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: Madame Bovary and independent women

Madame Bovary and independent women

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Madame Bovary and independent women

Emma Fielding and Alex Jennings read from Flaubert's novel about a frustrated wife.

Episodes from Flaubert's Madame Bovary, published in 1856, are set alongside other descriptions of independent women by DH Lawrence, Margaret Atwood, Ibsen and Emily Dickinson.

Actors Emma Fielding and Alex Jennings read from the novel Gustave Flaubert first published in 1856, which depicted the life of a provincial wife trying to escape a life she finds banal and restricting. Public prosecutors attacked it for obscenity when it was serialised in the Revue de Paris but after the author's acquittal it became a best-seller. Its themes of infidelity, guilt, remorse, the struggle to find independence are echoed in other extracts by writers including Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson, Henrik Ibsen, D.H. Lawrence, Maurice Riordan, Margaret Atwood and Edna St Vincent Millay, alongside a variety of musical examples. 

Producer: Juan Carlos Jaramillo

Readings:
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, read by Emma Fielding
Madame Bovary (poem), by Maurice Riordan, read by Alex Jennings
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, read by Emma Fielding
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, read by Alex Jennings
Love by Emily Dickinson, read by Emma Fielding
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, read by Alex Jennings
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, read by Emma Fielding and Alex Jennings
Bored by Margaret Atwood, read by Emma Fielding
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, read by Alex Jennings
for women who are ‘difficult to love’ by Warsan Shire, read by Emma Fielding
Rendezvous by Edna St Vincent Millay, read by Alex Jennings
Up Scoble by Robert Herrick, read by Emma Fielding
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, read by Emma Fielding and Alex Jennings
When We Two Parted by Lord Byron, read by Emma Fielding
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, read by Alex Jennings
Mariana by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, read by Emma Fielding

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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Madame Bovary and independent women

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