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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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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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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: Music in Its Time

The Essay: Music in Its Time: Episode 7: Music in Its Time - Byrd: Mass for Four Voices

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Music: Classical

Music in Its Time

Episode 7

Episode 7: Music in Its Time - Byrd: Mass for Four Voices

Music in Its Time - Byrd: Mass for Four Voices

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The secret performances of Byrd's masses in Elizabethan England.

Stephen Johnson considers performances of Byrd's masses in Elizabethan England, when they had to be secret as attending one was a criminal offense.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.

For four hundred years, William Byrd has been celebrated as one of Britain's greatest composers. But while the music of his contemporaries like Palestrina and Victoria were sung before Popes and Cardinals at the grandest cathedrals in Europe, Byrd's own Masses could only be performed in secret during his lifetime. In Elizabethan England, attending a performance was a criminal offence.

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.

How pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first

Stephen Johnson on how pieces of music would have been heard by the audiences who heard them first. He examines the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners

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Music in Its Time

Episode 7: Music in Its Time - Byrd: Mass for Four Voices

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