The Essay: Renewing the Past: The BBC and Early Music 

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The Essay: Renewing the Past: The BBC and Early Music: 1940s, New Life for Old Music

1940s, New Life for Old Music

Renewing the Past: The BBC and Early Music

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Renewing the Past: The BBC and Early Music, 1940s, New Life for Old Music

Nicholas Kenyon explores early music at the BBC in the 1940s.

Nicholas Kenyon explores how the launch of the BBC’s cultural Third Programme in 1946 rapidly advanced the revival of early music on the BBC.

The BBC has had a powerful influence on our musical taste, and in this BBC centenary year, Nicholas Kenyon, a former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC’s role in reviving the centuries of early music from before the 18th century. 

In his third essay, Kenyon explores how the launch of the BBC’s cultural Third Programme in 1946 rapidly advanced the revival of early music on the BBC. From Alfred Deller singing Purcell in the opening concert of the network, to huge and difficult undertakings like the History in Sound of European Music, the Third supported the scholarly exploration of earlier repertories. Leading figures on the staff were experts in early music, and worked with a new generation of emerging performers who were interested in performing the music of the past: Julian Bream on the lute and George Malcolm on harpsichord, Neville Marriner on the violin, and Arnold Goldsborough conducting chamber orchestras. In the title of one 1948 series featuring the violinist Norbert Brainin, leader of the Amadeus Quartet, they were creating ‘new life for old music’.

Presented by Nicholas Kenyon
Produced by Melissa FitzGerald

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.

Nicholas Kenyon explores the BBC's role in the early music revival of the last century.

Nicholas Kenyon, former controller of Radio 3 and director of the Proms, delves into the archives to explore the BBC's role in the early music revival from the 1920s to the 1970s.

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