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Episode details

Radio 3,18 Jun 2023,74 mins

Available for 16 days

Chloë Sommer and Ewan Bailey guide you round a sonic exhibition of portraits, where you’ll encounter Dorian Gray gazing at his own likeness and reflecting sadly that he will age, while the painting remains unchanged (spoiler alert: that’s not quite how it pans out); Amy Sackville imagines Velazquez painting his masterpiece Las Meninas and poet Robert Lowell looks at Holbein's Thomas More, whilst in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett’s feelings about Mr Darcy undergo a transformation as she stands looking at his portrait, and poet Wendy Cope is moved to tears by a painting of a long dead couple. The music includes Margaret Bonds’ portrait in song Minstrel Man in which a Black man sings of the pain and humiliation of the role he has to play, Edward Elgar's friends, whose moods inspired his Enigma Variations, Rembrandt's The Night Watch as seen by King Crimson, there’s also The Gnome from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Joni Mitchell revealing the multiple facets of Charles Mingus’s personality, and Missy Mazzoli’s distinctive take on Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait with Dishevelled Hair. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Readings & *Music *Ralph Vaughan Williams - 3 Portraits from the England of Elizabeth: No. 1, Explorer Wendy Cope - Dutch Portraits *Pehr Henrik Nordgren - Portraits of Country Fiddlers, Op. 26 (Arr. D. Woodruff): II. Tuumsi Tuumsikelija (The Thinker) Robert Lowell - Sir Thomas More *Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition, Piano Concerto Version: I. Gnomus Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time *Charles Mingus - Portrait *Sam Prekop - Faces And People Jake Morris-Campbell - Self-Portrait in Passport Photobooth *Michael Nyman - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Scene 3: The Photographs: What is this? *Kraftwerk - Spiegelsaal Eavan Boland - The Photograph on My Father’s Desk Edward Lear - Self-Portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense *Gregory Porter - Mona Lisa David Dabydeen - A Harlot’s Progress *Margaret Bonds - 3 Dream Portraits, Minstrel Man Amy Sackville - Painter to the King *King Crimson - The Night Watch Sophie Haydock - The Flames *Ēriks Ešenvalds - In My Little Picture Frame *Oneohtrix Point Never - Last Known Image of a Song Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Portrait *Edward Elgar - Enigma Variations, Op. 36: I. C.A.E. Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice *Missy Mazzoli - Self-Portrait with Dishevelled Hair Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray *Gerard Schurmann - 6 Studies of Francis Bacon: VI. Self-Portrait Elizabeth Jennings - Old Man *Joni Mitchell - God Must Be a Boogie Man Keith Douglas - Vergissmeinnicht, *Vladimir Michailovich Jurowski - Symphonic Pictures 'Russian Painters': III. Portrait of an Unknown Woman Henry James - The Portrait of a Lady *Nikolai Myaskovsky - 12 Romances After Lermontov, Op. 40: No. 4, To the Portrait Thomas Randolph - Upon his picture *Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian - Cave Painting

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Tracklist

  1. Track
    Artist
  2. 1.
    Explorer (3 Portraits from "The England of Elizabeth")
    Explorer (3 Portraits from "The England of Elizabeth")
    Ralph Vaughan Williams
  3. 2.
    The Thinker (Portraits of Country Fiddlers)
    The Thinker (Portraits of Country Fiddlers)
    Pehr Henrik Nordgren
  4. 3.
    Gnomus (Pictures at an Exhibition)
    Gnomus (Pictures at an Exhibition)
    Modest Mussorgsky