1920s

Radio 3 invites listeners to press rewind on a century of the BBC with an epic, eight-hour soundscape. Seismic events, cultural landmarks, unforgettable voices and BBC history, all woven together with the greatest classical music of the age. Radio 3’s Soundscape of a Century is a sonic celebration, not a year-by-year chronology or a complete history, but an evocative soundtrack of the era, its music and culture, as heard on the BBC.

For more information about what you’re hearing, visit bbc.co.uk/soundscapeofacentury

The BBC started its first daily radio service in 1922. We hear its iconic first words on air, plus audio from the corporation’s ground-breaking early transatlantic broadcasts. The Roaring Twenties are soon in full swing, with music at their heart. We hear music by Walton, Ravel, Gershwin and Janáček, intertwined with the words of James Joyce and King George V. Soon the century begins to take a darker turn with the general strike and the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Archive:
1922 First BBC transmission “2LO calling”
1926 Second Transatlantic broadcast
1924 James Joyce reads from Ulysses
1923 Lord Gainford (Chairman of the BBC) reads the news "broadcasting has come to stay"
1924 King George V opens the Empire Exhibition
1924 The Pips First Heard
1926 BBC Radio announcements during the General Strike
1924 'Danger!' first play written for radio
1929 Newsreel describing the Wall St Crash
1927 Henry Wood describes first season of the Proms