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: A Silver Sea

A Silver Sea

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, A Silver SeaClose menu

Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, Flanders and Swann's Rockall, Debussy's La Mer at Eastbourne.

Readings by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson range from a plaque on Rockall and Under Milkwood to the Cornish coast. The music includes Britten, Ethel Smyth and Julie Fowlis.

"I must down to the seas again" - the opening words of John Masefield's poem Sea Fever published in 1902.  Today's Words and Music follows his suggestion, with readings by Julian Glover and Eleanor Tomlinson, which range from Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem Wreck of the Deutschland, a ship which foundered off the Kent coast in 1875 and Matthew Arnold's On Dover Beach, to Joseph Conrad's autobiographical book The Mirror of the Sea, to Kathleen Jamie's poem The Glass-hulled Boat.  The music includes Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, Flanders and Swann's Rockall, folk tunes by Julie Fowlis and Debussy's La Mer, which the composer wrote whilst staying at Eastbourne.  The BBC Radio 3 Breakfast programme is currently asking listeners for suggestions of music inspired by the coastline of Britain to play each morning. 

Producer: Tom Alban

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

A Silver Sea

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3