Afternoon Concert

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

Music: Classical

Unique performances with BBC Orchestras, Choirs and other great orchestras

Unique performances with BBC Orchestras, Choirs and other great orchestras from around the world

Afternoon Concert: The Swedish Nightingale

The Swedish Nightingale

BBC Radio 3 - Afternoon Concert, The Swedish Nightingale

Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale and the country's first international superstar

The Swedish Nightingale, a tribute to Jenny Lind, Sweden's first international superstar born two hundred years ago, from the Baltic Sea Festival.

The Baltic Sea Festival: The Swedish Nightingale, a tribute to Jenny Lind, Sweden's first international superstar
Jenny Lind, born two hundred years ago, was Sweden’s first international superstar, and counted H C Andersen, Felix Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and even England’s Queen Victoria among her admirers. Here, she is celebrated by two of today’s Swedish opera stars: Elin Rombo, who was awarded the Jenny Lind grant in 1999, and Annie Ternström, last year’s winner of Young Artists.
Johanna Maria Lind was born in 1820 and retired early from the opera stage. One of the greatest ever Swedish stars, she was never called anything other than Jenny. It is difficult to really comprehend how idolized this young singer was: she achieved tremendous international fame in the five years since she made her debut in Berlin in 1844. H.C. Andersen said of her that no one else had such a profound influence over him as a poet: “She opened the door to the sacred rooms of art for me.” After retiring from the stage aged just 29, she toured far and wide; on her arrival in New York, she was met by 30,000 cheering people and disembarked to a cascade of flowers. The tour manager, the legendary entrepreneur P.T. Barnum, sold concert tickets by auction and the deeply religious Jenny Lind donated almost all of her unimaginable income to charity after the tour. But what significance does Jenny Lind have for us today? Is she just a glimmering fantasy or a face on a Swedish banknote, or can she open the door to the sacred rooms of art even for us?
Also today, Tchaikovsky's evergreen Sleeping Beauty. 
Presented by Penny Gore. 

Mendelssohn:  Hear ye, Israel, from 'Elijah'	
Bellini: Qui la voce sua soave	
Bellini: Overture, Casta diva and Cabaletta 'A bello a me ritorna,' from Norma  
Grieg: Last Spring 'Varen' from 2 Elegiac Melodies Op.34
Flotow: Letzte Rose, wie magst du, from 'Martha'	
Mozart: Or sai chi l'onore, from 'Don Giovanni'	
Mendelssohn:	Suite, from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' 

Annie Ternström, (soprano), the young Jenny and Elin Rombo (soprano) Jenny, 
Swedish Radio Choir and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Evan Rogister (conductor)  
		
at approx 3.20pm

Tchaikovsky: Suite from Sleeping Beauty Op. 66a	
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Ryan Bancroft (conductor)

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