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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: Friday - Rob Cowan with Vikki Stone

Monday - Rob Cowan with Vikki Stone

25/11/2016

Friday - Rob Cowan with Vikki Stone

BBC Radio 3 - Essential Classics, Friday - Rob Cowan with Vikki Stone

Including Artist of the Week: Karel Ancerl, featured conducting Stravinsky's Petrushka.

With Rob Cowan. Including My Favourite Schubert Chamber Works; Music in Time: Steve Reich; Artist of the Week: Karel Ancerl, featured conducting Stravinsky's Petrushka.

9am
My favourite... secular choral works. This week a selection of Rob's favourite secular choral works come under the spotlight, from Brahms's Goethe-inspired 'Song of the Fates', which reminds us of the consequences for mankind if the gods are disobeyed, to Bartók's 'Village Scenes', which tell the story of everyday village life - via contributions from Beethoven, Schubert and Percy Grainger.

9.30am
Take part in our daily musical challenge. Two pieces of music are played together. Can you identify them?

10.00am 
Rob's guest this week is the comedian, composer and actress Vikki Stone. Best known for her original comedy songs, Vikki has performed sell-out stand up shows at the Edinburgh Festival and the Soho Theatre, as well as on tour, and has made appearances on BBC One's The John Bishop Show and Radio 4's The Now Show. Earlier this year, Vikki presented the BBC Proms 'Proms Unplucked' podcast, bringing all the backstage news from the festival. Throughout the week pianist and flautist Vikki talks about mixing comedy and music and about learning how to conduct, and she shares a selection of her favourite classical music, including music for the flute by Phillipe Gaubert and Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, a work she performed in her school orchestra. 

10.30am
Power of Three - the next episode in a 70-part daily series of pioneering sounds from the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3 archives presented by David Hendy.

Followed by
Music in Time: Modern
Rob places Music in Time. Today the spotlight is on the Modern era and Steve Reich's Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ. Reich once compared listening to his music with standing on a shoreline and watching - or feeling - the waves wash over your bare feet. The texture of this piece is particularly sensual, its tonal palette shifting almost imperceptibly. If you're having a difficult morning, use it as therapy!

11am
Rob's artist of the week is the Czech conductor Karel Ancerl, one of the most gifted musicians of the last century. The Second World War interrupted Ancerl's early conducting career and, although he survived the war, forming an orchestra whilst imprisoned at Theresienstadt concentration camp, his wife Valy and young son Jan were murdered at Auschwitz. After the war ended, Ancerl returned to conducting with a renewed vigor, raising the Czech Philharmonic to its standing among the greatest orchestras in the world during the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout the week Rob shares a selection of Ancerl's many recordings with the Czech Philharmonic, including a benchmark disc of music from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Brahms's Double Concerto with violinist Josef Suk and cellist André Navarra, and Janacek's vivid narrative Taras Bulba, as well as gripping accounts of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Stravinsky's Petrushka. 

Stravinsky
Petrushka (1947 version)
Czech Phiharmonic Orchestra
Karel Ancerl (conductor).

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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