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Everything Must Change

Poetry, prose, field recordings and music combine in a meditation on 'the way of time' and the experience of life as constant interconnected transformation.

This edition of Words and Music circles around a song by Bernard Ighner, Everything Must Change, heard in this programme in Nina Simone鈥檚 powerful 1978 interpretation. The ballad is a meditation on 鈥渢he way of time鈥� and the truth that life is itself constant transformation. We inhabit a world in flux, collapse and transition. But in this programme, we are invited to marvel at how all things are interconnected, to sit with the knowledge that, in Thomas Hardy鈥檚 words, the elements that make up a 鈥渞uddy human life鈥� become the green shoots of a young tree, that bones become coral and eyes, pearls, in the famous imagery of Ariel鈥檚 song from The Tempest. The readers are Emily Taaffe and William Ash.

D.H. Lawrence and Marcus Aurelius suggest that to embrace change is to experience life more fully and more naturally. We hear Aretha Franklin and Philip Ayres desperately promise a constant love, immortal, beyond time. We sit by a river with the poet, Wis艂awa Szymborska, and lie with lovers in the tall grass of high summer, savouring the present. The theme-and-variation form is heard in the hands of Rubbra and Schubert. We gaze at the clouds, through the music of John Luther Adams, and turn our awareness inwards to the flow of thoughts 鈥渢hat flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out鈥�, in the words of Alice Dunbar-Nelson. As Alice in Wonderland knew all too well, the cells of the body are itching and dancing with life and transformation if we care to notice.

Our readers are William Ash and Emily Taaffe.
Featuring the voice of Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso, recorded in New Mexico.

Produced by Phil Smith.

A Reduced Listening production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 3.

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Tue 4 Jan 2022 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

  • D.H. Lawrence

    The Difference, read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:01

    Edmund Rubbra

    Variations On A Phrygian Theme For Solo Violin, Op. 105

    Performer: Krysia Osostowicz.
    • Dutton.
    • CDLX 7101.
    • 11.

  • Thomas Hardy

    Transformations, read by William Ash

  • 00:05

    Judith Weir

    Variations On Summer Is Icumen In

    Orchestra: 蜜芽传媒 Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Jac van Steen.
    • NMC.
    • NMCD062.
    • 17.

  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

    The House of Life: 19. Silent Noon, read by William Ash

  • 00:09

    Colin Stetson

    All the Days I've Missed You (ILAIJ I)

    Performer: Colin Stetson.
    • Constellation.
    • CST075-1.
    • 4.

  • James Joyce

    Dubliners: Eveline, read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:11

    Bernard Ighner

    Everything Must Change

    Performer: Nina Simone.
    • CTI Records.
    • 6489 036.
    • 2.

  • Raymond Carver

    Hummingbird (for Tess), Read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:16

    Jonathan Harvey

    Bhakti: I

    Performer: Spectrum. Performer: Guy Protheroe.
    • NMC.
    • NMC D001.
    • 1.

  • From an interview with Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso

  • D.H. Lawrence

    The Breath of Life, read by Emily Taaffe

  • Marcus Aurelius, trans. Gregory Hays

    Meditations: Book 2, No. 17, read by William Ash

  • From an interview with Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso

  • D.H. Lawrence

    The Breath of Life (Draft 1), read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:21

    Bedrich Smetana

    Ma Vlast: Vltava (Die Moldau)

    Conductor: Ji艡铆 B臎lohl谩vek. Orchestra: Czech Philharmonic.
    • Decca.
    • 458 180-2.
    • 2.

  • Marcus Aurelius, trans. Gregory Hays

    Meditations: Book 5, No. 23, read by William Ash

  • Wis艂awa Szymborska, trans. Joanna Trzeciak

    No Title Required, read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:29

    Franz Schubert

    Piano Quintet in A, D.667, "The Trout": IV.

    Performer: Alfred Brendel. Ensemble: Members Of The Cleveland Quartet. Performer: Paul Katz. Performer: James VanDemark. Performer: Martha Strongin Katz. Performer: Donald Weilerstein.
    • Philips.
    • 4460012.
    • 4.

  • Lewis Carroll

    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, read by William Ash

  • 00:36

    Franz Schubert

    Piano Quintet in A, D.667, "The Trout": IV.

    Performer: Alfred Brendel. Performer: James VanDemark. Performer: Paul Katz. Performer: Paul Katz. Performer: Donald Weilerstein. Performer: Members Of The Cleveland Quartet.
    • Philips.
    • 4460012.

  • Alice Ruth Moore

    Impressions, read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:39

    Arnold Schoenberg

    Arnold Schoenberg

    Performer: Eduard Steuermann.
    • Columbia.
    • ML 5216.
    • 10.
  • 00:41

    Johann Hasler

    Siete piezas en el espi虂ritu del zen, III

    Performer: Johann Hasler.

  • Jo Shapcott

    Of Mutability, read by Emily Taaffe

  • John Luther Adams

    Canticles of the Sky - III. Sky with Nameless Colors

    Performer: JACK Quartet.
    • Cold Blue Music.
    • CB0041.
    • 6.

  • From an interview with Navajo poet Luci Tapahonso

  • Thich Nhat Hanh

    Answers From The Heart, read by William Ash

  • Jean Sibelius

    Sonatine No. 2 for Piano in E Major, Op. 67 - II. Andantino

    Performer: Glenn Gould.
    • Sony Classical.
    • SK 66531.
    • 14.

  • Joy Harjo

    Remember, read by Emily Taaffe

  • 00:51

    Claudio Monteverdi

    Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti, SV 251

    Ensemble: L鈥橝rpeggiata. Director: Christina Pluhar.
    • Virgin.
    • 2361402.
    • 16.

  • Philip Ayres

    Constancy, read by William Ash

  • 00:59

    Don Robey

    Pledging My Love - The Clock

    Performer: Aretha Franklin. Composer: Ferdinand Washington. Composer: David James Mattis.
    • Atlantic.
    • ATL NP 03127.
    • 2.
  • 01:03

    Myriad3

    Exhausted Clocks

    Performer: Myriad3.
    • Alma.
    • ACD52062.
    • 11.

  • Aesop鈥檚 Fables, trans. George Fyler Townsend

    The Olive Tree And The Fig Tree, read by Emily Taaffe

  • Aesop鈥檚 Fables, trans. George Fyler Townsend

    The Dog鈥檚 House, read by Emily Taaffe

  • Aesop鈥檚 Fables, trans. George Fyler Townsend

    The Rivers And The Sea, read by Emily Taaffe

  • 01:08

    Ralph Vaughan Williams

    Three Shakespeare Songs: Full Fathom Five

    Choir: Choir of King鈥檚 College, Cambridge. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.
    • Decca.
    • 430 093-2.
    • 6.

  • Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows

    Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29, read by William Ash

Broadcasts

  • Sun 24 Feb 2019 17:30
    蜜芽传媒 Radio 3
  • Tue 4 Jan 2022 18:15
    蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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