The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
It’s always a joy to see a new series of Soul Music (today, Radio 4, 10.30am) in the schedules, and today the focus is on one of the most romantic ballads ever: I Will Always Love You, written by Dolly Parton and performed so unforgettably by Whitney Houston in the 1992 film The Bodyguard. The discussion includes how tricky Houston’s version is to sing, and the deep meaning the song has held for people around the world.
The attitude towards the death penalty in the US can seem ambivalent and hard to parse from overseas, so I’m looking forward with interest to Killing Death Row (Sunday, Radio 4, 1.30pm), a sixpart series presented by Livvy Haydock, exploring the current state of capital punishment in America. What does legal execution look like in a Western democracy, and how does it happen?
Prime Ministers’ Props (Mon-Fri, Radio 4, 1.45pm) returns for a new series taking a detailed look at the public image of various Prime Ministers, presented by David Cannadine. Monday’s episode considers Lord Rosebery, who was in office from March 1894 to June 1895, and whose racehorses, remarkably, won the Derby in both of those years. His descendant, Harry Dalmeny, discusses how his love of racing became connected with his political image.
Building Soul: with Thomas Heatherwick (Tuesday, Radio 4, 9am) is a punchy and provocative series from the designer that continues to make for fascinating listening, whether you agree with some of the bold ideas contained within it or not. In the final episode, Heatherwick makes a case for a broad appraisal of public architecture, and proposes that new urban design should prioritise character.
In a devastating story on The Essay: Five Cellos: Lost and Found (Mon-Fri, Radio 3, 10.45pm), writer and musician Kate Kennedy relates how Anita LaskerWallfisch’s parents were taken by the Nazis, and at the same time, her beloved Ventepane cello disappeared, too. When LaskerWallfisch was at Auschwitz, she only narrowly escaped death by becoming the camp orchestra’s cellist. This Wednesday essay is part of a fascinating series all this week on cellos that have been lost and recovered, including one special cello that was destroyed in a shipwreck, and another that has become home to a colony of 400,000 bees.
The extraordinary Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen is remarkable for all sorts of reasons, from having her music open the 2012 Paralympic Games to her recordings being taken aboard Nasa’s STS-115 space mission.
She’s also the focus of this week’s Composer of the Week (Mon-Fri, Radio 3 noon), and Thursday’s episode looks as though it will be particularly out of this world, as she discusses how her songs went cosmic aboard the space shuttle, and how her musical influences run the gamut from Greek mythology to advertisements that she happens to spot in windows.
Finally, why do so many people who have had near-death experiences report having a spiritual awakening when they were in the moment of greatest danger? In Heart and Soul (Friday, World Service, 11.30am), David Ditchfield tells the astonishing story of how he was dragged under a fast-moving train in Cambridgeshire. As he was fighting for his life in hospital, he experienced a profound transformation and, on recovery, found a new passion for music and art.