Radio 3 in Concert

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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

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: The Triumph of Time

The Triumph of Time

BBC Radio 3 - Radio 3 in Concert, The Triumph of Time

The BBC Philharmonic and conductor Ludovic Morlot explore our experiences of time.

The BBC Philharmonic and conductor Ludovic Morlot are joined by soprano Elizabeth Atherton to explore our experiences of time.

From the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester
Presented by Tom McKinney

Conductor Ludovic Morlot joins the orchestra for a programme exploring our experiences of time. At the centre of the programme is Dutilleux's 'Le temps l'horloge' (Time, clock); Soprano Elizabeth Atherton joins the BBC Philharmonic for this, his last important work.  Through poetry by Charles Baudelaire, Robert Desnos and Jean Tardieu he explores different facets of our experience; "The other day I listened to time passing in the clock" are the soprano's opening lines. The second poem is a meditation on timelessness beside an ancient artefact, and in the last, Baudelaire advocates getting drunk as a way of escaping time altogether. 

A 16th-century Flemish woodcut by Pieter Bruegel the Elder provides inspiration for Harrison Birtwistle's 1971 classic, "The Triumph of Time". At the centre of this allegorical picture, suspended from a tree, is a fascinating early chiming clock accompanied by weighing scales. The inexorable tread of a cortege with Death on a horse and an elephant at the rear are integral to this stunning music.  

Betsy Jolas describes her work "A Little Summer Music" as "walking stroll" and it contains a section she calls "knocks and clocks".  Ravel's iconic Boléro with its unrelenting side-drum-propelled forward tread invites the orchestra to use time to explore texture and colour before its emphatic conclusion.  

Honegger's Pacific 2-3-1 is a picture of a powerful steam locomotive starting, reaching full speed and then reaching its destination.  Beyond this, and a famous 1949 French film based on the music, Honegger admitted he was experimenting with time "giving the impression of a mathematical acceleration of rhythm, while the movement itself slowed".  And time is certainly of the essence in Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice; the sorcerer returns in the nick of time to prevent watery catastrophe.


Honegger: Pacific 2-3-1
Jolas: A Little Summer Suite
Dutilleux: Le temps, l'horloge
Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice


8.15 Music Interval (CD)
Birtwistle: Harrison's Clocks - Clock 1 (Joanna MacGregor)
Brahms: Verlorene Jugend (Consortium, Andrew-John Smith)
Beethoven: Piece for Musical Clock WoO.33 - No.2 Scherzo (Hans-Ola Ericsson) 
Haydn: Piece for Musical Clock H.19.9 - Minuet (Hans-Ola Ericsson)
Dowland: Time stands still (Ed Lyon, Theatre of the Ayre)
Lassus: In hora ultima (Capella Sancti Michaeli, Currende Consort)


8.30
Birtwistle: The Triumph of Time
Ravel: Boléro

Elizabeth Atherton (soprano)
BBC Philharmonic
Ludovic Morlot (conductor)

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