Soul Music

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

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Factual: Life Stories

Music

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact

Soul Music: Series 3: Somewhere

Somewhere

Series 3

BBC Radio 4 - Soul Music, Series 3, Somewhere

Exploring what Leonard Bernstein's song from 'West Side Story' means to different people.

Exploring what Leonard Bernstein’s song from ‘West Side Story’ means to different people. With Stephen Sondheim. From 2002.

Leonard Bernstein's hit from West Side Story, that yearns for a better world, has come to have special significance for many.

From Mary Wilson of the Supremes who found it a fitting tribute to Martin Luther King, to the mother who sings it at the end of long frustrating days with her beloved autistic son. 

Plus, Stephen Sondheim and Bernstein's daughter Nina discuss writing the lyric and the relatively bad critical response to it.

Also taking part: 

Mary Dhonau
Peter Dhonau
Humphrey Burton
Steve Nallon
Clive Snelling
Adrienne Snelling
Graham Clarke

Series about music that makes the hairs stand up on the back of our necks.

Producer: Lucy Lunt

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2002.

Soul Music: Series 3

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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