Season highlights: Music
Season highlights: Music
Published: 22 September 2016
Sunday 30 October
At the halfway point of BBC Radio 3’s 70th anniversary celebrations we present a unique event in the history of the station. A non-stop river of music flows from BBC Radio 3 for an uninterrupted 12 hours.
Curated by the team behind Essential Classics, Rob Cowan and Sarah Walker, and carefully chosen to represent Radio 3 in all its musical facets - reflecting the pioneering spirit that over the decades has championed music, from the brand new to the most loved, while promoting the greatest artists of successive eras.
The musical range is huge - from the medieval to now, not forgetting the station’s commitment to world music and jazz.
Each of the 70 pieces is connected with a particular year and a historical, political or cultural happening that had a musical resonance at the time.
Along the way some of our most important and loved musical figures, including Sir Mark Elder and Dame Emma Kirkby, choose works which they see as ‘game-changing’ moments in their own lives. Sarah and Rob will provide an online commentary throughout the day on the significance of the pieces.
Between the Ears: Requiem
Saturday 5 November
The innovative composer and electronic music pioneer Matthew Herbert physically deconstructs the instruments of a string ensemble while they play one of Beethoven’s late string quartets, in a new commission which raises questions about our perceptions of acoustic instruments in an age of instant digital reproduction. Featuring a performance by Tippett Quartet.
As the piece of music unfolds, the sounds of the quartet are slowly replaced with the sound of snapping strings, instruments being sawn up, stamped on or burnt. By the end, all we hear is the instruments in their broken and destroyed state, but the players play on regardless. For many the epitome of chamber music, the Beethoven quartet is lovingly rendered until it starts to decay, collapse and become unrecognisable.
Pass the Baton!
Sunday 27 November
A special day linking all the BBC Performing Groups across the UK. Celebrating the quality and breadth of what they do - and what makes each of them so distinctive - in a twelve hour sequence of music and features. The day will focus on live concerts from each of their home bases, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Total Immersion’ on the music of Richard Rodney Bennett.
Feldman’s String Quartet No.2
Thursday 3 December
A live overnight broadcast of Feldman’s iconic six-hour-long second string quartet performed by the Flux Quartet, the latest of Radio 3’s experiments in night-time slow radio.
