BBC RADIO 3 - SOUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE APRIL – MAY 2016
MONDAY 18TH – FRIDAY 22ND APRIL
Essential Classics Monday 18th - Friday 22nd April 0900 - 1200 In the week leading up to the Shakespeare 400 anniversary, the guest on Radio 3’s morning programme is Adrian Lester OBE, acclaimed for his performances as Henry V and Othello at the National Theatre – winning the Evening Standard Best Actor award. He’ll talk about Shakespeare, his life as an actor and choose some fascinating music. Producer: Sarah Devonald, Somethin’Else
Composer of the Week Monday 18th - Friday 22nd April 1200 – 1300 William Byrd
There is frustratingly little evidence that William Byrd was personally acquainted with his fellow Elizabethan, William Shakespeare. Although, a tantalising reference to “the bird of loudest lay” in Shakespeare’s sonnet, The Phoenix and the Turtle hints that they may have been more than mere contemporaries.
As a Roman Catholic in Elizabethan England, William Byrd was persecuted by the state and often forced to tread a dangerous path between his personal convictions and his duty to the Queen. His musical talent and his strength of character enabled him not just to survive, but thrive. Despite his trials, he was, and continues to be, celebrated as the greatest British musician of his age.
SOUNDS OF SHAKESPEARE LIVE 22nd – 24th April, Stratford-upon-Avon Radio 3 broadcasts live all weekend from its pop-up studio at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and at venues across the town. Actors, musicians, poets, singers and orchestras perform a huge range of songs, film scores, jazz, chamber music, choral works and world music - all inspired by Shakespeare's works.
Presenters include Sean Rafferty, Ian McMillan, Suzy Klein and Sara Mohr-Pietsch.
FRIDAY 22ND APRIL In Tune 16:30-18:30 BBC Radio 3 Sean Rafferty launches Radio 3’s Shakespeare anniversary weekend with a live showcase of musicians, singers and performers, including the Chelys Consort of Viols, students from the Royal Academy of Music, musicians from the current RSC production of Hamlet and the world premiere of Love Sought. Love Sought is a brand new setting of text from Shakespeare’s The Winter's Tale by Roxanna Panufnik sung by Radio 3 New Generation Artist Kathryn Rudge.
Live from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Other Place studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The Sounds of Shakespeare 1830-1930 BBC Radio 3 Radio 3 presenter Tom Service charts the magical chemistry between Shakespeare’s language and the music it has given life to over the last 400 years - from Romeo and Juliet to The Tempest.
Live from the Radio 3’s pop-up studio at The Other Place theatre.
Radio 3 in Concert: Shakespeare Odes 1930 – 2130 BBC Radio 3 A spectacular commemorative concert at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, where Shakespeare was baptised and buried, with Shakespeare-inspired works from the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, performed by Ex Cathedra and City Musick, directed by Jeffrey Skidmore.
For tonight’s performance the Ode has been reconstructed for the first time since the eighteenth century. Samuel West takes the part of Garrick and Sally Beamish has written the music for the missing opening and closing choruses. To end the concert, Sally Beamish and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy have collaborated on a contemporary tribute to Shakespeare, A Shakespeare Masque.
Concert Interval: Shakespeare and Stratford 2020-2045 BBC Radio 3 When did Stratford and the country at large really begin to celebrate Shakespeare? Radio 3 presenter Suzy Klein is in conversation in the pop-up studio with Professors Michael Dobson and Ewan Fernie from the Shakespeare Institute to tell the story of how Stratford grew to love the memory of the man and revived his writing.
Sonnets in the City Friday 22nd April: 2145-2200; 2245-2300 BBC Radio 3 Saturday 23rd April: 2130 – 2200 BBC Radio 3 Sunday 24th April: 2330-2345 BBC Radio 3 Radio 3 has commissioned five writers to re-version five of Shakespeare’s most powerful sonnets as a series of edgy, contemporary dramas set across a single night in a city – and commissioned five composers to create the music for those sonnets, to be performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. In each play the original sonnet is read by Maxine Peake. The sonnets are 29, 61, 73, 140, 154 and they will be broadcast across the Sounds of Shakespeare weekend.
Writers: Tom Wells, Francesca Martinez, Lee Mattinson, Esther Wilson, Zodwa Nyoni. The composers: Tom Coult, Nina Whiteman, Aaron Parker, Chiu-Yu Chou, Daniel Kidane,
The Verb 2200-2245 BBC Radio 3 Poet Ian McMillan hosts late night entertainment in the pop-up studio in Stratford with a roundtable of writers celebrating Shakespeare's linguistic fireworks. Benet Brandreth, a rhetoric coach, has written a new novel imagining Shakespeare’s lost years and Nell Lyshon imagines a fictional meeting with Spanish literary titan Cervantes, who died on the same day in 1616. Plus, actor Ben Crystal who directs Shakespeare in “original pronunciation” and poet Wendy Cope with her new poems commissioned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
World on 3 2300 – 0100 BBC Radio 3 Mary-Ann Kennedy celebrates the global influence of Shakespeare’s work.
SATURDAY 23RD APRIL Breakfast 0700-0900 Martin Handley plays great music to begin a very special day for Stratford – including some early birthday tributes to WS. With guest poet Ian McMillan.
Record Review 0900-1100 Andrew McGregor with a live Shakespeare-themed edition of his review programme. Italian specialist Roger Parker is in the pop-up studio to compare recordings of one of opera’s greatest re-incarnations of Shakespeare’s work- Verdi’s Falstaff. Actors Samuel West, Hugh Quarshie (a recent Othello at the RSC) and scholar Kate Kennedy join Andrew to guide us through archive recordings of the greatest Shakespearean interpreters of the last hundred years, including the likes of Sybil Thorndike, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier.
Words and Music: The Power of Royalty 1100-1200 “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”. Juliet Stephenson and Tim Pigott-Smith perform readings in the pop-up studio, accompanied by centuries of music inspired by one of Shakespeare’s favourite themes: the power of royalty.
Music Matters 1200-1245 Tom Service presents Radio 3’s music magazine from Stratford, looking at the role of music in Shakespeare’s plays, the intrinsic musicality of his texts, and exploring Shakespearean music from the BBC archives. Guests include composer Gary Carpenter, theatre historian Sarah Lenton, Cicely Berry the RSC’s Associate Director (voice) and David Roesner on musicality in theatre.
Saturday Classics 1245-1400 “Brevity is the soul of wit” With the help of the BBC Singers, composer and pianist Richard Sisson and friends launch a playful attempt to perform music from every single Shakespeare play – in just 75 minutes! With solo performances from mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately, baritone Mark Stone and pianist Ashley Wass. Live on stage at The Other Place studio theatre.
Early Music Show 1415-1500 Lucie Skeaping introduces soprano Ruby Hughes and lute player Jon Nordberg in a 16th century recital specially created for today, Lute songs and Pavans in Shakespeare’s England. Live on stage at The Other Place studio theatre and includes works by John Dowland and Robert Johnson.
Sound of Cinema: Shakespeare on Film 1500 - 1600 A special edition of Radio 3’s film music programme. The BBC Concert Orchestra join presenter Matthew Sweet live on stage for 60 action-packed minutes of music from Shakespeare on film. Including soundtracks from one of the great Shakespeare collaborations of the 20th century, William Walton and Laurence Olivier's Henry V. Live in front of an audience at The Levi Fox Hall, at Shakespeare’s former school King Edward VI, Stratford-upon-Avon.
Jazz Record Requests: Live Broadcast 1600-1700 Alyn Shipton plays listeners' choices, including Duke Ellington’s homage to Shakespeare, Such Sweet Thunder. As a special treat, Alyn takes up his double bass to play live in Stratford with visiting American Jazz clarinettist Tom Sancton.
Words and Music: Jealousy 1700-1740 "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on" Juliet Stephenson and Tim Pigott-Smith perform readings in the pop-up studio, accompanied by centuries of music inspired by one of Shakespeare’s darker themes: jealousy.
Serenade to Music, by Vaughan Williams 1740-1800 “Here will we sit and let the sounds of music, creep in our ears”. The BBC Singers, conducted by James Morgan, give a live anniversary performance from Stratford’s Guild Chapel of Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, the famously beautiful setting of part of The Merchant of Venice.
Opera on 3: Live from the Met 1800 - 2130 Radio 3 temporarily departs Stratford and heads to New York to join the Metropolitan Opera House’s production of Verdi’s masterful Otello, with Aleksandrs Antonenko in the title role, and Željko Lučić as Iago. Hibla Gerzmava joins the cast as Desdemona, and Adam Fischer conducts. Directed by Bartlett Sher. This is a production that the Huffington Post said: “A stark and simple yet often powerful new production of Verdi’s passionate and masterful rendering of one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.”
Hear and Now 2200-2400 Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Tom Service introduce adventurous 21st century musical responses to Shakespeare’s work. Matthew Herbert introduces a newly created setting of a speech from Macbeth, commissioned by the BBC for today’s anniversary. Sound artist Martin Parker and viola da gamba player Liam Byrne take music and texts from 1616 and remix them for 2016. Saxophonist Trish Clowes and her trio improvise an anniversary homage using Shakespearean phrases. Plus contemporary music group Apartment House. Recorded the same evening at King Edward VI School, in Stratford.
Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz 2400 – 0100 A jazz flourish on Shakespeare's 400th birthday: Geoffrey Smith presents swinging impressions of the Bard, including Cleo Laine and John Dankworth's Shakespeare and All That jazz and Duke Ellington's suite, Such Sweet Thunder
SUNDAY 24TH APRIL Breakfast 0700-0900 Martin Handley starts the day with captivating music, with guest global Shakespeare expert Andrew Dickson. Plus musical highlights from the RSC’s Shakespeare Live show the previous night.
Sunday Morning 0900 - 1100 James Jolly with his personal choice of music connected with Shakespeare – from famous classics like Nicolai’s Merry Wives of Windsor, to the unjustly overlooked, like the Hamlet Overture by Felix Woyrsch. James is also joined by scholar Kate Kennedy to guide us through hidden gems from the RSC’s music archive.
Inspired by Shakespeare: Ashley Wass 1100 - 1200 Former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, Ashley Wass, performs a morning concert of piano music inspired by the Bard, including Macbeth and the Witches by Smetana; pieces from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 31, No. 2, Tempest. When asked about his Piano Sonata, Beethoven is said to have remarked, "Just read Shakespeare's The Tempest."
Private Passions 1200-1300 Michael Berkeley’s guest is Sir Jonathan Bate, a leading Shakespeare scholar. He’s also a biographer, critic, and a passionate advocate of the importance of the humanities in education. Provost of Worcester College and Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, he is joint editor of the RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works and has turned playwright himself, with the one-man play Being Shakespeare, written for Simon Callow. Last year, in a blaze of publicity, he published a controversial biography of Ted Hughes.
Jonathan takes us on a journey through 300 years of music inspired by Shakespeare, including works by Linley, Mozart, Berlioz, Wagner, Strauss – and Taylor Swift.We also hear Shakespeare performed by Alex Jennings, Simon Russell Beale, and Claire Danes.
Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3
Words and Music: Youth and Innocence 1300-1345 “I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest”
Student actors from Stratford’s Shakespeare Institute are live in the pop-up studio to perform prose and poetry on the theme of – what else? Youth!
Early Music Show 1400-1500 The choir Ex Cathedra perform a special concert of English and Italian madrigals celebrating the explosion of interest in singing in England during the most creative part of Shakespeare’s lifetime. Recorded on the anniversary day in front of an audience at Stratford-upon-Avon’s Guild Chapel as part of Radio 3’s Sounds of Shakespeare weekend. Presented by Lucie Skeaping.
Choral Evensong 1500-1600 Recorded at the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford upon Avon, with the Chamber Choir and Orchestra of the Swan
Introit: Sing joyfully (Byrd) Responses: Tomkins Psalms 66, 67 (plainsong) First Lesson: Deuteronomy 10 vv12-22 Office Hymn: The Lamb's high banquet we await (Ad cenam Agni) Canticles: Fifth Service (Tomkins) Second Lesson: Ephesians 5 vv.1-14 Anthem: O clap your hands (Gibbons) Motet: O nata lux (Tallis) Hymn: Love of the Father (Song 22) Voluntary: Pavane and Allemande (Dowland)
Susannah Vango (Director of Music) Benedict Wilson (Organist)
The Choir 1600 – 1730 Sara Mohr-Pietsch with live performance from Stratford-upon-Avon’s Chamber Choir. She delves into Singing Shakespeare – a project inspiring people all over the world to perform and create musical settings initiated by Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust. Plus the broadcast premiere of “Immortal Shakespeare”, a new work for the 400th anniversary from British Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova, commissioned and performed this week by the Orchestra of the Swan.
Words and Music: All the World’s a Stage 1730 - 1845 Poems, songs, readings and music on the theme of Shakespeare’s legacy in theatre and the art of acting. With performers including actor Rory Kinnear, baritone Roderick Williams, pianist Iain Burnside and lutenist Elizabeth Kennedy. Performed live at the RSC’s The Other Place studio theatre.
Sunday Feature: First Folio Road Trip 1845-1930 Emma Smith traces the story of 7 of the original 750 copies of Shakespeare's First Folio to learn how it helped make his reputation as our national poet and an international star. From London to Kent, Oxford, the Scottish borders, Suffolk, Nottinghamshire and across the channel to France, Emma Smith embarks on a road trip to learn more about how that first printed collection of his plays helped create the Shakespeare we know and love today, looking at how his reputation expanded in the years between his death 400 years ago and the erection of his statue in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1741.
Radio 3 In Concert 1930 – 2100 Ian Skelly introduces Shakespeare-themed concert performances from around Europe.
Drama on 3: A Play from the Heart: The Death of Shakespeare 2100-2245 How did Shakespeare spend his last day, his birthday? Robert Lindsay stars in this new play by award- winning playwright Nick Warburton, which speculates on just that. Recorded entirely on location in Mary Arden’s farm, Stratford-upon-Avon, the play conjures up the last day of Shakespeare’s life and world. Filtered through his fevered imagination, he spies figures outside his window and is bothered by a constant stream of visitors, all of whom seem to want something from him. There’s the girl with flowers in her arms and a pale boy, half-seen. Are they real or imagined? And who is the man with bloody hands?
This production involves the people of Stratford-upon-Avon who were recorded in the barn as Shakespeare’s audience and a schoolboy from King Edward VI School (which Shakespeare attended) who plays Hamnet, Shakespeare’s son.
Producer: Marion Nancarrow
MONDAY 25th – FRIDAY 29TH APRIL
Essential Classics Monday 25th - Friday 29nd April 0900 - 1200 Janet Suzman, acclaimed Shakespearean actor, is the programme’s guest. Producer: Sarah Devonald, Somethin’Else
Afternoon on 3 25th-29th April, 1400-1630 Katie Derham presents a week of concert highlights performed by the BBC Philharmonic, featuring a Shakespeare-inspired work each day as part of the Shakespeare anniversary celebrations. Highlights include Strauss’ Macbeth, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, Sibelius’s prelude to the Tempest and Smetana's symphonic poem, Richard III. Thursday’s Opera Matinee is a concert performance of Rossini's rarely heard Otello from Barcelona.
Gounod: Romeo et Juliette Recorded at the Vienna State Opera in March 2016, Marco Armiliato conducts Juliette…Marina Rebeka (soprano) Roméo… Juan Diego Flórez (tenor)
The Lunchtime Concert Tuesday 26- Friday 29 April 1300 - 1400 Four Shakespeare-themed chamber concerts, recorded in January as part of the London Symphony Orchestra’s St Lukes series. Presented by Fiona Talkington
Tuesday: Gould Piano Trio Schumann: Novelletten, Op. 21 (excerpts) (inspired by opening lines of Macbeth) Korngold: Suite ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1 ‘Ghost’ (inspired by witches in Macbeth)
Wednesday: Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor) and Elizabeth Kenny (lute) ‘Shakespeare on my mind’ – Shakespeare-related songs and lute solos by Robert Johnson, John Banister, Thomas Morley and Henry Purcell.
Thursday: BBC Singers David Hill (conductor) Kodály: An Ode for Music Giles Swayne: 3 Shakespeare Songs Charles Wood: Full fathom five; It was a lover and his lass Jaakko Mäntyjärvi: 4 Shakespeare Songs Cecilie Ore: Toil &Trouble (London premiere) Paul Mealor: Let Fall the Windows of Mine Eyes Vaughan Williams: Three Shakespeare Songs
Friday: James Gilchrist (tenor) and Anna Tilbrook (piano) Arne: Where the Bee sucks; When daisies pied Haydn: She never told her love Schubert: An Silvia; Ständchen Wolf: Bottom's dream (Lied des transferierten Zettel) VW: Orpheus with his lute Quilter: Fear no more the heat of the sun; Under the Greenwood tree Warlock: Take O take those away Tippett: Three songs for Ariel Dring: The Cuckoo; Take, O take, those lips away; It was a Lover and his Lass Producer: Lindsey Kemp
The Essay: Shakespeare 400 Monday 25th – Friday 29th April 2245-2300 Recorded in the classroom in Stratford-upon-Avon’s Guildhall where the boy Shakespeare took his school lessons, five leading scholars present the very latest research findings on his life and works.
Monday: Shakespeare and the Suffragettes: Sophie Duncan, Oxford University. Why did Suffragette activists turn to Shakespeare for role models and how did his heroines transform Victorian schoolgirls into Edwardian activists? With help from a suffragist-led production of The Winter’s Tale in 1914…
Tuesday: Undiscovered Countries - Shakespeare and the Nation: James Loxley, Edinburgh University. During Shakespeare’s most creative period the very name and nature of the country was up for grabs, as something called ‘Great Britain’ became a realistic prospect for the first time. What did Shakespeare’s plays make of this unprecedented situation?
Wednesday: 'Wolf All?' Shakespeare and Food in Renaissance England: Joan Fitzpatrick, Loughborough University. What did people eat in Shakespeare's England and what do Shakespeare's plays tell us about the preparation and consumption of food?
Thursday: How can King Lear be used to understand contemporary India and its issues of freedom of speech, corruption and economic development?: Preti Taneja, Queen Mary’s, University of London and Warwick. In “We That Are Young” Preti, a Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, has rewritten Shakespeare’s great tragedy and relocated it to the world’s fastest growing democracy.
Friday: ‘Shakespeare Beyond London’: Siobhan Keenan, De Montfort University. Today, Shakespeare’s reputation is tied up with Stratford-upon-Avon and London, but he and his fellow actors regularly toured the country. So what do we know about Shakespeare’s plays beyond London in his own lifetime?
Free Thinking Tuesday 26th April 2200-2245 What books were on Shakespeare’s bookshelf? The Bible, Greek classics, the works of his contemporaries? And were these texts the real source of his great stories and masterful language? Rana Mitter discusses Shakespeare’s reading list with Professor of Classics Edith Hall, New Generation Thinker Nandini Das and Renaissance English specialist Beatrice Groves. Recorded in Radio 3’s pop-up studio in Stratford-Upon-Avon as part of the Sounds of Shakespeare.
Free Thinking Wednesday 27th April 2200-2245 “To unpathed waters, undreamed shores” Matthew Sweet is joined by a roundtable of guests to explore The Winter’s Tale, written just 6 years before Shakespeare died and still regarded today as one of his most intriguing and multi-layered works. With actor Samuel West, director Lucy Bailey and director of the Shakespeare Institute, Michael Dobson. Recorded in Radio 3’s pop-up studio in Stratford-Upon-Avon as part of the Sounds of Shakespeare.
MAY 2016
Drama on 3: The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare. Sunday 1st May, 2100
Eve Best, Danny Sapani and Shaun Dooley star in the magical product of the Bard's later years. Treading new dramatic ground The Winter's Tale embraces tragedy, poetry, folklore, magic realism, music, comedy and the infamous stage direction "exit pursued by a bear". Music composed by Tim Van Eyken, Singer Lisa Knapp Director: David Hunter
Leontes ..... Danny Sapani Hermione ..... Eve Best Polixenes ..... Shaun Dooley Camillo ..... Karl Johnson Paulina ..... Susan Jameson Shepherd ..... Paul Copley Perdita ..... Faye Castelow Autolycus ..... Tim Van Eyken Florizel ..... Will Howard Mamillius ..... Charlie Brand Archidamus ..... Sean Baker Antigonus ..... Brian Protheroe Clown ..... Sam Rix Emilia ..... Scarlett Brookes Cleomenes ..... Richard Pepple Dion ..... Nick Underwood First Lady ..... Adie Allen Mopsa ..... Nicola Ferguson First Lord ..... James Lailey Mariner ..... Sargon Yelda Officer ..... Ewan Bailey
Afternoon on 3: Opera Matinee Thursday 5th May, 1400 Gounod: Romeo et Juliette Recorded at the Vienna State Opera in March 2016, Marco Armiliato conducts Juan Diego Flórez (tenor) as Romeo and Marina Rebeka (soprano) as Juliette.
Drama on 3: King Lear, by William Shakespeare. Sunday 8th May, 2100
When better in Britain than now to make a drama about “the division of the kingdom”? A new production of Shakespeare's great tragedy with a Scottish cast headed by Ian McDiarmid as Lear and Bill Paterson as Gloucester.
Lear is a very old king with a dynastic problem: three daughters and no sons. In dividing the kingdom between his children, Lear's reasoning is admirable: he wants to hand over the kingdom to his daughters so that "future strife / May be prevented now." But in doing so he sets in train a chain of events that lead to madness, self-discovery and the disintegration of the kingdom.
Produced and directed by Gaynor Macfarlane
King Lear ..... Ian McDiarmid Goneril ..... Madeleine Worrall Regan ..... Frances Grey Cordelia ..... Joanna Vanderham Gloucester ..... Bill Paterson Edgar ..... Finn den Hertog Edmund ..... Paul Higgins The Fool ..... Brian Vernel Albany ..... Steven Robertson Cornwall ..... Steven Cree Oswald ..... Owen Whitelaw Burgundy/Doctor ..... Sean Murray King of France ..... Simon Harrison Old Man/Gentleman ..... Ewan Bailey Music and Sound Design by Gary C Newman
Drama on 3: Wolf in the Water 22nd May, 2100
What happened to Jessica, Shylock’s daughter in The Merchant of Venice? Jessica is Shylock's only daughter, who leaves him to convert to Christianity and marry Lorenzo. Naomi Alderman’s dynamic riposte to The Merchant of Venice meets an older Jessica in 1615, secretly still practising her Jewish faith in a turbulent Venice that is increasingly hostile to Jews. An old friend in trouble knocking on her door at dead of night, a murder, and six innocent Jews facing death – Jessica becomes embroiled in a mystery that challenges her apparently settled life and reconnects her with her identity.
Naomi Alderman is an award winning writer, writing her first BBC Radio 3 drama commission, after establishing herself at the cutting edge of new fiction and audio gaming. The cast includes several actors who also appear in Alerman’s Zombies Run! App.
Jessica - Pippa Bennet Warner Lorenzo - Scott Arthur Tubal - Vincent Ebrahim Anna - Jennifer Tan Augusta - Tracy Ann Oberman Evil guard/Thief/Jew 1 - Philip Nightingale Evil guard/Thief/Jew 2 - Philip Jennings
Producer: Polly Thomas, Somethin’ Else