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Factual: History

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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: A Robert Schumann Album

The Essay: A Robert Schumann Album: Episode 4: Schumann's Inner Voices

A Robert Schumann Album

Episode 4

Episode 4: Schumann's Inner Voices

Schumann's Inner Voices

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, A Robert Schumann Album, Schumann's Inner VoicesClose menu

John Tibbetts explores the 'inner voices' he finds in Schumann's music.

Writer and broadcaster John Tibbetts explores the 'inner voices' he finds in Schumann's music - either silent or distant.

At the end of Schumann's cycle of piano pieces Papillons (Butterflies), the carnival ball scene ends with the striking of the clock and the departure of some of the characters. American writer and broadcaster on music John C. Tibbetts describes this chord as 'vanishing before our ears' as the pianist removes his fingers one by one from the notes. Tibbetts explores other mysteries in Schumann's use of silence, which he likens to 'eavesdropping on some private, interior message'. In fact during his courtship of Clara, he claims Schumann used musical notes as hidden messages to his fiancee, asking her in musical disguise whether she loved him. Towards the end of his increasingly disturbed life, these inner voices became shrill and troubling, and his life and music ended in the silence that had been an intrinsic component of his music.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series revealing different aspects of Robert Schumann's life and work

Series revealing different aspects of Robert Schumann's life and work, including his marriage, writing, children and his mental illness

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The Essay

A Robert Schumann Album

Episode 4: Schumann's Inner Voices

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