Radio 3 will mark WWI armistice by airing ‘silence’

RADIO 3 is to broadcast the sound of silence, with a series of recordings from battlefields decades after the fighting stopped.

The ‘‘sonic memorials’’ will be aired throughout the weekend of November 10-11 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

One of the recordings was made at the Lochnagar crater, the site of a mine that marked the beginning of the British offensive at the Battle of the Somme. Other locations include Sharpsburg, where the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War was fought, and Halabja in Iraq, the site of a chemical attack in the last days of the Iraniraq War.

The segments will be broadcast hourly and introduced by Allan Little, a former BBC special correspondent, before descending into a silence punctuated only by the rustling of trees, birdsong or the distant hum of traffic.

Alan Davey, controller of Radio 3, said the recordings would help listeners to connect with the past.

“We will be broadcasting ambient sounds from battlefields all around the world, capturing that sound and giving audiences a chance to think about what happened there and hearing what is there now – the sounds of nature,” he said.

Elsewhere in the schedule, ‘‘slow radio’’ is getting a permanent slot, with a monthly programme offering a meander through a zoo at dusk and the sounds of Durham Cathedral at night.

“We are giving audiences a chance for quiet mindfulness, and consideration of the world from another angle,” Davey said.

“Radio 3 is more than a radio station – we are a place to get away from the frenzy of everyday life and better understand the world in which we live.”

Other non-musical offerings include the staging of the station’s first voiceactivated programme, designed specifically for the Amazon Alexa software.

The Unfortunates, a play starring Martin Freeman and based on the experimental 1969 novel by BS Johnson, will invite listeners to choose the story’s running order.

The idea stays true to the vision of Johnson, who wrote his book in 27 unbound chapters which, save for those named ‘‘First’’ and ‘‘Last’’, were designed to be read in random order.