Words & Music

Animals

Sunday 24 February 2008 22:15-0:00 (Radio 3)

Actress Fiona Shaw introduces a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of animals, including work by Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, William Golding, Les Murray, Lewis Carroll and Paul Durcan. With music by Sibelius, Schumann, Schubert, John Tavener and Poulenc.

Duration:

1 hour 45 minutes

The Beast Within

Animals began to play a bigger part in my life this year. In April I went to the Galapagos Islands with the artist Dorothy Cross whose work often reflects the power and the mystery of animals in her photographs of beached whales and her video work on jelly fish: this trip was inspired by her research on Darwin and the notion of evolution and language. My role was to provide poems that cut across the quietude that forms the big divide between man and beast. I was stunned by what I saw: the connection between sea lions and tortoises, the way in which animals reflect back to us our own origins and the difference between their unconscious fight for survival and our worrying self consciousness.

I returned refilled with the notion that our survival as humans and as creatures with art in our core is dependent on the animal world and that their preservation is intrinsic to our own. The poems chosen reflect this relationship - the sensuality of John Montague hunting a trout, Gwyneth Lewis' delight in her dog and the reverse anthropomorphism of Paul Durcan imagining himself as a snail in his prime lying in the famous neolithic grave at Newgrange with mud in his ears. But perhaps most inspirational is the great Ted Hughes who takes the beasts of our collective memory and with deft modernism makes Ovid's poems come to life: in Actaeon we see the hunter transformed into a deer and savaged by his own hounds when a curse falls upon him for spying on Diana the goddess. Alongside the poems you'll hear Ravel's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune', James Macmillan's wonderfully expressive organ concerto A Scotch Bestiary which explores the connections between man and beast and Elvis Costello's balletic adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Il Sogno. All explore the world we must share.

Fiona Shaw

 Fiona Shaw (curator and reader)

Haydn Gwynne (reader)

Struan Rodgers (reader)


Details of Readings and Music
Timings are from the beginning of the programme

00:00:00
Introduction
Fiona Shaw

00:04:28
JAMES MACMILLAN
A Page is Turned
A Scotch Bestiary
BBC Philharmonic
Organ and Piano - Wayne Marshall
CHANDOS 10377

00:06:03
JOHN CLARE
Hares at Play
Struan Rodger (reader)

00:06:55
FAURE
Papillon
Cello - Heinrich Schiff
Piano - Samuel Sanders
PHILIPS 442 409-2

00:09:27
LES MURRAY
Two Dogs
Struan Rodger (reader)

00:10:42
GWYNETH LEWIS
Good Dog
Fiona Shaw (reader)

00:12:18
POULENC
Les Deux Coqs
Aubades, Les Biches etc
Piano - Pascal Roge
Orchestre National de France
Conductor - Charles Dutoit
DECCA 452 937-2

00:15:42
MARILENE PHIPPS-KETTLEWELL
Fireflies
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

00:15:53
RAVEL
Noctuelles
The Works for Solo Piano
Piano - Anne Queffelec
VIRGIN CLASSICS VC7592332

00:19:23
MALLARME - DOROTHY CROSS
Jellies
Fiona Shaw (reader)

00:21:02
TAKEMITSU
Toward the Sea - The Night
To the Edge of Dream
Guitar - John Williams
Alto Flute - Sebastian Bell
Oboe d'amore - Gareth Hulse
London Sinfonietta
Conductor - Esa-Pekka Salonen
SONY CLASSICAL SK46720

00:23:17
MALLARME - DOROTHY CROSS
Starfish
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

00:24:30
JOHN MONTAGUE
The Trout
Fiona Shaw (reader)

00:25:41
SCHUBERT
Variation V
Piano Quintet in A667 'The Trout'
Piano - Thomas Ades
Members of the Belcea Quartet
EMI CLASSICS 7243 5 57664 2

00:27:26
POULENC
L'Ecrivisse
La Bestiare
Soprano - Felicity Lott
Piano - Graham Johnson
FORLANE UCD16730

00:28:33
TED HUGHES
Little Whale Song
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

00:30:14
WHALE NATION
Heathcote Williams (reader)
NAXOS NA203812

00:31:17
LEWIS CARROLL
Jabberwocky
Struan Rodger (reader)

00:32:31
ELVIS COSTELLO
The Face of Bottom
Il Sogno
London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor - Michael Tilson Thomas
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 00289 471 5772

00:35:19
NINA CASSIAN
Sacrilege
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

00:35:48
JAMES MACMILLAN
The red-handed, no-surrender, howler monkey
A Scotch Bestiary
BBC Philharmonic
Organ and Piano - Wayne Marshall
CHANDOS 10377

00:37:20
TED HUGHES
Actaeon
Tales from Ovid
Fiona Shaw and Haydn Gwynne (readers)

00:40:46
DEBUSSY
Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un Faune
Flute - Emmanuel Pahud
Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor - Claudio Abbado
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4713322

00:49:19
MICHAEL LONGLEY
The Horses
Struan Rodger (reader)

00:49:58
SAINT-SAENS
Introduction and Marche Royale du Lion
Le Carnival des Animaux
London Symphony Orchestra
Conductor - Barry Wordsworth
IMP PCD932

00:51:53
TALKING HEADS
Animals
Fear of Music
SIRE K256707

00:55:14
CHASE TWITCHELL
Saint Animal
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

00:56:07
PHILIP GLASS
Overture
La Belle et la Bete
The Philip Glass Ensemble
Conductor - Michael Riesman
NONESUCH 7559793472

00:59:36
MARY OLIVER
Wild Geese
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

01:00:36
ROBERT ADAMSON
The Stone Curlew
Fiona Shaw (reader)

01:01:45
MESSIAEN
Le Courlis Cendre
Catalogue d'Oiseaux
Piano - Roger Murano
ACCORD 4657682

01:03:27
J.A. BAKER
The Peregrine
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

01:04:28
RAVEL
Les Oiseaux Tristes
The Works for Solo Piano
Piano - Anne Queffelec
VIRGIN CLASSICS VC7592332

01:08:56
TED HUGHES
Falcon
Ted Hughes (reader)

01:10:19
KEITH JARRETT
Second Movement
The Celestial Hawk
Syracuse Orchestra
Conductor - Christopher Keene
ECM 8293702

01:17:16
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
The Polar Bear
Struan Rodger (reader0

01:17:41
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Tyger
Haydn Gwynne (reader)

01:18:54
HENZE
In Memoriam L.K.A.
Six Songs from the Arabian
Tenor - Ian Bostridge
Piano - Julius Drake
EMI CLASSICS CDC5571122

01:20:48
PAUL DURCAN
A Snail in my Prime
Struan Rodger (reader)

01:25:44
JOHN TAVENER
The Tyger
Innocence
English Chamber Orchestra
Westminster Abbey Choir
Conductor - Martin Neary

01:30:09
W.B. YEATS
Leda and the Swan
Fiona Shaw (reader)

01:30:50
SIBELIUS
Der Schwan von Tuonela
Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor - Herbert von Karajan
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 457 748-2

Words & Music

Episode and Playlist Information

• 9 Mar 08 Seventh Heaven
• 2 Mar 08 Memory
• 24 Feb 08 Animals
• 17 Feb 08 This is New York
• 10 Feb 08 Birdsong
• 3 Feb 08 Happiness
• 27 Jan 08 City of Waters