Live from the Barbican in London, a concert by the BBC Symphony Orchestra focusing on music by Harrison Birtwistle, with a programme demonstrating the range and variety of the composer's output. From Melancolia I for solo clarinet and string orchestra (1976), to the vast Earth Dances, premiered by the BBCSO in 1986, the jazz-influenced Panic - which so shocked the audience at the Last Night of the Proms in 1995 - and the fascinating Harrison's Clocks for solo piano (1998). BBC Symphony Orchestra, conductor Jac van Steen
Birtwistle Melancolia I
Richard Hosford (clarinet) Harrison's Clocks
Nicolas Hodges (piano)
8.00 Twenty Minutes: Don't Panic
The sudden terror conjured up by the word "panic" is ascribed to the god Pan, a Greek god who is usually associated with more pleasant things in the natural world. Describing panic from their different perspectives are Oliver Taplin, Professor of Classical Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford; the psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud; and the composer and tonight's saxophone soloist John Harle.
8.20 Birtwistle Panic
John Harle (saxophone), Paul Clarvis (drums) Earth Dances