Original version

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: Tendrilled Avenues

Tendrilled Avenues

11/12/2011

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Tendrilled AvenuesClose menu

A sequence of texts and music about humanity's complex relationship with alcohol.

Texts and music about humanity's relationship with alcohol, with Sally Dexter and Jon Strickland. Including Dickens, Lowry and Colette, plus Verdi, Warlock, Ravel, Copland.

"Tendrilled Avenues": poetry and prose from Pliny to Proulx celebrating and cautioning, lamenting and laughing, about humanity's complex relationship with alcohol, read by Sally Dexter and Jon Strickland.

Pliny the Elder gives a sober judgement of wine's effects. Dickens and Lowry describe in poetic detail, the interior of two drinking establishments; Colette's heroine Claudine becomes light-headed on sparkling wine and new love. Shakespeare's Falstaff is unequivocal in his praise for "good sherris sack", while Martin Amis's John Self discovers the embarrassment of over-indulgence at a dinner party. Whalers on shore-leave caper wildly in Moby Dick; Proulx's fishing community party takes a violent turn. And DH Lawrence meditates on humanity's ancient and mysterious relationship with the "tendrilled avenues of wine and the otherworld".

With drinking songs from Verdi, Warlock and Tom Waits, and orchestral interludes ranging from reflective to euphoric, by Ravel, Copland and Milhaud.

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Words and Music

Tendrilled Avenues

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3