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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: Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Composer of the Week: Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Episode 4: A Fat Knight and a New King

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Episode 4

Episode 4: A Fat Knight and a New King

A Fat Knight and a New King

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Edward Elgar (1857-1934), A Fat Knight and a New King

Donald Macleod learns how Elgar shunned the coronation of King George V.

Donald Macleod learns how Elgar shunned the coronation of King George V and created music for the Shakespearean character Falstaff.

Celebrating British Music: Donald Macleod explores the life and work of the 'quintessentially English' composer, Edward Elgar, whose musical roots lay firmly in Europe, and whose Catholicism and class background bequeathed him a lifelong sense of isolation from mainstream British society.

Today's programme has a royal thread running through it. In 1911, Elgar was commissioned to write music for the coronation of George V. He fulfilled his commission but a last-minute bout of depression kept him, and his bemused wife and child, away from the ceremony, where they were to have been honoured guests. Elgar's symphonic study of Shakespeare's Fat Knight has divided audiences. He considered it his orchestral masterpiece; others find its reputation enigmatic.

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 Edward Elgar

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of the 'quintessentially English' Edward Elgar, a composer who nevertheless had musical roots firmly in Europe

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Composer of the Week

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Episode 4: A Fat Knight and a New King

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