Barbara Trapido on Stravinsky

Annie Proulx wrote, in The Shipping News: "You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music". In this series of Radio 3's The Essay authors meditate on a piece of music that has formed the back-drop to their craft. In five intimate radio essays they explore how pieces inspire creativity through mood, narrative or structure, inviting us to step into the music – and the author’s – inner world.

Best-selling novelist Barbara Trapido was so inspired by Stravinsky’s ‘re-composed’ Pulcinella ballet, it sparked not one book, but two. In this short radio essay she explores how in the ballet – as in her writing – nothing is as it seems.

Producer, Miranda Hinkley.
Executive Producer, Peggy Sutton.
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 3.