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

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Irving Berlin (1888-1989)

Composer of the Week: Irving Berlin (1888-1989): Episode 2: Always

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Irving Berlin (1888-1989)

Episode 2

Episode 2: Always

Always

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Irving Berlin (1888-1989), Always

Donald Macleod focuses on Irving Berlin's experience of the First World War.

Donald Macleod explores Irving Berlin's activities during the First World War, his marriage to Ellin Mackay, and his experience of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

During the First World War Berlin was drafted into the army and stationed at Camp Upton in Long Island, where he raised $80,000 dollars for the war effort by writing a vaudeville-style show, Yip, Yip, Yaphank. Cannily making the maximum profit possible from his hit songs by being composer, lyricist and publisher in-one, by the early 1920s he was already very wealthy and took possibly the biggest risk of his career, building his own theatre on Broadway, The Music Box. He began to socialise with the likes of Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx and HG Wells by joining the Round Table Society, and in 1924 met a young woman who was to become his wife, the rebellious heiress Ellin Mackay. From one of the wealthiest families in America, Berlin dedicated his song 'Always' to her. Although her family disapproved of their union and was seen as a traitor to her class, Berlin became embroiled in the Mackay family's misfortune when his father-in-law incurred the biggest losses of any individual during the Wall Street Crash of 1929. After a period of silence after his marriage, he responded to the changed social realities of the times with two satirical musicals in the early 1930s, Face the Music and As Thousands Cheer. Donald Macleod explores this tumultuous time for America and for Irving Berlin.

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.

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Irving Berlin

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Irving Berlin, a composer whose career spanned Dvorak to The Beatles. A celebrated songwriter, he composed for both Hollywood and Broadway

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Irving Berlin (1888-1989)

Episode 2: Always

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