seasons by Alfred Perceval Graves, Thomas Hardy's During Wind and Rain, Philip Larkin's And now the leaves suddenly lose strength, and AE Housman's Loveliest of Trees.
With music by Vivaldi, Astor Piazzolla, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Britten.
12A Dante Sequence20070506 Dante's journey from the infernal underworld to Paradise in The Divine Comedy has inspired writers and composers through the ages.
In this sequence, poems by WH Auden, Samuel Beckett, TS Eliot and Stevie Smith are interwoven with translations of the original by Benedict Flynn and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and music by Liszt, Messiaen and Salvatore Sciarrino.
13Altitude20070513 A sequence of poetry and music inspired by the world seen from a great height, the flight of birds and the romance of mountain tops.
Musical evocations of mountains by Sibelius, Strauss and Liszt sit with poems by Shelley and Petrarch. Anton Lesser and Lesley Sharp read works by Ted Hughes, Pablo Neruda and EE Cummings which describe the world of birds in flight, and music by composers including Haydn, Honegger and George Benjamin evokes the same subject.
14Russian Dreams2007052020090830A journey to Russia, as imagined by poets and musicians: natives, exiles and foreigners.
Music by French composer Tournemire conjures up the bells of Moscow, while verses by Marina Tsvetaeva give a Russian literary slant on the same subject. Stravinsky depicts his homeland from the perspective of both resident and emigre, one in an unabashedly Russian vein, the other unmistakably coloured by his exposure to American jazz.
Including poems by Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Lermontov and Osip Mandelstam, and music by Borodin, John Field and Schnittke. Readings by Andrew Sachs and Siobhan Redmond.
Including poems by Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Lermontov and Osip Mandelstam, and music by Borodin, John Field and Benny Goodman. Readings by Andrew Sachs and Siobhan Redmond 
15Weary With Toil 2007052720081005Harriet Walter and Robert Glenister read poetry and prose on a theme of work and toil by Shakespeare, Kathleen Jamie, Simon Armitage, John Clare and Carol Rumens. With music by Beethoven, Handel, Elvis Costello and Shostakovich.
16In Search Of England 2007060320071223Harriet Walter and Robert Glenister read a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of England.
Including works by John Agard, Maura Dooley, Robert Browning, Fleur Adcock and George Orwell, with music by Delius, Vaughan Williams, Billy Bragg and Purcell.
17Lost In The City Of Waters 2007061020080127Jeremy Irons and Anna Massey explore the splendour and decadence of Venice through the poetry and prose of Longfellow, Browning, Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust. With music by Luigi Nono, Gounod, Vivaldi, Hahn, Liszt and Gabrieli.
18Town And Country20070617 A stroll among differing reactions to the metropolitan and rural landscapes.
Tim McInnerny reads descriptions of the city's charms by Wordsworth, Eliot and WS Graham, hymns to the natural life by Shakespeare, Clare and WH Hudson, and musings on where the two worlds meet from the likes of Cowper, Edward Thomas and William Carlos Williams. Music includes works by Ives, Reich, Vaughan Williams and Handel.
19War And Peace 2007070120081109On a theme of the eternal struggle between conflict and concord, Joanna David and Paul McGann read poems by Emily Dickinson, George Herbert, John Milton, Wilfred Owen, Edith Sitwell and Walt Whitman. Including music by Bartok, Dowland, William Lawes, Monteverdi and Purcell.
20Iberia2007070820090822A sequence of poetry and music inspired by the sights and sounds of the Iberian Peninsula.
Music by Granados, Falla and Miles Davis is combined with examples of the flamenco and fado traditions, while Andrew Wincott and Yolanda Vazquez read work by Portuguese and Spanish writers such as Lorca and Fernando Pessoa.
This is complemented by atmospheric writing by outsiders such as Byron, Washington Irving and Ted Hughes.
Poetry and music inspired by the peninsula, with flamenco, fado and atmospheric readings.
Music by Granados, de Falla and Miles Davis is combined with examples of the Flamenco and Fado traditions, while Andrew Wincott and Yolanda Vazquez read work by Portuguese and Spanish writers including Lorca and Fernando Pessoa.
21Dancing In The Wind 2007072220080727Sara Kestelman and Rory Kinnear read poetry and prose on the theme of childhood.
Including Prayer before Birth by Louis Macneice; Morning Song by Sylvia Plath; Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney; and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Music includes Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, Rufus Wainwright's The Art Teacher, John Tavener's To a child dancing in the wind, Schumann's Kinderszenen and Hans Kraas' Brundibar.
22The Beast Within 20070729 Actress Fiona Shaw introduces a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of animals, including work by Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, William Golding, Les Murray, Lewis Carroll and Paul Durcan. With music by Sibelius, Schumann, Schubert, John Tavener and Poulenc.
23Magic2007081220071209Linked to the Shakespeare theme of this year's Proms, Nicholas Farrell and Miriam Margolyes conjure up words on magic by Shakespeare, Pushkin, Martin Feinstein, Chaucer, Derek Walcott and Keats. These are accompanied by the music of Wagner, Mendelssohn and Tippett, among others.
24Authority 20070819 Writer and broadcaster Armando Iannucci selects poetry, prose and music around the theme of authority, spanning gods, kings, the state and parents, and encompassing anarchy, rebellion and disobedience.
Including Pope's Essay on Man and excerpts from Milton's Paradise Lost, Primo Levi's If This Is A Man and Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, with music by Britten, Respighi, Joni Mitchell and Copland's Lincoln Portrait narrated by Margaret Thatcher 
25A Traveller's Path20070826 As many will be experiencing the inevitable travel chaos of the late summer bank holiday weekend, this sequence of poetry and music explores the idea of the journey.
Melanie Kilburn and Joe Dunlop read a selection from Tennyson, Plath, Baudelaire and Wordsworth, with archive readings from John Betjeman and Philip Larkin.
Music includes Nielsen's Helios Overture, Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel and Ligeti's Lux Aeterna.
26Wild Wood2007090220081019The Wild Wood is where to find Dante and Winnie the Pooh. It's where to shelter from the storm and where one is stalked by nameless terror. It's a place for monkish retreat and contemplation, and a place where, according to Vaughan Williams, an amorous Sir John Falstaff can be found prancing around with antlers on his head.
Readers Emma Fielding and John Rowe visit this beguiling and bewildering space, with the musical help of Wagner, Schubert, John Coltrane and Radiohead.
The Wild Wood is where you find Dante and Winnie the Pooh. It's where you shelter from the storm and where you're stalked by nameless terror. It's a place for monkish retreat and contemplation, and a place where, according to Vaughan Williams, an amorous Sir John Falstaff can be found prancing around with antlers on his head.
Readers Emma Fielding and John Rowe take you into this beguiling and bewildering space, with the musical help of Wagner, Schubert, John Coltrane and Radiohead.
27Heroes 20070909 A sequence of poetry and music on a heroic theme.
Heroes of legend and history, from Beowulf to John F Kennedy, are celebrated in works by Beethoven, Stravinsky and Birtwistle, while poets including Shelley, Robert Graves and WH Auden meditate on the double-edged nature of heroism. Read by Jamie Glover and Charlie Norfolk.
28Villains 20070916 A sequence of music and poetry reflecting on villainy, from the Emperor Nero to Billy the Kid.
With music by Mozart, Bartok and Stephen Sondheim, and poems by writers including Oscar Wilde, Shelley and Sylvia Plath, read by Patience Tomlinson and Jonathan Keeble 
29Faust 20070923 A sequence of music and poetry reflecting the age-old obsession with the German legend of Faust. With readings by Neil Dudgeon and Carolyn Pickles 
30The Anatomy Of Melancholy20070930 Janet Suzman and Heathcote Williams read poems and prose by Robert Burton, Keats, Gray, Tennyson, Owen, Plath, Dickinson and Auden on various aspects of melancholy. With music by Dowland, Purcell, Schubert, Schumann, Prokofiev and Britten.
31To Byzantium2007101420080914A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of immortality, using WB Yeats's poem Sailing to Byzantium as a starting point, and with readings by Andrew Lincoln and Deborah Findlay. Including poetry by Charles Causley, Anthony Thwaite, Adrian Mitchell, Wislawa Szymborska, Emily Dickinson and Rilke, as well as music by John Tavener, Pierre Boulez, Britten and Steve Reich.
Yeats' poem Sailing to Byzantium is the starting point for a theme about the journey of man and the vision of eternal life. Andrew Lincoln and Deborah Findlay read a selection of poetry and prose including Keats, Longfellow, John Masefield and Adrian Mitchell.
With related music by John Tavener, Messiaen and Gesualdo.
32A Beat In Time 20071021 Actors Greta Scacchi and Greg Wise delve into poems on the subject of time: lives ticking away as the poets contemplate ageing and change, the rhythm of life and clocks themselves - objects that rule our lives.
With poems and prose by Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot, Wendy Cope, Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare and music by Haydn, Ravel, John Cage, Bach and Philip Glass 
33Forty Years Of Poetry On Radio 3 20071028 It's 40 years since Radio 3 made its entrance on the world's stage. Poetry has been the station's lifeblood from its earliest days, so there's no better way to toast the past and welcome the future than a deep draught of the 'blushful Hippocrene'.
Featuring some of the most arresting performances poets have given on Radio 3 in the past 40 years, from John Ashbery to Derek Walcott, with music to match.
34Ecstasy 2007110420080720A sequence of music and poetry evoking states of rapture. Religious ecstasy is explored through poems by John Donne and George Herbert, and music by Messiaen and Robert Carver. The Romantic obsession with the mind-altering power of the outdoor world is reflected in works by Wordsworth and Schubert.
Musical evocations of ecstatic feelings include pieces by Scriabin and Thomas Ades, while Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson provide a poetic depiction of the elation felt by lovers.
Read by Michael Elwyn and Eleanor Bron
A sequence of music and poetry evoking states of rapture, with readings by actors Michael Elwyn and Eleanor Bron.
With works exploring religious ecstasy from John Donne and George Herbert as well as by Olivier Messiaen and Robert Carver. The Romantic obsession with the mind-altering power of the outdoor world is reflected in works by Wordsworth and Schubert. There are also musical evocations of ecstatic feelings in pieces by Scriabin and Thomas Ades, and poetic depictions of the elation felt by lovers in writings by Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson 
35Blood Wedding2007112520080713Composer Simon Holt, a lifelong admirer of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, selects music, poetry and prose reflecting the mages of blood, marriage and the moon which suffuse his best-known play, Blood Wedding, performed on Radio 3 earlier this evening.
Including music by Bach, Berg, Bowie, Marilyn Mozart, Manson, Shostakovich, Schoenberg, Scarlatti and Lorca and Holt themselves, plus actors Ian McDiarmid and Nuria Benet reading extracts from TS Eliot's Four Quartets, poems by William Empson and Don Paterson, Roberto Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony and Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.
36The Ringing Grooves Of Change 2007123020081012A selection of poetry and prose on the theme of revolution and change with poetry by Blake, Shelley, Clough and Yeats, and music by Shostakovich, Paul Robeson, Mosolov and Berlioz.
Penny Downie and Adrian Lukis read a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of revolution and change, with poetry by William Blake and Yeats and music by Shostakovich and Paul Robeson.
37A Book Of Hours 20080106 Amanda Root and Rory Kinnear take an imaginative journey around the clock over the course of 24 hours with poems and prose by Fleur Adcock, John Clare, Shakespeare, Byron, Walt Whitman and Carol Ann Duffy, and music by Sibelius, Debussy, Elvis Costello, Copland and Falla.
38Happiness 20080203 Actor Simon Russell Beale curates a sequence of words and music on the theme of happiness. Emma Fielding and John Rogan read poems and texts by Wordsworth, Adcock, Shakespeare, AA Milne and Sassoon.
Music eovking the happiness of the texts includes Byrd's Haec dies, Blossom Dearie singing I'm in Love, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony, Adams's China Gates and Wagner's Siegfried Idyll.
39Birdsong2008021020081221Claire Skinner and Hugh Bonneville are the readers in a celebration of nature's musicians.
The poems include Milton's Nightingale, Hardy's Darkling Thrush and Tennyson's Blackbird, and the music includes Saint-Saens's Cuckoo, Rameau's Hen and Sibelius's Swan of Tuonela.
Birdsong has fascinated poets and musicians for centuries. This poetry selection spans 700 years, from Dafydd ap Gwilym's 14th-century hymn to the thrush to RS Thomas's more recent celebration of the blackbird, while the music ranges almost as far, from the Renaissance lute-song The dark is my delight to a section from Einojuhani Rautavaara's atmospheric Cantus arcticus, memorably enriched by the recorded sound of migrating swans.
With a pair of 'catalogues' (opening with Izaak Walton's inventory of the 'nimble musicians of the air'), but for the greater part have chosen to concentrate on those songsters who have inspired the most frequent creative effort. Most popular among them by far is the nightingale, the thrilling musician of the woods who reduces the other birds to silence with her brilliance in Blake's Milton, sings her traditional song of lost love in Richard Barnfield's As it fell upon a day, and offers encouragement to human lovers in a ravishing air from Rameau's opera Hippolyte et Aricie. For Leslie Norris the voice of 'the poet's bird' is both pleasure and torment, a spur to the creative act and a reproach to human inadequacy.
Not far behind is the skylark, whose ebullient airborne music - for many people the sound of the British summer - is here celebrated in an anonymous 17th-century poem and in music connecting its song to the cares of lovers from the English folk tradition and by Hoagy Carmichael.
Less virtuosic but no less irresistible to artists have been the cuckoo - the two-note herald of spring humorously imitated by Saint-Saens and argued over in words by Wordsworth and Bunyan - and the owl, whose comforting and disturbing contributions to the soundscape of the winter night are evoked by Edward Thomas and in Dominick Argento's setting of lines from Love's Labour's Lost.
Other composers and poets have essayed more demanding birdsong imitations: Olivier Messiaen's intricately notated representations became a vital part of his own creative personality; Gerard Manley Hopkins ambitiously attempts a verbal characterisation of a woodlark.
Few of these skilful impressions would count for much without some wider resonance. We have seen that birdsong both marks out the seasons and reminds us of our humble place in the natural world. But above all, and as all the poets and composers represented in this programme have recognised, birdsong also touches something deep in our hearts, unstopping the streams of love, longing, memory, joy, laughter and melancholy that lie within us all.
Readers:
  • Claire Skinner (cs)
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins: the woodlark (cs)
    33.25
  • Hugh Bonneville (hb)
    00.00
  • John Milton: sonnet i (hb)
    39.39
  • William Blake: milton (excerpt) (cs)
    37.26
  • William Wordsworth: to the cuckoo (hb)
    08.56
  • alfred, lord tennyson: the blackbird (cs)
    17.39
  • alfred, lord tennyson: the dying swan (cs)
    01:04.12
  • alison hagley, catherine robbin, john mark ainsley
  • anonymous: the dark is my delight
  • anonymous: the lark (cs)
    00:23.11
  • argento: winter (six elizabethan songs)
  • as above
    12.31
  • bejocd-45
    23.59
  • bis cd-1038
    01:10.27
  • britten: the merry cuckoo; spring, the sweet spring (spring symphony)
  • dafydd ap gwilym: the thrush (hb)
    13.49
  • dg 453 433 2
    07.36
  • dxl 1098
    01:02.06
  • edo de waart (conductor)
  • edward thomas: the owl (hb)
    01:00.04
  • edward thomas: the unknown bird (hb)
    35.24
  • erato 0630 155172
    45.20
  • evelyn tubb and michael fields
  • hoagy carmichael (voice) and band
  • hoagy carmichael: skylark
  • howard haskin and david triestram
  • izaak walton: the compleat angler (excerpt) (hb)
    02.05
  • john bunyan: of the cuckoo (cs)
    10.16
  • john eliot gardiner (conductor)
  • john lyly: song (cs)
    03.59
  • lahti symphony orchestra
  • leman classics lc42801
    36.10
  • les arts florissants
  • leslie norris: nightingales (hb)
    54.42
  • marek janowski (conductor)
  • matt molloy (flute) and band
  • messiaen: le merle noir (petites esquisses d'oiseaux)
  • musica oscura 070980
    38.48
  • nicholas daniel (oboe)
  • ondine ode 1095-2
    51.42
  • orchestre philharmonique de radio france
  • osmo vanska (conductor)
  • pacific jazz cdp746862 2
    31.01
  • patricia petibon
  • paul reade: birdsong (aspects of a landscape)
  • peter hill (piano)
  • philharmonia orchestra
  • philips 411 419 2
    59.07
  • rameau: rossignols amoureux (hippolyte et aricie)
  • rautavaara: swans migrating (cantus arcticus)
  • ravel: oiseaux tristes (miroirs)
  • respighi: l'usignuolo (gli'uccelli)
  • richard barnfield: as it fell upon a day (cs)
    46.39
  • rs thomas: a blackbird singing (hb)
    18.25
  • saint-saens: le coucou au fond des bois (le carnaval des animaux)
  • saint-saens: voliere (le carnaval des animaux)
  • san francisco symphony orchestra
  • teldec 4509 974452
    03.20
  • Thomas Hardy: the darkling thrush (hb)
  • trad. english: the lark in the morning: alva (vivien ellis and giles lewin)
  • trad. irish: the morning thrush
  • tzimon barto (piano)
  • unicorn dkpcd9144
    20.44
  • virgin cdve930
    16.26
  • william christie (conductor)
    • 40This Is New York 20080217 William Hope and Laurel Lefkow read poetry and prose by Langston Hughes, E B White, Walt Whitman and Audre Lorde, accompanied by the music of Dvorak, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, John Adams, Philip Glass, Rodgers and Hart and Ned Rorem.
    41Animals 20080224 Actress Fiona Shaw introduces a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of animals, wild and domestic, including works by Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, William Golding, Lewis Carroll and Paul Durcan, with music by Sibelius, Schumann, Schubert, John Tavener and Poulenc.
    42Memory 20080302 Saskia Reeves and Alex Jennings read poetry and prose by Philip Larkin, Carol Ann Duffy, Lewis Carroll, Billy Collins and Patrick Kavanagh, interspersed with music from Mahler, Joan Baez, the Beatles, Schumann, George Butterworth, Tchaikovsky and Liszt.
    43Seventh Heaven20080309 The number seven is considered sacred and symbolic in many cultures around the world and it provides the theme for this programme featuring poetry, prose and verse by Shakespeare, Donne and Ginsberg as well as music from Dave Brubeck, Stockhausen, Glenn Gould and Angela Hewitt.
    44Birth And Rebirth 2008032320080629Josette Simon and Julian Rhind-Tutt are the readers in this Easter Day edition, focusing on the theme of babies, flowers and birds, Creation and the Resurrection, and all thing new and reborn.
    With poems and texts by Sylvia Plath, Wordsworth, Browning, Christina Rossetti, Dorothy Parker, Walter de la Mare and Margaret Drabble as well as music from Delius, Warlock, Bach and Cleo Laine 
    45A Change In The Weather 20080330 To mark 85 years since the first forecast was broadcast on the BBC, Mark Strong and Niamh Cusack read poetry on the theme of the weather.
    Featuring writings by John Donne, AA Milne, WH Auden, Laurence Binyon and Shakespeare interspersed with music from Gene Kelly, Ravel, Gershwin, Flanders and Swann, Mahler, Chopin and Terje Isungset.
    46The Geography Of A Home2008040620090815Belinda Lang and David Bamber read poems on the theme of houses and homes. Celebrating the idea of the physical building of a home, and the lives that change within it, poetry comes from Wh Auden, Philip Larkin, Robert Service and Ivor Gurney. Music by Sibelius, Chopin, Holst, Copland, Chris Rea and The Beatles.
    Belinda Lang and David Bamber read poems on the theme of houses and homes.
    Belinda Lang and David Bamber read poems on the theme of houses and homes. With poetry by WH Auden, Philip Larkin and Ivor Gurney interspersed with music by Sibelius, Chopin and The Beatles.
    47We Must Love One Another Or Die 2008041320090201Sian Thomas and Nicholas Farrell read poetry and prose from the 1930s by Louis Macneice, Sylvia Townsend Warner, John Steinbeck, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas and WH Auden, with music by Britten, Barber, Robeson, Bartok and Noel Coward.
    With readings from MacNeice, Steinbeck and Orwell, and music by Britten, Barber and Bartok
    With Sian Thomas and Nicholas Farrell reading poetry and prose from the 1930s by Louis Macneice, Sylvia Townsend Warner, John Steinbeck, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas and WH Auden, interspersed with music by Britten, Barber, Robeson, Bartok and Noel Coward 
    48The Spirit World20080427 Dominic West and Samantha Morton read poetry on the theme of the spirit world, with verse by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, John Keats, Robert Graves and Emily Dickinson alongside a selection of music inspired by ghostly apparitions.
    49 2008050420081123With Alison Steadman and Timothy West reading a selection of verse on the theme of food and drink, including Moules a la Mariniere by Elizabeth Garrett, Since by WH Auden and Chocs by Carol Ann Duffy as well as Tony Harrison's A Kumquat for John Keats, Hillaire Belloc's On Food and Elizabeth Bishop's The Fish. Interwoven with the poetry is Schubert's Trout Quintet, Feast of the Pheasant by Binchois and Fats Waller performing Hold Tight Want Some Seafood Mama.
    50Space 20080511 Miranda Richarson and Tim McMullan read works by Walt Whitman, Arthur C Clarke, Wordsworth and Craig Raine, as well as from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. With music evoking the sound of space, including Brian Eno's Apollo, Holst's The Planets and Frank Sinatra's Fly me to the Moon.
    51Flowers Of Evil 20080518 The programme explores Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal, an expression of personal torment and the conflict between Catholic morals and debauchery in 19th-Century Paris. Antony Sher reads from the texts, with Imogen Stubbs reading complementary works by Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and TS Eliot.
    With the voice of Jean-Louis Barrault and music influenced by Baudelaire from Debussy, Duparc, Serge Gainsbourg and Diamanda Galas, as well as Takemitsu and Messiaen.
    52Chains Of Desire 20080525 A sequence of poems, prose and letters read by actors Neil Pearson and Clare Higgins interspersed with music, all connected by the theme of erotic love. With words by Catullus, Andrew Marvell, Shakespeare, Keats as well as Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Proust (in translation). The music includes works by Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov, Wagner, Dvorak and Orff.
    53The Soft Machine 2008060120090712A sequence of poems read by Anna Maxwell Martin and John Rowe interspersed with music, all on the theme of the body. The programme features writings by Whitman, Homer and Auden along with music from Tchaikovsky, Monteverdi and Charles Mingus.
    Poems read by Anna Maxwell Martin and John Rowe plus music, all on the theme of the body.
    54The Sky Smiles Down20080608 A sequence of poems, prose and music on the theme of summer, with readings by Fiona Shaw and Robert Glenister. The programme includes poems by John Clare, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson, Carol Ann Duffy interspersed with music by Gershwin, Delius, Sondheim, Jean Redpath, Suk and Messiaen.
    55A Chinese Anthology 20080615 Wendy Kweh and David Yip read from two millennia of Chinese poetry covering topics such as love, longing, loss, revolution and protest - with an early poem about a hangover. Plus music from Debussy, Mahler and Puccini as well as Chinese classical music and folk songs.
    Part of Radio 3's Focus on China season.
    56The Wanderer20080622 Rufus Sewell and Indira Varma read a selection of texts by authors including Thomas Hardy, John Masefield, Bruce Chatwin - as well as the Old English poem The Wanderer and the Indian epic The Mahabarata.
    With music including Schubert's Der Wanderer, Gawain's journey by Harrison Birtwistle, as well as the gypsy sounds of Django Reinhardt and Maurice Ravel.
    57Italian Fantasy 2008070620090801A sequence of poetry, prose and music inspired by travellers to Italy.
    Actors Emily Bruni and Benedict Cumberbatch read poetry, including works by Byron, arch-Italophile Robert Browning and EE Cummings, who depicts numberless hordes of tourists to Italy clutching cameras. With prose from Henry James, explaining Wordsworth's enthusiasm for a particular Italian pine tree, cookery writer Elizabeth David on white truffles and American writer Eleanor Clark, who found the fountains of Rome surprisingly shocking.
    The music includes Berlioz's Harold in Italy inspired by Byron, Bob Dylan's When I paint my masterpiece, Respighi's depictions of the pines and fountains of Rome and the vocal sound of the Italian trallalero team Vagabondo.
    Poetry, prose and music inspired by travellers to Italy. With poetry by Byron and Browning
    58Ballad Of The Northern Lights2008080320090912Douglas Hodge and Stella Gonet read poetry and prose on the theme of the North - from Ted Hughes, Katrina Porteous, Philip Larkin and Kathleen Jamie. Music includes Sibelius' Symphony No 4, Delius' North Country Sketches, Holst's A Moorside Suite and Ewan MacColl's The Shoals of Herring.
    Poems and music on the theme of the North. Readings are by Stella Gonet and Douglas Hodge 
    59Crushed 20080810 Readers Rafe Spall and Abigail Davies.
    ‘In the end it took me a dictionary to find out the meaning of unrequited’. So sings the Saturday Boy in Billy Bragg’s evocation of the pain of unrequited love. The dictionary would only have told him that unrequited means unreturned. Looking into the world of music and poetry he would have found that unrequited love is much more complex and nuanced.
    Schooldays are often the start, also for Gwyneth Lewis in her poem ‘To the boys I loved who never loved me’ which brings back memories of adolescence and makes an important statement in this territory: I was never made less by loving you more. Unrequited Love can leave someone a sad, winsome and even quite pathetic figure. However, in reading poetry and listening to music that dealt with this idea it soon becomes clear that once the hope is gone, how the person deals with the love and longing that remains is fertile ground.
    The physical decline of Miss Haversham’s dress and rooms might be shocking, and the still upper lip fortitude found in the Houseman poetry quite painful, but the determination and self–knowledge demonstrated by both are things I found to be noble and empowering.
    The idea of a carrying something inside that isn’t just going to go away is also explored in Simon Rae’s poem ‘Believed’. This isn’t about unrequited love, but is nonetheless a longing for something that’s never going to happen. There is perhaps in all of us a longing for the things we didn’t do, the words unspoken, people unkissed, journeys not taken.
    This is also touched on in Sophie Hannah’s poem To the Memory of Love where Love was Not. Unrequited Love can be painful, and the love that remains after hope has gone can be the most painful of all. Sophie Hannah reminds us that however painful the feelings, at least those feelings are there, true and present, and in some way make us real.
    There’s a great deal of music that can be related to unrequited love. Brahms and Berlioz come to mind for their devotions to Clara Schumann and Harriet Smithson respectively. Billie Holiday had to be there not just for the song – she sings ‘Love me or Leave me’ here – but for her own life and that voice that carries so much loss and pain so beautifully. The plangent dissonances of early string music are so reminiscent of the pains and stabs of love, and I’ve included music by Gibbons and Biber. To finish, I have included the quintet from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger where Hans Sachs, one of the most humane and complex of all operatic characters sings of how ‘the heart’s sweet burden had to be subdued’ and renounces his love for Eva.
    GIBBONS
    Fantasia No.3
    Consorts For Viols
    Laurence Dreyfus/ Phantasm
    Avie AV0032
    CAROL ANN DUFFY
    Warming her Pearls
    Read by Abigail Davies
    NYMAN
    Trysting Fields
    Film Music 1980–2001
    Michael Nyman Band
    Virgin CDVED957
    SIMON RAE
    Believed
    Read by Rafe Spall
    BRAHMS
    Intermezzo in C Sharp Minor
    Two Rhapsodies
    Radu Lupu
    Decca 4175992
    A. E. HOUSMAN
    XXXI (Because I liked you)
    Noel Coward
    Mad About the Boy
    All Woman 3
    Dinah Washington
    Quality TV ALLWOCD03
    BEETHOVEN
    Variations On Bei Männern Welche Liebe Fühlen
    Variations for Piano and Cello in E Flat Major
    Jacqueline du Pré/ Daniel Barenboim
    EMI CMS 7630152
    Ben Jonson
    Song to Celia
    BERLIOZ
    Un Bal
    Symphonie Fantastique
    Berlin Philharmonic
    DG 415325-2
    DICKENS
    From Great Expectations
    TCHAIKOVSKY
    Pezzo in forma di Sonatina
    Symphony 4
    Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
    Virgin VC 7907982
    JOBIM/ DE MORAES/GIMBEL
    The Girl From Ipanema
    Nigel Kennedy Plays Jazz
    Nigel Kennedy / Peter Pettinger
    Chandos CHAN 6513
    HEINRICH HEINE
    Why is the Rose so Pale
    MOZART
    Adagio Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major K488
    Piano Concertos
    Daniel Barenboim/ English Chamber Orchestra
    EMI 7691222
    EMILY DICKENSON
    The Heart asks Pleasure First
    JANACEK
    String Quartet No.2,"Intimate Letters"
    String Quartets
    Vanbrugh String Quartet
    Harper Collins 13812
    F Scott Fitzgerald
    Excerpt from the Great Gatsby
    DONALDSON / KAHN
    Love me or leave me
    The Very Best of Billie Holiday
    Billie Holiday
    Verve 5474942
    RUPERT BROOKE
    Love
    Sophie Hannah
    The Memory of Love where Love was Not
    BIBER
    Rosary Sonata No.1 "The Annunciation"
    Rosary Sonatas
    Pavlo Beznosiuk/ David Roblou
    Avie AV 0038
    PETRACH
    Canzoniere I
    SHAKESPEARE
    Sonnet 149
    Gwyneth Lewis
    To the Boys I Loved Who Never Loved Me
    Billy Bragg
    The Saturday Boy
    Brewing Up With Billy Bragg
    Cooking Vinyl COOKCD 107
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning
    Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIII
    HANDEL
    Ombra Mai Fù
    La Lucrezia
    60Berlin20080817200911081989: Twentieth Anniversary
    Berlin may not be as beautiful as Paris; it may not have the brash allure of Rome or even London's muscularity; but no one can think of the twentieth century without thinking of Germany's capital. It was on the front line between two of the most powerful ideologies of modern times - communism and capitalism. It was Hitler's stage when he seized power in 1933, and now it stands poised between a resurgent Russia in the East and a Europe forging a new identity in the West.
    Actors Henry Goodman and Liz Sutherland read poems and prose to evoke the city's history, alongside a rich array of music. Including Strauss, Mendelssohn and Eisler, as well as Weill and U2. With readings by Alfred Doblin, Joseph Roth, Bertolt Brecht, Gunter Grass, Peter Schneider and Nazim Hikmet.
    Words and music on the theme of Berlin, with readings by Henry Goodman and Liz Sutherland.
    Tonight’s actors are Henry Goodman and Liz Sutherland and you should probably listen out too for the supporting cast which includes Hitler and John F Kennedy!
    Hausmusik
    Oktett, Op.20
    Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
    Mendelssohn: Octet. Quintet No 1
    EMI CDC7499582
    Track 8
    Joseph Roth
    Extract from Flight Without End
    Reader: Henry Goodman
    U2
    Zoo Station
    From Achtung Baby
    ISLAND CIDU28
    Track 1
    Erich Kastner
    Extract from Emil and the Detectives
    Ute Lemper, John Mauceri
    Moritat von Mackie Messer
    Composer: Kurt Weill
    From Ute Lemper sings Kurt Weill
    DECCA425204-1
    Track 3
    Georg Heym
    The Demons of the Cities
    The Faber Book of 20th Century German Poems
    Ernst Busch
    Der Graben
    Composer: Hanns Eisler
    Der politische Tucholsky
    Deutsche Grammophon LPMS 44025
    Bertolt Brecht
    Of poor B.B
    Wiener Philharmoniker
    Wozzeck
    Composer: Alban Berg
    Deutsche Grammophon 423 587 -2
    Track 10
    Alfred Doblin
    Extract from eighth book of Berlin Alexanderplatz
    Reader: Liz Sutherland
    Berliner Philharmoniker
    Ein Heldenleben
    Richard Strauss
    Deutsche Grammophon 439 039 -2
    Das Kastnerbuch
    Buchberger Quartett
    Ouverture zum “Fliegende Hollander” wie sie eine schlechte Kurkapelle morgens um 7 am Brunnen vom Blat spielt, fur Streichquartett
    Composer: Paul Hindemith
    Paul Hindemith: Kammermusik
    WER 6197-2 286 197-2
    Track 12
    Anthony Beevor
    Extract from - Berlin – The Downfall
    Dennis Russell Davies and Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra
    Low Symphony
    Philip Glass
    Phillips 475 075-2
    Peter Schneider
    Extract from The Wall Jumper
    Nazim Hikmet
    Autobiography
    The Symphony Orchestra of the Southwest German Radio
    Vergangenes – number 2 of the Funf Orchesterstucke op. 16
    Arnold Schoenberg
    Arnold Schoenberg – Funf Orchesterstucke op.16
    WERGO WER6018550
    Track 2
    James Fenton
    A German Requiem
    Reader: James Fenton
    Einsturzende Neubauten
    Steh auf Berlin
    Einsurzende Neubauten
    Kollaps
    ZICKZACK ZZ 65
    Anna Funder
    Extract from Stasiland
    Ensemble Modern – Josef Bierbichler
    Anmut sparet nicht noch Muhe
    Heiner Goebbels/Hanns Eisler
    Eislermaterial
    CD Code: ECM 4616482
    Gunter Grass
    In the Egg
    Rufus Wainwright
    Going to a Town
    From Release the Stars
    GEFFEN1733587
    Emine Sevgi Ozdamar
    Extract from The Bridge of the Golden Horn
    3Phase
    Der Klang der Familie
    Sven Rohrig and Matthias Roeingh
    Best of Reactive Volume 2
    REACT MUSIC REACTCD197
    Track 7
    Durs Grunbein
    Trilce, Cesar
    Ashes for Breakfast
    To those born later
    Philharmonia Choir and Orchestra
    Ebarme Dich
    J.S.Bach
    Matthaus Passion
    EMI 7243 5 675388 2 2
    CD 2 track 16
    61The Ring Cycle 20080824 A selection of poetry, prose and music on the theme of marriage, with readings by actors Jane Lapotaire and Ralf Little 
    62The Glory Of The Garden20080831 Anton Lesser and Frances Barber read a selection of prose and poetry, including Milton, WH Auden, excerpts from Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and Tennyson's Maud. The music includes Delius's In a Summer Garden, Debussy's Jardins sous la pluie and Messiaen's Jardin du sommeil d'amour from the Turangalila symphony.
    63Sleep20080907 A sequence of poems and music on the theme of sleep, with readings by Lisa Dillon and Adrian Rawlins. The music is by Peter Warlock, Ivor Gurney, Richard Strauss and The Beatles, and the poetry is by John Keats, Margaret Atwood and Shakespeare.
    64Ode To Autumn 20080921 A sequence of music interspersed with readings of poetry and prose on the theme of autumn.
    Nicholas Farrell and Rachel Atkins read works by Robert Frost, Yeats, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Yeats and Ted Hughes. With music by Vaughan Williams, Vivaldi, Mahler, Charlie Parker, Piazzolla and Haydn.
    65Face 20080928 Michael Maloney and Lesley Sharp are the readers in a programme that explores aspects of the face such as beauty, youth, ugliness, love, fear, blindness, disfigurement and unhappy stories behind a face.
    With poems and texts by Walt Whitman, Edward Lear, Marlowe, Ovid and excerpts from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray interspersed with music by Gershwin, Purcell, John Harle, Ivor Gurney and George Michael 
    66Man And Beast2008102620090607Hermione Norris and Jim Norton are the readers in a sequenece of poetry, prose and music on the theme of the relationship between animals and humans. Including works by John Donne, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, WH Hudson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge interspersed with music including Barber, Vivaldi, Haydn, Britten, Noel Coward, Tom Waits and Johnny Cash
    Radio 3's sequence of music and readings examines the relationship between humans and animals, with readings by Hermione Norris and Jim Norton.
    Including poetry and prose by John Donne, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, WH Hudson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge among others, interspersed with music from Barber, Vivaldi, Haydn, Britten, Noel Coward, Tom Waits and Johnny Cash among others.
    Poetry, prose and music exploring the relationship between humans and animals.
    67Bridge Passage 20081116 A selection of poetry, prose and music inspired by bridges, with readings by Lindsay Duncan and Adam Godley. Featuring poetry and prose from Friedrich Holderlin, Edmund Blunden, Longfellow, Dickens, Kafka, Nabokov and Nobel Prize-winning Bosnian writer Ivo Andric. The music includes works by Stravinsky, Leo Ferre, Handel, Kodaly, Finzi and Gubaidulina.
    68Winter 2008113020100101This week’s Words and Music is devoted to the season Emily Dickinson described as the time when the sky is low and the clouds are mean: winter. Winter in the countryside is celebrated in Wordsworth’s ‘The Prelude’ when, as a child, he and his friends skated along the ice, flying through the cold in the darkness. With this you’ll hear Peter Maxwell Davies’ ‘At the lochan’ from his ‘Seven Songs Home’, the series of songs which tell the story of children in the Orkneys making their way home from school on a winter’s afternoon. Mark Doty’s walk with his dogs as the sun sets is heard alongside the Finnish composer Rautavaara’s concerto for birds and orchestra, ‘Cantus Arcticus’. The memory of winter past is heard in David Hartnett’s ‘Two winters’ in which a man, now a parent himself, remembers his father shovelling snow outside his childhood home, a time in which he dreamed that the snow fell for years ‘and the ray of stars like birds’ feet flecked the white’. Winters in California and Tangiers are evoked by the poets Karl Shapiro and Sarah Maguire – in one the pink camellias line the paths, in the other ‘hibiscus blooms burn, scarlet, cerise, tangerine’. The programme ends with Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by woods on a snowy evening’ and Wayne Barlow’s rhapsody for oboe and strings inspired by Appalachian folk songs, ‘Winter’s Passed’.
    Fiona McLean - Producer.
    Playlist.
    ALEKSANDER GLAZUNOV
    The Seasons – Winter
    Yevgeny Svetlanov – conductor
    Philharmonia Orchestra
    EMI CDC7478472
    Emily Dickinson
    The Sky is Low
    Cheryl Campbell (reader)
    EINAR ENGLUND
    The Reindeer Race
    Northern Pictures
    Kuopio Symphony Orchestra
    Shuntaro Sato – conductor
    FINLANDIA 8573855732
    William Wordsworth
    from The Prelude
    Struan Rodger (reader)
    Claude Debussy
    Children’s Corner - The Snow is Dancing
    Children’s Weekend
    Pascal Roge – piano
    DECCA 4216262
    PETER MAXWELL DAVIES
    Seven Songs Home – At the Lochan
    The Choir of St Mary’s Music School
    Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – conductor
    UNICORN DKPCD9070
    MARK DOTY
    In the Same Space
    EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA
    Cantus Arcticus
    Richard Stoltzman – clarinet
    Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
    Leif Segerstam – conductor
    ONDINE ODE10412
    ALICE OSWALD
    Sonnet
    TCHAIKOVSKY
    Symphony no 1 - Winter Dreams
    Berliner Philharmoniker
    Herbert von Karajan – conductor
    DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4191762
    WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
    Winter Trees
    Benjamin Britten
    Winter Words – At Close of Day in November
    Song Cycles
    Robert Tear – tenor
    Sir Philip Ledger – piano
    EMI CZS5739952
    KARL SHAPIRO
    Winter in California
    MAMAS AND THE PAPAS
    California Dreamin’
    Complete Anthology
    MCA 982 168 0
    SARAH MAGUIRE
    Wintering in Tangier
    OLIVER MESSIAEN
    Catalogue d’oiseaux - Robin
    Hakan Austbo – piano
    NAXOS 855353234
    THOMAS CAMPION
    Now winter nights enlarge
    ANTONIO VIVALDI
    The Seasons – Winter in F Minor
    Nigel Kennedy – violin
    EMI 5576660
    PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
    The Cold Earth Slept Below
    Chery Campbell (reader)
    JEAN SIBELIUS
    Arioso
    Soile Isokoski – soprano
    ONDINE ODE10805
    JEAN REDPATH
    Snow Goose
    Leaving the Land
    GREENTRAX CDTRAX039
    DAVID HARTNETT
    Two Winters
    FREDERICK DELIUS
    North Country Sketches – Winter Landscape
    Works for Piano Four Hands
    Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott – piano
    BIS BISCD 1347
    Winter is Good
    FRANK BRIDGE
    Christmas Dance ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’
    English Seasons
    Academy of St Martin in the Fields
    Sir Neville Marriner – conductor
    PHILIPS 454442
    WALLACE STEVENS
    The Snow Man
    FRANCIS POULENC
    Un soir de neige
    Figure Humaine and other Secular Choral Music
    New London Chamber Choir
    James Wood – conductor
    HELIOS CDH55179
    EMILY BRONTE
    The night is darker
    ROBERT FROST
    Stopping by woods
    WAYNE BARLOW
    The Winter’s Past
    Music for Quiet Listening
    Eastman Philharmonia
    Howard Hanson – conductor
    MERCURY 4343472
    Music and poems on the theme of winter read by Struan Rodger and Cheryl Campbell.
    A sequence of music and poetry on the theme of winter, with readings by Struan Rodger and Cheryl Campbell.
    Including works by John Clare, Thomas Campion, Sarah Maguire, Emily Dickinson, Mark Doty and Wallace Stevens, and music by Tchaikovsky, James MacMillan, Jean Redpath, Debussy, Schubert and John Cage.
    69John Milton 20081207 Poetry and music inspired by Milton's description of 'darkness visible' in Paradise Lost.
    For Radio 3's celebration of the 400th anniversary of John Milton's birth, a programme of poetry and music exploring the theme from Paradise Lost of 'darkness visible'.
    70Monsters20081214 A selection of poetry and music on the theme of monsters, with readings by Don Warrington and Carolyn Pickles. Including works by Jack Mapanje, Christina Rossetti, Seamus Heaney, Yeats, Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Browning, Sylvia Plath, Brian Patten, Carol Ann Duffy, Tennyson and Ted Hughes, and music including Grieg, Knussen and Schubert. NB: This broadcast starts at approximately 22.50
    71Ancient Greece 20081228 Poetry and music on the theme of Ancient Greece. Readings by Tim McMullan, Clare Higgins.
    Actors Tim McMullan and Clare Higgins read poems and prose by Shakespeare, Keats, Byron, Auden, Homer and Euripides on the subject of Ancient Greece. With music by Schubert, Tippett, Bernstein, Stravinsky, Vaughan-Williams and Ravel.
    72The Year 20090104 Andrew Lincoln and Emma Fielding with a selection of poetry on the changing seasons.
    This edition of Words and Music explores the changing seasons for the first programme of the New year. Andrew Lincoln and Emma Fielding read a selection of poetry interspersed with seasonal music.
    I chose Ted Hughes' Seasons Songs as a thread for the programme. These fine poems are full of sharp observation and the feeling of natural forces of destruction and renewal. Alongside Ted Hughes, I chose a range of poetry which picked up on these themes from Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost and William Blake among others.
    I selected some music directly linked to seasons - from Piazzolla's atmospheric tangos from Kremerata Baltica, to Cage's studies in sound for his Seasons and the legendary recording of Gershwin's Summertime from Sarah Vaughan. At other times, there's abstract music which seemed to match the mood of the readings. Fretwork's recording of Byrd leads to Robert Grave's A Prayer for Spring; Steve Reich's Music for mallet instruments, voices and organ matches picks up on the "famous express" of Hughes' Deceptions leading to Gerald Manley Hopkins's poem about the cuckoo where "the whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound".
    A centre point for the programme is Samuel Barber's Summer Music in a vibrant recording by the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet which leads to the playful poem "Hay" by Ted Hughes.
    The programme draws to a close with DH Lawrence's elegy for winter, and Ligeti's sparse Atmospheres. I end with Tennyson's poem, Death of the Old Year which beautifully depicts the feeling of loss at the end of the year, and tentative hope as a new year begins.
    Jessica Isaacs (producer)
    Readers: Emma Fielding (EF) and Andrew Lincoln (AL)
    00:00:00
  • Gidon Kremer and kremer baltica
  • Gidon Kremer/kremerata baltica
  • Thomas Hardy at the entering of the new year (al & ef)
    00:05:45
  • William Blake: the schoolboy (al)
    00:44:40
  • american composers orchestra
  • amiata arnr0393 tk 1
    00:21:20
  • andreas schmidt (baritone)
  • barber: summer music
  • berlin philharmonic wind quintet
  • bis cd952bis tk 1
    00:36:30
  • bournemouth symphony orchestra conducted by
  • cage: seasons
  • capitol cdp7466352 tk 6
    00:21:00
  • chandos chan 9299 tk 5
    00:00:05
  • chandos chan 9396 tk 20
    00:42:00
  • chaucer: general prologue from canterbury tales
  • claramae turner, barbara ruick and mixed chorus
  • conducted by c. garben
  • conducted by d. Russell Davies
  • deller consort/alfred deller
  • ecm 4651402 tk 4
    00:46:00
  • fretwork
  • gerald manley hopkins: repeat that, repeat (al)
    00:25:20
  • hyperion cda66924 tk 2
    00:04:15
  • in the merry month of may
  • let an anthem praise
  • mahler arr berio: fruhlingsmorgen
  • margaret leng tan: prepared piano, toy piano
  • nonesuch 7559795682 tk 16
    00:13:20
  • nonesuch 7559795682 tk 4
    00:43:40
  • parley of instruments and peter holman
  • pearl gem0160
    00:14:20
  • piazzolla: primavera portena
  • piazzolla: verano porteno
  • r. hickox
  • radio-sinfonie-orchester berlin
  • rca 09026611842 tk 12
    00:10:00
  • read in middle english by trevor eaton
  • reich: music for mallet instruments, voices and organ
  • richard rodgers june is burstin out all over (from carousel)
  • robert graves: a prayer for spring (ef)
    00:08:30
  • sarah vaughan
  • sir michael tippett: new year space ship landing
  • sumer is a-comin in
  • summertime
  • ted hughes: deceptions (al & ef)
    00:22:20
  • ted hughes: hay (ef)
    00:37:30
  • ted hughes: march morning unlike others (al)
    00:11:30
  • ted hughes: new year song (ef)
    00:01:40
  • the dufay collective
  • vanguard 08503971 tk 23
    00:16:00
  • virgin classics vc5450312 tk 21
    00:07:00
  • wordsworth: lines written in early spring (al)
    00:17:00
  • by....rd: te lucis a 4 no 2, verse 2
    • 73Through The Looking Glass 20090111 Derek Jacobi and Lesley Manville with readings about mirrors and reflections.
    This edition explores the theme of mirrors and reflections, with readings by Derek Jacobi and Lesley Manville.
    The poetry and prose I have chosen show the mirror as a symbol of vanity, self-examination and the limits of human understanding.
    I started with the object of the mirror with Amy Lowell's poem and Arvo Part's haunting Spiegel im Spiegel. There are severAl Readings from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there. Lesley Manville played Alice at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith during the 1980s. Derek Jacobi brings Alice's topsy-turvy world to life in his reading of the poem Jabberwocky.
    A darker vein runs through Ted Hughes's re-telling of Ovid's myth of Narcissus, where his fate is sealed when he becomes entranced by his own reflection in a pool, leading to Szymanowski's seductive myths and Brain Eno's plateaux of mirror. Ann Sexton's poem about Snow White gives a modern twist to the 'mirror, mirror on the wall', and leads to the modern jazz improvisation of Dave Douglas.
    A darker vein runs through Walt Whitman's A Handmirror with the radiophonic piece Veils and Mirrors, Sylvia Plath's bleak poem Mirror and Jorge Luis Borges's fear of mirrors.
    I end with a mirror fugue from Bach's Art of Fugue and the passage from 1 Corinthians about self-knowledge: 'For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face'.
    Readers: Derek Jacobi (DJ) and Lesley Manville (LM)
    0'00
  • (dj)
    10'00
  • (dj)
    2'50
  • (dj)
    28'30
  • (dj)
    38'00
  • (dj)
    56'00
  • (dj)
    61'30
  • (dj)
    66'00
  • (dj)
    bach: art of fugue
  • (lm)
    1 corinthians 13
  • (lm)
    15'30
  • (lm)
    26'00
  • (lm)
    46'00
  • (lm)
    55'30
  • (lm)
    6'40
  • (lm)
    jorge louis borges: mirrors
  • Brian Eno: the plateaux of mirror
  • Hilaire Belloc: the mirror
  • Lewis Carroll: through the looking glass
  • Lewis Carroll: through the looking glass and what alice found there
  • Thomas Hardy: at the dinner-table
  • Walt Whitman: a hand-mirror
  • amy lowell: mirror
  • ann sexton: snow white and the seven dwarfs
  • anon: salve cleri speculum
  • anonymous 4
  • arthur bliss: the lady of shalott
  • bach: art of fugue
  • bach: contrapunctus 13 alio modo from art of fugue
  • bbc radio classics 1565691842 tr 16 and 17
    42'15
  • bbc rec196cd tr 11
    Sylvia Plath: mirror
  • bbc symphony orchestra conducted by arthur bliss
  • bis cd829bis tr 3
    60'00
  • britten: metamorphoses after ovid op 49
  • britten: reflection
  • chan 8647 tr 9
    35'30
  • chandos chan 8747 tr 7
    20'30
  • clara schumann: ihr bildnis
  • collins classics 70432 cd 2 tr 2
    71'20
  • collins classics 70432 cd2 tr 1
  • collins classics 70432 cd2 tr 7
    9'00
  • daniel hope (violin)
  • dave douglas: mirrors
  • eg eegcd47 tr 2
    24'00
  • eugene asti, piano
  • glynis jones: veils and mirrors
  • guillaume dufay: o gemma lux et speculum
  • harmonia mundi hmc 901700 tr 3
    51'00
  • harmonia mundi hmu907232 tr 15
    69'00
  • heinz holliger (oboe)
  • huelgas ensemble
  • hyperion cda 67249 tr 21
    45'00
  • i'll be your mirror
  • joanna macgregor (piano)
  • kotaro fukuma (piano)
  • louis lortie (piano)
  • lydia mordkovitch (violin)
  • marina gusak-grin (piano)
  • naxos 8570261 tr 5
    54'00
  • nimbus ni5631 tr 5
    2'00
  • noboku imai (viola)
  • part: spiegel im spiegel
  • philips 4340762 tr 1
    13'30
  • radiophonic workshop
  • ravel: miroirs: noctuelles
  • rilke: lady at a mirror
  • roland pontinen (piano)
  • shakespeare: sonnet 3
  • simon mulligan (piano)
  • soul note 1212762 tr 2
    29'40
  • stephan loges, baritone
  • szymanowski: narcissus, op 30
  • takemitsu: pause ininterrompue
  • ted hughes: narcissus
  • tennyson: lady of shalott
  • the velvet underground
  • translated by stephen cohn
  • verve 823 290-2 tr 9
    4'50
    • 74Femme Fatales 2009011820091229A programme of poetry and music on the theme of the femme fatale, an idea exemplified in some of the most passionate artistic creations, including Medusa, Delilah, Carmen and Lady Macbeth.
    Jeremy Northam and Harriet Walter read works by Keats, Spenser, Shakespeare, Wilde, Carol Anne Duffy and Angela Carter, alongside music by Handel, Massenet, Saint-Saens, Richard Strauss, Bizet and Gershwin.
    Poetry and music on the theme of the femme fatale. Jeremy Northam and Harriet Walter read.
    75In The House Of God 20090125 Hugo Thurston and Pookie Quesnel read poetry and prose on the theme of places of worship including work by Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson and Thomas Hardy, with music by Bach, Britten and Monteverdi.
    Hugo Thurston and Pookie Quesnel with readings and music about places of worship.
    76Tailor-made 20090208 A selection of poetry, prose and music examining our attitudes to what we wear. Including compositions by John Tavener as well as Puccini, Miles Davis and The Coasters, as well as works from lyric poet Robert Herrick and Beat writer Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
    Poetry, prose and music examining our attitudes to what we wear.
    77The Ascent Of Man 20090215 To mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, Ruth Padel, a poet as well as his descendant, and Henry Goodman read prose and verse exploring the idea of the Ascent of Man, based on the naturalist's work and travels around the globe.
    Padel reads her own verses recreating her ancestor's life and works, while Goodman portrays Darwin, reading texts from the scientist's journals.
    This is complemented by other poetry read by Jemima Rooper, inspired by the power of nature, including works by Victorian writers and thinkers influenced by the great naturalist.
    Ruth Padel and Henry Goodman read prose and verse exploring the idea of the Ascent of Man.
    78Harold Pinter20090222 A programme devoted to the playwright and actor who died in December 2008, featuring archive recordings of Pinter himself reading poems by Thomas Hardy, Nazim Hikmet and his own work.
    Plus new readings by Michael Gambon, including the passage from No Man's Land which the actor read at Pinter's request at the playwright's funeral. He also reads a passage from Proust's Time Regained, a poem by WS Graham and an unpublished poem heard for the first time, To My Wife, dedicated to Antonia Fraser.
    Penelope Wilton's readings include a passage from Old Times and, with Michael Gambon, she reads the passage from Ts Eliot's Little Gidding chosen by Pinter for her to read at his funeral.
    Some of the late playwright's favourite music is also featured, including Miles Davis, Bach, Thelonius Monk, Schubert (played by his friend Mitsuko Uchida) and Beethoven, alongside music from one of the films Pinter worked on - The French Lieutenant's Woman.
    A programme devoted to Harold Pinter, with recordings of the playwright himself.
    79An American Landscape2009030120090927On a cold, gusting morning of January 1961 the poet Robert Frost set out to read a specially composed poem at the inauguration of John F Kennedy, the man on whom all America’s hopes were pinned. But the sun’s glare and the newness of the poem robbed Frost of his ability, his confidence, to read. He fell back on a poem he’d written in 1942. The Gift Outright explores in its few lines one of the deepest and darkest matters facing Americans: the nature of their brief relationship with the land, a land once occupied by others. The poem, read by Jeff Perry is followed by Virgil Thomson’s film score The Plow That Broke the Plains, which was sponsored by the United States Resettlement Administration.
    As the orchestrator of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, Ferde Grofé couldn’t have been closer to the heart of American music. In 1916, Grofé drove across the Arizona desert with a group of friends to watch the sun rise over the Grand Canyon. He was later inspired by the experience to compose his famous Grand Canyon Suite.
    Some years before, in the late 1860’s John Wesley Powell, a soldier turned naturalist embarked on the first geological survey of the Grand Canyon. His journal, which starts as a dry analysis of rock samples and description of geological formations finally becomes a painting and a hymn of praise to this unique American landscape. I found writer and composer speaking in one language in their breathless excitement in the presence of the Grand Canyon. I think you’ll agree that Grofé’s music and Powell’s journal exactly describe each other.
    Etta Baker's Appalachian guitar music is followed by Copland’s take on the same region: part of his ballet score Appalachian Spring. The White Mountains, part of the Appalachian mountains, the most rugged in New England, were visited in the 1830s by the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote an awe-inspiring account of his trip. His connection with the area was forever sealed by his death there on a subsequent visit many years later. Copland’s classic orchestration of the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts ends this section and is itself topped off by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s own version of the original hymn.
    The composer Philip Glass has composed America with a photographer’s eye, his unique, self-styled voice, mapping America and American life and shipping it across the world as the soundtrack of numerous films. His early score to The Photographer, unswerving in its forward drive is the adjunct to Robert Lowell’s haunting poem, The Mouth of the Hudson, a description of a man standing on an outcrop above a railroad siding and watching the trains switching beneath him. It’s a neutral description until the word ‘unforgivable’ at the end.
    The 20th century American composer Roy Harris was born in 1898 to poor parents, in a log cabin in Oklahoma, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday. He had the perfect opportunity to survey the American landscape as he worked for many years as a trucker, criss-crossing the continent. You can hear the lie of the land in his masterpiece Symphony No.3. I mixed the symphony with John Ashbery’s poem Pyrography, an elliptical commentary of America, written to accompany a travelling exhibition of American landscape paintings.
    We end with Charles Ives, possibly the composer who captured the spirit of America better than any other. Whilst Harris was a trucker, Ives’s main job was in insurance. That was no bar to him writing his totally original and uncompromising musical reflection of the America he saw and heard. His Three Places in New England here prepares the way for Henry James’s reflection on the New England landscape, which I have mixed with Ives’s contemplative masterpiece The Unanswered Question. Appropriately, that piece ends the programme.
    Paul Frankl
  • producer
    actors ian barford and jeff perry read works on the theme of the american landscape
    paul frankl
    producer
    • 80Insects 20090308 Poetry, prose and music devoted to the world of insects, and the beauty and variation to be found within, with readings by Ewan Bailey and Rachel Atkings. Including Thom Gunn's poem Considering the Snail, DH Lawrence's The Mosquito and Robert Burns' To A Louse, as well as music by Josquin, Roussel, Bartok and Martin Carthy.
    A selection of poetry and music on the theme of insects. With poems by Ted Hughes.
    81Sport20090315 A programme exploring the fascination for writers and composers of the world of sport, with readings by Ioan Meredith and Angela Wynter. Including writing on subjects from cricket and rugby to the more esoteric, such as hang-gliding and rock climbing.
    Featuring works from Ian Mcmillan to Jean Binta Breeze, interspersed with music from Henry VIII, Britten and Holst.
    Music and poems on the theme of sport read by Angela Wynter and Ioan Meredith 
    82Purcell Weekend - Years Of Wonders 20090322 Juliet Stevenson and Kenneth Cranham read prose and poetry describing the momentous times that the composer Henry Purcell would have witnessed. He was a baby at the Restoration of Charles II to the throne, but would have known the Great Plague and Great Fire of London. In adulthood, he would have seen both the accession and the forced abdication of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as well as the coronation of James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.
    Readings include excerpts from Pepys, Evelyn, Dryden, Aphra Behn and Defoe, while the music includes Purcell and his contemporaries alongside works from the 20th century.
    A programme of words and music spanning the turbulent period of Purcell's lifetime.
    83Young And Easy 2009032920091228Readings of poetry and prose, interspersed with music, exploring the intensity of youth and its transience.
    Hattie Morahan and Samuel West read poetry and prose by Wordsworth, Rimbaud, Dylan Thomas, Thom Gunn, AE Houseman, Evelyn Waugh, Sylvia Plath, Jane Austen and Caroline Bird.
    Music includes Debussy, Schumann, Butterworth, Prokofiev, Thomas Morley, Britten and Bernstein.
    Poems and music on the theme of youth, with readings by Hattie Morahan and Samuel West.
    Readings of poetry and prose, interspersed with music.
    A programme of words and music exploring the intensity of youth and its transience. Hattie Morahan and Sam West read poetry and prose by Wordsworth, Rimbaud, Dylan Thomas, Thom Gunn, AE Houseman, Evelyn Waugh, Sylvia Plath, Jane Austen and Caroline Bird. The music includes Debussy, Schumann, Butterworth, Prokofiev, Thomas Morley, Britten and Bernstein.
    Poems and music on the theme of youth with readings by Hattie Morahan and Sam West.
    84Correspondence 20090405 A selection of poetry, prose and music centring on correspondence - between poets, musicians, lovers and friends. With writings by Kafka, Ovid and Mary Wollstonecraft interspersed with music from Arthur Honegger, Steve Reich, Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington.
    Poetry, prose and music centring on correspondence. With works Kafka, Ovid and Mingus.
    85Handel Week - Handel's Divas2009041220091221Geraldine James and Michael Maloney read extracts from journals, newspapers, letters and poetry of Handel's time about the highs and lows of opera and oratorio performances in London. These are interspersed with music by the composer himself.
    In his London operas, Handel provided vehicles for the most famous singers, mostly brought over from Italy. The infamous rivalries between singers such as Senesino, Cuzzoni and Faustina were played out in public.
    Music and poems with extracts from journals and newspapers about Handel's opera singers.
    86Food For Thought 2009042620091225A selection of poetry, prose and music on the subject of food, with readings by Samantha Bond and Robert Powell.
    Including stories from the Bible, poetry by Robert Frost and Carol Anne Duffy as well as writings by Jane Grigson, Marcel Proust, Samuel Pepys and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Music includes Chabrier, Cage, Schubert, Stravinsky and Bach.
    A selection of poetry, prose and music on the subject of food.
    87The Double 2009050320090802A sequence of poetry, prose and music exploring the disturbing world of shadows and ghostly doubles, with readings by Janie Dee and Nicholas Farrell.
    With works by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dostoevsky, Heine, Wilde, Robert Lowell and Khalil Ghibran, interspersed with music by Bach, Boulez, Schubert and Steve Reich
    A sequence of poetry, prose and music exploring the world of ghostly doubles.
    88Mendelssohn Weekend - The Great Trip20090509 Edward Bennett reads extracts from letters Mendelssohn wrote during the 'Great Trip'. In 1829, aged 20, the young and impressionable composer embarked on a tour that lasted until 1832.
    It was the longest trip undertaken by any musician in modern times and spanned England, Scotland, the Swiss Alps and European cities such as Vienna, Rome and Paris. The journey concluded in London, a city where Mendelssohn felt particularly at home. Throughout the trip, Mendelssohn wrote letters to his family about his impressions of the landscape, culture and customs of the different countries he encountered. It was also a process of self-discovery where he thought about his future plans and his identity as a German.
    In London he sees streets shrouded in fog; in Edinburgh he scrambles up Arthur's Seat for a view of the city.
    He notes in Vienna that people do nothing at all. Travelling down the Danube by boat is a highlight and in Pressburg he joins in the celebrations for the crowning of the King of Hungary. His final destination is London, where he is overwhelmed by the enthusiastic reception by audiences.
    The programme includes music written by Mendelssohn alongside music the composer would have heard during his years of travelling.
    Edward Bennett reads from Mendelssohn's letters about the composer's travels in Europe.
    89The Faerie World 2009051020091224A selection of poetry, prose and music on the theme of the fairy tradition, with readings by Stella Gonet and Robert Glenister.
    With works by Keats, Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, Christina Rossetti and Yeats interspersed with music by Stravinsky, Judith Weir, Schubert, Purcell and Kathryn Tickell.
    Poetry and music in the fairy tradition. Readings are by Stella Gonet and Robert Glenister
    Including works by Keats, Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, Christina Rossetti and Yeats interspersed with music by Stravinsky, Judith Weir, Schubert, Purcell and Kathryn Tickell.
    Poetry and music in the fairy tradition. Readings from Stella Gonet and Robert Glenister 
    90Carnival 20090517 A sequence of poetry, prose and music evoking the spirit of carnival, with readings by actors Saskia Reeves and Tom Hiddleston. Including music by Saint-Saens, Constant Lambert, Verdi and Stravinvsky, as well as writings by Poe, Byron, Elizabeth Bishop, EE Cummings and Malcolm Lowry.
    Poetry, prose and music evoking the spirit of carnival. With Saint-Saens, Verdi and Poe.
    91Do Not Go Gentle 2009052420091230Barbara Jefford and Neville Jason explore the adventure of entering our 'third age', and the challenges and consolations of old age. With readings from Shakespeare, Yeats, Browning, Dylan Thomas, Roger McGough and Dannie Abse, and music including Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Scarlatti, Villa-Lobos, John Taverner, Leiber & Stoller, Jerome Kern, and The Beatles.
    Barbara Jefford and Neville Jason explore the adventure of entering old age.
    Barbara Jefford and Neville Jason explore the adventure of entering our 'third age', and the challenges and consolations of old age. With readings from Shakespeare, Yeats, Browning, Dylan Thomas, Roger Mcgough and Dannie Abse, and music including Verdi, Mahler, Strauss, Beethoven, Ravel and Jerome Kern.
    92Illumination 2009053120091101Poetry, prose and music on the theme of illumination, with readings by Sian Thomas and Jamie Glover. Including works by Rimbaud, Jo Shapcott and Margaret Atwood with accompanying music by Thomas Ades, Arvo Part and Schubert.
    Words and music on the theme of illumination. Readings are by Sian Thomas and Jamie Glover 
    93The Best Days Of Our Lives 20090614 Sarah Lancashire and Paul Copley read poetry and prose about the experience of going to school. Including writings by Laurie Lee, DH Lawrence, Muriel Spark, Roger Mcgough and Carol Ann Duffy, as well as music by Malcolm Arnold, Frank Loesser and Alice Cooper.
    Sarah Lancashire and Paul Copley read works about the experience of going to school.
    94Ideas Of Wilderness 20090621 Jenny Agutter and Anton Lesser explore ideas of wilderness from all corners of the globe, reading works by WH Auden, eco-writer Jeffers Robinson, the Australian Elizabeth Brown, Shackleton and the Taoist wilderness literature of Ancient China. Music includes excerpts from Messiaen's Des Canyons aux Etoiles, Redolfi's Mare Teno, Purcell's Solitude and Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet.
    95Song For Ireland2009062820100207A sequence of poetry, prose and music exploring the identity of the Irish through the landscape, with readings from Irish actors Lorcan Cranitch and Orla Charlton.
    Literature featured spans the 9th century to the present day and includes some of the best-loved Irish poets - WB Yeats, Seamus Heaney, PJ Kavanagh, Derek Mahon and Paul Durcan. Music ranges from the pastoral idyll of Bax's Moy Mell and the chaotic Irish circus of John Cage's Roaratorio to the sound of Liam O' Flynn on Uillean pipes and young flute player Michael McGoldrick.
    Lorcan Cranitch and Orla Charlton with readings evoking the Irish landscape.
    96In The Microscope 20090705 Cheryl Campbell and Douglas Hodge explore the world of science in poetry and prose with work by Miroslav Holub, Mary Shelley, Thomas Hardy, Fleur Adcock and Emily Dickinson and music by Philip Glass, Dvorak, Takemitsu and Bach.
    Cheryl Campbell and Douglas Hodge explore the world of science in poetry, prose and music.
    97 20090719 As part of the BBC Poetry Season, a selection of poems recommended by BBC Radio 3 presenters. Including work by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Keats, Wh Auden, Emily Dickinson, Edna St Vincent Millay and Maya Angelou, and music by Bach, Shostakovich, Nina Simone, Schubert, Martinu and Yasmin Levy.
    The choices include Jez Nelson on Langston Hughes's The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Rob Cowan on I Could Not Stop by Emily Dickinson, Fiona Talkington on Sonnet XLVII by Edna St Vincent Millay and Stephen Johnson on September 1, 1939 by Wh Auden. The readers are Tamsin Greig and Alex Jennings.
    As part of the BBC Poetry Season, poems and music chosen by BBC Radio 3 presenters.
    98Cymru Fach 20090726 In the run up to the 2009 National Eisteddfod of Wales, the annual festival of Welsh culture and language, Words and Music celebrates the land famous for its poetry and song - from the (Anglo-Welsh) lyrical verse of Dylan Thomas to the Welsh poetry of Gwyneth Lewis.
    With the haunting sound of the male voice choir, Wales's leading classical musicians Bryn Terfel and Robert Te,r and some of Wales' most successful pop artists. Poems are read by Ruth Madoc and Owen Teale.
    Ruth Madoc and Owen Teale with poetry and music inspired by Wales.
    99To Strive, To Seek, To Find And Not To Yield 2009080920091223In a programme celebrating the work of Tennyson, Beth Goddard and Michael Pennington read poetry from Tennyson himself and others on the theme of destiny, alongside with music inspired by, and reflecting the texts. The poet is represented by excerpts from favourites such as The Lady of Shalott and Ulysses.
    With works by Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, Andrew Marvell, Dylan Thomas and Ts Eliot, as well as music from Vaughan Williams, Britten, Hubert Parry, Richard Strauss and Arthus Bliss among others.
    In a celebration of the work of Tennyson, readings and music on the theme of destiny.
    100All India Radio 20090816 A sequence of poetry, prose and music celebrating literature and song from the Asian subcontinent. With readings from Meera Syal and Art Malik, and featuring ragas to rap, from Kerala to Calcutta.
    A celebration of literature and music from the Asian subcontinent.
    101Full Of Noises20090823 A sequence of poetry, prose and music exploring the distinction between listening and hearing, with readings by John Paul Connolly and Rebecca Hall.
    Including writings by EM Forster, PG Wodehouse, Ian Mcewan, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and Walt Whitman, as well as music from Shostakovich, Tallis, Ravel, Sciarrino, Bach and Part.
    102Warriors20090906 An exploration of the warrior in poetry and music, from classical heroes to more contemporary soldiers. These are fighting men and women, in their own words to their troops, in their quiet moments alone, and in the eyes of those who love them and sometimes lose them.
    There is loss as well as triumph, but the only political protest is Bob Dylan's Masters of War. Queen Elizabeth I makes an appearance rousing her troops to repel the Spanish Armada. Hector of Troy leads his men into battle against the Greeks and is mourned later by his father. George Orwell shares his experiences of the Spanish Civil War, and Ivor Gurney's In Flanders aches for the hills of home. Tennyson's King Arthur is the elderly king at the end of his life.
    Works also include Shakespeare, Christopher Logue, Michael Longley and UA Fanthorpe, with music from Beethoven, Purcell, June Tabor, Bob Dylan, Tchaikovsky and Berlioz.
    Readings are by Deborah Findlay and Don Warrington.
    Don Warrington and Deborah Findlay read poetry and prose on the theme of the warrior.
    103In The Park 2009091320091220A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of public parks, with readings from Greta Scacchi and Henry Goodman.
    Including writing by Ted Hughes, DH Lawrence, Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Gwen Harwood and Sara Teasdale, as well as music from Handel, Saint-Saens, Debussy, Phyllis Tate and Nina Simone.
    Poetry, prose and music on the theme of parks. Readings by Greta Scacchi and Henry Goodman
    A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of parks, with readings from Greta Scacchi and Henry Goodman.
    Including writing by Thackeray, DH Lawrence, Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Gwen Harwood and Sara Teasdale, as well as music from Handel, Debussy, Phyllis Tate, Stephen Sondheim and Charles Ives.
    104The Ark 20090920 What does the story of The Ark mean to us today? Is it a Darwinian fable about survival? Is it a prophecy of impending ecological disaster? Or is it a blunt cautionary tale for an ungodly age?However you choose to read it, the tale of Noah and his Ark has proved perennially fascinating.
    Blake and Milton jostle for space in the hold of our virtual ark with comic turns from Chaucer, Julian Barnes and Stanley Holloway amongst others, while actors Claire Skinner and Andrew Scott keep things shipshape. The musical animals are of the highest pedigree too - so count on hearing from Britten, Saint Saens, Bruch and Rossini.
    As a concession to modernity, you can listen to the programme on your own if you insist but if you're really going to enter into the spirit of the enterprise, you should pair off with someone else - 'two by two' was, after all, the traditional arrangement.
    A sequence of poetry, prose and music focusing on the story of Noah and the Ark.
    105Feasting With Panthers20091004 A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of gay love, with readings by Douglas Hodge and Helen Mccrory.
    Including poems and texts by Wh Auden, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, AE Housman and Sappho, plus music by Szymanowski, Britten and Tchaikovsky.
    Words and music on the theme of gay love, with readings by Douglas Hodge and Helen Mccrory 
    106Illusions Of Power20091011 A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of power, with readings by Sheila Hancock and Tom Hollander.
    With poems from Percy Shelley, Ted Hughes, Rudyard Kipling and Margaret Atwood, as well as music by Prokofiev, Ligeti and Handel.
    Please note this programme contains strong language.
    Words and music on the theme of power, with readings by Sheila Hancock and Tom Hollander.
    107Walkers, Wanderers And Wayfarers20091018 A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of walking, featuring readings by Clare Higgins and Ian McDiarmid.
    With excerpts of writing by Thoreau, Edward Thomas, WH Davies, William Wordsworth and Alfred Wainwright, as well as music by Mussorgsky, Elgar, Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams and Lou Reed.
    A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of walking.
    108Family Portraits20091025 Free Thinking 2009
    Ian McMillan introduces a special edition, as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking festival. In an atmospheric evening of poetry and music inspired by family life, County Durham-born actress Gina McKee and Live Theatre's Donald McBride read poems by Philip Larkin, John Clare, Sylvia Plath and Newcastle's own Thomas Whittle. Plus a newly-commissioned dramatic dialogue for both actors by Karen Laws, Free Thinking Writer-in-Residence.
    They are joined by members of the Northern Sinfonia playing works for string quartet by Purcell, Haydn and Dvorak, as well as music from Newcastle-based folk singer Emily Portman and concertina and Northumbrian pipes player Alistair Anderson.
    Ian McMillan introduces a special edition recorded from the 2009 Free Thinking festival.
    109Solitude20091115 A sequence of poetry, prose and music exploring the theme of solitude, with readings by Paul Mcgann and Kirsty Besterman.
    With works from Alexandre Dumas, William Wordsworth, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson and Maya Angelou as well as music from Bach, Delius, Strauss, Scriabin and Thelonius Monk.
    Poetry, prose and music exploring the emotion and experience of being alone.
    110The Metaphysical Soul20091129 Anna Massey and Derek Jacobi read a selection of poems by metaphysical poets John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Carew and Andrew Marvell. These are interspersed with the five sections of Burnt Norton, the first of the four Quartets by Ts Eliot. Including music by Mahler, Takemitsu, Britten, Byrd and Beethoven.
    A selection of poems by metaphysical poets including Donne, George Herbert and Marvell.
    111Mark The Music 20091206 Peter Capaldi and Emily Bruni read poetry and prose on the theme of music, from the metaphysical to the everyday. The programme explores the wide-ranging facets and inescapable power of music - the mystical concept of the music of the spheres, the power of music in childhood and everyday life, music as a psychological tormentor and the beauty of music in performance.
    With poems by Siegfried Sassoon, Walt Whitman, Thomas Hardy, Ian Crichton Smith and Pablo Neruda, and prose by Nick Hornby and Louis De Bernieres. Music to compliment the readings includes works by Bach, Brahms, Philip Glass and Sigur Ros.
    Peter Capaldi and Emily Bruni read poetry and prose on the theme of music.
    112Hope And Despair20091213 Romola Garai and Tim McMullan read poetry and prose on the theme of hope and despair. With poetry from Ts Eliot, Tennessee Williams and Emily Dickinson. Including readings from the works of George Orwell and Roald Dahl, as well as music by Shostakovich, Biber and George Crumb.
    Romola Garai and Tim McMullan read poetry and prose on the theme of hope and despair.
    113At The Movies 20091227 An edition of BBC Radio 3's weekly mixture of poetry, prose and music inspired by the movies.
    Poets and composers have been associated with the cinema since it began well over a hundred years ago. In the early years, artists such the Russian poet Mayakovsky, Jean Cocteau, WH Auden and Bertolt Brecht were all involved as were composers William Walton, Erich Korngold, Max Steiner and Elmer Bernstein.
    Poems include Tony Harrison's Continuous, George Szirtes's In Memoriam Busby Berkeley, Carol Ann Duffy's Big Sue and Now Voyager, ee cummings's your slightest look (heard in Woody Allen's film Hannah and Her Sisters) and Roger McGough's If Life's a Lousy Picture, Why Not Leave before the End?
    Plus music by Michael Nyman, Mozart, Schumann, Bernard Hermann, Aubert, Miles Davis, Nino Rota, Jerry Goldsmith and Ennio Morricone.
    A mixture of poetry, prose and music inspired by film.
    114Borders 20100103 A sequence of poetry, prose and music examining the idea of borders - those that are voluntary, those we use to define ourselves, those that baffle us and those we simply have to cross. With works ranging from Kafka's parable about the construction of the Great Wall of China to Marilynne Robinson's watery meditations on memory and loss; and from Chopin's dramatic exploration of the frontiers between major and minor keys to Ligeti's experiment to create the musical equivalent of a decomposing body.
    With readings by Sam West and Penelope Wilton.
    Poetry, prose and music on the theme of borders. Readings by Sam West and Penelope Wilton.
    115Atonement 20100110 A sequence of poetry, prose and music on the theme of atonement, with readings by Simon Russell Beale and Adjoa Andoh.
    Featuring works by John Milton, Emily Dickinson, Anton Chekhov, CS Lewis, Antjie Krog and Kit Wright, accompanied by the music of Samuel Barber, Max Bruch, Benjamin Wallfisch, Dario Marianelli and Barry Adamson.
    Poetry and music on the theme of atonement. Readings by Simon Russell Beale, Adjoa Andoh.
    116The Best Days Of Our Lives 20100117 Words and Music: The Best Days of Our Lives
    Sarah Lancashire and Paul Copley read poetry and prose about the experience of going to school, including works by Laurie Lee, D.H. Lawrence, Muriel Spark, Roger McGough and the newly appointed Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. There's music by Malcolm Arnold, Frank Loesser and Alice Cooper.
    Producer Helen Garrison
    Promo note
    Going to school is a rite of passage we have all shared, but the likelihood is that no two people's experiences are the same. For some it really was the best days of their lives, for others, just something to get through on the way to independence, and for others it is a time of real fear and physical pain. Many authors have written on this subject, and this week's Words and Music dips a toe into the ocean of literature available. Laurie Lee, Roger McGough, John Peel and the new Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy reflect on their school days, whilst D.H. Lawrence, Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby and Muriel Spark's Miss Jean Brodie portray life from the front of the classroom. Paul Copley is a familiar face to TV and a well loved voice on radio. Originally a trained teacher, he starred in the long running 1990s Radio 4 comedy series about a school "King Street Junior". He and the popular TV actress
    Sarah Lancashire provide the readings, and there is music by Malcolm Arnold, Frank Loesser and Alice Cooper.
    A sequence of poetry and music focusing on the experience of going to school.
    117Sons Of Russia20100124 To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Anton Chekhov's birth, actors Mackenzie Crook and Jason Isaacs explore male fragility in Russian literature. The tensions between generations and classes are revealed with readings from Gogol, Turgenev and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, whilst adulterous love infuses his short story The Lady with the Dog. Perhaps above all, why do these men have such an attachment to their Motherland? Why does the average Russian 'Ivan' place his country above everything else, even God? With music by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Schnittke.
    In the past decade, Mackenzie Crook has quickly established himself as a versatile character actor after appearing in the BBC TV comedy The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean films. In early 2010 he returns to his role in the rival of acclaimed play Jerusalem in the West End. Mackenzie reads from Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment, Gogol's The Government Inspector and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
    Jason Isaacs, introduced to a new generation of film lovers as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, reads passages from Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters and short story The Lady with the Dog, as well as extracts from Turgenev and Tolstoy.
    Mackenzie Crook and Jason Isaacs explore male fragility in Russian literature.
     Years Of Wonders 20091222Juliet Stevenson and Kenneth Cranham read prose and poetry describing the momentous times that the composer Henry Purcell would have witnessed. He was a baby at the Restoration of Charles II to the throne, but would have known the Great Plague and Great Fire of London. In adulthood, he would have seen both the accession and the forced abdication of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as well as the coronation of James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.
    Readings include excerpts from Pepys, Evelyn, Dryden, Aphra Behn and Defoe, while the music includes Purcell and his contemporaries alongside works from the 20th century.
    A programme of words and music spanning the turbulent period of Purcell's lifetime.
     Face 20100131Another chance to hear a revised repeat of Words and Music on the theme of the face.
    The face of our mother is the first thing on which we focus when we are born. From then on, faces take on a huge significance throughout our lives. We communicate all our emotions through our faces, through our eyes and with words through our lips. Through our noses we can detect not just when it's time for dinner, but whether somebody is frightened, depressed or attracted to us. This programme explores this uniquely human phenomenon, surveying all aspects of the face - beauty, youth, ugliness, love, fear. Then there are the barriers put up when the face is not as it should be, when one cannot see, or one encounters a disfigured face, or eyes that tell a terrible story.
    Highly acclaimed actors Michael Maloney and Lesley Sharp read poems and texts by Christina Rossetti, Christopher Marlowe, Ovid, George Barlow and, of course, extracts from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray". And there is music by Gershwin, Hildegard of Bingen, Tavener, Purcell, Ivor Gurney, Dowland and George Michael.
    Michael Maloney and Lesley Sharp read poems and texts exploring the face.
      20100214 Occidental as well as oriental - Turkey has often been disputed territory. It's the site of Homer's Troy; much of Xenophon's famous expedition takes place on its soil; and the country and its people have attracted admirers like the poets Yeats and John Ash as well as detractors like T.E.Lawrence. Byron as well as Lady Wortley Montagu have fallen under the spell of its customs and more recent visitors such as Rose Macaulay and Neal Ascherson have been both beguiled and bemused by their experience of the country.There's music to match from Mozart, Dave Brubeck, Arvo Part and Cantemir and the actors Ruth Wilson and Toby Jones are ready to set sail for Byzantium and beyond.
    A portrait in music, poetry and prose of Turkey, seen through the eyes of the outsider.
     Insects 20100221They creep upon the earth, and buzz and flit above us in the air, but we rarely think of them. This week's Words and Music is devoted to the tiny invertebrate world of insects, and the beauty and variation to be found within.
    The grasshopper singing on a summer is celebrated by Josquin's frotolla El Grillo, and the slow patient progress of a snail reflected by Thom Gunn's poem Considering The Snail. We certainly notice insects that bother us, provoking ire in D H Lawrence's The Mosquito, and Robert Burns's To A Louse, but the invertebrate kingdom brings us great joy as well, through the beauty of butterflies and the industry of bees. Ewan Bailey and Rachel Atkins read poetry to lead us through this minute, mysterious world. (Rpt).
    A selection of poetry and music on the theme of insects. With poems by Ted Hughes.
      20100228 Poetry, prose and music on a Scottish theme. The readers are Jimmy Yuill and Stella Gonet.
     The Thrill Of The Chase20100307 From the dawn of mankind, humans have been bound up in the pursuit of prey, while at the same time avoiding being hunted themselves. We are now usually the hunters, rather than the hunted, but from the exhilaration of hunting for sport, to the disgust at hunting for pleasure, emotions evoked by the chase are never mild.
    This week's Words and Music explores this music and poetry inspired by hunting. Deborah Findlay and Nicholas Farrell read Adrienne Rich's 'Abnegation', and extracts from Moby Dick and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; the full spectrum of opinion is here, with music by Harrison Birtwistle, Clement Janequin and Franz Schubert.
    But although hunting brings to mind the thunder of horses' hooves, it also describes a very human ritual - the lover's chase. With readings from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and poetry by Sir Thomas Wyatt, this programme will touch on a very different sort of chase, and the desire for love, not death.
    Words and music about hunting and chasing. Readings by Nicholas Farrell, Deborah Finlay.
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    This week's Words and Music explores this music and poetry inspired by hunting. Deborah Findlay and Nicholas Farrell read Adrienne Rich's 'Abnegation', and extracts from Moby Dick and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; the full spectrum of opinion is here, with music by Harrison Birtwistle and Benjamin Britten.
     Healing20100314  Two of Britain's most well loved actors - Celia Imrie and Bill Paterson - read poems and texts on the subject of Healing. Ranging from Jesus' healing miracles in the Gospels of the New Testatment to Florence Nightingale's advice on nursing, the texts and poems cover all aspects of healing. Doctors and nurses feature in works by HG Wells, Louisa M Alcott and Richard Gordon. Then there are spiritual, emotional and political healing as described by authors as diverse as Dorothy Parker, Robert Burns, Carol Ann Duffy and Nelson Mandela, interwoven with music by Wagner, John Adams, Durufle and Sting.
    Texts and music on the subject of healing, with readings by Celia Imrie and Bill Paterson.
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