Heroes
Charlie Norfolk (reader)
Jamie Glover (reader)
This edition of Words and Music and next week's - whose theme is Villains - were to some extent conceived as a pair. As I started choosing music and poetry for both it became apparent that the dividing line between heroism and villainy is, in art at least, often surprisingly difficult to discern; in fact some of the works I have selected would sit perfectly well in either programme!
In this programme I have tried to make a varied selection of work displaying different conceptions of heroism: the Promethean hero, the hero of myth and legend (including two great examples from English epic, Beowulf and Sir Gawain), military and folk heroes. The Byronic hero, a deeply ambiguous figure, appears both here and in the Villains programme - Byron's description of his pirate hero, the Corsair, could hardly be more sinister, yet the Berlioz overture of the same name is undoubtedly dashing and heroic in character. In selecting my "heroes" I am acknowledging that poets or musicians regarded them in this way, not endorsing their claims to heroism; Napoleon, both celebrated and vilified by contemporary writers, is a hero in this programme but in next week's edition becomes a villain.
Most of my music choices have an explicit link with a named hero: the subject has been a favourite of composers, particularly at the height of musical Romanticism, so there was much to choose from. But other works (the Rachmaninov and Franck, for example) are more vaguely heroic in character or seemed to fit the poetry they accompanied (the Vaughan Williams, which was, however, sketched on the battlefields of northern France). Rather than make this simply a roll-call of the great and greater, I have included a number of poems which either inject a bit of scepticism (Siegfried's bitterly ironic poem "Heroes") or provide a more general reflection on human greatness.
Thomas Morris (producer)
Words and Music: Heroes
All times from start of programme.
00:00:00
Richard Strauss
Ein Heldenleben: The Hero
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert von Karajan (conductor)
Deutsche Grammophon 4155082
Track 1
00:04:24
Stephen Spender
I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great
Stephen Spender: Collected Poems
Pub. Faber, 1989
Reader: Charlie Norfolk
00:05:54
Franz Liszt
Etudes d'execution transcendante (no. 7: Eroica)
Alfredo Perl (piano)
Liszt Selected Piano Works, volume 3
Arte Nova 74321 71768 2
Track 7
00:10:34
Anon
Robin Hood and the Tanner
St George's Canzona
John Sothcott (conductor)
Medieval Banquet
ASV CDQS6131
Track 22
00:13:11
Goethe, trans. Michael Hamburger
Prometheus
Goethe, Volume 1: Selected Poems, Ed. Christopher Middleton
Princeton University Press, 1994
Reader: Jamie Glover
00:15:19
Ludwig van Beethoven
Overture: Prometheus
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
Daniel Harding (conductor)
Virgin Classics VC5453642
00:19:59
William Carlos Williams
Hero
William Carlos Williams: Collected Poems, volume 1
Carcanet, 2000
Reader: Charlie Norfolk
00:20:27
Anon, trans. Seamus Heaney
from Beowulf
Faber, 1999
Reader: Jamie Glover
00:21:32
Richard Wagner
Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Gotterdammerung
Berliner Philharmoniker
Klaus Tennstedt (conductor)
EMI CDC 7470072
Track 2
00:30:37
George Byron
from The Corsair
Out of copyright
Reader: Jamie Glover
00:32:52
Hector Berlioz
Overture: Le Corsaire
Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal
Charles Dutoit (conductor)
Decca 4211932
Track 6
00:40:53
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias
Out of copyright
Reader: Jamie Glover
00:41:52
David Bowie
Heroes
The Best of Bowie
EMI 53938212
Disc 2, track 2
00:45:23
William Wordsworth
I Grieved for Buonaparte
Out of copyright
Reader: Charlie Norfolk
00:46:15
Ludwig van Beethoven
Variations and Fugue in E flat "Eroica": Finale Alla Fuga.
Artur Schnabel (piano)
Artur Schnabel Plays Beethoven, vol 4.
Pearl GEMMCDS9139
Disc 1, track 17
00:50:30
George Byron
From The French
Out of copyright
Reader: Jamie Glover
00:52:30
George Frideric Handel
From Guilio Cesare: "Aure, deh, per pieta spirate"
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Sir Roger Norrington (conductor)
Andreas Scholl (countertenor)
Decca 4661962
Track 9
00:57:23
Winston Churchill
This was their finest hour
Winston Churchill's Greatest Speeches
BBC 0563526726
CD 1, track 20
00:59:01
Cesar Franck
Piece Heroique
Olivier Latry (organ)
Deutsche Grammophon 4775418
Track 1
01:07:35
Anon, trans Simon Armitage
from Gawain and the Green Knight
Faber, 2007
01:09:10
Harrison Birtwistle
Gawain's Journey, from Gawain
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Elgar Howarth (conductor)
Collins Classics 70412
Disc 2, tracks 2-4
01:12:33
Henry Purcell
Don Quixote: Overture
The Academy of Ancient Music
Christopher Hogwood (conductor)
Oiseau Lyre
DSLO 534
Side 1, band 1
01:14:28
Isaac Rosenberg
The Dead Heroes
Rosenberg: Selected Poems and Letters
Enitharmon Press, 2003
Reader: Charlie Norfolk
01:15:32
Siegfried Sassoon
Heroes
Sassoon: Collected Poems
Faber, 2002
Reader: Jamie Glover
01:16:40
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Symphony no 3 ("Pastoral"): Lento Moderato
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Sir Adrian Boult (conductor)
EMI CDM 7640182
Track 2
01:24:04
Robert Graves
The Hero
Graves: The Complete Poems
Penguin, 2003
Reader: Robert Graves
The Green-Sailed Vessel
Claddagh CCT 14
01:24:29
Rabindranath Tagore
The Hero
The Crescent Moon
Standard Publications, 2007
Reader: Jamie Glover
01:27:10
Woody Guthrie
John Henry
Woody Guthrie: Early Masters
Tradition TCD1017
Track 3
01:29:49
Igor Stravinsky
Elegy for J.F.K.
Herbert Gruber, Karl Theo Adler, Kurt Berger (clarinets)
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone)
Orfeo C015821
Track 8
01:31:50
W. H. Auden
The Unknown Citizen
Auden: Selected Poems
Faber, 2002
Reader: Charlie Norfolk
01:33:53
Sergei Rachmaninov
Prelude no 2 in B Flat
Dame Moura Lympany (piano)
Warner 2564 620362
Disc 1, track 7
01:36:26
Emily Dickinson
We Never Know How High We Are
Out of copyright
Reader: Charlie Norfolk
01:36:46
Philip Glass
Heroes Symphony: Heroes
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Marin Alsop (conductor)
Naxos 8559325
Track 2
