Ian McEwan and the BBC Symphony Orchestra

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An Evening of Music and Other Lessons

Music: Classical

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

BBC Radio 4 - An Evening of Music and Other Lessons

A special concert of words and music hosted by renowned author Ian McEwan.

A special concert of words and music hosted by renowned author Ian McEwan, who reads his own work alongside carefully curated music from the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

In the latest of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s collaborations with great writers, Ian McEwan hosts a concert of words and music.

Ian McEwan opens the concert: "Much attention has been paid to the fascinatingly ambiguous nature of language. A sentence, a line of poetry can be read in all kinds of ways. But multiplicity of meaning is far outweighed by the precision of language.... Language names and describes the world and our mental states, whereas music is richly abstract - but not quite. Philip Larkin's celebrated poem about spring and renewal begins, 'The trees are coming into leaf / Like something almost being said.' That second line could equally describe the condition of music. Something almost being said.... My hope is that by letting imagined worlds and the near abstract patterns of music speak to each other or merge, we can find freedom and pleasure in a third imaginative space, where something new is not almost but actually said."

McEwan is one of the most admired storytellers of our time – an author whose novels lay bare the passions and the contradictions of modern Britain, exploring universal truths about relationships, society and the infinite complexity of the human condition. 

In this very special event, the celebrated author joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra to read from his own works, with music curated around his readings, and a special guest appearance by jazz singer Emma Smith.

Extracts from the novels: 
Solar, Lessons, Enduring Love and The Child In Time by Ian McEwan

Music: 
Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Monk: Round Midnight (arr Nathan)
Pärt: Cantus In Memory of Benjamin Britten
Beethoven: Symphony No 1 (4th Movement) 

This is an edited version of the concert recorded on Friday 31 March at the Barbican Centre in London. The full concert, with additional words and music can be heard on BBC Radio 3 on 14th May at 7.30pm

Reader: Ian McEwan
Vocalist: Emma Smith
Editorial consultant: Paul Hughes
Producer: Steve Doherty

A BBC Symphony Orchestra / Giddy Goat co-production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3

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