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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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Essential Classics

Music: Classical

Refresh your morning with a great selection of classical music

Refresh your morning with a great selection of classical music, presented by Georgia Mann.

Essential Classics: Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Samantha Bond

Monday - Rob Cowan with Samantha Bond

07/09/2016

Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Samantha Bond

BBC Radio 3 - Essential Classics, Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Samantha Bond

Including Artists of the Week: Staatskapelle Dresden, featured in Elgar's Symphony No 1.

With Rob Cowan. My Favourite Gypsy-Style Showpieces; Music in Time: Schutz: Nun Danket alle Gott; Artists of the Week: Staatskapelle Dresden, featured in Elgar's Symphony No 1.

9am
My favourite... Gypsy-style showpieces
Gypsy music has inspired generations of composers to write some of their fieriest and most appealing lighter, and sometimes not-so-light, music. Rob's selection ranges from authentic gypsy tunes played by the great Romanian violinist Grigoras Dinicu (and an Enescu Rhapsody that was inspired by them) to Brahms Zigeunerlieder and Strauss's effervescent Gypsy Baron overture.

9.30am
Take part in today's musical challenge: can you work out which two composers are associated with a particular piece?

10am 
Rob's guest is the celebrated actress Samantha Bond, one of our most versatile actresses. Born into an acting family, her great uncle was a music hall performer and her father was in The Onedin Line, Samantha is famous for her appearances as Lady Rosalind Painswick in the worldwide hit Downton Abbey and the role of Auntie Angela in the comedy series Outnumbered. Her notable stage and screen appearances also include Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with Kenneth Branagh, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Robert Lindsay, and Miss Moneypenny to Pierce Brosnan's James Bond. Through the week, Samantha shares her favourite pieces of classical music with Rob.

10.30am
Music in Time: Baroque
Rob places Music in Time. On the day Staatskapelle Dresden arrives at the Proms, Rob travels back to the early years of this venerable orchestra, with music by one of its first directors: Heinrich Schütz. His third volume of Symphoniae Sacrae was published in Dresden in 1650, at the end of the Thirty Years' War, and Schütz celebrated in grand style with works such as his magnificent "Nun Danket alle Gott". 

11am
Artist of the Week: Staatskapelle Dresden
The Staatskapelle Dresden visits the Proms this week with Principal Conductor Christian Thielemann. With a roll-call of past directors that has included Schütz, Weber and Wagner, the orchestra is one of Europe's musical glories, its sound warm yet transparent, full-bodied and dynamic. Rob chooses a diverse and distinctive roster of recordings from Vittorio Negri in Vivaldi to Herbert Blomstedt in Beethoven and Otmar Suitner in Tchaikovsky.

Elgar
Symphony No. 1 in A flat major, Op.55 
Staatskapelle Dresden
Sir Colin Davis (conductor).

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Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Samantha Bond

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