Dramatic Britten
Each issue we provide full listings for BBC Radio 3 introduced by the station’s controller Alan Davey, plus highlights of classical music programmes on television
As part of BBC Radio 3’s visit to Aldeburgh’s Britten Weekend, Drama on 3 broadcasts the restaging of a 1946 radio play for which the composer wrote the accompanying music. Irish playwright Louis Macneice’s
The Dark Tower, originally performed on the Home Service, will return to the airwaves on Sunday 29 October with Robert Ziegler conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra.
RADIO 3 OPERA SEASON
In partnership with the Royal Opera House and an opera exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum (see p46), the BBC is embarking on a wonderful season of opera-related programmes that takes a journey through 400 years of history, looking at the major operas and the cities where they were created. Alongside TV coverage (see pp44 & 114), Radio 3 is broadcasting a selection of operatic milestones. This begins on Opera on 3 (30 Sept) with Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di
Poppea, one of the earliest examples, given by La Venexiana. It’s followed later in the month (28 Oct) by the Royal Opera House production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser (above) with tenor Peter Seiffert in the title role. While Afternoon
on 3 features recordings of Handel’s Rinaldo
(5 Oct) and Verdi’s Nabucco (19 Oct), conductor Sir Antonio Pappano joins Composer of the
Week (from 19 Oct) to discuss Puccini’s works. Radio 3 Opera Season; from 30 Sept
MUSIC AND MEMORY
This year, Radio 3’s Why Music? partnership with London’s Wellcome Collection sees the station spending three days in residence, exploring the relationship between music and memory. There will be an analysis of ‘earworms’ – those catchy tunes that get stuck in your head – and a look at how music can help people suffering from dementia
(see p44). A Why Music? weekend highlight will be a special Live in Concert (on 13 Oct) performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 by Nicholas Collon’s Aurora Orchestra. Why Music? The Key to Memory; 13-15 Oct
BRECON BAROQUE
This month, the 12th Brecon Baroque Festival is celebrating the music of Vivaldi and his lesser-known contemporaries. Radio 3 is dropping into Brecon’s Theatr Brycheiniog for In Concert, as the violinist and director Rachel Podger performs the composer’s most famous work, The Four Seasons. The programme also includes a selection of violin sonatas from La Cetra (The Lyre) by Giovanni Legrenzi, a prominent composer working in 17th-century Venice.
Radio 3 in Concert; 31 Oct, 7.30pm