Programme Information

Tuesday 9 December 2008

BBC RADIO 2 Tuesday 9 December 2008

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Annie Lennox presents a one-hour documentary highlighting the important part that artists and musicians have played in generating support and awareness for Amnesty International. Events including The Secret Policeman's Ball and the Conspiracy Of Hope and Human Rights Now! tours have featured artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Tracy Chapman, Sting and Youssou N'Dour.

Inspired by the success of the Secret Policeman's Ball, which began in 1979, the power of music was harnessed for the Conspiracy Of Hope tour in 1986 and the Human Rights Now! tour in 1988. Both were organised to celebrate the achievements of the human rights movement and to introduce the idea of basic human rights protection to millions of people, world-wide, through the power of the media. The universality of the Declaration of Human Rights was expressed by touring the world, playing 19 countries in just six weeks, promoted not as a caravan for charity, but a campaign for freedom. Hundreds of thousands of people filled stadiums and crowded into fields for concerts held in South America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.

Contributors to the programme include artists who have participated in Amnesty events: Bono and The Edge from U2, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Townshend, Peter Gabriel, John Cleese, Tom Robinson and Martin Lewis, the producer of the original, Secret Policeman's Ball and the Conspiracy Of Hope tour.

The current musical event supporting the work of Amnesty International is the Small Places Tour in which artists (including REM, Tracy Chapman, Peter Gabriel and White Stripes), local musicians and fans are raising their voices in venues, cities, towns, communities, neighbourhoods and workplaces until Human Rights Day on 10 December.

Presenter/Annie Lennox, Producer/Des Shaw

BBC Radio 2 Publicity

top^

BBC RADIO 3 Tuesday 9 December 2008

For the whole of December, BBC Radio 3's Breakfast plays a Bach dance at 8am each morning. Contrary to the view that Johann Sebastian Bach is all about dry counterpoint and austere fugues, these dances may get people dancing round the breakfast table to bourées, allemandes and gigues.

Today, there's a chance to hear Viktoria Mullova play the Allegro Assai from the popular Concerto in A minor for Violin, Strings and Continuo, BWV 1041.

Last December, Breakfast featured all the Preludes and Fugues of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. This mini-series proved very popular and many listeners emailed to say that Bach is the perfect composer for Breakfast – a man for all seasons and a ray of sunshine on those chilly winter mornings when it's a struggle to get out of bed and start the day.

Presenter/Rob Cowan, Producer/Clive Portbury

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

"Behind every great man is a great woman" – nowhere is this old adage more apt than in the relationship between Robert and Clara Schumann. Donald Macleod explores a partnership that is unique in musical history.

Today, Donald examines Schumann's tortuous battle for Clara's hand in marriage. The course of true love did not run smoothly. Their engagement in 1837 marked the beginning of Robert's battle with Friedrich Wieck, who was determined not to let his daughter out of his clutches at any cost. Legal battles, lengthy separations and slanderous attacks ensued, but, undeterred, Robert and Clara were finally married in 1840, with the blessing of the court.

Musically, this was a fruitful period for Schumann, and today Donald is joined by pianist Lucy Parham to discuss his epic Fantasy for piano – "the most passionate thing I have ever written". Music includes Davidsbündlertänze (No.1, Lebhaft), Fantasy Op. 17, and Frauenliebe und Leben.

Presenter/Donald Macleod, Producer/Rebecca Warner

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

As part of BBC Radio 3's celebration of the centenary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen, organist Wayne Marshall begins this four-part series of Lunchtime Concerts from Manchester's Bridgewater Hall with a performance of Messiaen's Les Corps Glorieux.

Written in 1939, this work is one of five major organ cycles by Messiaen dealing with aspects of the Catholic faith: each of the seven movements is headed by a text from the New Testament or the Roman Catholic Liturgy.

Presenter/Louise Fryer, Producer/Les Pratt

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

Tonight, as part of Radio 3's celebration of the centenary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen, the BBC Philharmonic performs an all-Messiaen programme conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, a committed advocate of the French composer's music.

Messiaen's Le Tombeau Resplendissant is a tomb for his youth, though a loss more than compensated for by his deep Catholic faith. The Poèmes pour Mi were Messiaen's love letter to his first wife, Claire Delbos – "Mi" was his pet name for her. Originally scored for voice and piano to a cycle of nine poems by Messiaen himself on the theme of the sanctity of marriage, he later made this colourful orchestral version with the soprano solo performed here by Rosemary Hardy. Un Sourire – A Smile – was written only a few months before Messiaen died, as a piece to celebrate the bicentenary of Mozart's death.

The concert ends with Chronochromie, which merges the Greek words "khronos" and "khrôma" – "time" and "colour" – and plays on the interaction between the two in musical terms, resulting in a work notable for its huge arsenal of pitched percussion.

Presenter/Petroc Trelawney, Producer/Mike George

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

As well as writing the great poems, John Milton was engaged – embroiled even – in revolutionary politics and social and theological upheaval. He wrote many essays, pamphlets and tracts, so, in the week when Radio 3 commemorates the 400th anniversary of his birth, The Essay is devoted to John Milton as an essayist.

John Milton was 33 when he married for the first time. His wife, Mary Powell, was 17. He was highly educated and metropolitan. She lived in a close family in a small village in Oxfordshire. A few weeks after the wedding, she returned there. It is unsurprising then that Milton had strong opinions concerning marriage and divorce, and wrote a good deal about them. On 9 December – Milton's birthday – Sharon Achinstein, who is editing his tracts on divorce, unravels his controversial and surprisingly modern views. In 1644, Milton was calling for no-fault divorce on grounds of mutual incompatibility, which the law finally allowed in 1977.

Producer/Julian May

BBC Radio 3 Publicity

top^

BBC RADIO 4 Tuesday 9 December 2008

Marking the centenary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen on 10 December, ornithologist and nature writer Stephen Moss explores a crucial period in Messiaen's life, when his passion for collecting and using birdsong in his music flourished and provided a refuge from the agony of his wife's decline.

Stephen explores Messiaen's lifelong fascination with birds and, with Messiaen's biographer Nigel Simeone as his guide, visits some of the composer's favourite locations in France – his garden at Petichet, where he would notate the dawn chorus at lightning speed; his gravestone nearby, which stands out as a white dove soaring skywards; and the stunning glacial landscape of La Grave in the Alps near Grenoble, the inspiration for the first of the bird portraits in the vast Catalogue d'Oiseaux. Stephen Moss talks to author and naturalist Mark Cocker about the importance of birdwatching in reconnecting to place, season and the fundamentals of life, and the associations that birdsong has.

There are recollections too from, among others, concert organist Dame Gillian Weir, who remembers how at lunchtime, after a seminar on birdsong in Messiaen's works, she searched for her class, only to find they had vanished into the woods to listen for themselves.

Presenter/Stephen Moss, Producer/Megan Jones

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

James Alexandrou stars in this modern-day morality tale as Liam, a reclusive eight-footer with a mother, Pat, who is too large to go out.

Running short of money and in desperation, Pat puts a sign in the garden: "Giant. Indoors. Upstairs. Ten quid a look." And so little Ethel comes into their lives, followed shortly by Sarah Jane, a dog agent who reckons Liam can be "really big".

Liam is 8ft 6in tall and lives in a cramped room. Ethel is 4ft tall and brings out the latent bully in everyone. Sarah Jane, the canine agent, has all the PR skills of a flea-bitten mutt, and Pat, Liam's mother, weighs 30 stones and is obsessed by game shows.

This is a touching story about the awkwardness of being misshapen and the misery of not fitting.

The cast includes Candassaie Liburd, Julia Deakin and Marcella Riordan, who plays Pat.

Producer/Jessica Dromgoole

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

Great Lives Ep 1/9 Tuesday 9 December 4.30-5.00pm BBC RADIO 4

Great Italian tenor Luciano
Pavarotti

Matthew Parris begins a new series of Great Lives with an appraisal of Luciano Pavarotti.

The great Italian tenor, who died in September 2007, is nominated by Harvey Goldsmith, the impresario behind Pavarotti In The Park. Their connection dates back to 1984, when Goldsmith paid up front for a 10-day slot at Earls Court for Bruce Springsteen, who then decided he didn't want to play there after all. The emergency search for a replacement led to two decades of collaboration between Goldsmith and Pavarotti in arenas around the world.

There are contributions from the opera director John Copley, who first met the young Pavarotti in 1963, and Anne Midgette, co-author of The King And I: The Uncensored Tale Of Luciano Pavarotti's Rise To Fame By His Manager, Friend, And Sometime Adversary.

Presenter/Matthew Parris, Producer/Miles Warde

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

Three years ago, a start-up company, Global Alumina, shocked the mining industry by closing a deal to develop one of the world's richest mineral deposits in Guinea, one of the world's poorest countries. In Digging Deep, reporter Richard Phinney takes listeners on a journey to this remote part of Africa to see if the company is delivering on its promises.

It pledged to hire teams of aid workers to consult villagers, provide health and water services, develop state-of-the-art environmental protection plans, and resettle displaced families in decent living conditions. In addition, with an investment topping £3bn – about the size of Guinea's gross national product – it promised to build the world's largest aluminium refinery.

Phinney finds a state-of-the art construction site emerging next to subsistence farmers whose lives have not changed much. While there are new water pumps, health clinics and mosques paid for by the company, there are also villagers desperate for work and worried about living downstream from a toxic dump. And, at a street protest blockading Guinea's most important port, Phinney also discovers why foreign mining companies in the country are so reviled.

Presenter/Richard Phinney, Producer/Anthony Baxter

BBC Radio 4 Publicity

top^

BBC RADIO 5 LIVE Tuesday 9 December 2008

Mark Saggers presents all the day's sports news, and, from 7.45pm, and there's live coverage of the Champions League matches between Chelsea and CFR 1907 and PSV Eindhoven and Liverpool.

Presenter/Mark Saggers

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

top^

Danny Baker sets sail aboard his 606 pirate ship to host his off-beat football phone-in.

Fans can watch the debate on interactive digital TV via the Red button, and give their views to Danny by phoning 0500 909 693 (free from BT landlines), texting 85058 at network rates or emailing 606@bbc.co.uk.

Presenter/Danny Baker, Producer/Patrick Campbell

BBC Radio 5 Live Publicity

top^

BBC 5 LIVE SPORTS EXTRA Tuesday 9 December 2008

Uninterrupted commentary on one of the night's top games in the Coca-Cola Championship.

Producer/Jen McAllister

BBC 5 Live Sports Extra Publicity

top^

BBC 6 MUSIC Tuesday 9 December 2008

Gideon Coe's archive selection tonight goes back to Glastonbury 1997 for concert highlights from eccentric electro-man Aphex Twin, plus sessions from Talk Talk recorded for Kid Jensen in 1983. Other tracks come from indie rockers The Servants from 1986, as well as a recent set from Sam Prekop who played in the 6 Music Hub.

Presenter/Gideon Coe, Producer/Lisa Kenlock

BBC 6 Music Publicity

top^

BBC ASIAN NETWORK Tuesday 9 December 2008

Shazia blames Dr Hassan for recommending that her father should go to the Hajj. He knows Dr Masud has diabetes. Dr Hassan tries to defend himself.

In Mecca, the long walk has made Dr Masud weak, and he has lost his glucose tablets. Zak sits him at the roadside and goes to find an information point. Zak eventually returns with someone who can help, but to his horror Dr Masud has gone.

Shazia is played by Shobu Kapoor, Dr Hassan by Youssef Kerkour, Dr Masud by Saeed Jaffrey OBE and Zak by Jetinder Summan.

BBC Asian Network Publicity

top^

BBC WORLD SERVICE Tuesday 9 December 2008

A chance to hear a shortened version (first broadcast on Saturday 6 December) of Harriett Gilbert's discussion with Nobel Prize-winning writer Derek Walcott about his 1990 poem, Omeros, an interpretation of Homer's Odyssey.

In his retelling, Walcott focuses on no single character. Many critics believe the "hero" of Omeros to be the island of St Lucia, where Walcott set the poem.

Omeros has three main threads, which are introduced in Book One. The first is the story of the Achille and Hector and their love for Helen; the second interweaves the tale of Sergeant-Major Plunkett and his Irish wife Maude, who live on St Lucia; and then there is the poet-narrator, who comments on the action and participates in many transatlantic journeys and wanderings himself.

Presenter/Harriett Gilbert, Producer/Karen Holden

BBC World Service Publicity

top^