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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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BBC Proms

Music: Classical

2024

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

The world's greatest classical music festival. Stunning performances, unique collaborations and the sheer joy of live music. Relive 2023's highlights before the new season begins.

BBC Proms: 2015 Season: Proms Interval

BBC Proms: 2015: Proms Interval: The Arts in 1945

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royal albert hall

10/08/2015

The Arts in 1945

2015

BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2015, Proms Interval, The Arts in 1945

Exploring how World War II helped give Britain a new cultural appetite and understanding.

A discussion about the arts in Britain 1945, exploring how the Second World War had helped give the country a new cultural appetite and understanding.

Britain's cultural state was born in the rubble and smoke of the Blitz. A new hunger and understanding of what the arts could do for all emerged across the land, promoted by the national government through C.E.M.A. . Along the way ballet, opera & cinema began to forge a distinct voice & emerged in 1945, along with broadcasting, with a new found confidence. Britten's Peter Grimes became the defining moment of cultural rebirth and yet the new Arts Council would struggle to contain both the wartime spirit and direction of C.E.M.A alongside its promotion of the high arts.

In Russia, the conflict between 'good and best' was far more troubling for composers like Prokofiev & Shostakovich. Britain's wartime Soviet ally was now convulsed by Stalin's re-consolidation of power with terrifying new decrees on incorrect art culminating in the 1948 campaign against musical 'formalism' . Brtain's other wartime ally the U.S.A now stepped up its use of culture as a strategic weapon in the unfolding Cold War.

Producer: Mark Burman.

BBC Proms: 2015

BBC Proms: 2015: Proms Interval

Proms Interval

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.

All broadcasts from the 121st season of the BBC Proms.

Feature series accompanying concerts in the 2015 Proms season

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