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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 Early Music Show

Music: Classical: Early Music

Performance and news from the world of early music.

An exploration of early music, looking at early developments in musical performance and composition in Britain and abroad. UK only: please note that not all episodes are podcast.

The Early Music Show: Tafelmusik

Venus and Adonis

11/09/2016

Tafelmusik

BBC Radio 3 - The Early Music Show, Tafelmusik

Hannah French explores the tradition of Tafelmusik: music performed around tables.

Hannah French explores the tradition of Tafelmusik: music written for banquets or feasts and performed around tables. With works by Telemann, Byrd, Schein, Vivaldi and Praetorius.

Hannah French looks at the tradition of Tafelmusik. Musique de Table. Table Music. It's music composed to divert, entertain, and yes, be performed around a table. 

Hannah visits the British Library to talk to the Curator of Music Manuscripts Andra Patterson about an incredible manuscript of Table Music held there: a 'booke of In nomines and other solfainge songs of 5, 6, 7 and 8 parts for voyces or Instruments'. 

The programme includes pieces by William Byrd, Johann Schein, Michael Praetorius, Vivaldi and Telemann. Telemann is undoubtedly the most celebrated composer of Tafelmusik. His 1733 collection is a substantial portfolio of about four-and-a-half hours of music which is rated alongside Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos in terms of breadth of ideas and creative use of form. It's arranged into three parts or 'productions', each containing a suite, a quartet, a concerto, a trio, a sonata, and a conclusion. Telemann had the knack of keeping up with the latest musical trends and giving people what they wanted to hear. He knew he was on the money with his Tafelmusik, announcing: 'This work will make me famous one day'...

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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