Byron

Available for 15 days

Bryon's dramatic narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Manfred and The Corsair have inspired symphonies and ballets by composers including Verdi, Liszt, Robert Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz , Hugo Wolf and Elgar. On April 19th 1824, he died aged 36 in Missolonghi in Greece during a violent electrical storm. He was on his way to fight against Turkey but became seriously ill. Although his death was two centuries ago, his life and writing seem much more of our times - from his fame and infamy described as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, his life as a ‘celebrity’ mobbed by fans and renowned across Europe, his bisexuality, his writing in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage on his horror at being shown the damage caused by Lord Elgin’s removal of the Parthenon marbles in Greece - to his poem Darkness written after the volcano Mount Tambora erupted in Indonesia, which reads like a premonition of the wild fires and famine we see today. Robert Glenister reads from poems, diaries, journals and his opening speech in the House of Lords on the plight of the Luddites alongside music inspired by his works. Producer: Fiona McLean Readings: