Radio 3 in 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

The best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Experience the best concerts from across the UK and Europe. Available to listen online for 30 days

Radio 3 in Concert: Parting Tears and Present Sleep

Parting Tears and Present Sleep

BBC Radio 3 - Radio 3 in Concert, Parting Tears and Present Sleep

Gemma New and the BBC Philharmonic perform music by Alissa Firsova, Mahler and Elgar.

Gemma New conducts the BBC Philharmonic in music by Alissa Firsova, and Gustav Mahler. Contralto Jess Dandy joins them for Elgar's Sea Pictures.

From Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Presented by Linton Stephens

Alma and Gustav Mahler provide the inspiration for the works that bookend the programme. Shortly after Gustav's death in 1911, his wife Alma began an affair with the Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoshka and his painting, "Die Windsbraut" (The Bride of the Wind), portrays Alma and Oskar in bed together, she sleeping peacefully, he lying awake with worry. Alissa Firsova takes the painting as a starting point for her piece, creating music which depicts this powerful image as well as the turbulence of their relationship and their love. Ending the concert is Gustav's First Symphony. Privately he revealed that it was inspired by a failed love affair with a singer and although he became increasingly wary of revealing a programme behind his work, his quotations from his "Songs of a Wayfarer" provide a definitive link on this occasion. The sounds of the forest coming to life, the folk-song inspired melodies and ground-breaking use of orchestral colour combine in music which remains new to this day. A decade after Mahler penned that Symphony in a state of emotional chaos, Edward Elgar was orchestrating the five songs that make up his "Sea Pictures" for performance at the Norwich Festival; contralto Jess Dandy joins the orchestra for a performance of one of Elgar's best known works. In "Haven" the second song, he sets words by his wife, Alice: "Joy, sea-swept, may fade today; love alone will stay." 


Alissa Firsova: Die Windsbraut
Elgar: Sea Pictures

Music Interval (CD)
Schumann: Waldszenen
Leon McCawley (piano)

8.30pm
Mahler: Symphony No.1


Jess Dandy (contralto)
BBC Philharmonic
Gemma New (conductor)

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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Radio 3 in Concert

Parting Tears and Present Sleep

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