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The Ear's Delight

Tamsin Greig and Alex Jennings read texts on the power of music, from Shakespeare to PG Wodehouse, St Augustine to Proust, and Baudelaire to Nick Hornby, including music spanning ten centuries, from Hildegard of Bingen to Beethoven and beyond.

David Papp (producer).

1 hour, 15 minutes

Last on

Sat 26 Sep 2015 16:00
蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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  • Exploring what makes music a vital part of being human.

Music Played

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

  • 00:00

    Claude Debussy

    Pr茅lude 脿 l聮apr猫s-midi d聮un faune (excerpt)

    Performer: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Claudio Abbado (conductor).
    • Deutsche Grammophon 4713322.
    • Tr1.

  • Walter De la Mare

    Music read by Tamsin Greig

  • Charles Baudelaire (Trans: William Aggeler)

    La musique read by Alex Jennings

  • EM Forster

    Howard聮s End read by Tamsin Greig

  • 00:05

    Ludwig van Beethoven

    Symphony No.5 in C minor (movements III & IV)

    Performer: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Carlos Kleiber (conductor).
    • DG 447 400 2.
    • Tr3 & 4.

  • PG Wodehouse

    The Mating Season read by Alex Jennings

  • 00:12

    Edward Elgar

    Salut d聮amour

    Performer: Justine Zhang (violin) & Alan Chan (piano).
    • Private recording (with kind permission of Justine Zhang and Alan Chan).
    • Tr0.
  • 00:15

    Art Garfunkel

    Bright Eyes

    Performer: Art Garfunkel.
    • CBS 4663332.
    • Tr3.

  • Nick Hornby

    High Fidelity read by Alex Jennings and Tamsin Greig

  • 00:20

    Solomon Burke

    Got To Get You Off My Mind

    • Rhino/Atlantic R2 70284 CD 1.
    • Tr14.
  • 00:21

    Hildegard von Bingen

    Ave generosa

    Performer: Margaret Philpot (voice).
    • Hyperion CDA66039.
    • Tr5.

  • St Augustine

    The Confessions (ed James McKinnon) read by Alex Jennings

  • Hildegard of Bingen

    Ave generosa read by Tamsin Greig

  • Bible

    1 Samuel Chapter 16, vs 14 聳 23 read by Tamsin Greig

  • 00:26

    Giulio Caccini

    Amarilla mia bella

    Performer: Andrew Lawrence-King (harp).
    • Hyperion CDA6629..
    • Tr13.
  • 00:27

    Johann Sebastian Bach

    Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV 1060

    Performer: Andrew Manze & Rachel Podger (violins), Academy of Ancient Music.
    • Harmonia Mundi HMX2907155.
    • Tr8.

  • Robert Herrick

    To Music, to becalm his fever read by Alex Jennings

  • 00:33

    Oliver Sacks

    Musicophilia, Ch. 5 Brainworms, Sticky Music and Catchy Tunes read by Alex Jennings

  • 00:34

    Jimmy Van Heusen

    Love and Marriage

    Performer: Frank Sinatra, Orchestra conducted by Nelson Riddle.
    • EMI 723483595228.
    • Tr10.
  • 00:01

    Henry Cowell

    The Banshee

    Performer: Henry Cowell (piano).
    • Smithsonian Folkways SFWCD40801.
    • Tr9.

  • Emily Dickinson

    The fascinating chill that music leaves read by Tamsin Greig

  • Peter Schaffer

    Amadeus read by Alex Jennings

  • 00:37

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Adagio from Serenade for 13 wind instruments in B flat major (K.361),

    Performer: Bl盲serensemble Sabine Meyer.
    • EMI 509994575242.
    • Tr2.

  • Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

    Inherit the Truth read by Tamsin Greig

  • 00:44

    Ludwig van Beethoven

    Adagio cantabile from Piano Sonata in C minor, Op.13 聭笔补迟丑茅迟颈辩耻别聮

    Performer: Daniel Barenboim (piano).
    • EMI CDC 7473452.
    • Tr2.
  • 00:50

    Dmitry Shostakovich

    Symphony No. 8 in C minor (movements III & IV)

    Performer: Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink (conductor).
    • Decca 411 616-2.
    • Tr3 & 4.

  • Walt Whitman

    Beat! Beat! Drums! read by Alex Jennings

  • 00:54

    Evan and James James

    Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers)

    Performer: The Fron Male Voice Choir.
    • UCJ 4765720.
    • Tr4.

  • Siegfried Sassoon

    Everyone Sang read by Alex Jennings

  • 00:55

    Ralph Vaughan Williams

    The Lark Ascending

    Performer: Hilary Hahn (violin), London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis (conductor).
    • Deutsche Grammophon 430 2602.
    • Tr4.
  • 00:59

    Spencer Williams

    Basin Street Blues

    Performer: Louis Armstrong (trumpet and voice), Trummy Young (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Billy Kyle (piano), Arvell Shaw (bass), Kenny John (drums).
    • Jazz Unlimited JUCD 2004.
    • Tr10.

  • Melvin B Tolson

    Satchmo read by Tamsin Greig

  • Marcel Proust (trans C. K. Scott Moncrieff)

    Swann聮s Way read by Alex Jennings

  • 01:06

    C茅sar Franck

    Violin Sonata in A major

    Performer: Kaja Danczowska (violin) & Krystian Zimerman (piano).
    • Deutsche Grammophon 4775903.
    • Tr4.

  • William Shakespeare

    The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1 read by Alex Jennings and Tamsin Greig

  • 01:10

    George Frideric Handel

    Eternal source of light divine from Birthday ode for Queen Anne

    Performer: Elin Manahan Thomas (soprano), David Blackadder (trumpet) Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Harry Bicket (conductor).
    • Heliodor 4765970.
    • Tr1.

Producer's Notes - The Ear's Delight

鈥楾he language where all language ends鈥�: music鈥檚 unique power is the subject of this edition of Words and Music with Tamsin Greig and Alex Jennings.

For Walter de la Mare and Charles Baudelaire, music is affecting, transporting and transformative, qualities reflected in the surging, impassioned score of Debussy鈥檚 Pr茅lude 脿 l鈥檃pr猫s-midi d鈥檜n faune.

In EM Forster鈥檚 Howard鈥檚 End, a group of concert-goers attend a performance of Beethoven鈥檚 Fifth Symphony. Mrs Munt likes to tap surreptitiously; Margaret only sees the music; Tibby follows the score; the German-ness of what she hears is the thrill for Fr盲ulein Mosebach. But for Helen, 鈥榳ho can see shipwrecks and heroes in the music鈥檚 flood,鈥� it鈥檚 an overwhelming experience 鈥� especially the last movement.

Bertie Wooster would be letting us down if he succumbed to an overwhelming musical experience. PG Wodehouse鈥檚 The Mating Season sees the likeable dimwit summoned to the country by his Aunt Agatha (the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth) in order to 鈥榮tiffen up the programme鈥� of a village concert 鈥榳ith a bit of metropolitan talent鈥�. As Bertie waits his turn, he fails to be moved by a violin solo: 鈥業鈥檓 not really authority on violin solos,鈥� he cheerfully admits, 鈥業t was loud in spots and less loud in other spots and it had that quality which I have noticed in all violin solos, of seeming to last much longer than it actually did.鈥�

Rob Fleming defines himself 鈥� and everyone else 鈥� by music. In this extract from Nick Hornby鈥檚 nineties novel High Fidelity, Rob, 36 going on 15, gets the hump on a car journey because he disapproves of his girlfriend鈥檚 compilation tape (remember them?). Maybe 鈥榙isapproves鈥� is not quite the mot juste. Because for Rob, liking the wrong sort of music leads to 鈥榯he bitterest of all battles between men and women鈥︹�淗ow can you like Art Garfunkel AND Solomon Burke?鈥濃��

From the fourth century comes St Augustine鈥檚 celebrated autobiography, The Confessions, which helped establish the link between sensual pleasure and sin in western Christianity.听 In this passage Augustine grudgingly admits the power of sung prayer but warns that enjoying singing should be guarded against. 鈥楾he delights of the ear had enticed me and held me in their grip鈥� 鈥� not good. 听Abbess Hildegard of Bingen thought otherwise. The 鈥楽ybil of the Rhine鈥�, whose advice was sought by the eleventh century great and good, had extraordinary and varied talents, among them writing religious poetry set to music.听 Ave generosa is an ardent entreaty to sing the praises of the Virgin which fairly throbs with an eroticism matched by the ecstatic vocal line of the music. Towards the end of her life, as punishment for burying an excommunicated person in her convent鈥檚 consecrated ground, the authorities hit Hildegard where it hurt and deprived her and her nuns of the consolation of the sung Office.

When an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him, King Saul found that music therapy did the trick, as supplied by David and his harp; and Robert Herrick likewise invokes music 鈥� to becalm his fever鈥�. Music messes with the mind of Oliver Sacks鈥檚 friend when an intractable earworm stays with him for ten days. Even recounting the story to Sacks years later is enough to make 鈥楲ove and Marriage鈥� (as sung by Frank Sinatra) return for several hours. Emily Dickinson鈥檚 unsettled mind seems reflected in The fascinating chill that music leaves and Henry Cowell鈥檚 spooky piano piece, The Banshee.

A striking 听scene in Peter Schaffer鈥檚 Amadeus comes when Salieri remembers hearing the Adagio from Mozart鈥檚 Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments which begins 鈥榣ike a rusty squeezebox鈥� but within a few bars sounds like 鈥榯he voice of God.鈥�

Music literally saved the remarkable Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, an Auschwitz prisoner who happened to be a cellist and became part of the Lagerkapelle, or camp orchestra. Its role was to play marches as the prisoners went in and out of the camp at the beginning and end of each day, and she witnessed unimaginable cruelty and atrocities. One evening, playing a string quartet arrangement of Beethoven鈥檚 笔补迟丑茅迟颈辩耻别 Sonata, the players 鈥榳ere able to raise ourselves high above the inferno of Auschwitz into spheres where we could not be touched by the degradation of camp existence.鈥�

Music born of World War II, Shostakovich鈥檚 Eighth Symphony, is the foil for Walt Whitman鈥檚 鈥楤eat! Beat! Drums!鈥� with its relentless beating drums and blowing bugles, symbolic music of the implacable, indiscriminate destruction of war. Siegfried Sassoon鈥檚 Everyone Sang, written just after the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, describes a spontaneous outburst of song among the soldiers. Sassoon鈥檚 regiment was the Royal Welch Fusiliers and I鈥檝e imagined his men, at once relieved, war-weary and homesick, singing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers). At the lines 鈥極, but Everyone / Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done鈥� the music segues to Vaughan Williams鈥檚 The Lark Ascending.

The power of an individual鈥檚 music-making is celebrated in Melvin B Tolson鈥檚 Satchmo where even the Archangel Gabriel, having blown his horn on Judgement Day, accepts he鈥檚 been bested by Louis Armstrong:听听 鈥淚鈥檇 be the greatest trumpeter in the Universe / if old Satchmo had never been born!鈥�

Never mind the madeleine and cup of tea in Proust鈥檚 great novel on the nature of memory, Remembrance of Things Past. It鈥檚 a piece of music 鈥� a violin sonata by 鈥榁inteuil鈥� 鈥� that really does it for Charles Swann, causing profound personal revelation in a way that puts his teatime vittles to shame. And to go with this extract is one the most plausible suggestions for the actual music Proust may have had in mind: C茅sar Franck鈥檚 Violin Sonata.

Shakespeare to end: his famous passage on the power of music from The Merchant of Venice where Lorenzo tells Jessica how 鈥楾he man that hath no music in himself, / Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, / Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; / The motions of his spirit are dull as night / And his affections dark as Erebus: / Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.鈥� (You鈥檒l never think of Bertie Wooster in the same way again.) Making the point for Lorenzo is Handel鈥檚 鈥楨ternal source of light divine鈥�. I hope it works for you!

听

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  • Sat 26 Sep 2015 16:00
    蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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