Hopkins' Religious Poetry

Presented by Paul Guinery and, from 9.05am,
Anthony Burton. First, Paul Guinery introduces two hours of new releases.
Boccherinl
Duo in B flat (G 59) Igor Ozim and Primoz Novsak (violins)
7.13 C P E Bach
Concerto in G (Wq 169) Jennifer Stinton (flute) Orchestra of St John 's, conductor John Lubbock
7.38 Napoléon Coste
Grande Serenade Op 30 Raphaella Smits (guitar)
7.53 Richard Strauss
Symphony in F minor Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Neeme Jarvi
8.34 Prokofiev
Sonata No 7 in B flat
Alexei Sultanov (piano)
9.00 News
9.05 Building a Library
Haydn's The Seasons by Richard Wigmore.
Michael Oliver reviews new releases of contemporary music, including important recordings of modern British composers and Schnittke's opera Life with an Idiot.
10.35 Record Release
Simon Holt
... era madrugada
Nash Ensemble, conductor
Lionel Friend
10.48 Birtwlstle
The Triumph of Time
Philharmonia/Elgar Howarth
11.19 Hot on the heels of Teldec's Das alte Werk comes the reissue of another pioneering early music series, Vanguard's Bach Guild, with Leonhardt's early Art of Fugue and Goldberg
Variations and Alfred Deller singing Purcell.
Roderick Swanston reviews the first releases and ends with a personal favourite.
Producers Nick Morgan and Clive Portbuiy. Discs

The third of five lunchtime programmes of concertos, sonatas and songs by Handel and his contemporaries. Discs

If play is Interrupted,
Radio 3 will revert to a music schedule.
England r Australia
. Ball-by-ball commentary on the third day's play after lunch in the Second Cornhill
Test at Lord's by Brian Johnston , Jonathan Agnew , Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Neville Oliver. With expert comment from Fred Trueman and Vic Marks.
Scorer Bill Frindall.
(Morning coverage on Radio 5)
3.45-4.00 Your Letters
Answered
The commentators answer some of the points raised by listeners.

A selection of music on disc.

Michael Billington reviews highlights of the London International Festival of Theatre - including a Punjabi adaptation of Garcia Lorca 's Vermaand the Beijing Opera Troupe's The Little Phoenix - in an issue which considers the pros and cons of cultural borrowing on the international stage. Producer Noah Richler

— Verdi's spectacular
Venetian opera, pertormed by an all-star cast, from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Sung in Italian.
This production continues the Royal Opera House's planned staging of all
Verdi's early operas. It is hard not to believe that this piece, written for Venice, was not composed deliberately as a crowd pleaser. The plot actually takes in the birth of Venice
- perfect for the patriotic city - and it is packed with spectacular stage pictures and brilliant arias, particularly for Odabella, the fiery heroine. The plot is basically the story of a great man brought low by love. Attila the Hun (who is not a barbaric savage here,but a great man of honour) sees Odabella among his prisoners, is infatuated by her, and ultimately murdered by her. She kills him to avenge the deaths of her father and brother and to free her homeland: she never allows herself to feel anything but hatred for him. There are plenty of political overtones here which must have seemed very contemporary to the Italy of the Risorgimento. Odabella and Attila are the focus of the plot because, interestingly, Foresto, her lover and the founder of Venice, is actually among the weaker characters, unable to act decisively and forcing
Odabella to take matters into her own hands.
Elizabeth Connnell , who sings the virtuoso coloratura role of Odabella, and Samuel Ramey , who has the equally demanding title role, have both performed the piece in Venice itself. Dennis O'Neill sings Foresto, Odabella's lover, and Giorgio Zancanaro the treacherous
Roman Ezio. The conductor is the Verdi specialist Sir Edward Downes.
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, conductor Edward Downes.
Actl
9.05 Hordes
An impression in sound and fury of Attila the Hun, his allies and enemies, with Jonathan Tafler , Peter Penry Jones and Melinda Walker.
9.35 Act 2
(In association with the Friends of Covent Garden)

"A few weeks after my father died, my stepfather became a widower ... My mother wanted to go to the Chinese New Year Lion Dance in Soho and she didn't want to go alone."
Susannah Clapp reflects on the experience of having known two fathers, each different, each with a separate history.

This concert recorded at the Royal Festival Hall last year was part of the first tour for many years featuring both trumpeter Randy Brecker and his saxophonist brother
Michael. Also in the band are Mike Stern (guitar), James Genus (bass),
George Whitty (keyboards) and Dennis Chambers
(drums). The recording is introduced by Ian Carr , who talks to Michael Brecker during the interval. Producer Derek Drescher

* Approximate time