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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

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Five Seismic Moments in New Music

The Essay: Five Seismic Moments in New Music: Episode 4: Sarah Walker on Steve Reich's Four Organs

Sarah Walker

Episode 4

Episode 4: Sarah Walker on Steve Reich's Four Organs

Five Seismic Moments in New Music

Sarah Walker on Steve Reich's Four Organs

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Five Seismic Moments in New Music, Sarah Walker on Steve Reich's Four OrgansClose menu

Sarah Walker reflects on Steve Reich's radically minimalist Four Organs.

Sarah Walker reflects on the 1973 concert when Carnegie Hall played host to the radically minimalist Four Organs by Steve Reich.

Sarah Walker's chosen seismic moment in new music describes the notorious 1973 concert when Carnegie Hall played host to the radically minimalist Four Organs by Steve Reich. She also looks at how minimalism together with the idea of the composer-performer ensemble, changed the history of 20th century music.

The story of new music is peppered with events that have altered the course of musical history. For our New Year New Music season, we asked five Radio 3 presenters to each tell the story of one of these "seismic moments". From silence and ambient sounds to riot and revolution, these intriguing events have, in different ways, changed the progress of sound and culture - or, as one of our five suggests, have they?

Written and read by Sarah Walker
Producer: John Goudie.

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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