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Twilight

Paul McGann and Hermione Norris are the readers in a sequence of poetry, prose and music on the subject of twilight, including texts by Dickens, Hardy and Shakespeare and music by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss.

1 hour, 15 minutes

Last on

Sun 18 Aug 2013 18:15
蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:00

    Richard Strauss

    Four Last Songs, No.3: Beim Schlafengehen (Going to Sleep)

    Performer: Herbert von Karajan. Performer: Gundula Janowitz. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker.
    • DG 423 888-2.
    • Tr7.

  • James Joyce

    The Dubliners. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:07

    Terje Isungset

    Contemplation

    Performer: Terje Isungset (Ice Concerts).
    • ICE MUSIC ALL ICE 0804.
    • Tr3.

  • James Joyce

    The Twilight Turns from Amethyst. Read by Hermione Norris

  • 00:08

    Thelonious Monk

    Crepuscule with Nellie

    Performer: Thelonious Monk Quartet.
    • COLUMBIA 472991 2.
    • Tr8.

  • John Clare

    Twilight Read by Hermione Norris

  • 00:12

    Iro Haarla

    Winter Twilight

    Performer: Pro Haarla, Pepa Paivinen.
    • NOVEMEBER NVR 2017-2.
    • Tr7.

  • George MacDonald

    Phantastes 聳 A Faerie Romance for Men and Women. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:14

    Felix Mendelssohn

    Midsummer Night's Dream, Scherzo

    Orchestra: German Symphony Orchestra Berlin. Conductor: Vladimir Ashkenazy.
    • DECCA 440 296 2.
    • Tr2.

  • William Shakespeare

    Sonnet 73. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:20

    Claude Debussy, arranged Heifetz

    Beau Soir

    Performer: Janine Jansen. Performer: Itamar Golan.
    • DECCA 478 2256.
    • Tr4.

  • Cormac McCarthy

    Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West. Read by Hermione Norris

  • Walt Whitman

    Twilight Song. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:24

    John Adams

    The Wound Dresser

    Performer: Orchestra of St. Luke鈥檚. Conductor: John Adams.
    • ELEKTRA NONESUCH 979218 2.
    • Tr2.

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald

    The Great Gatsby. Read by Hermione Norris

  • 00:31

    James P. Johnson

    Charleston

    Composer: Cecil Mack. Performer: Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra.
    • ASV CDAJA5170.
    • Tr3.

  • Charles Dickens

    Bleak House. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:36

    Raymond Scott

    Twilight in Turkey

    Performer: Raymond Scott (Manhattan Research Inc.).
    • BASTA 3090782 CD1.
    • Tr22.
  • 00:37

    Toru Takemitsu

    Twill by Twilight

    Orchestra: Yomiuti Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Tadaaki Otaka.
    • ASV CDDCA 1021.
    • Tr2.

  • Carl Sandburg

    Dreams in the dusk. Read by Hermione Norris

  • Giuseppe Tomas di Lampedusa, trans. Archibald Colquhoun

    The Leopard. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:41

    Giuseppe Verdi

    Quattro Pezzi Sacri, No.1: Ave Maria

    Performer: Los Angeles Master Chorale. Conductor: Roger Wagner.
    • DECCA 421 608-2 CD2.
    • Tr8.

  • WB Yeats

    Into the Twilight. Read by Hermione Norris

  • 00:47

    Christian Wallumr酶d

    A Year from Easter

    Performer: Christian Wallumr酶d Ensemble.
    • ECM 982 4132.
    • Tr9.

  • Charlotte Bronte

    Jane Eyre. Read by Hermione Norris

  • 00:53

    Franz Schubert

    Irlicht from Winterreise

    Performer: Dietrich Fischer鈥怐ieskau. Performer: Alfred Brendel.
    • PHILIPS411 563 2.
    • Tr9.
  • 00:55

    Edward Williams

    Comb Jellies 聳 Hydromedusae 聳 "Birth" of a Medusa 聳 Gymnopedie for Jellyfish

    Performer: Edward Williams.
    • TRUNK RECORDS JBH034CD.
    • Tr3.

  • John Clare

    Prose on Will with a Whisp. Read by Paul McGann

  • 00:57

    Franz Liszt

    Transcendental Studies, No.5: Feux follets

    Performer: Alice Sara Ott.
    • DG 477 9181.
    • Tr5.

  • DH Lawrence

    Twilight. Read by Hermione Norris

  • 01:02

    Richard Strauss

    Four Last Songs, No.2: September

    Performer: Gundula Janowitz. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker. Conductor: Herbert von Karajan.
    • DG 423 888-2.
    • Tr6.

  • Thomas Hardy

    The Darkling Thrush . Read by Hermione Norris

  • William Wordsworth

    Hail, Twilight. Read by Paul McGann

  • 01:09

    Radiohead

    Sail to the Moon

    Performer: Radiohead. Performer: Radiohead.
    • PARLOPHONE 584 543 2.
    • Tr3.

Producer's Note

This episode explores the shadowy and uncertain world of twilight in literature, with music that reflects this theme and the mood of the selected texts.听 These are prose descriptions of the natural phenomenon and poems in which twilight is subject or metaphor.听

听

The first two texts are by James Joyce: a young boy鈥檚 experience of winter dusk in the backstreets of early twentieth century Dublin from the story Araby, followed by the lyrical verse of Chamber Music, and The Twilight Turns from Amethyst.听 Accompanying these texts is ice music by the Norwegian instrument builder Terje Isungset and Thelonious Monk鈥檚 Crepuscule with Nellie.

听

The sensory experience of woodland at dusk provides the backdrop for John Clare鈥檚 poem and the passage that follows from George MacDonald鈥檚 鈥楩aerie Romance鈥� Phantastes, in which the sounds convey a 鈥渃ondensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing鈥�; with this we hear fragments of Iro Haarla鈥檚 Winter Twilight for harp and alto flute and the spritely scherzo from Mendelssohn鈥檚 Midsummer Night鈥檚 Dream.

听

The Whitman and McCarthy texts are both twilight reflections on the unknown soldier in nineteenth century America 鈥� inspired by the sparse landscape of the Mexican borderlands in Blood Meridian, and in Twilight Song by those who lost their lives in the American Civil War.听 Whitman鈥檚 poem is followed by the concluding passage of John Adams鈥� setting of another Whitman poem, The Wound-Dresser, which drew on the author鈥檚 experience as a wartime nurse.

听

New York鈥檚 Long Island in the 1920s: Paul Whiteman鈥檚 recording of The Charleston is the soundtrack to a decadant beachside party getting underway in F.Scott Fitzgerald鈥檚 Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby.听 Meanwhile the dying light plays tricks on the eye in Dickens鈥� Bleak House as the Dedlock ancestral portraits come to life, a hallucinatory scene echoed in mood by the quirky electronium of Raymond Scott.

听

The second piece of John Clare is prose, recounting a sighting by the author of a will-o鈥�-the-wisp, that mysterious, ghostly light that leads travelers astray on marshland at night.听 The ignis fatuus has inspired several works in this sequence, including Schubert鈥檚 song Irrlicht from Winterreise, Charlotte Bronte鈥檚 novel Jane Eyre and Liszt鈥檚 Feux follets from the Transcendental Etudes.听 Lurking beneath the Clare is an unlikely but somehow fitting companion: Edward Williams鈥� music for a television programme about jellyfish from the 蜜芽传媒鈥檚 natural history series Life on Earth.

听

The twilight of an era is the subject of Giuseppe di Lampedusa鈥檚 The Leopard set in Sicily during the Risorgimento.听 In this scene the parish priest, a pair of landowners and an old herbalist are among the glum gathering at dusk of local figures awaiting the latest news of Garibaldi鈥檚 advancing forces. That novel starts with a description of a pungent and putrid garden in which the story鈥檚 prince protagonist contemplates his mortality; a link to Strauss鈥檚 setting of Herman Hesse, which like Shakespeare鈥檚 Sonnet No.73 earlier on in the sequence, compares old age to seasonal decay, as 鈥淪ummer smiles, astonished and feeble, at his dying dream of a garden.鈥�

听

Producer: Felix Carey

Hermione Norris

Hermione Norris

Paul McGann

Paul McGann

Broadcast

  • Sun 18 Aug 2013 18:15
    蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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