This is New York
Sunday 17 February 2008 22:15-0:00 (Radio 3)
This is New York: William Hope and Laurel Lefkow read works by Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes and Andre Lorde accompanied by music from Dvorak, Bernstein, Sondheim and Adams
Duration:
1 hour 45 minutes
This is New York
This is New York
William Hope (reader)
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
Deep city, tall city, worn city...city knowing and naive' is how the poet Kenneth Fearing described New York. For this week's Words and Music I've chosen poetry, prose and music reflecting New York in all its moods. The programme starts with one of Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from his 1957 musical 'West Side Story' and Emma Lazarus' 'The New Colossus', the sonnet inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. The speed and excitement of the city is heard in the poem by Kenneth Fearing and the steam-driven opening movement of Steve Reich's 'Different Trains' which includes the sound of brakes, whistles and the cries of the train's guard. Walt Whitman's poem 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry' about the common experience of those in the past and future city leads into Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue'.
Life in Harlem is heard in a section from Langston Hughes' 'Montage of a Dream Deferred' and Duke Ellington's 'Echoes of Harlem'. Sara Teasdale's poem 'Broadway' takes place in the quiet hour before the shows begin and you'll hear two songs by some of the most successful composers and lyricists on Broadway: Elaine Stritch sings 'The Ladies who Lunch' from Stephen Sondheim's 'Company' and the 1952 Broadway Cast of Rodger and Hart's 'Pal Joey'perform 'I Could Write a Book'. The city at night can be heard in Charles Ives' 'Central Park in the Dark' and Allen Ginsberg's 'My Sad Self'.
Foreign writers and composers respond to New York too in Dvorak's 'Humoresques' and 'Suite in A Major' (written in the city in 1894), Charles Tomlinson's 'All Afternoon' and Federico Garcia Lorca's poem 'Dawn'.
No programme about New York today would be complete if it didn't reflect the events of September 11th 2001. And so the title of this programme is taken from a book by E.B. White, the New Yorker writer and author of 'Charlotte's Web'. During 'Here is New York' you'll hear an extraordinary passage, written in 1949, describing how the new experience of planes flying over the city had led to New York being vulnerable for the first time and the intimation of mortality that brought. 'Here is New York' ends with a poem by C.K. Williams about the 'fearful burden to be borne' after the fall of the Twin Towers and the final section from John Adams' tribute to the victims of 9/11, 'On the Transmigration of Souls'. The elegy, which the composer described as a 'memory space', blends the choral singing of memorial inscriptions, street sounds and voices naming those who died - it was first heard in New York a year after the tragedy and at the Proms the following summer.
Producer: Fiona McLean
Playlist
00:00.00
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Prologue
West Side Story
Symphonic Dances
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
Los Angeles Philharmonic
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4270882
00:00:06
EMMA LAZARUS
The New Colossus
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
00:02:07
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
Dawn
William Hope (reader)
00:02:58
NED ROREM
Violin Concerto
Gidon Kremer, violin
New York Philharmonic
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4292312
00:07:47
STEVE REICH
Electric Counterpoint
Pat Metheny, guitar
NONESUCH 7559-79962-2
00:08:42
KENNETH FEARING
Manhattan
William Hope (reader)
00:12:37
TOM WAITS
Somewhere (from West Side Story)
Asylum Years
ASYLUM 7559-60494-2
00:16:30
LANGSTON HUGHES
Good Morning
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
00:17:31
DUKE ELLINGTON
Echoes of Harlem
Drop me off at Harlem
CONIFER TQ151
00:20:35
LOU REED
Walk on the Wild Side
Transformer
RCA LABEL
00:24:12
CHARLES TOMLINSON
All Afternoon
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
00:24:29
PHILIP GLASS
Violin Concerto
Works by Glass, Rorem and Bernstein
Gidon Kremer, violin
Wiener Philharmoniker
Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4451852
00:31:03
STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Ladies who Lunch
Sondheim: A Musical Tribute
Elaine Stritch
RCA 605152RC
00:35:30
SARA TEASDALE
Broadway
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
00:36:24
RODGERS AND HART
I Could Write a Book
Pal Joey - 1952 Broadway Cast
Dick Beavers and Helen Gallagher
ANGEL ZDM7646962
00:39:46
ANTONIN DVORAK
Humoresque
Complete Solo Piano Music
Stefan Veselka, piano
NAXOS 8557478
00:41:57
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
The Great Figure
William Hope (reader)
00:41:59
STEVE REICH
Different Trains
Kronos Quartet
NONESUCH 7559791762
00:46:47
WALT WHITMAN
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
00:48:47
GEORGE GERSHWIN
Rhapsody in Blue
Los Angeles Philharmonic
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4270882
01:05:11
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA
Photograph from September 11th
William Hope (reader)
00:05:19
CHARLES IVES
Central Park in the Dark
New York Philharmonic
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4292202
01:12:15
AUDRE LORD
A Trip on the Staten Island Ferry
Laurel Lefkow (reader)
01:13:06
THOMAS NEWMAN
Ellis Island
Angels in America
NONESUCH 7559-79837-2
01:15:10
ALLEN GINSBERG
My Sad Self
William Hope (reader)
01:15:17
MORTON FELDMAN
For Frank O'Hara
Ensemble Recherche
MONTAIGNE MO 782018
01:25:10
E.B. WHITE
Here is New York
William Hope (reader)
01:26:22
ANTONIN DVORAK
Suite in A Major 'American'
Stefan Veselka, piano
NAXOS 8557478
01:29:34
C.K. WILLIAMS
from War
William Hope (reader)
01:30:20
JOHN ADAMS
On the Transmigration of Souls
New York Philharmonic
Lorin Maazel, conductor
NONESUCH 559 9810
