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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: Village Minstrel

Village Minstrel

03/11/2013

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Texts and music inspired by John Clare's poetry. Readers: Karl Johnson and David Annen.

Texts and music inspired by John Clare's poetry, with readings by Karl Johnson and David Annen. With poems by Clare and Steinbeck, plus music by Britten and Haydn.

Village Minstrel. John Clare won fame in his own lifetime as the 'peasant poet', but has long been appreciated in his own right as one of the most important poetic voices of the 19th century. Karl Johnson and David Annen are the readers in a selection of Clare's own poems and writings by John Steinbeck, Gilbert White, Richard Jefferies and others chosen to reflect his life as a farm labourer, his intense ability to observe the natural world, and his eventual mental deterioration. With folk music from Paddy Tunney and Fred Jordan, singer-songwriters Vikki Clayton and Chris Wood, fiddler Giles Lewin and The Imagined Village, plus works by Britten, Haydn, Tippett, Thomas Linley and others.

Part of Radio 3's Folk Connections weekend, celebrating folk music and the influence of folk on classical music.

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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