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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

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

Richard Wagner

Discovering Music: Wagner: Die Walkure

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Wagner: Die Walküre

20/06/2012

Wagner: Die Walkure

BBC Radio 3 - Discovering Music, Wagner: Die Walkure

Stephen Johnson explores Wagner's orchestra and how he used it to evoke profound emotions.

Despite his huge line-up of instruments Wagner uses his orchestra to create some of music's most transfixing sounds. Stephen Johnson descends to the orchestra pit to explore how.

With its massive line-up of instruments, Wagner's orchestra for Die Walkure should by rights have been a recipe for nothing but gluttony. But with the skill of a watercolourist Wagner used it brilliantly to convey the subtlest of emotions. Stephen Johnson descends to the orchestra pit and uncovers the secrets of the composer's orchestral writing. En route he explores how this opera revolutionary marshalled the likes of Wagner tubas, six harps and a medieval bugle horn to create some of the most transfixing musical sounds ever produced.

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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