Episodes
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A feature exploring the grid as the great hidden idea behind modernism, art, music and urban design.
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Writer and producer Mary Colwell explores the relationship between nature and creativity, and asks, as nature disappears, are we compromising our ability to express ourselves in art, music and literature? Since the 1970s the world has lost half of the mass of wildlife on earth, so is this affecting human creativity?
The opening to Beethoven’s ground-breaking, 5th piano concerto starts with a piano imitation of the call of an Ortolan bunting. It is tiny, weighing just a few grams, but its song is powerful. Nature was a vital source of inspiration to him.
From the earliest times humanity has always woven nature into the very fabric of our cultural, spiritual and scientific lives. Nature has acted both as a source for inspiration, but also as a metaphor, allowing us to be more creative and expanding our understanding of ourselves.
The mysterious cave paintings, from as early as 30,000 years ago hint at a religious association with animals, where the veil between the real and spiritual was thin and insubstantial. For the ancient Greeks birds are especially commonly depicted in frescoes. plays, idioms similes and plays. Welsh storyteller, Dafydd Davies Hughes, describes how ancient tales, predating the Romans, used animals to tell us about morality and to instil social norms.
But does the lessening of nature in our lives mean we are becoming less creative? Simon Colton, Professor of computational Creativity at Falmouth University believes we are just as creative as ever, and new technology is allowing us even greater expression. Prof Vincent Walsh believes we are in an extraordinarily rich, creative age; “you could argue that as we have become more urban, our creativity has expanded.”
The Nature of Creativity is a rich and thought-provoking programme that presents new and challenging ideas about our relationship with the natural world. It is a Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 3. -
Missing episodes?
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Actors Jim Broadbent, Toby Jones and Sylvester McCoy join David Bramwell to celebrate Ken
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Samira Ahmed explores how Victorian art critic John Ruskin promoted women's liberation through a radical model for girls' education set out in his essay Of Queens' Gardens.
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Writer Ken Hollings reassesses the life and work of 1960s public intellectual and mass media guru Marshall McLuhan, examining his relevance in today's digital world.
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Allan Little looks at arts festivals started in the aftermath of World War Two
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Catherine Fletcher explores Monterverdi's pioneering use of female roles and performers
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Adam Smith traces the birth and afterlife of Hemingway's explosive short story.
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To mark Tony Harrison's 80th birthday, Paul Farley profiles the unique poet. (R)
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Jon Gower uncovers the work of the pioneering naturalist RM Lockley, whose work inspired Watership Down, paying tribute to the stunning coastline and island where Lockley worked.
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Liliane Lijn explores the work of postwar French artist Yves Klein, famous for patenting ultramarine blue and jumping from a window in the suburbs of Paris. Leap into the Void!
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Chris Bowlby travels with Tony Harrison to Prague, to discover how one of Britain's best known poets was shaped by the cultural energy and tragedy of 1960s Czechoslovakia. Harrison reads from his Prague poems in the locations where they were written. And he relives with Czech friends stories of cafes and cartoons, sex and surveillance and the hope and despair of a people fighting Soviet tanks and secret police with words, plays and tragic self-sacrifice.
Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Penny Murphy -
Emma Smith on how coverage of gender in the arts might help us understand today's debate
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Might explorations of gender in great art of the past help illuminate today's issues?
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Once upon a time, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough woke up in the summer forest.
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David Attenborough reveals a side of himself that nobody knows, as a collector of music from all over the world. We hear the stories that surround it, and the music itself.
One of David Attenborough's first projects was 'Alan Lomax - Song Hunter', a television series he produced in 1953-4. The famous collector of the blues and folk music of America gathered traditional musicians from all over Britain and Ireland and, for the first time, they appeared on television. David loved the music, the people and, inspired by Lomax, he became music collector himself.
From the start there was a connection between wildlife and folk culture broadcasting: BBC natural history staff shared an office, and equipment, with colleagues busy recording traditional songs, tunes and stories. Soon after 'Song Hunter' Attenborough began travelling the world for the series 'Zoo Quest'. This time the hunt was for animals, captured live for London Zoo. The series also looked at the culture of local people and if he came across music Attenborough recorded it. In Paraguay he met some amazing harp players and recorded what became the series' signature tune. This started a craze. Remember Los Trios Paraguayos?
Wherever he went to make programmes David Attenborough recorded musicians. When the lads carrying the crew's baggage in New Guinea started singing, he taped them. He recorded songs in Borneo longhouses, drumming in Sierra Leone, gamelan music in Java, Aboriginal didgeridoo players and palace music in Tonga.
Attenborough gave the music to the BBC and it has sat, unheard, in the Sound Library ever since. Now he listens again to recordings he made half a century ago. He reveals the memories and stories they evoke, and his delight in the music.
Producer: Julian May -
Rana Mitter visits Tokyo to explore how Japan remembers World War Two today through film.
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Exploring different aspects of history, science, philosophy and the arts.
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Rana Mitter visits Tokyo to explore how Japan remembers World War Two through movies.
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Rana Mitter visits Tokyo to explore how Japan remembers World War Two today through film.
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