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: Pirates and Outlaws

Pirates and Outlaws

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, Pirates and Outlaws

From Bellini and Gilbert and Sullivan to Robert Louis Stevenson, Keats and David Graeber.

Rory Kinnear and Buffy Davis read from novels, poems about pirates by Keats and Byron and from accounts of pirates and outlaws including Bonnie and Clyde, Robin Hood and Mary Read.

Film music from The Sea Hawk, Pirates of the Caribbean and Disney's Robin Hood, is set alongside stage works, like Bellini's Il Pirata, G&S' The Pirates of Penzance, and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera.  Readings performed by Rory Kinnear and Buffy Davis range from depictions of pirates and outlaws as romantic figures to morally flawed individuals.  We'll hear about Bonnie & Clyde and some English celebrated seamen, Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh, deemed pirates by the Spanish crown because of their exploits in their Caribbean colonies, as well as extracts from writing by Robert Louis Stevenson, J. Meade Falkner, Lord Byron, John Keats, Rebecca Simon and David Graeber. 

Producer: Juan Carlos Jaramillo

Texts
The Corsair (excerpt), by Lord Byron 
The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast, by Michael Scott Moore
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Henry Martin, traditional popular ballad
Pirates of the Caribbean, by Emily Grosholz
Robin Hood. To a friend (excerpt), by John Keats
Poem by Bonnie Elizabeth Parker
Poem by Clyde Chestnut Barrow
Pirate Queens, by Rebecca Alexandra Simon
Danger On The Barbary, by James Casey 
Moonfleet, by J. Meade Falkner
Pirate Story, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Pirate Enlightenment, by David Graeber
Upon Sir Francis Drake's Return from His Voyage about the World, and the Queen's Meeting Him - Anonymous
Text by Luis Antonio de Oviedo y Herrera
Sir Walter Raleigh's letter to King James, at his return from Guiana

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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