Episode 1

In the first of two programmes for a Saturday afternoon, conductor John Wilson presents a personal selection of classics from the golden age of the Broadway musical. HIs main focus is on the "book musical" in which composers and lyricists sought to create an intergrated structure of music, words, dance and drama in the presentation of a story. John begins his journey wiht Jerome Kern's "Showboat" and ends with Stephen Sondheim's self-reflective Broadway show, "Follies", taking in musicals by George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe, Leonard Bernstein and Jule Stein on the way.