Words and Music

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

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: Happiness

Happiness

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Happiness

Helena Bonham Carter and Tim McInnerny with readings on the pursuit of happiness.

Poetry and prose on the theme of the pursuit of happiness read by Helena Bonham Carter and Tim McInnerny, with happy sounds from Beethoven, Handel, Rossini, Eubie Blake and others.

Helena Bonham Carter and Tim McInnerny are the readers for a programme exploring ideas and meanings of happiness, joy and ecstasy. The Wellcome Collection opens an exhibition and a series of events exploring this theme later this week, and reflecting this, today's episode offers an anthology of thoughts on the subject conveying us from Plato to Easton Ellis by way of George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Margery Kempe. Ray Bradbury, Anthony Trollope, William Blake, Edmund Spencer, Chinua Achebe, Aldous Huxley and others; with music by Beethoven, Handel, Schumann, Heinrich Schutz, Hildegard of Bingen, Eubie Blake, REM, Charles Penrose, Thomas Ades ... and Ken Dodd.  

Note from the producer:
The theme is “the pursuit of happiness". 
You’ll hear extracts from Plato’s ‘Euthydemus’ - his Socratic dialogue in which he sets out some of his philosophical thoughts on the subject. Is good fortune the secret to happiness? Is it knowledge? Or is it about the best use of the goods that you are given? The programme features examples from across time which reflect and comment on these thoughts. For example, Ray Bradbury’s 'Fahrenheit 451' offers the suggestion that society is happier without the complexities of knowledge; Elizabeth von Arnim and Sylvia Plath enjoy the positive romantic pleasures of “being at one with nature”; Anthony Trollope focuses on the practicalities of finding happiness through love; while Brett Easton Ellis considers some of the extreme implications of materialism and happiness. And talking of extremes, both the medieval mystic, Margery Kempe and Aldous Huxley touch on differing notions and interpretations of ecstasy.

The music includes Bernstein’s take on Voltaire; Beethoven in the country; Schumann on the joys of married life; Thomas Ades at a rave; Mozart; Rogers and Hammerstein, Charles Penrose, and the inimitable Ken Dodd. And there’s also music from the early 1990s by REM - a song said to be inspired by some propaganda posters, promoting happiness, from around the time of the Tiananmen Square protests. 

The programme ends its journey with piano music by Poulenc, transporting us the island of pleasure and happiness, Cythera."


Producer: Chris Wines

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Words and Music

Happiness

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3