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.

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: Walter Scott

Walter Scott

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Walter Scott

From gothic novels and history to music by Rossini, Thea Musgrave, Schubert and Berlioz.

Sophia McLean and Denis Lawson read from Scott's prose and poetry, and from other writers influenced by his sense of history and the gothic, plus music on these themes.

Walter Scott (1771-1832) was so renowned that a vast monument built to his memory still towers over Princes Street in Edinburgh, a full 30 feet taller than Nelson’s Column in London.  A pioneer of the historical novel and of the gothic, Scott’s output of poetry and prose was colossal with works including Waverley, the Bride of Lammermoor, Rob Roy and Ivanhoe.  But he also found time to more or else invent the modern idea of Scottishness, when he devised an elaborate pageant to welcome George IV to Scotland in 1822.  Sophia McLean and Denis Lawson read extracts not only from Scott’s work, but also from other Scottish authors and poets whose writing reflects some of his sensibilities, including Margaret Oliphant, Iain Banks, Jean Guthrie Smith and Robin Jenkins.  The music includes Rossini’s La Donna del Lago, one of many operas adapted from a Scott novel and Haydn’s arrangement of Lizae Baillie – the kind of traditional ballad that Scott drew inspiration from. There are also offerings from Hector Berlioz, Thea Musgrave, Tiny Grimes, Eddi Reader and Simon Thoumire.

READINGS:  
Sir Walter Scott - The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Canto II – Melrose Abbey
Sir Walter Scott - The Lay of the Last Minstrel - Canto I – Introduction
Sir Walter Scott - Ivanhoe
Charles W Chessnut - The House Behind the Cedars
Margaret Oliphant - The Library Window
Robin Jenkins - The Cone Gatherers
Jean Guthrie Smith - The Black Belt
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory
JG Lockhart - Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott - My Aunt Margaret's Mirror
Sir Walter Scott - Lochinvar

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

A Free Thinking episode exploring the writing of Walter Scott's novel Waverley is available now on BBC Sounds and as an Arts and Ideas podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04dr39q

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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