Actress Fiona Shaw introduces a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of animals, including work by Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, William Golding, Les Murray, Lewis Carroll and Paul Durcan. With music by Sibelius, Schumann, Schubert, John Tavener and Poulenc.
The Beast Within
Animals began to play a bigger part in my life this year. In April I went to the Galapagos Islands with the artist Dorothy Cross whose work often reflects the power and the mystery of animals in her photographs of beached whales and her video work on jelly fish: this trip was inspired by her research on Darwin and the notion of evolution and language. My role was to provide poems that cut across the quietude that forms the big divide between man and beast. I was stunned by what I saw: the connection between sea lions and tortoises, the way in which animals reflect back to us our own origins and the difference between their unconscious fight for survival and our worrying self consciousness.
I returned refilled with the notion that our survival as humans and as creatures with art in our core is dependent on the animal world and that their preservation is intrinsic to our own. The poems chosen reflect this relationship - the sensuality of John Montague hunting a trout, Gwyneth Lewis' delight in her dog and the reverse anthropomorphism of Paul Durcan imagining himself as a snail in his prime lying in the famous neolithic grave at Newgrange with mud in his ears. But perhaps most inspirational is the great Ted Hughes who takes the beasts of our collective memory and with deft modernism makes Ovid's poems come to life: in Actaeon we see the hunter transformed into a deer and savaged by his own hounds when a curse falls upon him for spying on Diana the goddess. Alongside the poems you'll hear Ravel's 'Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune', James Macmillan's wonderfully expressive organ concerto A Scotch Bestiary which explores the connections between man and beast and Elvis Costello's balletic adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Il Sogno. All explore the world we must share.
Fiona Shaw
Fiona Shaw (curator and reader) Haydn Gwynne (reader)
Struan Rodgers (reader)
Details of Readings and Music Timings are from the beginning of the programme
00:00:00 Introduction Fiona Shaw
00:04:28 JAMES MACMILLAN A Page is Turned A Scotch Bestiary BBC Philharmonic Organ and Piano - Wayne Marshall CHANDOS 10377
00:06:03 JOHN CLARE Hares at Play Struan Rodger (reader)
00:06:55 FAURE Papillon Cello - Heinrich Schiff Piano - Samuel Sanders PHILIPS 442 409-2
00:09:27 LES MURRAY Two Dogs Struan Rodger (reader)
00:10:42 GWYNETH LEWIS Good Dog Fiona Shaw (reader)
00:12:18 POULENC Les Deux Coqs Aubades, Les Biches etc Piano - Pascal Roge Orchestre National de France Conductor - Charles Dutoit DECCA 452 937-2
00:21:02 TAKEMITSU Toward the Sea - The Night To the Edge of Dream Guitar - John Williams Alto Flute - Sebastian Bell Oboe d'amore - Gareth Hulse London Sinfonietta Conductor - Esa-Pekka Salonen SONY CLASSICAL SK46720
00:35:48 JAMES MACMILLAN The red-handed, no-surrender, howler monkey A Scotch Bestiary BBC Philharmonic Organ and Piano - Wayne Marshall CHANDOS 10377
00:37:20 TED HUGHES Actaeon Tales from Ovid Fiona Shaw and Haydn Gwynne (readers)
00:40:46 DEBUSSY Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un Faune Flute - Emmanuel Pahud Berliner Philharmoniker Conductor - Claudio Abbado DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4713322
00:49:19 MICHAEL LONGLEY The Horses Struan Rodger (reader)
00:49:58 SAINT-SAENS Introduction and Marche Royale du Lion Le Carnival des Animaux London Symphony Orchestra Conductor - Barry Wordsworth IMP PCD932
00:51:53 TALKING HEADS Animals Fear of Music SIRE K256707
00:55:14 CHASE TWITCHELL Saint Animal Haydn Gwynne (reader)
00:56:07 PHILIP GLASS Overture La Belle et la Bete The Philip Glass Ensemble Conductor - Michael Riesman NONESUCH 7559793472
00:59:36 MARY OLIVER Wild Geese Haydn Gwynne (reader)
01:00:36 ROBERT ADAMSON The Stone Curlew Fiona Shaw (reader)
01:01:45 MESSIAEN Le Courlis Cendre Catalogue d'Oiseaux Piano - Roger Murano ACCORD 4657682
01:03:27 J.A. BAKER The Peregrine Haydn Gwynne (reader)
01:04:28 RAVEL Les Oiseaux Tristes The Works for Solo Piano Piano - Anne Queffelec VIRGIN CLASSICS VC7592332
01:08:56 TED HUGHES Falcon Ted Hughes (reader)
01:10:19 KEITH JARRETT Second Movement The Celestial Hawk Syracuse Orchestra Conductor - Christopher Keene ECM 8293702
01:17:16 WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS The Polar Bear Struan Rodger (reader0
01:17:41 WILLIAM BLAKE The Tyger Haydn Gwynne (reader)
01:18:54 HENZE In Memoriam L.K.A. Six Songs from the Arabian Tenor - Ian Bostridge Piano - Julius Drake EMI CLASSICS CDC5571122
01:20:48 PAUL DURCAN A Snail in my Prime Struan Rodger (reader)
01:25:44 JOHN TAVENER The Tyger Innocence English Chamber Orchestra Westminster Abbey Choir Conductor - Martin Neary
01:30:09 W.B. YEATS Leda and the Swan Fiona Shaw (reader)
01:30:50 SIBELIUS Der Schwan von Tuonela Berliner Philharmoniker Conductor - Herbert von Karajan DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 457 748-2
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Fiona Shaw (curator and reader)
Haydn Gwynne (reader)
Struan Rodgers (reader)