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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

Words and Music

Drama

Music: Classical

A journey of discovery, weaving music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

A weekly journey of discovery, weaving together a range of music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

Words and Music: Carnival

Carnival

17/05/2009

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Poetry, prose and music evoking the spirit of carnival. With Saint-Saens, Verdi and Poe.

Poetry, prose and music evoking the spirit of carnival, with readings by actors Saskia Reeves and Tom Hiddleston. With music by Saint-Saens and Verdi, plus works by Poe and Byron.

Turn the world upside down, break all the rules and let the dead talk to the living and what have you got? Nothing less than the spirit of Carnival. This week Words and Music takes its cue from Rome's Saturnalia and the gris gris of New Orleans.
Carnival may be about laughter and licence but it also acknowledges darkness and unease. It's a kind of whistling in the dark and a kind of exorcism. It gives physical form to our fears and with its clowns, zombies and ritual helps us to reconcile ourselves to the obscene, the terrible and the outrageously wonderful in our lives. Most, if not all of us watch and all of us sometimes wear the mask and join the dance.
Musical intoxication is supplied by the likes of Saint Saens, Constant Lambert, Verdi and Berlioz and the verbal fireworks come courtesy of Edgar Allan Poe, Byron, Elizabeth Bishop, ee cummings, Malcolm Lowry and Goethe with the actors Saskia Reeves and Tom Hiddleston as the Lords of Misrule.

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.

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