Episodes
-
John Cage is arguably the most important composer of the 20th century, even though he's perhaps famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, for writing a piece of music that is 4'33" of silence.
Famous because it made his reputation - after all composers write music not silence – and infamous because not unsurprisingly, it's outraged, perplexed and fascinated audiences since its premiere in 1952.
Cage though was deadly serious about his silent piece, and Robert Worby goes on an odyssey to find out what Cage thought silence was, and why silence was central to his life and work.
Robert goes to the quietest place in the UK - so quiet you can't hear a pin drop - to experience what John Cage did, when he entered an anechoic chamber in the 50s in search of silence.
But it's not as straightforward as you might think, as Robert discovers Cage didn't find the silence he was seeking, and instead found something even more surprising.
The key to understanding 4’33”, and Cage’s fascination with silence, is his interest in the discipline of Zen Buddhism, which unlocked a whole new world of hearing sound that he charted through chance operations.
It led to a meeting of like minds when Cage met Yoko Ono in New York who instantly saw the Zen influence on his work. In 1962 Ono and her husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi, invited Cage to visit Japan - his Zen spiritual homeland - a trip that later became known as the ‘Cage Shock’. It was a turning point in his career whose ground breaking performances sealed his reputation as the most controversial and experimental composer in the world.
The programme features two UK premieres on Radio 3, an interview Robert recorded with John Cage when he met the composer in NYC in the 80s after finding his number in the phone book, and Cage reading his Lecture on Nothing, his enigmatic musing on silence.
Produced by Andrew Carter - A BBC Radio Cumbria Production.
Photograph of D.T.Suzuki and John Cage meeting in Japan 1962, courtesy of the John Cage Trust. -
Reflections on the writer Toni Morrison through her own words and those of her peers
-
Missing episodes?
-
New Generation Thinker Elsa Richardson on the radical 20th century publisher C.W.Daniel.
-
Marie-Louise Muir traces her childhood idol Maureen O’Hara’s journey from Dublin's suburbs to star of the Golden Age.
-
We are used to getting a worldview from the west, but what did the east make of us? Jerry Brotton heads to Istanbul on the trail of one the world's great travellers, Evliya Celebi
-
David Bramwell with actors whose lives were transformed by director Ken Campbell.
-
Daisy Black, Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, investigates the camp villain in history.
-
At the height of his fame as a jazz composer and band leader in the late 1930s, Raymond Scott was billed as ‘America’s Foremost Composer of Modern Music’. Jazz legend Art Blakey confessed that his music ‘scared the hell out of me’.
Electrical engineer, inventor, composer and musician Raymond Scott became adept at creating music that demonstrated a unique commercial appeal. He wrote for Broadway and Hollywood, he appeared weekly on national radio, his ‘novelty jazz’ tunes were licensed to Warner Bros for use in their Looney Tunes cartoons. The financial success this brought enabled Scott in the 1950s to build one of the first commercial electronic music studios in America, stocked with musical devices he himself had invented, designed and built - the Clavivox, the Circle Machine, the highly complex and ambitious Electronium, to name just a few.
Scott focused on composing and recording jingles, spots and commercials for radio and TV, grabbing Americans “by the ears”, as he described it. His soundtracks for the likes of IBM provided the wider listening public with some of their first encounters with electronic music, conjuring up visions of a future that chimed with the times. General Motors commissioned him to provide the soundtrack to their ‘Futura’ pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair; and the founder of Tamla Motown Records, Berry Gordy, later brought Scott out to California to help create the label's pop hits of the future.
Scott was forever experimenting, intent on pushing his instruments and the studio he had built as far as they would go. But too exacting to produce anything quickly, too secretive to share his inventions with others, Scott was eventually overtaken by the designers of keyboard-based synthesizers and mass-produced electric instruments who quickly exploited the territory he had so creatively mapped out for himself.
In 'Rewiring Raymond Scott' the writer Ken Hollings offers a personal reassessment of Scott's career and legacy. Ken talks to family members, archivists, music historians and producers, telling the story of how this brilliant eccentric, all but forgotten at the time of his death in 1994, changed the sonic landscape of the twentieth century.
With thanks to the Marr Sound Archives, UMKC.
Presented by Ken Hollings
Produced by Dan Shepherd
A Far Shoreline Production for BBC Radio 3 -
The unknown tale of cold war communist Poland’s unlikely love affair with electronic music. Robert Worby finds out Warsaw was a beacon of musical freedom behind the iron curtain. It was here that the remarkable Polish Radio Experimental Studio was established in 1957, and this was the first electronic music studio in the Eastern Bloc and the fourth in Europe. This futuristic facility was at the cutting edge of modern music, and was a serious rival for existing studios in Paris, Milan, and Cologne in the West. But at a time when contemporary music was viewed with deep suspicion in the satellite states of the Soviet Union, and Warsaw itself had been destroyed during WWII, a shiny new electronic music studio hardly looked like a priority. But when Stalin’s murderous legacy was condemned by the new Soviet leadership in 1956, a loosening of the Eastern European communist stranglehold began. Uniquely in Poland the church and intellectuals struck an unparalleled bargain with the Polish authorities, allowing each to rub along with the other, as long as they agreed to keep their nose out of one another’s business.
This suited the Communist People’s Polish Republic who were keen to distance themselves from Moscow, and supporting the Polish Radio Experimental Studio helped promote a positive image of what appeared to be a progressive society, not only to itself, but to the world.
Now a new generation of Poles have re-discovered the rich musical archive of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio, that created the sounds of the future, not in spite of, but because of the complex postwar history of the People’s Polish Republic.
A BBC Radio Cumbria Production for BBC Radio 3. Presented by Robert Worby and produced by Andrew Carter.
Photo of Eugeniusz Rudnik ©Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw
https://culture.pl/en/gallery/the-polish-radio-experimental-studio-image-gallery
15 Corners of the World https://ninateka.pl/film/15-stron-swiata-zuzanna-solakiewicz -
Carlo Gebler on the role of art in remembrance and reconciliation in Northern Ireland
-
As East Germany crumbled in 1989, actors were centre stage. Andrew Dickson discovers how had theatre had survived under communist rule, with its censors and secret police spies. Focusing in particular on the playwright Heiner Mueller he explores the brilliant creativity and unique relationship with audiences that made theatre so important. But there were compromises and setbacks too. And after the end of communism actors and writers struggled for relevance - though Mueller's work on global themes is enjoying a revival today.
Presenter: Andrew Dickson
Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Penny Murphy -
Andrew Hussey journeys through Andalusia searching for the legacy of Muslim Spain
-
Actor Lily Cole plays Elizabeth Siddall who climbs out of her grave to tell her story.
-
Golding's classic novel was saved from being rejected by Faber by the luckiest chance.
-
Jazz and communist East Germany seem unlikely bedfellows. Yet in 1965 Louis Armstrong became the first American entertainer to play jazz there at the height of the Cold War. East Germans celebrated Armstrong, and his visit became a propaganda victory for East Germany, helping it to boost its reputation in the wake of its oppressive government building the Berlin Wall in 1961. On his brief and only tour through East Germany Armstrong played to packed houses. His popularity surprised the authorities very much considering not one record of him was available before 1965 and your passion for the music could land you in prison. Kevin Le Gendre peeks through the former Iron Curtain to discover the dangers jazz lovers faced to pave the way for these legendary concerts to happen while tracing the tour. He speaks to jazz journalist Karlheinz Drechsel who first risked his career for jazz but then, amazingly, had the privilege to accompany Louis Armstrong on the tour and announce his concerts. He tells Kevin what it was like meeting Louis Armstrong and seeing beyond the smile and laughter that Louis Armstrong was famous for. Armstrong not only had to navigate political sensitivities on the Cold War front between East and West, but also on the home front in the US, when questioned about the Civil Rights Movement, which was at its peak. The tour left a big impression on both sides. Armstrong was very taken by the enthusiastic welcome he received and East Germany, far from the authorities’ intentions, developed a Free Jazz scene that became an unexpected export hit.
Speakers include the journalists Karlheinz Drechsel, Siegfried Schmidt-Joos and Leslie Collitt; the jazz fan Volker Stiehler; the authors Ricky Riccardi and Stephan Schulz; pianist Ulrich Gumpert; and Roland Trisch, who worked at East Germany’s Artists Agency, which enabled Louis Armstrong’s tour.
Archive material of the Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama on 7 March 1965 is courtesy of the Robert H Jackson Center.
Producer: Sabine Schereck -
Dafydd Mills Daniel investigates Isaac Newton's more obscure studies in Alchemy.
-
Hetta Howes sets off to find the unicorn of myth in 21st century Britain.
-
300 years since Robinson Crusoe was published, Emma Smith traces it across the centuries
-
Matthew Sweet unearths the film-maker Alexander Korda's wartime role as a British agent.
-
Wild swimming enthusiast Alice Roberts examines the legacy of Waterlog by Roger Deakin.
- Show more