
Ancient Greece
Actors Tim McMullan and Clare Higgins read poems and prose extracts by Shakespeare, Keats, Auden and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½r etc on the subject of Ancient Greece. With music by Schubert, Tippett, Bernstein, Stravinsky and Ravel
Last on
Clips
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Agathon’s Speech (audio)
Duration: 01:42
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Ulysses by Tennyson (audio)
Duration: 04:33
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C P Cavafy - 'Ithaka' (audio)
Duration: 02:11
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The Odyssey: opening lines (audio)
Duration: 02:18
Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
-
00:00
Maurice Ravel
Lever du jour from Daphnis et Chloe, Lever du jour from Daphnis et Chloe
Performer: Boston Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado
- DG4594392.
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Keats
On first looking into Chapman’s ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½r (CH)
ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½r (trans by George Chapman)
Beg of The Odyssey (CH)
00:06MAW
Odyssey
Performer: CBSO, Simon Rattle
- EMI 7542772.
Cavafy (trans Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard)
Ithaka (CH)
00:11Henri Duparc
L'invitation au voyage
Performer: Barbara Hendricks, soprano, Orchestre de l’Opera de Lyon, John Eliot Gardiner
- EMI7496892.
Tennyson
Ulysses (TM)
00:20Jacques Offenbach
Couplets des Rois from La belle Helene
Performer: Various soloists, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
- Virgin45477.
Marlowe
Faust’s speech from Dr Faustus (TM)
00:24Richard Strauss
Zweite Brautnacht from Die Agyptische Helene
Performer: Deborah Voigt, Helen, American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein
- Telarc80605.
Shakespeare
Intro to Troilus and Cressida (CH)
00:30Tippett
Start of King Priam ("War! War!")
Performer: London Sinfonietta, London Sinfonietta Chorus, David Atherton
- Chandos9406.
W. H. Auden
The Shield of Achilles (TM)
00:35Tippett
O rich-soiled land from King Priam
Performer: Robert Tear, Achilles, Timothy Walker, guitar, David Atherton
- Chandos9406.
Cavafy (trans Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard)
The Horses of Achilles (CH)
00:40Leonard Bernstein
Agathon from Serenade (after Plato's Symposium)
Performer: Gidon Kremer, violin, Israel Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein
- DG447947.
Plato (trans Benjamin Jowett)
Agathon’s speech from the Symposium (TM)
Racine (trans by Robert Bruce Boswell)
from Phaedra (CH)
00:50Benjamin Britten
Start of Phaedra to "I want your sword's spasmodic final inch"
Performer: Ann Murray, mezzo, ECO, Steuart Bedford
- Collins70372.
Goethe (trans Stephen Plunkett)
Ganymede (CH)
00:57Schubert
Ganymede
Performer: Ian Bostridge, tenor, Julius Drake, piano
- EMI56347.
Yeats
Leda and the Swan (TM)
01:02Igor Stravinsky
Prologue to Apollon Musagete
Performer: Sinfonietta de Montreal, Charles Dutoit
- Decca440327.
Matthew Arnold
Apollo Musagetes (TM)
01:09Richard Strauss
End of An dem Baum Daphne
Performer: ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Singers, Choristers of Kings College, Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury
- Collins14952.
Broadcasts
- Sun 28 Dec 2008 22:15ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3
- Sun 24 Oct 2010 22:15ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3