Words and Music

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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

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: The Curse of Narcissus

The Curse of Narcissus

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, The Curse of Narcissus

From Ancient Greek vanities, via Dorian Gray & Jay Gatsby to Janet Fitch's White Oleander

Nancy Carroll & Matthew Gent read on the subject of vanity, with excerpts from "Snow White", "Gone with the Wind" and "Persuasion" alongside music by Britten, Lully & Carly Simon.

Vanity and self examination inspired this week's selection of readings from literature that mirror the Ancient Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell hopelessly in love with his own reflection.  

There's Snow White's wicked step-mother and her magic mirror, Dorian Gray's painting in the attic, and excerpts from "The Great Gatsby", "Gone with the Wind", "Persuasion" and Janet Fitch's 1999 exploration of narcissism - "White Oleander", alongside poems by Shakespeare, Linda Pastan, Philip Freneau, Thomas Hardy and Sylvia Plath. 

Featured music includes Mozart's "Don Giovanni", Lully's "Bourgeois Gentilhomme", and evocations of Narcissus by Mel Bonis, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Karol Szymanowski, James Oswald & Eleanor Alberga, as well as explorations of vanity from Carly Simon and Right Said Fred. 

Readers: Nancy Carroll and Matthew Gent

Producer in Salford: Les Pratt


Readings:
Echo & Narcissus [Tales from Ovid] by Ted Hughes
Narcissus by Guy Whetmore Carryl
Narcissus at 60 by Linda Pastan
Among the Narcissi by Sylvia Plath
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Sonnet No.62 by William Shakespeare
On Earth we're briefly gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Snow White by The Brothers Grimm
In Church by Thomas Hardy
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The Vanity of Existence by Philip Freneau

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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