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: The Party

The Party

BBC Radio 3 - Words and Music, The Party

From the Great Gatsby, Mrs Beeton to Jeeves takes Charge, Romeo and Juliet to Harlem Samba

A party-time playlist of music by Bix Beiderbecke, Johann Strauss, Noel Coward, Anna Clyne and Handel and readings from Virginia Woolf, Sam Selvon, Kingsley Amis and WM Thackeray.

Invitation to the dance by Weber and Rosamond Lehmann's novel Invitation to the Waltz help us set the scene for our programme inspired by parties.  Virginia Woolf's heroine Clarissa Dalloway prepares for her guests, the West Side story cast "feel pretty" as they prepare for a night on the town, Hilaire Belloc writes about a garden party and Handel composes Music for the Royal Fireworks. But parties can also produce hangovers and displeasure: Becky Sharp humiliates poor little Amelia, Lesley Gore cries at hers,  and Jeeves prepares a tonic to counteract too much drink, before Willie Nelson tells us "the party is over."  We also hear Don Warrington reading from Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, John Betjeman’s Indoor Games Near Newbury and Noel Coward. For Glastonbury weekend, where there will be plenty of partying (and where Georgia Mann is doing a classical DJ set) - Words and Music brings us a party playlist of readings and music.  

Readers: Dominic West and Holliday Grainger.
Producer: Jessica Treen

READINGS:
William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
Rosamond Lehmann: Invitation to the Waltz
Charles Perrault: Cinderella
Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
John Williams: Stoner 
Lavinia Greenlaw: The Importance of Music to Girls 
The Garden Party: Hilaire Belloc
WM Thackery: Vanity Fair 
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby 
Huma Qureshi:  Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love
Ian Hamilton Finlay: The Dancers Inherit the Party 
Pamela Des Barres: I’m with the Band 
Isabella Beeton: Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management 
Sam Selvon: The Lonely Londoners - Read by Don Warrington
Dorothy Parker: Parties: A Hymn of Hate  
Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim   
PG Wodehouse: Jeeves Takes Charge 
Claire Pollard: Thirtieth (from Changeling)
Evelyn Waugh: Vile Bodies

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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Words and Music

The Party

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