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: Derek Jarman's Garden

Derek Jarman's Garden

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Tilda Swinton and Samuel Barnett with readings from and inspired by Derek Jarman's work.

With music from Stravinsky and Pet Shop Boys, and readings from Derek Jarman's journals, Olivia Laing and TS Eliot, conjuring up the spirit of Prospect Cottage in Dungeness.

Tilda Swinton and Samuel Barnett are the readers in an episode inspired by the saving of the beachside home of film-maker, painter and writer Derek Jarman following a crowd-funding campaign. Jarman (1942-1994) purchased Prospect Cottage on the shingle shore at Dungeness in 1986 following his diagnosis as being HIV positive and it formed the backdrop for his 1990 film The Garden. This was one of 11 feature films he directed including Caravaggio, The Tempest, The Last of England and Blue - which Radio 3 collaborated on with Channel 4 when that premiered in 1993. 

Today's Words and Music brings you music referenced in Jarman's writing and films, from Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring to pop songs by the Pet Shop Boys and Annie Lennox which Jarman directed the videos for. Tilda Swinton reads words from Jarman's books Modern Nature, Chroma, and At Your Own Risk, a moving history of homosexuality in the UK, and Samuel Barnett reads poetry including John Donne's The Sun Rising, which is inscribed on the wall of Prospect Cottage.

You can read a news story about the saving of Prospect Cottage and see images of it here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-52120409 

Producer: Nick Taylor

Readings:
Modern Nature - Derek Jarman
At Your Own Risk - Derek Jarman
Chroma - Derek Jarman
Funny Weather: Derek Jarman’s Paradise - Olivia Laing
The Sun Rising - John Donne
Metamorphoses - Ovid (trans. Henry Thomas Riley)
Sonnet 126 - William Shakespeare
Conversations with Angels - John Dee
The Garden of Love - William Blake
The Hollow Men (extract) - T.S. Eliot
Remarks on Colour - Ludwig Wittgenstein (trans. Linda L. McAlister)
Ancient Arabic poem - At-Taliq (trans. A. R. Nykl)

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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