Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: The Essential Classics Interview

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 - Sarah Walker with Gemma Jones

Monday - Sarah Walker with Gemma Jones

21/09/2016

Wednesday - Sarah Walker with Gemma Jones

BBC Radio 3 - Essential Classics, Wednesday - Sarah Walker with Gemma Jones

Including Artist of the Week: oboist Nicholas Daniel, featured in Cimarosa's Oboe Concerto

With Sarah Walker. Includes My Favourite Music from the Court of Henry VIII; Music in Time: Florence Price; Artist of the Week: Nicholas Daniel, featured in Cimarosa: Oboe Concerto.

9am
My favourite... music from the court of Henry VIII. Music was an important part of the young Henry's education and he was a gifted instrumentalist and composer. He was keen to promote music within his lavish court and patronised musicians throughout his life. Sarah heads back to the 16th century as she discovers anonymous part songs and dances, both mournful and rowdy, that were written for Henry's court, plus pieces written as presents to the king from overseas, a work from Anne Boleyn's Songbook and music by one of Henry's leading court musicians, William Cornysh. 

9.30am
Take part in today's musical challenge: identify a piece of music played backwards.

10am
Sarah's guest this week, sharing a selection of her favourite classical music, is the acclaimed actress Gemma Jones. Gemma's film credits range from Mrs Dashwood in the Academy Award-winning Sense and Sensibility to Bridget's mother in the hit Bridget Jones's Diary. She has performed Shakespearean roles including Portia in the Merchant of Venice, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth and Queen Margaret in Kevin Spacey's 2011 stage production of Richard III, directed by Sam Mendes. Gemma is also fondly remembered for her starring role in the BBC's The Duchess of Duke Street, and more recently featured aongside Tom Courtenay in the ITV drama Unforgotten, and in the BBC series Capital with Lesley Sharp and Toby Jones. Gemma's music choices include part of Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which reminds her of performing in Peter Brook's production of the play, Bach's St John Passion, which Gemma recently sang with her choir, and Chopin's Waltz in B minor, Op.69 No.2, a piece that her father used to play. 

10.30am 
Music in Time: Modern 
Sarah places Music in Time. Today we are in the Modern period with Florence Price's Symphony No.3 in C minor. Price was the first African-American woman composer to gain national recognition. Brought up in Arkansas, she graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, determined to compose music for a living. She was helped by her friend the contralto Marian Anderson, an important figure in the struggle against racial prejudice in mid-1900s America, and was eventually inducted into the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1940, the same year that she wrote her third symphony. This meant that her rights as a composer were certified and she could gain royalties from her work. 

11am
Sarah's Artist of the Week is the oboist Nicholas Daniel. Since winning the BBC's Young Musician of the Year competition in 1980, Daniel has toured the world as a virtuoso of the oboe, and has been a tireless champion of the instrument. His rich, flexible tone and brilliant technique have led him to perform not only the mainstays of the oboe repertoire, such as Vaughan Williams's Concerto and Mozart's Oboe Quartet, but also to commission many new pieces and unearth neglected works. He began directing orchestras from the oboe from the start of his career, and is now a respected conductor in his own right while, as a founder member of the Haffner Wind Ensemble and the Britten Oboe Quartet, he continues to pursue his love of chamber music. Sarah reflects the various facets of Daniel's career in her musical choices at 11am each day.

Cimarosa arr. Benjamin
Oboe Concerto in C major
Nicholas Daniel (oboe/director)
Peterborough String Orchestra.

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Essential Classics

Wednesday - Sarah Walker with Gemma Jones

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3