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Jazz on 3 - Ornette Coleman tribute

2015-06-19T16:32:37+00:00

Ornette Coleman

Jez Nelson previews this week’s Jazz on 3, paying tribute to saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman

Time after time jazz musicians talk about the quest to find their own voice. It seems to me that Ornette Coleman found his at an early age and it was one of the most recognisable in this beautiful music’s history. Ornette's blues-drenched, heart-stopping alto call was as close to the cry of the human soul as any horn player ever got. From the seismic recordings of his late 50s quartet through to his last recorded works (the subject of litigation to his final days) his sound was recognisable within a phrase.

I think that's why he touched so many and is being mourned so deeply. It matters little whether you ever got to grips with his harmolodics theory, because like John Coltrane, James Brown and Aretha Franklin, Ornette Coleman could floor you with a few notes.

On this week’s programme we hear from some of those who were close to Ornette or whose lives and music were touched by him. The singer Neneh Cherry (find clip below) talks movingly about her childhood memories of a dazzlingly dressed man who was a guru to her stepfather Don: and pianist Paul Bley (find clip below), now in his 80s, laughs hysterically as he describes being left irrelevant in his own band by the quartet that would soon record The Shape of Jazz To Come running musical rings around him. And bass player Jamaaladeen Tacuma describes how Ornette bottled the sound of a bustling New York into the super-tight funk of his superb Prime Time band.

'They were very much a unit... brothers...' Singer Neneh Cherry recalls her stepfather Don's relationship with Ornette Coleman

'You got it? Got it? I had never had it..!' Pianist, Paul Bley remembers playing with Ornette Coleman.

My guest, Guardian writer John Fordham, tells us how he nearly walked out of his first Ornette gig in Manchester in the 60s - baffled by Ornette's attack on violin, trumpet and alto. He wasn't alone - the jazz world was shocked and even offended. But John stayed and Ornette won him, and eventually generations of music fans, over. He never changed but we learned to listen and to realise we were hearing something natural and important. The Shape of Jazz to Come indeed.

It would be impossible to get even close to summing up Ornette's 60-year career in 90 minutes but I hope you'll enjoy listening to this week’s Jazz on 3 as much as producer Chris Elcombe and I enjoyed putting it together. There's much love for Ornette and his voice will be with us forever.

Jazz on 3

Ornette Coleman

Expanding the audience for classical music is a matter to take seriously

2015-04-20T13:26:35+00:00

Photo: Mark Allan/BBC

You may have read reports on comments I made this week about levels of classical music literacy now compared to the era of the Third Programme. The reports were given headlines that didn't really reflect what I actually said. Therefore I’d like to expand on my comments here and put them back in the context in which they were delivered.

I was asked about the challenges facing me as Controller of Radio 3 and how those might differ from those facing my predecessors, especially those involved in the Third Programme.

One material change I identified was the extent to which audiences arrive with a knowledge about classical music. That this means that we need sometimes to provide context to pieces ‒ but being absolutely clear we do not dumb down or simplify the content. We need to give people the means to approach complex music for what it is. That's clearly part of our job as a network ‒ we want everyone to be able to experience the great things engagement with great musical and other works of art can bring.

I am quite clear that I am an example of this: I stumbled across classical music in my twenties when I was fortunate enough to live in Birmingham and could hear the CBSO every week ‒ and came to learn a great deal from Radio 3, building on my already existing love of music of all kinds. That's why I take this issue of how we help people discover classical music so seriously.

Audiences have many choices nowadays, so in presenting complex music we need to do so not only in brilliant sound, not only by giving the excitement of live concerts every day, but with clear and informed presentation and online resources that help deepen people's knowledge. That's the modern version of the Third Programme. Our audience members are intellectually curious and exacting in their standards, and are characterised by wanting to dig deep and not be short-changed in what they are offered.

Classical music and its place in our culture is something I feel passionately about. We must be honest in identifying the challenges it faces and debate the issues with vigour. But, if this is to happen, we need all sides of the argument to be reported and debated fairly and thoroughly. Expanding the audience for classical music is a matter to take seriously, as we do across the BBC, with projects like Ten Pieces ‒ bringing classical music to school age children, the work of the Performing Groups, the Proms, and above all BBC Radio 3, which remains the best place to discover classical and other serious music, as well as culture and ideas.

If you want to hear what I actually said, here is the link to Radio 4's Feedback.

New season plans for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and the BBC Singers

2015-02-17T16:52:03+00:00

Paul Hughes is the General Manager responsible for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Singers. The job involves keeping a giddying calendar of dates stretching years hence, in his head. In this blog, Paul reflects on the 2015-16 season which has just been announced.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo. Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke

I find this a strange time of the planning year, when the present season is well over half way through. the new season has just gone public and my mind is focused on the season yet-to-be planned and the last few details of the Proms season ahead. I know this to be true when a friend asked me what we are doing next season and my mind went blank ‒ full of this week’s concert and the ideas for 2016-2017 that are swirling around in my head. And then I got home and went straight to the laptop to be reminded, as a smile crept over my face, of a season as full of musical adventures and journeys, pleasures and indulgences as you would expect of the BBCSO.

Any concert conducted by Sakari Oramo is a major event these days and his season-opening Mahler 3 will be unmissable, setting out a series of concerts that are truly inspired, including symphonies by Elgar, and Strauss’s monumental Alpine Symphony, but perhaps my favourite of Sakari’s programmes will showcase the orchestra section by section, with Schoenberg’s transcendental Verklärte Nacht for strings, Mozart’s sublime Gran Partita for wind ensemble, and bringing the whole orchestra together in a nostalgic evocation of old Vienna, Strauss’ suite from the opera Der Rosenkavalier.

Our Total Immersion days of discovery explore the music of two recently departed European greats, Henryk Górecki and Henri Dutilleux and one very much alive master ‒ Louis Andriessen. In fact Andriessen’s rich, irreverent and exuberant take on Dante, La Commedia ‒ part opera, part music-theatre ‒ this large-scale work is followed by two further operatic and completely contrasting collaborations with Opera Rara: Zaza by Leoncavallo and Adelson e Salvini by Bellini. Fans of great singing will remember our electrifying sell-out performance of Donizetti’s Belisario in 2012.

Commissions and premieres sit at the heart of what we do and with new works from Richard Ayres, Anna Clyne, George Benjamin and Ryan Wigglesworth leading the British contingent, and Andrew Norman, Brett Dean, Henryk Górecki and Richard Dubugnon showing how much exciting new music is being written around the world, there are many musical adventures waiting to be shared. In fact, finding just the right context for a new work ‒ the ‘frame’, if you will ‒ is one of the great pleasures of introducing new works to our audiences.

Renée Fleming, one of the greatest sopranos of our time, returns to work with us in a new song cycle written for her by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg, alongside Robin Holloway’s exquisite orchestrations of Debussy songs. Jiří Bělohlávek will conduct a programme that should carry a health warning, so rich is the musical fare on offer. Renée leads a whole host of glittering soloists and one of our strongest ever list of conductors; I would like to pay a particular welcome to Polish maestro Antoni Wit making his BBCSO debut and the long-overdue return of Markus Stenz.

BBC Symphony Chorus. Photo: Mark Allan

Of course, I don’t just have the privilege of managing the BBC Symphony Orchestra but also the outstanding BBC Symphony Chorus who will be featuring in a number of great choral works especially from the 20th century. Edward Gardner and I have taken particular pleasure in recent years of planning a December programme that has nothing seasonal about it, and this year will be no different ‒ Tippett’s A Child of our Time with its profound spiritual choruses punctuating Tippett’s own anti-war text will, in Ed’s hands, be profoundly moving and unmissable.

Programming with the BBC Singers is like having another set of toys to play with and the wonderful virtuosic artistry they display thrills me every time. I’m particularly looking forward to heading over to the luxurious acoustics of Milton Court at the Barbican for David Hill conducting Monteverdi’s great Vespers of 1610, when we’re joined by the vocal ensemble I Fagiolini and St James’s Baroque, and James O’Donnell taking time off from his day job at Westminster Abbey to direct Handel’s magnificent theatrical oratorio Saul, with a terrific cast including the wonderful Iestyn Davies. As a life-long listener to R3 and R4, the mixture of spoken word and music has always been close to my heart, and so the chance to explore the heart-breaking poetry and musical settings of, and inspired by the battle of the Somme, contrasted with that most enchanting of seasonal stories ‒ Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales ‒ wrapped up in favourite and new carols will, for me, be irresistible. Familiar faces and voices will join us for to narrate these concerts in Milton Court. I’m feeling all toasty at the prospect already!

Whether you join us a season listener, a new audience member, or a willing participant in one of the many audience-friendly learning events we offer, everyone will be enormously welcome. And if you can’t make it along to see the music and thrill to its sounds, then R3 will be there to broadcast it for you. That’s the wonderful thing about the BBC - you can have it both ways, and listen to it again!

Jazz on 3 - Piano Stars

2015-02-12T16:34:25+00:00

Jason Moran (l) and Robert Glasper

Jez Nelson introduces a special duo concert from two of America’s biggest piano stars

The Blue Note all-stars that headlined the label’s 75th birthday celebrations at last year’s EFG London Jazz Festival were good, but it was the opening duo who stole the show. Jason Moran and Robert Glasper both hail from Houston, Texas and are Blue Note fixtures, but they have very different approaches to the music. Moran draws inspiration from the visual arts and arguably has a more conceptual, compositional focus, as witnessed by his impactful score for the new Martin Luther King biopic, Selma. Glasper is as lauded in nu-soul, hip hop and R&B as he is for acoustic jazz and has made his name blurring those boundaries whilst honing his art. We’ve featured both, in various settings, many times on Jazz on 3 - but never together.

To explore into these musical influences a little more I put the pair to the MP3 shuffle test before the show, delving at random into the music they take with them on the road – it’s a treat, especially if you’re into your gospel singers. And the importance to both of them of vocalists in general really shone through, Moran saying that he often asks himself, in the middle of a performance, ‘How would Mary J Blige sing this phrase?’.

The prospect of two modern Blue Note heroes, pianos kissing, strolling through the vaults of the great label’s catalogue, was an enticing thought and they didn’t disappoint. Beginning with a tribute to the first piano stars of Blue Note - Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, they moved from boogie woogie through abstracted sections under-pinned by Moran’s tamperings inside the piano to some timeless Herbie Hancock themes. I never tire of hearing the simple beauty of 'Maiden Voyage' but it was Glasper’s teasing around Hancock’s soul-fusion classic 'Trust Me' that really got me.

The duo have taken this show around the world and you get the sense it’s a fun thing to do every night – you won’t see this on the radio but Robert Glasper even treated us to a few ballet steps. It's a snapshot of two fine modern pianists enjoying their own and each other’s playing whilst revelling in one of the greatest recording legacies in music history.

Also in the programme, staying with the classic albums theme, singer Juliet Kelly visits a new night that involves playing seminal recordings to a paying audience, and we've brand new sounds from another of America’s most heralded piano players Vijay Iyer, with music from his new trio album.

Tune in to hear all of this on Jazz on 3 this Monday 16 February at 11pm or listen online for 30 days after broadcast.

Jez

If you have comments about the show, or requests for music you’d like to hear, do get in touch at jazzon3@bbc.co.uk or on twitter at @BBCJazzon3

International Women's Day on Radio 3

2015-01-29T15:08:15+00:00

Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre

To mark International Women’s Day on Sunday 8 March we’re celebrating female composers both past and present. There are 6000 women composers in history, so why can most of us only name a handful? We as a station can’t solve the imbalances of the classical music industry - which inevitably reflect historic societal attitudes to women generally - but it's very important to take the time to explore the issues.

We will be celebrating today’s wealth of female talent and creativity and also championing history’s great trailblazers who helped pave the way for them. As well as recognisable names such as Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann we look at slightly lesser known names from history such as Barbara Strozzi and Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre who managed to make a name for themselves in a male-dominated world, alongside a range of composers working today including Charlotte Bray, Anna Clyne, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Hannah Kendall and Dobrinka Tabakova.

Our celebration isn’t about discounting or banishing male composers either; composer Anna Meredith includes music written by men in her Private Passions selection of music that has inspired her. Male presenters will be involved in the programming and male figures from the classical music industry including conductors Edward Gardner and Harry Christophers will also throughout the day champion the music of women composers they particularly admire.

However, this is certainly a focus on female creativity and to have a whole day of programming dedicated to the music written and chosen by women (including a Through the Night of music exclusively written by women composers) and complementary programmes across two weeks is testament to the great wealth of female talent around today and across the centuries.

Composing A Violence of Gifts - Part 2

2015-01-27T10:32:03+00:00

Large-scale structure of light distribution in the Universe

FORM AND TEXT

I’ve been writing A Violence of Gifts for what feels like an eternity but, finally, the composition work is coming to an end. I’m now in the midst of making the conductor’s score, orchestral parts and the piano reduction for the choir and soloists. It seems a good moment to take stock and reflect on the origin of the project, particularly as the piece itself is concerned with beginnings.

The initial idea predates my residency with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. It had been simmering at the back of my mind for several years before taking up my post. The first official meeting with the orchestra’s artistic team happened just over three years ago, in December 2011, over a coffee at the Wales Millennium Centre. I talked about my desire to create a work exploring the origins of light, matter and life, inspired by Haydn’s 1798 masterpiece The Creation but considered from the scientific viewpoint of the 21st century. It is testament to the supportive nature of the orchestra that their answer was simply to say, ‘Yes, let’s go for it!’

My first task was to think about text. I had been rereading the Book of Genesis and Milton’s Paradise Lost, which were important sources of inspiration for Haydn’s oratorio. I searched through existing poetry but nothing took hold. The contemporary scientific viewpoint I wanted to incorporate hadn’t seemed to filter into the works of the poets I admired. I knew I needed to commission a new text rather than use existing words.

I heard Owen Sheers speak at the Hay Festival and then read his beautiful poetry collection Skirrid Hill. I was immediately struck by the vivid imagery and powerful themes in his writing. I had a hunch he might be interested in the subject matter and so I contacted him to ask if he’d like to get involved. He was keen. We arranged a breakfast meeting in early January 2012. Owen was deep in rehearsals for his new play – The Two Worlds of Charlie F – so we didn’t have much time. I swiftly explained my idea and Owen was fired up by the concept. We decided to work together.

In subsequent meetings we discussed structure, form, language, and potential characterisation. We studied the three-part construction of The Creation – the first part explores the creation of light and matter, the second explores the creation of life and the third tells the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Owen had the idea to make our piece in two parts: the first looking at the early universe – the origins of time, space and matter – and the second exploring the conditions which allowed the first living organisms to emerge from the early Hadean Earth. Owen also thought about the idea of writing for two soloists, a man and a woman, potentially characterised as a couple of scientists working together. Their tale could be woven through the structure of the piece mirroring the third part of Haydn’s oratorio.

As the piece developed these initial structural ideas have informed and influenced our thinking although the piece now has a much more fluid form. We have retained the twin strands exploring the origins of the universe and the origins of life, but, rather than being in two distinct sections, the two strands are now intertwined throughout the work in a sort of double helix structure. One section, a duet for the solo soprano and baritone called Imagine that moment, mirrors this idea perfectly as the soprano ruminates on the idea of being present at the dawn of time whilst the baritone considers what the Earth may have been like as the first single-cell life forms began to emerge. The soprano and baritone do not represent specific characters although the last number, 'It is not answers we seek', alludes to the idea they may be a couple about to bring a new life into the world. They consider how each new living thing is a culmination, an unbroken thread, stretching back millennia to the early Earth.

It was to be another 18 months before funding was in place from the Jerwood Charitable Foundation to support the commissioning of Owen’s text. The next stage was to travel to Switzerland to begin our creative journey and start exploring our ideas for the piece in more depth. But more on that in the next blog.

The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales will perform A Violence of Gifts on Saturday 18 April, 7.30pm at St David’s Hall, Cardiff. It will also be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

Alan Davey - First Week at Radio 3

2015-01-16T22:24:32+00:00

End of week one. Pinch myself. I now have the magic pass that gets me into the studios. And I can find them, even the lovely one on the 8th floor where In Tune weaves its magic. I’ve even got cards that say I’m Controller, so it must be true.

I’ve found inside Radio 3 a new reason to believe – to believe in the power of music, the power of culture and ideas, and the powerful role the BBC and Radio 3 does and will play in the cultural life of the country. The reason – the intellectual curiosity and generosity of the people working here and their skill in making remarkable things happen. Their knowledge of music and culture, and their dedicated pursuit of doing things in the best way possible.

It is a privilege to be working here, and my excitement at what we are doing, and my ambition about what we will do remains huge.

BBC Director-General Tony Hall announces The Year of Song and Dance 2015

During my first week we launched BBC Four’s Year of Song and Dance, and Radio 3 will be linking up with some programmes around BBC Young Dancer; a whole Classical Voices Season will herald the return of the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. And I ended the week at the Barbican with the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing Nielsen’s 3rd Symphony. Sakari Oramo is proving to be one of the great Nielsen interpreters – if you missed it, you can find it on the BBC iPlayer... I am also looking forward later on to listening to Radio 3’s Celtic Connections from Glasgow.

So bring on week two… With the prospect of hearing on Radio 3 the previously unbroadcast Simon Rattle Beethoven cycle with the CBSO – I was at the live concerts many years ago in a previous life – can’t wait to hear them again after all those years.

Music in the Great War on Radio 3

2014-06-23T16:07:43+00:00

In Radio 3’s two week season 'Music in the Great War' 3 from 23 June – 6 July we are following the story of World War One through the music and culture of the time and considering the immediate and wider impact of the war on the international classical music world.

For two weeks starting in Breakfast, Radio 3’s schedule will be a showcase for the musical and cultural experience of one of the major participants. Each day at 8.30am, the author of the evening Essay will talk about their chosen WW1 subject, and we’ll hear music from the era, including a song each day from Radio 3 New Generation Artist tenor Robin Tritschler, with pianist Malcolm Martineau.

In Essential Classics from 23rd June, Sarah Walker’s guest is Dr Kate Kennedy, expert in the music and literature of the First World War. Rob Cowan’s guest from 30 June is the American cultural historian Jay Winter, who takes the long view on the conflict.

Composer of the Week from 23rd June is Elgar in the war years, and from 30th June Donald Macleod surveys the life and music of Ivor Gurney, with Kate Kennedy.

In Afternoon on 3 we hear music from each country, including specially recorded works by William Denis Browne (with the BBC Philharmonic) and Charles Villiers Stanford (with the Ulster Orchestra). The Thursday matinee operas are Mark Anthony Turnage’s ‘The Silver Tassie’ (26 June) and Rudi Stephan’s rarely heard ‘Die Ersten Menschen’ (3 July).

Each day on In Tune (with Sean Rafferty from 23 June and Suzy Klein from 30 June) there will be live guests discussing and playing music from World War One, and at 5.30 each weekday we’ll hear one of David Owen Norris’s WW1 Musical Stories, which will be available to download.

From 24 – 29 June Radio 3 In Concert brings concerts from across the UK and from Sarajevo. On 24 June the tenor James Gilchrist, pianist Iain Burnside and actor Matthew Cammelle give a concert of songs and poetry from William Denis Browne, FS Kelly and Rupert Brooke from the City of London Festival; On 25 June the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra perform works by Ives, Ravel and Shostakovich live from Orkney; on 26 June the BBC Concert Orchestra live from Watford perform works heard in the civilian internment camps at Alexandra Palace in London and Ruhleben near Berlin, on 27 June the BBC National Orchestra of Wales perform works from England, Wales and Belgium, reflecting on the Belgian musicians who took reguge in the UK, , and on 29 June the BBC Singers perform British choral works from the First World War.

On 28 June the Vienna Philharmonic gives an historic concert with the Opera Choir of the National Theatre of Sarajevo, in a gesture of international peace and friendship, broadcast live across Europe from the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, formerly the City Hall, newly reconstructed after the 1992 Siege of Sarajevo.

On 6 July the final Live in Concert of the season is a concert in partnership with the National Trust from St Lawrences Church, Shaw’s Corner, with the New Generation Artists Elena Urioste (violin) and Zhang Zhuo (piano) alongside the tenor Benjamin Hulett and the pianist Christopher Glynn with song settings of AE Houseman, music by Ivor Gurney and Elgar’s Violin Sonata.

In Free Thinking Matthew Sweet debates the role of literature in shaping ideas about heroism in the years before and during the war, including John Buchan’s Thirty Nine Steps (24 June); Anne McElvoy considers the idea of the “Great Powers”, crucial to the pre-World War One balance of power in Europe (26 June); Samira Ahmed discusses Paul Nash’s 1918 painting We Are Making a New World and explores the impact of war on woodlands and landscape (30 June); and Rana Mitter puts the "world" into World War I as he talks to writers of fiction and history about the role of Turkey, India, China, Japan (3rd July).

The Essay each day the series Minds at War paints ten portraits of the revolutionary change brought about by the war on leading thinkers from the arts and sciences. Contributors include BBC Correspondents Allan Little on painter CWR Nevinson and Lyse Doucet on novelist Edith Wharton; cartoonist Martin Rowson on artist Otto Dix, biographer Sarah Lefanu on writer and war-time nurse Rose Macaulay, Ruth Padel on sculptor Kathe Kollwitz, Ian Christie on film director Sergei Eisenstein and Santanu Das on poet Sarojini Naidu.

Ian Macmillan hosts The Verb at Batemans, the former home of Rudyard Kipling, who lost his son in the war (4 July). In Sound of Cinema Matthew Sweet introduces music from the vast range of films inspired by the First World War (28 June).

CD Review surveys recordings of Elgar’s Cello concerto and Ravel’s La valse in Building a Library (21 & 28 June). Music Matters looks at the effects of WW1 on the course of musical history in the 1920s and 30s (28 June).

Cellist Steven Isserlis hosts two war-themed editions of Saturday Classics (28 June and 5th July).

In the Sunday Feature World War One: Alyn Shipton, presenter of Jazz Record Requests, argues that the war was the unintended mid-wife to the birth of Jazz – sending African American troops across the USA and Europe and with them, their ground-breaking music (6 July).

John Keane, former official British war artist, is Michael Berkeley’s guest on Private Passions (29 June).

In Drama on 3, playwright Angela de Angelis adapts Greece’s most famous novel about the conflict, Life in the Tomb for a brand new radio version, bringing to life a lesser-known picture of the Great War, far from the Western Front (6th July). And to support this Balkan theme, in the Sunday Feature Maria Margaronis searches for the real Gavrilo Princip, assassin of Sarajevo (28 June).

Words and Music takes a thematic journey through the war across the fortnight – with three programme of readings and music on the theme of Outbreak (22nd June), Displacement (29th June) and Aftermath (6 July).

In The Choir Sara Mohr-Pietsch considers some of the newly newly commissioned WW1 memorial music, including a joint commission by the Three Choirs Festival and the Staedische Theater Chemnitz which brings together British and German elements in ‘A Foreign Field’, by German composer Torsten Rasch. (29 June)

In Jazz Record Requests (28 June) Alyn Shipton includes WW1 recordings, and in Jazz line-Up (28 June) Julian Joseph talks to Bob Sinfield about the jazz favourites of the WW1 generation. Late Junction with Max Reinhardt includes a fascinating exploration of the field recordings of British prisoners of war and colonial troops held as prisoners of war made by the German sound pioneer, Wilhelm Doegen.

Music and the Great War on BBC Playlister

2014-06-19T14:03:24+00:00

As part of Radio 3’s season exploring music in the Great War we’ve curated a playlist via BBC Playlister to bring together music associated with World War One – from songs written on active service, to music listened to at home, and works written in tribute to lost loved ones. Explore the playlist below and discover the stories behind the music. To listen to the collection visit BBC Playlister on Spotify. Find out more about BBC Playlister here.

Gurney - In Flanders

Gurney fought during the war and died in 1937, this is one of the works he wrote while on active service.

Elgar - Carillon

Written to show solidarity with Belgium after the German invasion.

Elgar - The Spirit of England

Composed in 1916-17 as a war requiem. The three parts of The Spirit of England were first performed together in Leeds on 31 October 1917.

Elgar - Violin Sonata

Written in 1918 just before the war ended, when Elgar was depressed by the effects of the conflict – it is more introspective.

Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 3 'Pastoral'

Vaughan Williams served as an ambulance driver in the war, this symphony can be heard as a ‘war requiem’.

Foulds - A World Requiem

Composed after the war as a memorial to the dead of all nations, premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 1923 on Armistice night by the Royal British Legion, and repeated in 2 consecutive years, forming the first Festivals of Remembrance.

Nielsen - Symphony No. 4 'Inextinguishable'

Written during the upheaval of the war from 1914-16. Nielsen explained it as the ‘inextinguishable’ forces of Nature beginning again if the whole world was to be destroyed.

Debussy - En blanc et noir

Although Debussy insisted the work was not a comment on the first World War it was never far from his thoughts. The 2nd movement is dedicated to a French army officer killed in action.

Rachmaninov - All-Night Vigil

Written in 1915, the first performance given as a benefit concert to aid the Russian war effort, this work, based on the Russian Orthodox liturgy, can be seen as his response to the war.

Ravel - Tombeau de Couperin

A poignant homage to both Baroque French music and friends of Ravel’s who died during the war.

Rudi Stephan - Music for Orchestra (1910)

Rudi Stephan was a German composer of great promise, who was killed in action 1916 on the Galician front.

Ives - From Hanover Square north, at the end of a tragic day, the voices of the people again arose

Charles Ives wrote this in response to the news of the sinking of the Lusitania.

Storming Laugharne Castle

2014-04-28T14:25:04+00:00

Laugharne Castle BBC Production Team

BBC Wales project manager Nick Andrews describes the daunting task of mounting a radio festival in a Welsh castle without touching any of the walls ...

From the 2-5 May we really wanted to commission ‘Laugharne Live’ - a BBC radio festival saluting the stunning works of poet Dylan Thomas. And we really, really wanted to host it in Laugharne castle, South Wales.

But getting into a castle can be tricky. Even for the BBC.

The archaeologists eyed me up and down suspiciously. Could a marquee with full broadcast capabilities really, truly, honestly be attached to the grounds of their beloved Laugharne Castle without any pegs at all? Promise? Breathing deeply I replied: ‘With water weighted rigs, my friends, anything is possible.’

And with that (and some paperwork), we’d semi-stormed the castle.

I say semi-stormed because as well as the grounds being considered an archeologically rich environment, the fabric of the building is too.

The first recce of the castle took place more than five months ago: the team has been meeting regularly ever since. The logistics have been mind-boggling. And we’ve been scheduling, re-scheduling and re-re-scheduling the weekend - a huge amount of work, but worth every complexity!

This week an army of engineers and technical wizards are set to complete the storming of the castle and build our broadcast village. Unfortunately, the portcullis was a little too low for our trucks to squeeze through, meaning that much of the kit will have to be carried in by hand.

And so, here we are, a few days out from ‘Laugharne Live’: access to Laugharne Castle secured. Tickets sold out (almost). And shows, so many, many shows stacked, racked and packed ready for action. Alongside a host of BBC Radio Networks, BBC Radio 3 will be there in force with Ian McMillan presenting flagship poetry show The Verb, and In Tune will be bringing its exciting mix of great music to the castle. Find out more about Radio 3’s Dylan Thomas Day.

It’s set to be a glorious celebration of a wonderful poet. And Laugharne - a setting described by Dylan as a ‘timeless, mild, beguiling island of a town’ - is a poignant backdrop for the event. Laugharne was hardly rest to Dylan Thomas. Nowhere really was, as the bills came in and his marriage disintegrated. But the atmosphere of the estuary which is the backdrop of the castle still carries the atmosphere which certainly inspired some at least of the great writing. This will infuse all of our broadcasting too.

Everything’s in place, so please come along and be part of the experience from our water weighted marquee, Laugharne Castle. Now, where are my pegs ...

Happy 90th Birthday, Sir Neville!

2014-04-16T08:46:46+00:00

My producer this week, Sarah Devonald, makes her blog debut, sharing her thoughts about some of the week’s highlights, including a celebration of Sir Neville Marriner’s 90^th birthday.

Sir Neville Marriner in Barcelona, 2010 (photo: Araceli Merino)

We’ve a packed week on Essential Classics, with Sir Neville Marriner celebrating his 90^th birthday, a gorgeous CD of Fritz Kreisler violin favourites played by Classical Brit winner Jack Liebeck, and gardening expert Christine Walkden talking about horticulture and music. And the start of a brand new series of Georgian Pleasures at 11 o’clock…

It’s been hard to know where to start (or end) with choosing music from Sir Neville’s massive discography so Rob and I have decided to showcase not only his work with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, but also recordings with many other orchestras he’s been associated with over his long career. Over the week we’ve Britten from Minnesota, Tchaikovsky from Stuttgart and Haydn from Dresden – the wonderful ‘Nelson’ mass featuring soloists including soprano Margaret Marshall and bass Robert Holl (that’s on Tuesday – Marriner’s birthday). Plus of course a selection of the classic recordings Sir Neville made with the ASMF, such as Dvorak’s Serenade for strings (Monday), a favourite recording for Rob of Elgar’s In the South (Tuesday), Bach’s first Orchestral Suite and a Handel Concerto Grosso (Wednesday) and Bartok’s Divertimento (Thursday). Rob’s prodigious memory for all things recorded has as usual prompted all sorts of wonderful stuff – he’s been present at some of Marriner’s recording sessions over the years and no doubt we’ll be hearing about those experiences.

And at 11 every morning there’s a chance to relax as a new series of Georgian Pleasures begins – fifteen takes on the art of the 18^th century. Majesty, Music and Mischief are the watchwords, as Suzy Klein has short conversations with conductor and harpsichordist Christian Curnyn, followed by associated musical gems: a selection of pieces by composers who lived and worked in Georgian England. I’m sure these pop-up features will prove just as entertaining and instructive as the wonderful Sound of Cinema ones were a few months ago.

BBC Radio 3

Essential Classics

Rob Cowan

WW1 - Music on the Brink - Stay in the moment

2014-01-16T17:21:44+00:00

BBC WW1 logo

Radio 3’s special week of broadcasts – WW1 - Music on the Brink – is over but there are more chances to listen as you'll find the In Tune Postcards, Tom Service's Modernist Moments, Welte-Mignon piano roll recordings by Busoni, Saint-Saens, Nikisch, Paderewski and d'Albert and a host of audio clips from programmes - all available in the special Collection.

You can also visit the popular Galleries, featuring contemporary images from pre-War Vienna, Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg and London.

Modernist Moments, the Essay and more programme extracts are also available as Downloads.

Radio 3 will be returning to the subject of World War 1 later in the year - watch this space!

Join the Music on the Brink Twitter Q&A on Thursday at 1630

2014-01-08T13:00:01+00:00

Charles Emmerson

**The Q&A has now finished. You can follow the questions and Charles Emmerson's answers by clicking here**

STOP PRESS! We've arranged a Twitterchat with historian Charles Emmerson, this week's guest on Essential Classics, from 430 pm to 530 pm on Thursday 9 January.

Tweet your questions for Charles using the hashtag #MusicOnTheBrink.

For full details of the WW1 - Music on the Brink season (including downloads) read this blog post.

WW1 - Music on the Brink - Highlights

2014-01-06T18:03:30+00:00

London: Oxford Street Traffic

Radio 3’s special season – WW1 - Music on the Brink – beganwith Private Passions and continues until Saturday 11 January. Many of our programme strands this week are devoted to this fascinating period of history, as the geopolitical, economic and cultural currents of 1913-14 gathered into a cataclysmic storm.

There is a wealth of material available online to support the broadcasts, including extensive picture galleries from the five European capitals which are the focus of attention this week, plus downloads, and sound and video clips of music and speech, many of which will remain available on the website in perpetuity.

Here is a quick guide to finding the content.

Radio 3 Programme Highlights

Private Passions – Listen again as Michael Berkeley talks to writer Pat Barker, who is fascinated by the First World War; for twenty years now, her award-winning novels have returned again and again to the trauma and grief and erotic intensity of wartime. Also available now as a download.

Words and Music – The world on the brink of war in poetry, letters, diaries and music. The readings, by Samuel West and Carolyn Pickles, include work by Proust, Stefan Zweig, John Masefield, Isaac Rosenberg, Adelaide Mack and Edmund Gosse with music by Satie, Ravel, Zemlinsky, Berg, Rachmaninov and Webern.

Somme – Paul Farley journeys down France's sleepiest river, whose character belies its violent history. Available now. Also available now as a download.

Breakfast – Correspondents from across Europe shine a light on music making across the continent as it was in the period just before the outbreak of the First World War.

Essential Classics – Each day this week Sarah Walker and her guest, historian Charles Emmerson, relive the sounds of a different European capital – Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg and London – at this momentous time in history.

Composer of the Week – Vienna on the Brink: Donald Macleod presents a picture of the most exciting cultural city in the world in the early 1900s: home of Mahler, Schoenberg and Freud.

In Tune – This week In Tune receives five postcards from different cities, reflecting life in the European capitals on the eve of WW1, read by Jonathan Pryce. Postcards are available as downloads.

Free Thinking – Radio 3’s new discussion strand, Free Thinking, takes the cultural temperature of the European capitals, with contributions this week from novelists AS Byatt, Margaret Drabble and William Boyd, the film expert Neil Brand, cultural historians Alexandra Harris and Philipp Blom, Professor Roy Foster, the journalist and author Nick Cohen, Baroness Shirley Williams, Duncan Brack of the Liberal Democrat Party History Group and the author Bea Campbell.

The Essay – Five BBC News correspondents present personal perspectives on the capital cities. Episodes are now available as downloads.

The Verb – Ruby Dolls perform cabaret typical of that heard in Le chat noir in 1914, Kevin Jackson describes a fantasy meeting between writers of the age, and George Szirtes explores the work of Rainer Maria Rilke.

Throughout the week, Radio 3’s concert programmes will feature music from the immediate pre-War period, including Tom Service's Modernist Moments - episodes are now available as downloads.

You can find other WW1 content here:

Charles Emmerson's Twitter Q&A - Writer and historian Charles Emmerson negotiated his way through a whole host of questions regarding music, technology and transport in Europe on the brink of WW1.

WW1 - Music on the Brink Downloads – Highlights of BBC Radio 3’s special programmes to mark the WW1 centenary. Classical music, art, literature, film, popular songs and cultural life inspired by the war, explored in interviews and documentaries from Radio 3’s regular programmes.

WW1 - Music on the Brink Collection – Clips, interviews and programmes on R3’s exploration of the musical world of January 1914.

WW1 - Music on the Brink Galleries – Collections of contemporary photographs from Vienna, Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg and London.

The BBC's WW1 Portal page – Bringing together all of the BBC's speical content across all networks.

The BBC's WW1 Centenary plans – Introduced by director-general Tony Hall

Subscribe to the BBC's WW1 Newsletter

This Blog will be updated throughout the week with further news of programmes and extra WW1 – Music on the Brink online features.

Vienna: Praterstern

Toulouse Lautrec's Pumpkin Gratin - Yes, really!

2013-11-09T16:16:05+00:00

Michael Berkeley and Martin Gayford

Our guest on Private Passions this week is the art writer Martin Gayford, a man with a passion for painting and for jazz, and with an interest in exploring the connection between the two. His new book is about Michelangelo, and I set him the brief of discovering the musical worlds of some of the painters he’s written about: what was Michelangelo listening to, as he lay on the scaffolding painting the Sistine Ceiling?

The Last Crumbs in the Restaurant La Mie, 1891

As we talked about painting and music, I realised that Martin has another passion: cooking. He loves Elizabeth David, but he’s also been experimenting with recipes from one of the artists he admires: Toulouse Lautrec. He was apparently famous for his cuisine and one of his friends wrote down his dishes – this is one of them. And you can understand why a painter would love the luscious orange of Pumpkin Gratin.

It’s the perfect recipe now, with all those pumpkins still on sale after Hallowe’en, so I plan to make it as I listen again to Martin on this week’s programme. For me, Private Passions is a great accompaniment to Sunday lunchtime in the kitchen: fascinating and surprising people sharing their greatest musical pleasures.

Toulouse Lautrec’s Gratin of Pumpkin

Cut slices of pumpkin half a centimetre thick and as wide as half of your palm.
Flour them on both sides and let them cook in a saute pan with oil, without letting them brown and without putting one on top another. As they are cooked put them aside on a dish and repeat the process several times.
Separately, shred some onions and let them also cook in oil; next treat in the same way some seeded quartered tomatoes, which you will mix, when they have been cooked, with the onion. If you have no fresh tomatoes, you could use some tomato sauce with the onions which have been cooked but not browned.
In a shallow dish arrange several layers of the slices of pumpkin, then the mixture of tomatoes and onions. Salt and pepper each layer moderately and finish with bread crumbs.
Let the gratin brown under the grill for a few minutes.

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