Catriona Young presents a piano recital given by Claire Huangci, including Chopins's 24 Preludes Op.28.
3 keyboard sonatas (1. Sonata in D major Kk.443; 2. Sonata in A major Kk.208; 3. Sonata in D major Kk.29)
Bernt Lysell (violin), Per Sandklef (violin), Thomas Sundkvist (viola), Mats Rondin (cello)
Jan-Erik Gustafsson (cello), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Berglund (conductor)
The King's Singers: Jeremy Jackman & Alastair Hume (countertenors), Robert Chilcott (tenor), Colin Mason & Simon Carrington (baritones), Stephen Connolly (bass)
Ion Voicu (violin) (1925-1997), Bucharest Chamber Orchestra, Madalin Voicu (conductor)
Theo Teunissen (organ of Jacobikerk, Utrecht. Built by Gerrit Petersz in 1509)
Krajci, Mirko [b. 1968]
Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957), arr. Taubmann, Otto
Orlando Quartet: István Párkányí (violin), Heinz Oberdorfer (violin), Ferdinand Erblich (viola), Michael Müller (cello)
4 songs (1. Du meines Herzens Krönelein (Op.21 No.2); 2. Die Nacht (Op.10 No.3); 3. Ruhe, meine Seele (Op.27 No.1); 4. Allerseelen (Op.10 No.8))
Pieter Wispelwey (cello), Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Ed Spanjaard (conductor)
Walters, Gareth (b. 1928)
Petroc Trelawny presents Radio 3's classical breakfast show. The BBC Singers will also be live in the studio performing the final shortlist of 6 carols in the Radio 3 Carol Competition. Amateur composers were invited to set a specially commissioned poem by Roger McGough called "Comes the Light". Listeners will then be invited to vote for the overall winner. To vote for your favourite carol, go to bbc.co.uk/radio3. Voting closes at
A selection of music including '5 reasons to love... Scandinavian strings'. Throughout the week, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah shares music written for strings by Nordic composers including Grieg, Bull, and Larsson, plus there's a chance to hear a traditional tune played on a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.
Take part in our daily musical challenge: identify a piece of music played backwards.
Sarah's guest is the jeweller and trained classical musician Catherine Martin who, after travelling to Japan, discovered an ancient braiding technique that she spent four years perfecting and went on to use in her jewellery making. Her first piece of jewellery made the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and she has since had exhibitions at the American Museum of Art and Design in New York, the National Museums of Scotland and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Throughout the week Catherine shares a selection of her favourite classical music, talks about physically stepping into Dame Janet Baker's shoes in a production with the English Opera Group and explains why she listens to the Bach Fugues whilst weaving precious metals in her work as a jeweller.
Sarah places Music in Time as she discovers how Handel placed vocal prowess at the centre of the Baroque stage with his enduringly enchanting da capo aria Lascia ch'io pianga. A da capo aria's ternary form meant that singers could show off and add their own ornamentation to the final section of the song.
As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah features recordings of major works by leading Nordic composers. Throughout the week Sarah explores music from northern lands as she showcases compositions by composers including Sinding, Nielsen and Berwald.
Donald Macleod experiences the vast sonic eruptions of the 'original' geyser at Geysir, Iceland - and introduces works by Jón Leifs portraying his nation's unique landscape.
For more than a millennium, Iceland's composers have drawn upon the sounds of its unique geology: sounds created in a glacial, geothermal landscape like nowhere else on earth. Searing water explodes from fissures; the earth steams spongily underfoot; vast, electric-blue hunks of solid ice crack and collide as they bob down otherwise silent fjords. Yet Iceland's classical music tradition remains barely known. This week, Donald Macleod explores the landscapes and vistas of the world's most northerly island nation - to discover its unique musical culture.
Jón Leifs' symphonic poem "Geysir" portrays the awe-inspiring geothermal eruption of one of his nation's most famous natural wonders. Donald Macleod pays a visit to Geysir to introduce Leifs' own highly-imaginative musical explosion, before discussing the composer's dramatic, experimental organ concerto - described by one critic as "like Bach walking on the tundra" - with the musicologist Árni Heimir Ingólfsson. He ends with a series of pieces by Icelandic music's provocateur-in-chief, the wickedly mischievous Atli Heimir Sveinsson - a composer able and willing to compose in almost any style, from Baroque to avant-garde to hip hop - ending with Sveinsson's bizarre and beguiling postmodernist fantasy, "Icelandic Rap".
The first of this week's Lunchtime Concerts, part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, features Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund and pianist Helmut Deutsch in songs by Sibelius and Richard Strauss. Recorded at the Joroinen Music Days Festival in Finland this August.
Kaiutar, op. 72/4
Men min fågel märks dock icke, op. 36/2
Säf,säf susa, op. 36/4
Demanten på marssnön, op. 36/6
Jubal, op. 35/1
Var det en dröm?, op. 37/4
Six songs, op. 88
Heimliche Aufforderung, op. 27/3
Georgine, op. 10/4
Die Verschwiegenen, op. 10/6
Freundliche Vision, op. 48/1
Ich liebe Dich, op. 37/2
Illalle, op. 17/6
Arioso, op. 3
Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte, op. 37/5
På verandan vid havet, op. 38/2
Svarta rosor, op. 36/1.
Jonathan Swain continues Northern Lights on Afternoon on 3, today with the first of this week's symphonies by Nielsen and Arvo Part, performed respectively by the BBC Philharmonic with John Storgards and the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra with Tonu Kaljuste. Plus Havard Gimse playing Tveitt's 5th Piano Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in Rued Langgaard's radical Music of the Spheres.
Sean Rafferty with a lively mix of music, chat and arts news. Composer Graham Fitkin and harpist Ruth Wall perform live in the studio as the duo FitkinWall, as they tour the UK with their new album 'Lost'. The Heath Quartet play live ahead of their concert in London at 22 Mansfield Street. Plus our special feature 'Tales from the North' as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, BBC NOW plays music from latitude 60 degrees north and above.
As part of BBC Radio 3's Northern Lights season, exploring artistic responses to the very far north, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales performs music from latitude 60 degrees north and above.
Matthew Sweet discusses Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries with the writer Colm Toibin, the film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and the Swedish Cultural Attaché Ellen Wettmark.
Released in 1957 and inspired by Bergman's own memories of childhood holidays in a summerhouse in the north of Sweden, Wild Strawberries tells the story of elderly professor Isak Borg, who travels from his home in Stockholm to receive an honorary doctorate. On the way, he's visited by childhood memories. The film stars veteran actor and director Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin.
With additional contributions from the film historian Kevin Brownlow and Jan Holmberg from the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which administers Bergman's archives.
The BFI in London is running a season of Ingmar Bergman films until March 1st 2018 as part of the global celebrations of the centenary of world-renowned Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918 - 2007).
A Matter of Life and Death: the Films of Ingmar Bergman has been republished with a new introduction by Geoff Andrew of the BFI.
Wild Strawberries is being screened on 26 Feb, Newlyn Filmhouse; 8 March, Borderlines Film Festival; 11 March, Chapter Arts Centre.
(Main image: Ingmar Bergman. Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images.).
Art in a Cold Climate: Hallgrimur Helgason on Fish Processing in Eyjafjord by Kristin Jonsdottir
Artist and writer Hallgrimur Helgason asks what one Icelandic painting can say in a culture that is primarily verbal.
The visual arts got off to a slow start in Iceland, he observes. "Our first ever exhibition of paintings opened in the year 1900. The history of Icelandic art reads like a short story." For a thousand years Icelandic culture had been dominated by the Sagas. When paintbrushes and oil paints finally arrived in the 19th century, early artists focused on the country's stunning scenery. But in 1914 a bright new talent emerged blinking in the northern light.
"Fish Processing in Eyjafjord'" captures a lively group of women in the bright morning sunshine, preparing salted cod for export. "Here everything is a first", says Helgason. "We're at the dawn of our art history, at the dawn of the twentieth century, at the dawn of a beautiful day by the beautiful fjord." And the artist represents another first, as one of the very earliest women painters in Iceland: Kristin Jonsdottir, who had returned from Denmark, inspired by Cezanne and Van Gogh. "It's all fresh and new, painting ordinary people at work, with strong and stylized brushwork," says Helgason.
This edition of The Essay is one of a series in which five writers each consider the significance of a work of art to their nation, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
Verity Sharp with cross-genre improvising trio Sink, an excerpt from Stargaze and Greg Saunier?s Deerhoof Chamber Variations, and night lullabies from the Wainwright Sisters.
WEDNESDAY 16 DECEMBER 2015
WED 00:30 Through the Night (b06rlgj6)
Catriona Young presents a Tchaikovsky Opera Gala from the 2015 Trans-Siberian Art Festival in Novosibirsk.
12:31 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Slavonic March in B flat minor, 'March Slave'
Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius (conductor)
12:41 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Arioso of the Warrior from 'Moscow'
Lena Belkina (Mezzo), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
12:46 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Lensky's Arioso from 'Eugene Onegin'
Dmytro Popov (Tenor), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
12:49 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Scene and Olga's Aria, from 'Eugene Onegin'
Lena Belkina (Mezzo), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
12:52 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Lensky's Aria, from 'Eugene Onegin'
Dmytro Popov (Tenor), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
12:59 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Tatyana's Letter Scene from 'Eugene Onegin'
Anna Samuil (Soprano), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
1:13 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Pauline's Romance, from 'The Queen of Spades'
Lena Belkina (Mezzo), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
1:16 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Joan's Aria, from 'The Maid of Orleans'
Lena Belkina (Mezzo), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
1:24 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Iolanta's Aria from 'Iolanta'
Anna Samuil (Soprano), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
1:27 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Vaudemont's Romance from 'Iolanta'
Dmytro Popov (Tenor)
1:31 AM
Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893)
Iolanta's and Vaudemont's Duet from 'Iolanta'
Anna Samuil (Soprano), Dmytro Popov (Tenor), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
1:41 AM
Verdi, Giuseppe (1813-1901)
Brindisi, from 'La Traviata'
Anna Samuil (Soprano), Lena Belkina (Mezzo), Dmytro Popov (Tenor), Novosibirsk Philharmonic, Gintaras Rinkevicius
1:45 AM
Lalo, Edouard (1823-1892)
Symphonie Espagnole
Vadim Repin (Violin), Saarbrucken Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Stern (Cond)
2:18 AM
Liszt, Franz (1811-1886), transcr. Lhevinne, Josef
Reminiscences on Meyerbeer's "Robert le diable"
Josef Lhevinne (Piano)
2:31 AM
Taneyev, Sergey Ivanovich (1856-1915)
Symphony No.4 in C minor
Marinsky Orchestra, Valery Gergiev (Cond)
3:11 AM
Rubinstein, Anton (1829-1894)
Ja tot, kotoromu vnimala from the opera Deemon
Georg Ots (Baritone), Eugen Kelder (Piano)
3:15 AM
Rubinstein, Anton (1829-1894)
Ne plats, ditja from the opera Deemon
Georg Ots (Baritone), Eugen Kelder (Piano)
3:18 AM
Rossini, Gioachino (1792-1868)
Sonata for strings No.5 in E flat
Camerata Bern
3:33 AM
Rossi, Salomone (c.1570-c.1630)
Rimanti in pace
Katelijne van Laethem (Soprano), Pascal Bertin (Alto), Eitan Sorek, Josep Benet (Tenors), Josep Cabre (Baritone), Ensemble Daedalus, Roberto Festa
3:39 AM
Handel, George Frideric (1685-1789)
Trio Sonata in G major (Op.5 No.4)
Tafelmusik Baroque Soloists
3:53 AM
Boeck, August de (1865-1937)
Dahomeyse Rapsodie
Flemish Radio Orchestra, Marc Soustrot
3:58 AM
Pahor, Karol (1896-1974)
Oce náš hlapca jerneja (by Ivan Cankar)
Chamber Choir AVE, Andraž Hauptman
4:05 AM
Scott, Cyril (1879-1970)
Lotus Land
Cristina Ortiz (Piano)
4:10 AM
Hannikainen, Ilmari (1892-1955)
Rural Dances
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Petri Sakari
4:25 AM
Erkel, Ferenc (1810-1893)
Overture to Unknown Heroes, A Comic Opera
Hungarian Radio Orchestra, András Kórodi
4:31 AM
Geijer, Erik Gustaf (1783-1847)
Midnight Fantasy
Stefan Bojsten (Piano)
4:37 AM
Dowland, John (1563-1626)
Mr. Dowland's midnight
Manuel Calderon (Guitar)
4:40 AM
Purcell, Henry (1659-1695)
"See, see, even Night herself is here" from 'The Fairy Queen'
Nancy Argenta (Soprano), CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Monica Huggett
4:45 AM
Haydn, Michael (1737-1806)
Ave Regina
Florian Heyerick (Director), Ex Tempore
4:56 AM
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 25 in G minor
Danish Radio Sinfonietta/DR, Adám Fischer
5:20 AM
Brahms, Johannes (1833-1897)
Intermezzo (Op.117 No.1) in E flat major "Schlummerlied"
Khatia Buniatishvili (Piano)
5:27 AM
Janacek, Leos (1854-1928)
Sonata
Elena Urioste (Violin), Michael Brown (Piano)
5:43 AM
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750)
Double Concerto in C minor (BWV.1060)
Hans-Peter Westermann (Oboe), Mary Utiger (Violin), Camerata Koln
5:57 AM
Kyurkchiyski, Krassimir (1936-2011)
Prayer, from Two works after paintings of Vladimir Dimitrov - the Master
Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Kamen Goleminov
6:03 AM
Aulin, Valborg (1860-1928)
String Quartet in F major
Tale String Quartet.
WED 06:30 Breakfast (b06rwpnr)
Wednesday - Petroc Trelawny
Petroc Trelawny presents Radio 3's classical breakfast show, featuring listener requests and your suggestions for our annual musical Advent Calendar.
Back in August, amateur composers were invited to set a specially commissioned poem by Roger McGough called "Comes the Light". Listeners have been invited to vote for the overall winner and to vote for your favourite carol, go to bbc.co.uk/radio3. Voting closes at
5pm on December 22nd.
Email 3Breakfast@bbc.co.uk.
WED 09:00 Essential Classics (b06rxmzn)
Wednesday - Sarah Walker with Catherine Martin
9am
A selection of music including '5 reasons to love... Scandinavian strings'. Throughout the week, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah shares music written for strings by Nordic composers including Grieg, Bull, and Larsson, plus there's a chance to hear a traditional tune played on a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.
9.30am
Take part in our daily musical challenge - listen to the clues and see if you know the mystery person.
10am
Sarah's guest is the jeweller and trained classical musician Catherine Martin who, after travelling to Japan, discovered an ancient braiding technique that she spent four years perfecting and went on to use in her jewellery making. Her first piece of jewellery made the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and she has since had exhibitions at the American Museum of Art and Design in New York, the National Museums of Scotland and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Throughout the week Catherine shares a selection of her favourite classical music, talks about physically stepping into Dame Janet Baker's shoes in a production with the English Opera Group and explains why she listens to the Bach Fugues whilst weaving precious metals in her work as a jeweller.
10.30am
Sarah places Music in Time. The spotlight is on the Modern era as Sarah enters the expressive world of chromatic harmony created by Schoenberg in his 5 Orchestral Pieces.
11am
As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah features recordings of major works by leading Nordic composers. Throughout the week Sarah explores music from Northern lands as she showcases compositions by composers including Sinding, Nielsen and Berwald.
Sinding
Piano Concerto
Piers Lane (piano)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrew Litton (conductor).
WED 12:00 Composer of the Week (b03kp837)
Iceland
From the Ancients to Bjork
Donald Macleod visits the site of the world's oldest parliament - and explores the remarkable, genre-crossing voice of the world's most celebrated Icelandic musician: Bjork.
For more than a millennium, Iceland's composers have drawn upon the sounds of its unique geology: sounds created in a glacial, geothermal landscape like nowhere else on earth. Searing water explodes from fissures; the earth steams spongily underfoot; vast, electric-blue hunks of solid ice crack and collide as they bob down otherwise silent fjords. Yet Iceland's classical music tradition remains barely known. This week, Donald Macleod explores the landscapes and vistas of the world's most northerly island nation - to discover its unique musical culture.
The fleeting flute dreams of Atli Heimir Sveinsson's "21 Sounding Minutes" thread together today's story of Iceland's past both ancient and modern. At Thingvellir, historic site of the world's oldest continuous democratic parliament, Donald Macleod introduces a cantata by Jon Leifs that looks back at his hardy Scandinavian forebears, before bringing us into the 20th century with a charming piano concerto by Iceland's leading female composer Jorunn Vidar. He ends by exploring the remarkable, genre-crossing career - and voice - of unquestionably Iceland's most famous musical export: Bjork.
Atli Heimir Sveinsson: Sounds of the Night (21 Sounding Minutes)
Manuela Wiesler (flute)
Atli Heimir Sveinsson: Sounds of Flowers; Sounds of Heaven (21 Sounding Minutes)
Manuela Wiesler (flute)
Jón Leifs: Iceland Cantata, Op 13
Hallgrumskirkja Motet Choir and Schola Cantorum
Iceland SO, Hermann Bäumer (conductor)
Atli Heimir Sveinsson: Sounds of Men; Sounds of Women (21 Sounding Minutes)
Manuela Wiesler (flute)
Jórunn Viðar: Allegro (Slatta - Piano Concerto)
Steinunn Birna Ragnarsdottir (piano)
Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Petter Sundquist (conductor)
Jon Leifs: Viking's Answer, Op 54
Iceland SO, Hermann Baumer (conductor)
Atli Heimir Sveinsson: Sounds of Rain (21 Sounding Minutes)
Manuela Wiesler (flute)
Atli Heimir Sveinsson: Sounds of Sound (21 Sounding Minutes)
Manuela Wiesler (flute)
Jorunn Vidar: Vokuro
Bjork (vocals).
WED 13:00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (b06rwrbd)
Danish National Vocal Ensemble
Continuing this week of Lunchtime Concerts as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, the Danish National Vocal Ensemble directed by Marcus Creed perform works by Gade, Sibelius and Nielsen. Recorded this September in the Garrison Church in Copenhagen.
Presented by Fiona Talkington
Niels W. Gade: Five Songs, op. 13
Jean Sibelius: Rakastava
Mendelssohn: Richte mich, Gott and Mein Gott, warum hast du mich verlassen?
Carl Nielsen: Three Motets, op. 55.
WED 14:00 Afternoon Concert (b06rws6f)
Northern Lights
Episode 3
Ian Skelly continues Northern Lights with a focus today on Finland and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Earlier this year, Susanna Malkki conducted the orchestra in a concert at the Music Centre in Helsinki that included Debussy's Gigues, Steven Isserlis performing Walton's Cello Concerto and Saariaho's Circle Map. Plus Miguel Harth-bedoya conducts the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in Sallinen's Shadows, prelude for orchestra.
2pm
Debussy
Gigues
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki (conductor)
2.10pm
Walton
Cello Concerto
Steven Isserlis (cello)
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki (conductor)
2.40pm
Saariaho
Circle Map
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki (conductor)
3.15pm
Aulis Sallinen
Shadows, prelude for orchestra
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Miguel Harth-Bedoya (conductor).
WED 15:30 Choral Evensong (b06rwy7p)
Chester Cathedral
Live from Chester Cathedral
Introit: Adam lay ybounden (Howard Skempton)
Responses: Smith
Psalms 82, 83, 84, 85 (MacFarren, Cross, Woods, Hopkins)
First Lesson: Joel 3 vv.9-16
Antiphon: O Sapientia
Canticles: Great Service (Byrd)
Second Lesson: Matthew 24 vv.29-35
Anthem: Ad te levavi (White)
Hymn: Hills of the North, rejoice (Little Cornard)
Organ Voluntary: Cortège et Litanie (Dupré)
Philip Rushforth, Director of Music
Benjamin Chewter, Organist.
WED 16:30 In Tune (b06rwsqn)
Solomon's Knot, Louis Schwizgebel, Marc Almond
Sean Rafferty with a lively mix of music, chat and arts news. The baroque collective Solomon's Knot perform live in the studio ahead of their 'Christmas in Leipzig' concert at St John's, Smith Square in London. Pianist Louis Schwizgebel pops in between rehearsals with the BBC Symphony Orchestra to talk about playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 with the Orchestra at London's Barbican Centre. Plus our special feature 'Tales from the North' as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
Plus singer Marc Almond on Russian tenor Vadim Kozin.
WED 18:30 Composer of the Week (b03kp837)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 today]
WED 19:30 Radio 3 in Concert (b06rwvdj)
BBC Philharmonic - Gade, Norgard, Nielsen, Maxwell Davies, Sibelius
The BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Michael Francis in music from the north of Europe.
Live from MediaCityUK, Salford
Presented by Andrew McGregor
Gade: Hamlet Overture
Per Norgard: Between
8.20 Interval
Christopher Cook explores the fascinating world of the Icelandic saga, with guests Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and Elizabeth Ashman Rowe.
8.40
Nielsen: An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Isles
Peter Maxwell Davies: Ebb of Winter
Sibelius: The Oceanides
Jakob Kullberg (cello)
BBC Philharmonic
Michael Francis (conductor)
Music inspired by the natural elements forms the second half the programme; a sea crossing to the Faroe Islands is painted by Nielsen, the nymphs in Greek mythology who inhabit the Mediterranean Sea appear in Sibelius's Oceanides, and the dynamic weather of Peter Maxwell Davies's Orkney home inspires his chilly Ebb of Winter. In an all Danish first half, Jakob Kullberg joins the orchestra for Between, Per Norgard's cello concerto and the programme opens with Gade's dark Hamlet Overture.
WED 22:00 Free Thinking (b06rwvrc)
Cities and Safety
Tonight, Philip Dodd and guests reflect on safe cities, past and present - on how literature, technology, law and social engineering imagine safety and its absence in cities - and whether safe cities are in the end an oxymoron.
Philip is joined by urbanist and author, Adam Greenfield, writer Beatrix Campbell, criminologist Peter Fussey, director of The Runnymede Trust Omar Khan, and historian of London Jerry White, who will be discussing Joseph Conrad's terrorist novel, The Secret Agent.
Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.
WED 22:45 The Essay (b06rwvzb)
Art in a Cold Climate
Art in a Cold Climate: Mette Moestrup on Pia Arke's Camera Obscura
Danish writer Mette Moestrup praises the way artist Pia Arke explored the difficult relationship between Denmark and Greenland, its former colony.
Arke was the child of a Danish father and a Greenlandic mother. "My pictoral work deals almost exclusively with the silence that surrounds the bonds between Greenland and Denmark," she wrote. "I was myself born into that silence."
One of Arke's projects involved the construction of a giant Camera Obscura on the site of her long demolished childhood home at Cape Nuugaarsuk in Greenland. The camera looked like "a big ice-cube among the barren mountains", says Moestrup. The artist was able to sit inside the camera as she took landscape and portrait shots.
"Here," says Moestrup, "she created beautiful, haunting, hazy photographs of the bare rocky formations, the water and the ice. A lost home, and a lost view recreated via the nomadic camera house."
This edition of The Essay is one of a series in which five writers each consider the significance of a work of art to their nation, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
Producer: Andy Denwood.
WED 23:00 Late Junction (b06rwwrf)
Wednesday - Verity Sharp
Verity Sharp's selections include Kraftwerk's 1975 album Radio-Activity re-imagined by pianist-composer Matthew Bourne and sound artist Franck Vigroux, Mauritanian rock from singer and ardine player Noura Mint Seymali, and haunting folktronica from Australia's Daughter's Fever.
THURSDAY 17 DECEMBER 2015
THU 00:30 Through the Night (b06rlgjb)
Catriona Young presents the Swedish Radio Chorus performing Swedish a Cappella by Alfven, Sandstrom and Andersson as well as Frank Martin's Mass and Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden.
12:31 AM
Jan Sandstrom (1954-)
Sloabbme njunnje
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
12:34 AM
Jan Sandstrom (1954-)
Biegga njunnji
Swedish Radio Chorus; Per Björsund (drums); Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
12:38 AM
Tina Andersson (1966-)
The Angel
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
12:45 AM
David Wikander (1884-1955)
King Lily of the Valley
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
12:50 AM
Hugo Alfven (1872-1960)
Aftonen (Evening)
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
12:54 AM
Traditional Swedish arr.Hugo Alfven (1872-1960)
A Maiden Goes Into The Ring
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
12:56 AM
Frank Martin (1890-1974)
Mass for double choir
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
1:24 AM
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Friede auf Erden Op.13
Swedish Radio Chorus, Peter Dijkstra (conductor)
1:34 AM
Alfvèn, Hugo (1872-1960)
Movements from Suite for Orchestra from 'King Gustav II Adolf' (Op.49)
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Niklas Willén (conductor)
1:50 AM
Berwald, Franz (1796-1868)
Fantasia on 2 Swedish Folksongs
Lucia Negro (piano)
1:59 AM
Lundvik, Hildor (1885-1951)
Like an apple tree in bloom
Swedish Radio Choir, Eric Ericson (conductor)
2:01 AM
Schoenberg, Arnold (1874-1951)
Verklärte Nacht (Op.4)
Borromeo String Quartet, Cynthia Phelps (viola), Andrés Díaz (cello)
2:31 AM
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto No.27 in B flat (K595)
Steven Osborne (piano), Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Fabio Biondi (conductor)
3:01 AM
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750)
Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (BWV.51)
Susanne Ryden (soprano), Robert Farley (trumpet), European Union Baroque Orchestra, Roy Goodman (conductor)
3:18 AM
Janacek, Leos [1854-1928]
Sumarovo dite (The Fiddler's Child)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Peter Thomas (solo violin); Ilan Volkov (conductor)
3:30 AM
Tallis, Thomas [c.1505-1585]
Loquebantur variis linguis for 7 voices
BBC Singers, Bo Holten (director)
3:35 AM
Albeniz, Isaac [1860-1909]
Cordoba (Nocturne) from Cantos de Espana (Op.232 No.4)
Henry-David Varema (cello), Heiki Mätlik (guitar)
3:42 AM
Fesch, Willem de (1687-c.1757)
Concerto in G major (Op.5 No.3)
Musica ad Rhenum
3:50 AM
Chopin, Fryderyk [1810-1849]
Polonaise (Op.53) in A flat major, "Polonaise heroique"
Jacek Kortus (piano)
3:57 AM
Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai/Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich
A Night on the bare mountain
Radion Sinfoniaorkesteri; Jukka-Pekka Saraste (conductor)
4:09 AM
Rossini, Gioachino [1792-1868]
Largo al factotum from "Il Barbiere di Siviglia", Act 1
Allan Monk (baritone); Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra; Mario Bernardi (conductor)
4:14 AM
Couperin, François (1668-1733)
La Françoise, Suite from 'Les Nations'
Les Ambassadeurs, Alexis Kossenko (director)
4:27 AM
Prokofiev, Sergey (1891-1953) (arr. Heifetz)
March from 'The Love for Three Oranges'
Pinchas Zukerman (violin), Marc Neikrug (piano)
4:31 AM
Grieg, Edvard (1843-1907)
Symphonic Dance No.4 (Andante)
Norwegian Radio Orchestra; Goran W. Nilson (conductor)
4:42 AM
Mercure, Pierre (1927-1966)
Pantomime for wind and percussion
Edmonton Wind Ensemble, Harry Pinchin (conductor)
4:48 AM
Handel, Georg Frideric (1685-1759)
Caesar's aria 'Al lampo dell'armi' from 'Giulio Cesare in Egitto' (Act II Scene 8)
Matthew White (countertenor), Arte dei Suonatori, Eduardo Lopez (conductor)
4:52 AM
Wagner, Richard (1813-1883)
Pilgrims Chorus from 'Tannhäuser' (arr. for organ)
David Drury (William Hill and Son organ of Sydney Town Hall, Australia)
4:58 AM
Vivaldi, Antonio (1678-1741)
Concerto for violin & orchestra (RV.293) (Op.8 No.3) in F major 'L'Autunno'
Elizabeth Wallfisch (baroque violin), Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Paul Dyer (director)
5:09 AM
Alpaerts, Flor (1876-1954)
Avondmuziek
I Solisti del Vento, Ivo Hadermann (conductor)
5:19 AM
Ockeghem, Johannes (c.1410-1497)
Salve Regina
The Hilliard Ensemble, Paul Hillier (director)
5:30 AM
Rachmaninov, Sergei (1873-1943)
Sonata No.2 in B flat Minor (Op.36)
Aldo Ciccolini (piano)
5:49 AM
Elgar, Edward [1857-1934]
Cockaigne (In London Town) overture, Op. 40
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac van Steen (conductor)
6:05 AM
Verdi, Giuseppe (1813-1901)
Quartet in E minor
Vertavo Quartet.
THU 06:30 Breakfast (b06rwpnz)
Thursday - Petroc Trelawny
Petroc Trelawny presents Radio 3's classical breakfast show, featuring listener requests and your suggestions for our annual musical Advent Calendar.
Back in August, amateur composers were invited to set a specially commissioned poem by Roger McGough called "Comes the Light". Listeners have been invited to vote for the overall winner and to vote for your favourite carol, go to bbc.co.uk/radio3. Voting closes at
5pm on December 22nd.
Email 3Breakfast@bbc.co.uk.
THU 09:00 Essential Classics (b06rxmzx)
Thursday - Sarah Walker with Catherine Martin
9am
A selection of music including '5 reasons to love... Scandinavian strings'. Throughout the week, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah shares music written for strings by Nordic composers including Grieg, Bull, and Larsson, plus there's a chance to hear a traditional tune played on a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.
9.30am
Take part in our daily musical challenge. Two pieces of music are played together. Can you identify them?
10am
Sarah's guest is the jeweller and trained classical musician Catherine Martin who, after travelling to Japan, discovered an ancient braiding technique that she spent four years perfecting and went on to use in her jewellery making. Her first piece of jewellery made the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and she has since had exhibitions at the American Museum of Art and Design in New York, the National Museums of Scotland and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Throughout the week Catherine shares a selection of her favourite classical music, talks about physically stepping into Dame Janet Baker's shoes in a production with the English Opera Group and explains why she listens to the Bach Fugues whilst weaving precious metals in her work as a jeweller.
10.30am
Sarah places Music in Time. She examines Mozart's use of the Alberti bass in his Sonata No.16 in C major K545. The Alberti bass was a technique of keyboard writing built on quick-moving arpeggios, which emerged during the Classical period to complement the slower moving harmony of music during the 18th and early 19th centuries.
11am
As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah features recordings of major works by leading Nordic composers. Throughout the week Sarah explores music from northern lands as she showcases compositions by composers including Sinding, Nielsen and Berwald.
Nielsen
Wind Quintet
Frosunda Wind Quintet.
THU 12:00 Composer of the Week (b03kp839)
Iceland
Sagas and Requiems
Donald Macleod explores the influence of Iceland's sagas on its music, before exploring the contemporary music scene with Valgeir Sigurðsson, a leading producer and composer.
For more than a millennium, Iceland's composers have drawn upon the sounds of its unique geology: sounds created in a glacial, geothermal landscape like nowhere else on earth. Searing water explodes from fissures; the earth steams spongily underfoot; vast, electric-blue hunks of solid ice crack and collide as they bob down otherwise silent fjords. Yet Iceland's classical music tradition remains barely known. This week, Donald Macleod explores the landscapes and vistas of the world's most northerly island nation - to discover its unique musical culture.
Having survived the traumas of the Second World War, the life of Iceland's leading composer, Jon Leifs was to fall apart in 1947 after his daughter Líf drowned in the sea. Donald Macleod explores the legacy of this tragedy on his music with the musicologist Arni Heimir Ingolfsson before meeting one of Icelandic contemporary music's most important figures: the record producer and composer Valgeir Sigurdsson, whose music seems to transcend genre classifications such 'popular', 'classical', 'ambient' and 'electronica'.
Björk: Eg Veit Ei Hvad Skal Segja (Gling-Glo)
Bjork (vocals); Trio Gudmundar Ingolfssonar
[After "Ricochet" by Larry Coleman, Joe Darion, and Norman Gimbel]
Bjork: Kata Rokkar (Gling-Glo)
Bjork (vocals); Trio Gudmundar Ingolfssonar
Jon Leifs: Thormodr Kolbrunarskald (Saga Symphony)
Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä (conductor)
Jon Leifs: Requiem and Eternity (String Quartet No 2 "Vita et Mors")
The Yggdrasil Quartet
Thorkell Sigurbjornsson - Flute Concerto ("Columbine")
Manuela Wiesler (flute)
Southern Jutland Symphony Orchestra, Tamas Veto (conductor)
Valgeir Sigurdsson: Grylukvaedi (Draumalandid)
[studio composition]
First broadcast December 2012.
THU 13:00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (b06rwrbk)
Katarina Karneus, Wolfgang Holzmair
The third of this week's Lunchtime Concerts as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season features Swedish mezzo-soprano Katarina Karneus and baritone Wolfgang Holzmair, with pianist Matti Hirvonen, in a selection of songs by Nordic composers including Grieg, Nystrom and Rangstrom.
Presented by Fiona Talkington.
Grieg: Das alte Lied Op.4 No.5
Söderman: Im wunderschönen Monat Mai
Sjögren; Lehn' deine Wang Op.16 No.1
Peterson-Berger: Das Goldene Kalb
Hallén: Die Bergstimme Op.11 No.1
Stenhammar: Sie liebten sich beideOp.17 No.3
Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone
Matti Hirvonen, piano
Grieg: 6 German Songs Op.48
Katarina Karnéus, mezzo-soprano
Matti Hirvonen, piano
Mendelssohn: Gruss Op.19a No.5
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel: Verlust
Mendelssohn: Auf Flügeln des Gesanges Op.34 No.2
Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone
Matti Hirvonen, piano
Nyström: Sjal Och Landskap
Katarina Karnéus, mezzo-soprano
Matti Hirvonen, piano
Backer-Gröndahl: Der wunde RitterOp.4 No.5
Rangström: Tragödie - Song-Cycle
Sinding: Ein Weib Op.11 No.5
Grieg: Abschied Op.4 No.3
Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone
Matti Hirvonen, piano
Gade: Duet: Frühlingsgruss
Grieg: Jeg elsker dig Op.5 No.3
Katarina Karnéus, mezzo-soprano
Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone
Matti Hirvonen, piano.
THU 14:00 Afternoon Concert (b06rws6t)
Thursday Opera Matinee
Sallinen - The King Goes Forth to France
As part of Northern Lights on Afternoon on 3, Verity Sharp presents The King Goes Forth to France, which is the third opera of Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen. The composer himself subtitled the opera a 'chronicle for the music theatre of the coming Ice Age' and it is a satirical musical allegory to a libretto written by Paavo Haavikko that follows the Prince as he decides to escape the advance of a new ice sheet across his land, England, and the urges of the Prime Minister for him to take a wife, instead crossing the Channel on a bridge of ice to resettle in France, where he is declared King. In France, he marries a German Princess who he immediately pawns together with his crown to fund his military campaigns in the resurgence of the Hundred Years' War and the Battle of Crécy and Siege of Calais. As Calais falls again, and spring returns, the King requests his chronicler to omit name from history, believing that he is nothing but a figment of Time.
Presented by Verity Sharp.
Aulis Sallinen
The King goes forth to France - opera in 3 acts
The Prince who later becomes the King . . . Tommi Hakala (baritone)
The Prime Minister who also appears as his own son, the Young Prime Minister . . . Jyrki Korhonen (bass
The Nice Caroline . . . Riikka Rantanen (soprano)
The Caroline with the Thick Mane . . . Lilli Paasikivi (mezzo-soprano)
The Anne who Steals . . . Mari Palo (high soprano)
The Anne who Strips . . . Laura Nykanen (contralto)
Guide . . . Jyrki Anttila (dramatic tenor)
English Archer . . . Herman Wallen (high baritone)
The Queen . . . Kirsi thum (soprano)
Six Burghers of Calais . . . Tuomas Katajala & Jussi Myllys (tenors), Arttu Kataja (baritone), Tuomas Tuloisela, Niklas Spangberg & Janne Sundqvist (basses)
Froissart . . . Santeri Kinnunen (spoken role)
Finnish Philharmonic Chorus
Tapiola Chamber Choir
Hanny Norjanen (chorus master)
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Okku Kamu (conductor).
THU 16:30 In Tune (b06rwv3w)
Miah Persson, Onyx Brass
Sean Rafferty with a lively mix of music, chat and arts news. Soprano Miah Persson performs live in the studio ahead of her 'Christmas from Sweden' concert at Cadogan Hall in London with Camerata Nordica, and there's more live music from Onyx Brass with actor Richard Harrington as they prepare to perform A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas with the BBC Singers. Plus our special feature 'Tales from the North' as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
THU 18:30 Composer of the Week (b03kp839)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 today]
THU 19:30 Radio 3 in Concert (b06rwvdl)
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
As part of their ongoing survey of concertos by Mozart and Beethoven, Pianist Llyr Williams joins the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, directed from the violin by Alexander Janicek to perform Beethoven's dramatic 3rd piano concerto alongside works by CPE Bach and Mozart.
CPE Bach - Symphony in E flat major
Mozart - Violin Concerto No 1
Mozart - Rondo
Interval at
8.10pm
Wagner arr. Williams - Siegfried's Rhine Journey (Gotterdammerung)
Wagner arr. Williams - Spinning Chorus (Tannhauser)
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 3
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Alexander Janiczek, director/violin
Llyr Williams, piano.
THU 22:00 Free Thinking (b06rwvrf)
Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Ruth Scurr on John Aubrey, Beowulf
Ruth Scurr discusses her biography of the 17th-century antiquary and biographer John Aubrey - which has appeared on many of the newspaper selections of Books of the Year. Christopher Hampton and actress Adjoa Andoh talk to Anne McElvoy about a new production of Hampton's version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses which opens at London's Donmar Warehouse. New Generation Thinker Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough reviews a new TV version of Beowulf and how it compares to the poem she teaches. And the science writer and broadcaster, Marcus Chown, will be sharing his thoughts about his close encounter with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses runs at 11 December 2015 - 13 February 2016. It will be broadcast live in cinemas in partnership with National Theatre Live on 28 January 2016
Ruth Scurr's book is called John Aubrey: My Own Life
Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands will be screened on ITV in January 2016.
Star Wars The Force Awakens is screening in cinemas across the UK from today.
Producer: Zahid Warley
(Main image: John Aubrey from a drawing by William Faithorne).
THU 22:45 The Essay (b06rwvzd)
Art in a Cold Climate
Art in a Cold Climate: Ray Hudson on Touching Fire by Carolyn Reed
Writer and historian Ray Hudson considers how one drawing shows Alaskans caught between the fire and the sea: between the state's turbulent natural beauty and the race to exploit its wealth in raw materials.
In Carolyn Reed's "Touching Fire", two women stand on the shores of a great sea, their faces lit by a pile of blazing logs. "This fire for me suggests the commercial exploitation that has historically consumed much of the region," says Hudson, who witnessed a massive expansion in commercial fishing during nearly three decades living in Alaska's remote Aleutian Islands. Yet he takes heart from the dignity and determination of the women caught between fire and water. "I know that despite its violent dominance the fire will go out and the women will turn to face the sea," he says.
This edition of The Essay is one of a series in which five writers each consider the significance of a work of art to their homelands, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
Producer: Andy Denwood.
THU 23:00 Late Junction (b06rwwss)
Thursday - Verity Sharp
Verity Sharp with new music from guitarist Ben Chasny aka Six Organs of Admittance, canine-related storytelling from Laurie Anderson, and the mysterious glissandi of Gloria Coates's Puzzle Canon from her Symphony No.15.
FRIDAY 18 DECEMBER 2015
FRI 00:30 Through the Night (b06r508t)
Proms 2014: Berlioz, Elgar, Helen Grime and Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
Catriona Young presents a concert from the 2014 BBC Proms with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder. Alice Coote is the soloist in Elgar's Sea Pictures.
12:31 AM
Berlioz, Hector [1803-1869]
Le Corsaire - overture Op.21
Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder (conductor)
12:40 AM
Elgar, Edward [1857-1934]
Sea pictures Op.37 for mezzo-soprano and orchestra
Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano), Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder (conductor)
1:04 AM
Grime, Helen [b.1981]
Near Midnight
Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder (conductor)
1:16 AM
Beethoven, Ludwig van [1770-1827]
Symphony no. 3 in E flat major Op.55 (Eroica)
Hallé Orchestra, Mark Elder (conductor)
2:04 AM
Mondonville, Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de [1711-1772]
Grand Motet 'Dominus regnavit'
Ann Monoyios (soprano), Matthew White (counter tenor), Colin Ainsworth (tenor), Tafelmusik Chamber Choir, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Ivars Taurins (conductor)
2:31 AM
Schumann, Robert (1810-1856)
Symphony No 2 in C, Op 61
BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda (conductor)
3:07 AM
Brahms, Johannes (1833-1897)
Quartet for piano and strings No.3 (Op.60) "Werther" in C minor
Håvard Gimse (piano), Stig Nilsson (violin), Anders Nilsson (viola), Romain Garioud (cello)
3:43 AM
Corelli, Arcangelo (1653-1713)
Sonata da chiesa in B minor (Op.1 No.6)
London Baroque
3:49 AM
Stenhammar, Wilhelm (1871-1927) [Lyrics by J.P.Jacobsen]
Three choral songs: September; I Seraillets have (The Garden of Seraglio); Hayde jeg en datterson (If I had)
Swedish Radio Choir, Gustaf Sjökvist (conductor)
3:56 AM
Wagner, Richard (1813-1883) transcr. Liszt
Isolde's Liebestod (S.447)
François-Frédéric Guy (piano)
4:03 AM
Bartók, Béla (1881-1945) arr. Arthur Willner
Romanian folk dances from Sz.56
I Cameristi Italiani
4:11 AM
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)
Fantasy in C minor (K.396)
Valdis Jancis (piano)
4:22 AM
Handel, Georg Frideric (1685-1759)
Recitativo accompagnato - Dall'ondoso periglio; Aria - Aure, deh, per pieta - from the opera 'Giulio Cesare in Egitto' Act 3 Sc 4
Graham Pushee (counter-tenor), Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Paul Dyer (artistic director)
4:31 AM
Khachaturian, Aram Ilyich [1903-1978]
Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia from the ballet 'Spartacus' (Act 3)
NRCU Symphony Orchestra, Vyacheslav Blinov (conductor)
4:40 AM
Nielsen, Carl (1865-1931)
Chaconne for piano (Op.32)
Anders Kilström (piano)
4:50 AM
Duijck, Johan [b.1954]
Cantiones Sacrae in honorem Thomas Tallis, Op.26, Book 1
Flemish Radio Choir, Johan Duijck (conductor)
5:00 AM
Groneman, Albertus (1710-1778)
Concerto in G major for solo flute, two flutes, viola & basso continuo
Jed Wentz (solo flute), Marion Moonen, Cordula Breuer (flutes), Musica ad Rhenum
5:08 AM
Weber, Carl Maria von (1786-1826)
Overture - from 'Der Freischütz'
Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Mario Bernardi (conductor)
5:19 AM
Ravel, Maurice (1875-1937)
Tzigane - rapsodie de concert
James Ehnes (violin), Wendy Chen (piano)
5:30 AM
Beethoven, Ludwig van [1770 -1827]
Quartet for strings (Op.18'2) in G major
Kroger Quartet
5:55 AM
Mendelssohn, Fanny Hensel (1805-1847)
Songs Without Words (Op.6) (1846)
Sylviane Deferne (piano)
6:06 AM
Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-1788)
Concerto for flute and strings in D minor (Wq.22)
Martin Michael Koffer (flute), Slovenicum Chamber Orchestra, Uros Lajovic (conductor).
FRI 06:30 Breakfast (b06rwpp4)
Friday - Petroc Trelawny
Petroc Trelawny presents Radio 3's classical breakfast show, featuring listener requests and your suggestions for our annual musical Advent Calendar.
Back in August, amateur composers were invited to set a specially commissioned poem by Roger McGough called "Comes the Light". Listeners have been invited to vote for the overall winner and to vote for your favourite carol, go to bbc.co.uk/radio3. Voting closes at
5pm on December 22nd.
Email 3Breakfast@bbc.co.uk.
FRI 09:00 Essential Classics (b06rxmzz)
Friday - Sarah Walker with Catherine Martin
9am
A selection of music including '5 reasons to love... Scandinavian strings'. Throughout the week, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah shares music written for strings by Nordic composers including Grieg, Bull, and Larsson, plus there's a chance to hear a traditional tune played on a Norwegian Hardanger fiddle.
9.30am
Take part in today's musical challenge: trace the classical theme behind a well-known song.
10am
Sarah's guest is the jeweller and trained classical musician Catherine Martin who, after travelling to Japan, discovered an ancient braiding technique that she spent four years perfecting and went on to use in her jewellery making. Her first piece of jewellery made the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and she has since had exhibitions at the American Museum of Art and Design in New York, the National Museums of Scotland and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. Throughout the week Catherine shares a selection of her favourite classical music, talks about physically stepping into Dame Janet Baker's shoes in a production with the English Opera Group and explains why she listens to the Bach Fugues whilst weaving precious metals in her work as a jeweller.
10.30am
Sarah places Music in Time with Tallis' Gloria from his Mass Puer Natus Est. Tallis, one of the most celebrated composers of the English Renaissance, used the ancient tradition of plainchant to lend structure to the new polyphonic style.
11am
As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Sarah features recordings of major works by leading Nordic composers. Throughout the week Sarah explores music from Northern lands as she showcases compositions by composers including Sinding, Nielsen and Berwald.
Berwald
Symphony No.4
Malmo Symphony Orchestra
Sixten Ehrling (conductor).
FRI 12:00 Composer of the Week (b03kp83c)
Iceland
Old Poetry, New Sounds
Donald Macleod explores works by two key contemporary figures, Haflidi Halgrimsson and Daniel Bjarnason - ending with an extraordinary musical depiction of a volcanic eruption by Jon Leifs.
For more than a millennium, Iceland's composers have drawn upon the sounds of its unique geology: sounds created in a glacial, geothermal landscape like nowhere else on earth. Searing water explodes from fissures; the earth steams spongily underfoot; vast, electric-blue hunks of solid ice crack and collide as they bob down otherwise silent fjords. Yet Iceland's classical music tradition remains barely known. This week, Donald Macleod explores the landscapes and vistas of the world's most northerly island nation - to discover its unique musical culture.
Donald Macleod ends his visit to Iceland with two utterly different works by Jon Leifs - his quiet, valedictory Fine II for strings and vibraphone, and the colossal orchestral poem "Hekla" - possibly the loudest piece of classical music ever written. He also introduces works by two key contemporary Icelandic voices: Haflidi Halgrimsson and Daníel Bjarnason, and talks to the latter about how his music bridges the worlds of rock, classical and electronic music.
Jón Leifs: Fine II, Op 56
Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Petri Sakari (conductor)
Jón Leifs: Ymir (Edda: Part 1. The Creation of the World)
Gunnar Gudbjornsson (tenor), Bjarni Thor Kristinsson (bass-baritone)
Schola Cantorum
Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Hermann Bäumer (conductor)
Haflidi Hallgrimsson: Metamorphoses for Piano Trio, Op 16
Fidelio Trio
Daniel Bjarnason: Bow to String I: "Sorrow Conquers Happiness"
Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir (multitracked cello)
Jon Leifs: Hekla, Op 52
Schola Cantorum
Iceland Symphony Orchestra, En Shao (conductor)
First broadcast December 2012.
FRI 13:00 Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (b06rwrbs)
Northern Lights: Greg Morris (Organ) Live from Temple Church
Live from Temple Church, London, the organist Greg Morris gives a recital of music from countries celebrated in Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
Presented by Petroc Trelawny.
In the 150th anniversary year of his birth, this programme features as its main work Nielsen's imposing Commotio, his last completed work and an imposing tour de force for the organ. Alongside it are seasonal works by another Danish composer, Dietrich Buxtehude and his pupil, Nikolaus Bruhns, as well as music by Johan Roman (the "Swedish Handel") and awe inspiring Estonian Arvo Pärt as he celebrates his 80th birthday year.
Buxtehude: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland
Chorale: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland
Bruhns: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland
Pärt: Annum per annum
Chorale: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
Buxtehude: Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
Johan Helmich Roman: Drottningholmsmusiken (1st mvt)
Nielsen: Commotio
Greg Morris, organ
Members of the Temple Choir: Augusta Hebbert, Jonathan Darbourne, James Way and Michael Burke.
Photograph of The Temple Church Organ (c) Chris Christodoulou.
FRI 14:00 Afternoon Concert (b06rws6w)
Northern Lights
Episode 4
As part of Northern Lights on Afternoon on 3, Ian Skelly focuses on Scandinavian theatre music, including Madetoja's symphonic poem Kullervo, Sibelius's Swanwhite Suite and Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite. Plus Arvo Part's 4th Symphony performed by the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra under Tonu Kaljuste and Nielsen's 5th Symphony performed by the BBC Philharmonic and conductor John Storgards.
Presented by Ian Skelly.
2pm
Madetoja
Kullervo - symphonic poem Op.15
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Jurjen Hempel (conductor)
2.20pm
Arvo Part
Symphony No.4
Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra
Tonu Kaljuste (conductor)
2.55pm
Sibelius
Swanwhite Suite Op.54
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Jurjen Hempel (conductor)
3.30pm
Grieg
Peer Gynt Suite
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgards (conductor)
3.50pm
Nielsen
Symphony No.5
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgards (conductor).
FRI 16:30 In Tune (b06rwv4c)
Christmas Special from the BBC Radio Theatre
In Tune celebrates Christmas live from the BBC Radio Theatre. Joining Sean Rafferty and Suzy Klein are the Girls' Choir of St Catharine's College Cambridge, members of the Chineke! Orchestra, BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year Nancy Kerr, rising star pianist Clare Hammond, and BBC Introducing discovery, accordionist Iosif Purits. Plus our special feature 'Tales from the North' as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, and Christmas-themed readings from special guest Joanna Lumley.
FRI 18:30 Composer of the Week (b03kp83c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 today]
FRI 19:30 Radio 3 in Concert (b06rwvdn)
Northern Lights: Nordic Christmas
Northern Lights: Music for a Nordic Christmas, sung by the Temple Church Choir and Temple Singers with baritone Thomas Guthrie and organist Greg Morris, directed by Roger Sayer.
Live from the Temple Church, London
Presented by Petroc Trelawny
Mathias: A Babe Is Born
Leighton: Coventry Carol
Dove: The Three Kings
Rautavaara: Rubáiyát (baritone: Thomas Guthrie)
Rautavaara: Our Joyful'st Feast
Rautavaara: Christmas Carol
arr Darbourne: Silent Night
Mendelssohn: Three movements from Christus
8.15: Interval
Roman: Drottningholmsmusiken - Music for a Royal Wedding
Arvo Pärt: The Deer Cry
Arvo Pärt: The Woman with the Alabaster Box
Arvo Pärt: De profundis
Arvo Pärt: Morning Star
Duruflé: Four Motets, Op. 10
Grieg: Ave Maria
Rheinberger: Abendlied
Whitacre: Sleep
Tavener: God Is with Us.
FRI 22:00 The Verb (b06rwvrh)
The Verb at Christmas
Joining Ian McMillan and a studio audience to celebrate Christmas Verb style at Media City are musician Laurence Owen, who tackles Christmas Film Cliches and Verb New Voice Kamal Kaan who presents his piece 'As The Cloud Takes Its Last Breath'.
Producer: Cecile Wright.
FRI 22:45 The Essay (b06rwvzr)
Art in a Cold Climate
Art in a Cold Climate: Thomas Hylland Eriksen on the Holmenkollen Ski-Jumping Hill
Many people would not consider a ski-jump to be a work of art. But for anthropologist and novelist Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Oslo's Holmenkollen ski-jumping hill was the most important art work in Norway.
"The Holmenkollen Hill, white, elegant and majestic, hovered above the city like a large bird about to take flight," says Eriksen. "It was a work of art enjoyed by tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people every day". Eriksen employs the past tense because the structure - built for the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo - was pulled down and replaced with a more "flashy, hi-tech and efficient" ski jump in 2008.
The architects of the original - Olav Tveten and Frode Rinnan - had created much more than a sporting facility, he says. It was a frugal, elegant structure, which spoke to the Norwegian love of the mountains and the outdoors. "Looking towards Holmenkollen made people more Norwegian." It lives on, he says, as a memory of how architecture can transform a practical structure into a sublime work of art.
This edition of The Essay is one of a series in which five writers each consider the significance of a work of art to their nation, as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season.
Producer: Andy Denwood.
FRI 23:00 World on 3 (b06rwwt1)
Womad 2015 Highlights
Episode 1
Lopa Kothari presents the first of two programmes with unheard highlights from this summer's WOMAD, the international festival introducing cultures and music from across the globe.