Episode 4

Penny Gore launches Afternoon on 3's new season with summer sounds from the BBC Orchestras. She ends the week with an intrepid expedition led by three BBC Orchestras into the countryside and mountains of central Europe. Experienced mountain guide Donald Runnicles leads his BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on a relaxed tramp through Beethoven's pastoral landscape (and a passing storm) before setting out on day-long traverse of an Alpine peak, as mapped out by Richard Strauss.

And to set the scene, we visit the small but perfectly formed Tatra mountain range on the border between Poland and Slovakia. Polish composer Mieczyslaw Karlowicz and his Czech contemporary Vítezslav Novák both loved these mountains - Novák even pioneered a route up one of the highest peaks, and Karlowicz was killed there in a skiing accident at the age of only 32 - and in the early years of the twentieth century, a decade before Strauss, they each wrote symphonic poems inspired by their Tatran experiences.

Mieczyslaw Karlowicz: Eternal Songs
BBC Philharmonic,
Yan Pascal Tortelier (conductor).

c. 2.25pm
Vítezslav Novák: In the Tatras
BBC Symphony Orchestra,
Jakub Hrusa (conductor).

c. 2.45pm
Beethoven: Symphony no. 6 in F major (Pastoral)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,
Donald Runnicles (conductor).

c. 3.30pm
Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,
Donald Runnicles (conductor).