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 Tudors

The Tudors

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, The Tudors

From Shakespeare to Hilary Mantel, Byrd and Tallis to Britten.

Anton Lesser and Josette Simon perform readings about the Tudor dynasty alongside music for the TV series Wolf Hall, the film A Man for All Seasons and by Byrd, Tallis and Finzi.

From Shakespeare to Hilary Mantel - the Tudors is a period rich in literature, with a king who is said to have composed Greensleeves for his future Queen Anne Boleyn. Today's Words and Music is inspired by the Tudor dynasty who ruled England from Henry VII’s reign in 1485 until the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Theirs was an era of turbulence, from the Wars of the Roses, to the seismic break with Rome under Henry VIII, and the bloody era of protestant executions under Mary I. There is poetry by the key players in the Tudor drama: Thomas Wyatt (who was accused of adultery with Anne Boleyn), Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I herself. And we feature extracts from one of the most compelling modern-day takes on the Tudors: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. Musically, we’ll hear from the star of this week’s series of Essays, William Byrd; and Thomas Tallis, who walked a dangerous line as a Catholic composer in Elizabeth I's Protestant court, and we'll also hear Tudor inspired music by Donizetti and Benjamin Britten.  Our readers are Anton Lesser and Josette Simon. 

Producer: Georgia Mann

You can hear three Free Thinking Discussions about the Tudors being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Tues 24th, Weds 25th and Thurs 25th May and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts. 

READINGS:
Pasqualigo   Contemporary description of Henry VIII by Venetian diplomat Pasqualigo, written 1515
Shakespeare  Extract from Richard II
Miranda Kaufmann  Extract from John Blanke: the most famous African in Tudor England, published in BBC History Revealed
Robert Bolt  Extract from A Man for all Seasons
Shakespeare  Extract from Henry VIII
Hilary Mantel  Extract from Wolf Hall
Christopher Marlow  The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Thomas Wyatt  Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind
John Donne  The Good-morrow
Hilary Mantel  Extract from Wolf Hall
Sylvia Barbara Soberton  Extract from: Medical Downfall of the Tudors: Sex, Reproduction and Succession
Thomas Nash  From In Time of Plague Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss
Hilary Mantel  Extract from The Mirror and the Light
Elizabeth I  Extract from Elizabeth I's "Golden" final speech to parliament, November 30th 1601
Elizabeth I  From The Doubt of Future Foes
Kate Williams  Extract from Rival Queens: The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary, Queen of Scots  Sonnet written at Fotheringay Castle
Fr William Weston  Description by Jesuit Fr William Weston of a meeting and mass to celebrate the arrival in England of the Jesuit missionaries Henry Garnet and Robert Southwell
William Byrd  Extract from Care for Thy Soul as Thing of Greatest Price 
Robert Deveraux, Earl of Essex Essex's Last Voyage to the Haven of Happiness

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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