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

BBC Radio 3

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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: Why Music? The Key to Memory

Why Music? The Key to Memory

15/10/2017

BBC Radio 3 - The Early Music Show, Why Music? The Key to Memory

Mahan Esfahani presents a live show from London's Wellcome Collection on music and memory.

Live from Wellcome Collection, Mahan Esfahani explores the role of shared memory in early music. With music from Mahan himself, cornettist Helen Roberts and Downside Abbey monks.

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and guests explore the role of shared memory in early music.

The cornet player Helen Roberts demonstrates 'divisions' in early music - the division of longer notes into shorter, fast-moving florid ornamentations. She explains how building up a memory bank of such divisions helps with improvisation.

Monks from Downside Abbey perform medieval music and describe how repetition of key melodic lines helps to memorise the Psalms

And Mahan investigates a 13th-century Greek medical manuscript from Wellcome's Library, where chants are used to help memorise the symptoms, causes and cure of various conditions.

Live from Wellcome Collection as part of Why Music? The Key to Memory, a weekend of events, concerts and discussions exploring the implications of music's unique capacity to be remembered.

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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