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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

Radio 3

Words and Music

Drama

Music: Classical

A journey of discovery, weaving music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

A weekly journey of discovery, weaving together a range of music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

Words and Music: Passion Play

Passion Play

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The Passion seen through ancient and modern eyes with Patrick O'Kane and Houda Echouafni.

The Passion seen through ancient and modern eyes with Patrick O'Kane and Houda Echouafni and music by Bach, Part and Ferguson.

In Words and Music this evening the actors Houda Echouafni and Patrick O'Kane explore the story of The Passion and the way that it reverberates in our minds today.  Christ's betrayal, the crucifixion and resurrection conjure up powerful images that many of us have grown up with, but images whose clarity, paradoxically, cloak much that is mysterious.  The Passion has always inspired writers and composers and their very different ways of understanding it determine the path taken by Houda and Patrick – beginning with the Easter call to prayer of the Orthodox Church in Greece and Romania and traversing the more familiar territory of Handel's Messiah, Bach's St John Passion, as well Arvo Part's Passio and John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary. The words too combine the known with the less well known: the King James Bible with Housman, Michael Symmons Roberts with Philip Pullman and Colm Toibin.
 
Producer: Zahid Warley

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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