The Geography of a Home
Belinda Lang (reader)
David Bamber (reader)
Producer's Note
A home is not merely four square walls. It can shape our identity; it gives us a sense of place - a sense of belonging. Not just a house, but a place where people grow, love, play and die.
In this sequence of words and music we celebrate the idea of the physical building of a home, the lives that change within it, and what stems from it.
Reminiscence starts the programme, with Thomas Hood's memories of his childhood home, and Charles Tomlinson's elegy on the privacy a door gives to a house. Philip Larkin reads his short poem Home - the idea of home conceived as one's childhood home and not a place one lives now. There's the lavatorial humour in Auden's celebration of the smallest room in the house: The Geography of theHouse, and Edwin Muir's description of post war suburbs.
The poems move on to address homelessness with Carl Sandburg's Old Woman. There's the idea that the asylum has become Ivor Gurney's home - a place he cannot escape, and then there's John Betjeman with Death in Leamington. The sequence finishes with poems by Andrew Motion and Thomas Hardy remembering homes past - homes that now exist only in the mind.
Gottschalk's inventive arrangement of Home, Sweet Home kicks the programme off musically, swiftly followed by Britten's The Building of the House, written for the opening of the newly converted Snape Maltings. Strauss describes a day in the life of his family in his Sinfonia Domestica whilst Meredith Monk and Steve Reich describe their home city of New York in Gotham Lullaby and New York Counterpoint.
The final movement of Alban Berg's violin concerto, is dedicated 'to the memory of an angel' - Manon Gropius, who died at the age of 18. It quotes Bach's harmonization of the Chorale melody 'es ist genug' (it is enough Lord). Perhaps an emblem of worldly grief, and the song of her return to her angelic home.
Copland's Appalachian Spring depicts the celebration around the completion of a house for a couple who are about to move in. Copland's variations on Simple Gifts are interrupted when a revivalist appears and warns the couple of what the composer calls "the strange and terrible aspects of human fate."
Chris Rea and Simon and Garfunkel make brief appearances, as do Lennon and McCartney with their songs of home. There's also the delightful arrangement by Courtney Pine of Andy Pandy's tune Time to go home.
To finish the programme, a reprise of Gottschalk's arrangement of Home, Sweet Home - a saccharine sweet melody, but in Gottschalk's hands, a wistful reminder of something familiar, yet perhaps half forgotten.
Jeremy Evans (Producer)
Playlist
00:00:00
Bishop arr. Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Home, Sweet Home RO117 Op 51
Philip Martin [piano]
Hyperion CDA 67536
Track 1
00:00:14
Home Is Where There Is One to Love Us
Charles Swain
Read by David Bamber
00:01:29
A Home Song
Henry Van Dyke
Read by Belinda Lang
00:02:22
I Remember, I Remember
Thomas Hood
Read by David Bamber
00:03:32
Leonard Bernstein
My House from Peter Pan
Dame Felicity Lott [soprano]
Graham Johnson [piano]
Black Box BBM3007
Track 26
00:05:15
Benjamin Britten
Overture: The Building of the house
Chorus of East Anglian Choirs
English Chamber Orchestra
Benjamin Britten [conductor]
BBC BBCB8007-2
Track 1
00:10:39
The Door
Charles Tomlinson
Read by Belinda Lang
00:11:15
Richard Strauss
Sinfonia Domestica - 3rd movement "Wiegenlied - Massig langsam"
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich
David Zinman [conductor]
Arte Nova 74321 98335 2
Track 3
00:13:56
Home is so Sad
Philip Larkin
Read by Philip Larkin
00:14:35
Chopin
Berceuse in D flat major Op 57
Maurizio Pollini [piano]
DG 431 623 2
Track 5
00:14:40
Suburban Dream
Edwin Muir
Read by David Bamber
00:18:46
Mark Knopfler
Going Home - Theme from Local Hero
Mark Knopfler
Mercury 826 685-2
Track 3
00:18:52
Image
TE Hulme
Read by David Bamber
00:19:09
On Roofs of Terry Street
Douglas Dunn
Read by Belinda Lang
00:19:44
Meredith Monk
Gotham Lullaby
Meredith Monk [voice and piano]
ECM 1197 825 459-2
Track 1
00:23:57
Steve Reich
New York Counterpoint
Evan Ziporyn [Clarinet]
Evan Ziporyn [Bass Clarinet]
Nonesuch 79962
CD 3 Track 5
00:24:10
Old Woman
Carl Sandburg
Read by David Bamber
00:29:02
The Geography of the House
W. H. Auden
Read by David Bamber
00:31:32
Beethoven
Overture: The Consecration of the House
Berlin Philharmonic
Claudio Abbado [conductor]
DG 447 748-2
Track 1
00:42:18
Lennon/McCartney
She's leaving home
Brad Meldau [piano]
Larry Grenadier [bass]
Jeff Ballard [drums]
Nonesuch 7559 79910-2
Track 7
00:42:40
Fairy Tale
Miroslav Holub - translated from the Czech by George Theiner
Read by Belinda Lang
00:48:13
Samuel Barber
Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Dawn Upshaw [soprano]
Orchestra of St Lukes
David Zinman [conductor]
Elektra / Nonesuch 979 187-2
Track 1
00:51:24
Now And Then
Ian Hamilton
Read by Belinda Lang
00:52:25
Ivor Gurney
On the idle hill of summer from Ludlow and Teme
James Gilchrist [tenor]
Anna Tilbrook [piano]
The Fitzwilliam String Quartet
Linn CKD 296
Track 13
00:55:09
'TO GOD'
Ivor Gurney
Read by David Bamber
00:56:43
Alban Berg
Violin Concerto - To the memory of an angel
Final movement
Anne Sophie Mutter [violin]
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
James Levine [conductor]
DG 445 487-2
CD 3 Track 2
01:01:03
The Old Couple
F. Pratt Green
Read by Belinda Lang
01:04:44
Foster arr. Kreisler
Old Folks at Home
Fritz Kreisler [violin]
George Falkenstein [piano]
Biddulph
Track 4
01:07:55
Death in Leamington
John Betjeman
Read by John Betjeman
Music by Jim Parker
Performed by the Nash Ensemble
Virgin Records CASCD 1154
Track 6
01:10:48
Copland
Appalachian Spring
San Francisco Symphony
Michael Tilson Thomas [conductor]
RCA 09026 63511 2
Track 2
01:13:07
Neighbourhood Watch
Brian Patten
Read by David Bamber
01:17:03
Ivor Novello
Keep the home fires burning
Community singing at the Remembrance Festival, Royal Albert Hall
11th November 1927
TP Ratcliffe [conductor]
HMV B 2637
Side 1 Track 1
01:17:44
Chris Rea
Driving Home for Christmas
Chris Rea
Virgin VTCD 103
CD 1 Track 11
01:17:56
Paul Simon
Homeward Bound
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel
Geffen records CDGEF 96008
Track 2
01:18:04
Arr. Cortney Pine
Time to go home
Courtney Pine [saxophone]
Antilles ANCD 848 244-2
Track 6
01:18:53
Frederick O'Connor
The Old House
Sir Thomas Allen [baritone]
Malcolm Martineau [piano]
Hyperion CDA67290
Track 23
01:21:11
Visiting the Old House
Andrew Motion
Read by Belinda Lang
01:22:08
Bishop arr. Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Home, Sweet Home RO117 Op 51
Philip Martin [piano]
Hyperion CDA 67536
Track 1
01:22:56
The Self-Unseeing
Thomas Hardy
Read by David Bamber
