Open Country

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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

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Open Country: Music of the Gloucestershire landscape

Music of the Gloucestershire landscape

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Music of the Gloucestershire landscape

Rose Ferraby finds out how the Gloucestershire landscape has inspired classical composers.

The countryside of Gloucestershire has proved inspirational for many composers. In this programme Rose Ferraby finds out about the links between landscape and music in the county.

The rural landscapes of Gloucestershire have inspired many classical composers - including Herbert Howells, Gerald Finzi, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ivor Gurney, to name just a few. In this programme, Rose Ferraby finds out about the links between landscape and music and learns about the extraordinary cluster of composers who were associated with Gloucester Cathedral in the early part of the 20th century. She talks to academics and musicians about how a love of the Gloucestershire countryside influenced composers of the time and visits some of the beauty spots which inspired them - including Chosen Hill, believed to be the only hill to have a piano quartet dedicated to it. At Gloucester Cathedral, she hears the choristers sing the Gloucester Service, a setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis by Herbert Howells, and meets the cathedral's director of music - who was himself taught by Howells at the Royal College of Music.

Produced by Emma Campbell

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Music of the Gloucestershire landscape

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