Words and Music

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

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: Body Beautiful

Body Beautiful

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Body BeautifulClose menu

Sophie Robinson and Giles Terera turn their poetic gaze upon the beauty of the human body.

Sophie Robinson and Giles Terera turn their gaze upon the beauty and art of the human body, with reflective poems from Mark Doty, Sylvia Plath, and Claudia Rankine.

Turn your gaze upon the beauty and art of the human form, with great works about nudity, narcissism, body positivity, the male gaze, physical desire, and physical fitness. 


Composers regarding their own image in the mirror include Benjamin Britten, William Horsley, and William Onyeabor, while Sylvia Plath does the same in her post-plastic-surgery poem ‘Face Lift’. Elsewhere, Eavan Boland, Anne Carson, and Christina Rossetti all attempt to grapple with the idea of the female as muse and sitting model, and Claudia Rankine resists a world that would turn her invisible. Meanwhile, Mark Doty hits the gym in an effort to achieve the body beautiful.


The readers for this episode are the beautiful bodies (and voices) of Sophie Robinson and Giles Terera.


Readings: 
Osip Mandelstam - Somebody gave me this body
Walt Whitman - I Sing the Body Electric 
Robert Browning - Rhyme for a Child Viewing a Naked Venus in a Painting of “The Judgement of Paris”
Eavan Boland - Self-Portrait on a Summer Evening
Christina Rossetti - In an Artist's Studio
Anne Carson - Short Talk On The Mona Lisa
Anne Carson - Short Talk On Hedonism
Lord Byron - She Walks in Beauty
Jan Beatty - Sitting Nude
Maya Angelou - Phenomenal Woman
Claudia Rankine - Citizen - An American Lyric - VII
Rupert Brooke - Thoughts on the Shape of the Human Body
Ella Wheeler Wilcox - I Love You
Federico Garcia Lorca - Casida Of The Reclining Woman
Mark Doty - At the Gym
Craig Raine - Marcel’s Fancy Dress Party
Sylvia Plath - Face Lift
Thomas Hardy - I Look Into My Glass
Constantine P. Cavafy - Remember, Body…


Produced by Jack Howson.  
A Reduced Listening 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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