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

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Percussion Century

Music: Classical

Colin Currie hand picks some of the greatest percussion music of the past 100 years.

Enjoy a spectacular range of music for percussion over the past 100 years with your guide Colin Currie.

Percussion Century: Multicoloured

Multicoloured

BBC Radio 3 - Percussion Century, Multicoloured

Colin Currie hand picks some of the greatest percussion music of the past 100 years

From timpani to timbales, crotales to cow bells, Colin Currie conjures up a spectacular range of music for percussion.

Brash, visceral, thrilling, terrifying. Ethereal, delicate, exquisite, meditative. 

Colin Currie presents a celebration of a musical family that spans the sonic spectrum in a unique and almost limitless fashion: percussion. 

Colin has been called “one of the greatest musicians in the world today” by none other than Steve Reich, who knows a thing or two about percussion, and in this, the first of three episodes, Colin introduces a taste of the huge array of colours and sounds that the percussion family can conjure up.

Over the past century the percussion section has been freed from its previous role as rhythmic accompaniment and occasional sound effect, and has taken centre stage in an explosion of music written for solo percussion, percussion ensembles, chamber groups and orchestras.

In this episode, music by Messiaen, Britten and Stravinsky sits alongside tracks by Bjork, John Williams and Manu Delago. And instruments dating back hundreds of years mix with new instruments from the 21st century creating beautiful, surprising and unexpected aural delights.

A Tandem Production for BBC Radio 3


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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