BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Discovering Music

Music: Classical

Programme which examines a different piece of music each week

Programme which examines a different piece of music each week, looking at the musical form or the composer's style, and exploring the many things contributing to the overall experience

Discovering Music: Berlioz: Les Nuits D'ete

Berlioz: Les Nuits D'ete

18/04/2010

BBC Radio 3 - Discovering Music, Berlioz: Les Nuits D'ete

Catherine Bott and David Cairns explore the nuances in Berlioz's Les nuits d'ete.

Catherine Bott is joined by biographer and musicologist David Cairns to explore the nuances in Berlioz's song cycle Les nuits d'ete. Takuo Yuasa conducts the Ulster Orchestra.

Catherine Bott is joined by the biographer and musicologist David Cairns to explore the nuances in Berlioz's song-cycle "Les nuits d'ete". The settings of these six poems by Theophile Gautier was originally conceived to be performed with piano, but Berlioz completed the orchestral versions in 1856. It has now become one of his most enduring and often performed works. As David Cairns explains, Berlioz is so often thought to be just a composer on a grand scale, but in this song-cycle he really shows a softer side, capable of writing beautifully-crafted miniatures as well as for huge orchestral forces.
The whole song-cycle is performed by soprano Elizabth Watts with the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Takuo Yuasa.

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