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Ode to Gaia

Sunday 13 January 2008 22:15-0:00 (Radio 3)

Sian Thomas and Jamie Glover read poetry and prose on a theme of the state of the planet, including work by Ted Hughes, WH Auden, John Clare, Alice Oswald, Rachel Carson and Philip Larkin. With music inspired by our landscape by Peter Maxwell Davies, John Cage and Mahler.

Duration:

1 hour 45 minutes

An Ode to Gaia


News imageJamie Glover (reader)

News imageNews imageSian Thomas (reader)

The starting point for this week's Words and Music is the ecologist Rachel Carson's 1962 classic book 'Silent Spring' in which she exposed how the countryside and wildlife were being destroyed by the use of pesticides.
So the programme, devoted to Gaia - or the earth - begins with a passage from 'Silent Spring' imagining a world without birdsong - later we hear Sir Michael Tippett's setting of 'The Windhover', Oliver Messiaen's 'The Wood Thrush' and Andrew Motion's poem 'Sparrow'.

The threat can also be heard across the centuries in Wordsworth's 1844 poem 'On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway' in which he despaired of what he perceived as the blight that the coming of the railways was bringing to the rural landscape and in Philip Larkin's 'Going, Going'.

This menace is echoed in Harrison Birtwhistle's Earth Dances, Sibelius' intensely sad 'The Swan of Tuonela' and in Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi' in which she sings of a world where 'they paved paradise and put up a parking lot'.

The sequence ends with Lord Byron's apocalyptic vision of a desolate world in 'Darkness' and Peter Maxwell Davies' spectral and hopeful 'Maxwell's Reel, with Northern Lights', inspired by the sight of the aurora borealis in the Orkneys..

Fiona McLean (producer)

Details of Readings and Music
Times are from the start of the programme

00:00:00
RACHEL CARSON
Silent Spring
Sian Thomas (reader)

00:00:52
MICHAEL TIPPETT
Windhover
Choral Images
BBC SIGMUM CLASSICS 092
Track 13

00:03:49
JOHN CLARE
The Thunder Mutters
Sian Thomas (reader)

00:04:19
DEBUSSY
Images - Reflets dans l'eau
Piano Works
Pascal Roge
DECCA 443 021-2
Track 11

00:04:56
ROBERT FROST
Spring Pools
Jamie Glover (reader)

00:09:16
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway
Jamie Glover (reader)

00:10:10
CHARLES IVES
Premonitions
Complete Songs of Charles Ives vol. 4
ALBANY TROY 080

00:12:10
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
The Windhover
Jamie Glover (reader)

00:13:34
BACH
Cello Suite no. 1 - Prelude
Yo-Yo Ma
SONY S2K 63203

00:15:50
SCHUBERT
Ganymed
Olaf Bar - baritone
Geoffrey Parsons - piano
EMI CDC7547732

00:19:31
ANDREW MOTION
Sparrow
Jamie Glover (reader)

00:20:15
EDWARD THOMAS
The Word
Sian Thomas (reader)

00:21:35
MESSIAEN
The Wood Thrush
From the Canyon to the Stars..
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Myung-Whun Chang - conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 471 617-2

00:26:12
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
The Lark Ascending
English String Orchestra
Michael Bochmann - violin
William Boughton - conductor
NIMBUS NI 7013

00:39:54
ROBERT FROST
Putting in the Seed
Sian Thomas (reader)

00:40:44
MAHLER
Symphony no 1 Second Movement
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Pierre Boulez - conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 459 610-2

00:48:37
WALT WHITMAN
Leaves of Grass
Jamie Glover (reader)

00:50:34
DELIUS
A Song of Summer
In a Summer Garden
Halle Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vernon Handley - conductor
EMI 7243 5 75315 2 8

00:58:06
LOUIS MACNEICE
Round the Corner
Sian Thomas (reader)

00:59:20
JOHN TAVENER
To a Child Dancing in the Wind
Heidi Grant Murphy - soprano
Paul Hotstetter - conductor
KOCH 3-7486-2

01:01:04
SYLVIA PLATH
Winter Landscape with Rooks
Sian Thomas (reader)

01:02:18
A.E. HOUSEMAN
I Wake from Dreams
Jamie Glover (reader)

01:02:47
HARRISON BIRTWHISTLE
Earth Dances
Ensemble Modern Orchestra
Pierre Boulez - conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 00289 477 0702

01:06:24
EMILY DICKINSON
There Came a Wind Like a Bugle
Sian Thomas (reader)

01:07:04
SIBELIUS
The Swan at Tuonela
Berlin Philharmonic
Herbert von Karajan - conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 457 748-2

01:14:39
RUTH PADEL
Tiger Drinking at Forest Pool
Sian Thomas (reader)

01:15:43
FAURE
L'Horizon Chimerique - Diane, Silene
Jonathan Lemalu - bass baritone
Roger Vignoles - piano
EMI 7243 5 75203 2 4

01:17:56
PHILIP LARKIN
Going, Going
Jamie Glover (reader)

01:20:35
JONI MITCHELL
Big Yellow Taxi
Ladies of the Canyon
REPRISE 7599-27450-2

01:22:50
SIMON ARMITAGE
The Final Straw
Sian Thomas (reader)

01:23:44
MESSIAEN
The Desert
From the Canyon to the Stars..
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Myung-Whun Chang - conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 471 617-2

01:27:38
LAVINIA GREENLAW
The Recital of Lost Cities
Sian Thomas (reader)

01:29:04
SIBELIUS
Suite no 2 - Chorus of the Winds
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Neeme Jarvi - conductor
BIS CD-448

01:32:17
LORD BYRON
Darkness
Jamie Glover (reader)

01:35:00
PETER MAXWELL DAVIES
Maxwell's Reel, with Northern Lights
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Peter Maxwell Davies - conductor
COLLINS 15202




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