Words and Music

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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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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: The Worst Form of Government

The Worst Form of Government

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, The Worst Form of Government

Poetry and music on the theme of democracy with readings by Lisa Dillon and Ray Fearon.

This week's Words and Music explores the theme of democracy. Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Winston Churchill's now famous quote underpins today's edition. Democracy is hailed as a force for good - promoting freedom, equality and self-governance - but has been used and misused for personal gain and political oppression.  Nelson Mandela describes his astonishment in his memoir Long Walk to Freedom, on meeting Inuits from Northern Europe, that people from 'the top of the world' should have any knowledge of his political struggle at the southern tip of Africa. Television, he writes, had become a force for promoting democracy.  

Throughout the programme, we hear the voices of colonised and marginalised peoples as they struggle for their right to be heard, their right to vote, and their right to live a free life. 

With music from Copland & Shostakovich to Somalian poet and rapper K'naan, and readings performed by Lisa Dillon and Ray Fearon.

Producer: Gavin Heard 

Aeschines: Democracy
Langston Hughes: Democracy 
Emma Lazarus: The New Colossus
Walt Whitman: Election Day November 1884
Dorianne Laux:  Democracy
John Adams: Letter
Arthur Rimbaud: Democracy
Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Mahmoud Darwish: The Girl/The Scream
William Shakespeare: Caesar
George Szirtes: Unter den Linden
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Songs for the People

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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