This week's programme explores the theme of Town and Country. The music includes works by Handel, Copland and Vaughan Williams, and Samantha Bond and Tim McInnerny are the readers in poems by (among others) Eliot, Wordsworth and John Clare.
Town & Country
Samantha Bond (reader)
Tim McInnerny (reader)
Producer's note
This week's Words and Music explores the contrasts between the worlds of town and country, and looks at the ways in which they can meet and intertwine.
Oddly, while poets seem to dislike the town - Wordsworth's hymn to London and its river was one of the relatively few wholly positive poems I could find - composers seem to be happier among its sounds and moods, as shown by Charles Ives's atmospheric Central Park in the Dark, Steve Reich's vibrant City Life, or Richard Rodney Bennett's song Let's Go and Live in the Country (which, despite its title, comes down firmly in favour of purely urban comforts). Yet there is a warm sense of nostalgic romance in Sean O'Brien's 'The Park by the Railway', while Andrew Fusek Peters's 'Last Night I Saw the City Breathing' captures a childish excitement at the way a city's very buildings can appear to come to life when viewed with the right kind of imagination.
Peaens to the country life are easier to come across. John Clare's 'In Hilly-Wood' and Duke Senior's speech from As You Like It both celebrate its qualities as a refuge from noise and bustle, while John Ireland's Amberley Wild Brooks, Ralph Vaughan Williams's A Pastoral Symphony and Aaron Copland's New England Countryside are all musical landscapes of the most affectionate kind. Elsewhere, Clare's poem 'The Flitting' and a passage from nature-writer WH Hudson's autobiographical Far Away and Long Ago both look back on their departure from the rural life as a time of severance with their truer, happier selves.
In their role as link between town and country, railways make several appearances: Edward Thomas recalls a brief ear-opening moment when a train stops at a country halt; John Betjeman's 'Parliament Hill Fields' is a classic celebration of Metroland; Tom Waits observes a down-at-heel world from 'the yellow windows of the evening train', and Scottish poet WS Graham records his breathless arrival at Euston before making encounters with some of the city's great literary ghosts.
Finally, there are poems which examine how town and country can be in conflict while at the same time co-existing. Miriam Waddington sets the characteristics of various North American cities against the 'beautiful green grain elevator' that is Manitoba, Italo Calvino proposes the cosmos as the ideal model for a modern city, and FL Lucas even looks forward to nature's ultimate triumph. But the last word goes to William Carlos Willams's bleak suggestion that 'the country will bring us no peace'.
Lindsay Kemp (producer)
Playlist (times from start of programme)
00:00:00
Trad English
The Lark in the Morning
Paddy Tunney (voice)
TOPIC TSCD655
00:00:56
John Clare
In Hilly-Wood
Samantha Bond (reader)
00:01:47
Edward Elgar
Symphony No. 1 in A flat major 1st movt. (excerpt)
London Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Adrian Boult
EMICDC 747204 2
00:02:24
William Wordsworth
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge
Tim McInnerny (reader)
00:04:52
Charles Morris
The Contrast
Tim McInnerny (reader)
00:06:01
Richard Rodney Bennett
Let's go and live in the country
Richard Rodney Bennett (voice and piano)
ODE CDODE1292
00:08:13
William Cowper
Town and Country (from The Task)
Samantha Bond (reader)
00:09:42
Steve Reich
City Life (excerpt)
Ensemble Modern / Peter Rundel
RCA 74321 66459 2
00:15:45
William Shakespeare
Forest Life (from 'As You Like It')
Samantha Bond (reader)
00:16:50
George Frideric Handel
Were'er you walk (from 'Semele')
Mark Padmore (tenor)
English Concert / Andrew Manze
HARMONIA MUNDI HMU 907422
00:22:05
Thomas Hardy
Coming up Oxford Street
Tim McInnerny (reader)
00:23:07
George Gershwin
A Foggy Day (in London Town)
Jack Gibbons (piano)
ASV CDWHL 2110
00:25:55
WS Graham
The Night City
Tim McInnerny (reader)
00:27:18
Charles Ives
Central Park in the Dark
New York Philharmonic Orchestra / Leonard Bernstein
Deutsche Grammophon 429 202 2
00:34:30
Andrew Fusek Peters
Last Night I Saw the City Breathing
Samantha Bond (reader)
00:35:48
Ronnie Ross
Cleopatra's Needle
Ronnie Ross (baritone sax), Art Elefsen (tenor sax)
Bill Le Sage (piano, vibes), Spike Heatly (bass), Tony Carr (drums)
00:41:26
Sean O'Brien
The Park by the Railway
Tim McInnerny (reader)
00:43:19
Gustav Holst
Nocturne (from 'A Moorside Suite')
London Brass Virtuosi / David Honeyball
HYPERION CDA66189
00:50:08
Edward Thomas
Adlestrop
Samantha Bond (reader)
00:51:00
John Betjeman
Parliament Hill Fields
(read by the poet, with music by Jim Parker performed by members of the Philharmonia Orchestra)
VIRGIN VCCCD20
00:54:19
TS Eliot
Preludes
Tim McInnerny (reader)
00:56:54
Tom Waits
9th & Hennepin (from album 'Raindogs')
ISLAND IMCD49
00:58:51
John Clare
The Flitting (excerpt)
Samantha Bond (reader)
01:00:05
John Ireland
Amberley Wild Brooks
Eric Parkin (piano)
CHANDOS CHAN9140
01:03:25
WH Hudson
Far Away and Long Ago (excerpt)
Tim McInnerny (reader)
01:06:38
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Symphony No 3 'A Pastoral Symphony' 1st movt.
London Symphony Orchestra / Andre Previn
RCA GD90503
01:17:46
FL Lucas
Beleaguered Cities
Samantha Bond (reader)
01:19:06
Alexander Mosolov
Iron Foundry
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Riccardo Chailly
DECCA 436 640 2
01:22:40
William Blake
Jerusalem
Tim McInnerny (reader)
01:23:35
Stephen Storace
The Curfew
Emma Kirkby (soprano), Frances Kelly (harp)
HYPERION CDA66497
01:27:57
Italo Calvino (translated by William Weaver)
Invisible Cities (excerpt)
Tim McInnerny (reader)
01:29:28
Miriam Waddington
Popular Geography
Samantha Bond (reader)
01:30:26
Aaron Copland
New England Countryside
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Leonard Slatkin
RCA 09026 616992
01:35:34
William Carlos Williams
Raleigh was Right
Samantha Bond (reader)
