Words and Music - 21/09/2008

Producer’s Note – Ode to Autumn To celebrate the first day of autumn this week’s Words and Music is devoted to what Keats called ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. Autumn in the countryside is celebrated too in John Clare’s ‘Autumn’ and Percy Grainger’s ‘Harvest Hymn’. For Ted Hughes it is a more mysterious time of year - the frost on an ‘October Dawn’ leads to a premonition of an ice age where ‘mammoth and sabre-tooth celebrate reunion’. A harsher and more mystic season is also evoked in ‘The name of it is autumn’ by a poet much admired by Hughes, Emily Dickinson. And, for another American poet, Robert Frost, the ripe apples unharvested and falling from the tree leads him to a plea for man to resist ‘managing’ nature and to cherish the unknown and unexpected in life. Apples too In Patrick Kavanagh’s beautiful poem ‘The Long Garden’ in which the memory of a garden full of golden apples takes him back to his Irish childhood ‘where the sun was always setting on the play’. But, for Yeats, the sight of the wild swans at Coole as he walks through the woods with the trees in ‘their autumn beauty’ reminds him of the passing of time as he reaches the end of his life The music in ‘Ode to Autumn’ takes us from the Italy of Vivaldi’s ‘L’Autumno’ to the tango of Piazzolla’s Buenos Aires autumn in ‘Otono Porteno’ and the Russian baccanale in Glazunov’s ‘L’Automne’. The programme ends with Mahler’s masterpiece ‘Der Einsame im Herbst’, written after the death of his daughter, a lament for the passing of beauty and the loneliness of the individual in the face of death. Producer: Fiona McLean Readers: Rachel Atkins and Nicholas Farrell. Details of Readings and Music ADELAIDE CRAPSEY November Night Rachel Atkins (reader) ALEXANDER GLAZUNOV L’Automne – Petit Adagio The Seasons Oscar Shumsky – violin The Scottish National Orchestra Neeme Jarvi – conductor CHANDOS CHAN8596 JOHN CLARE Autumn Nicholas Farrell (reader) PERCY GRAINGER Harvest Hymn BBC Philharmonic Richard Hickox – conductor CHANDOS CHAN9493 TED HUGHES October Dawn Nicholas Farrell (reader) EMILY DICKINSON The Name of It Rachel Atkins (reader) ASTOR PIAZZOLLA Maria de Buenos Aires Otono Porteno BELLA MUSICA BMCD317033 PATRICK KAVANAGH The Long Garden Rachel Atkins (reader) PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY November – Troika The Seasons Detroit Symphony Orchestra Neeme Jarvi – conductor CHANDOS CHAN9514 ROBERT FROST Unharvested Rachel Atkins (reader) FRANZ SCHUBERT Herbst Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau – baritone Alfred Brendel – piano PHILIPS 4114212 ROBERT FROST Gathering Leaves Nicholas Farrell (reader) GERALD FINZI Shortening Days Who are these children and other songs Mark Padmore – tenor Roger Vignoles – piano HYPERION CDA67459 JOHN KEATS Ode to Autumn Rachel Atkins (reader) ANTONIO VIVALDI L’autumno The Four Seasons Nigel Kennedy – violin Berliner Philharmoniker EMI 5576660 WALLACE STEVENS Autumn Refrain Rachel Atkins (reader) LUIS TINOCO Autumn Wind – moderato Music for Wind Quintet Galliard Ensemble MERIDIAN CDE84429 RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Vagabond Songs of Travel Benjamin Luxon – baritone David Willison – piano CHANDOS CHAN8475 W.B. YEATS The Wild Swans at Coole Nicholas Farrell (reader) PYOTR TCHAIKOVSKY October – Autumn Song The Seasons Detroit Symphony Orchestra Neeme Jarvi – conductor CHANDOS CHAN9514 MARY OLIVER Fall Song Rachel Atkins (reader) FRANZ HAYDN Der Herbst The Seasons Leipziger Kammerorchester NAXOS 8557600001 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE That time of year thou mayst in me behold Rachel Atkins (reader) ROGER QUILTER Autumn Evening Songs by Roger Quilter John Mark Ainsley – tenor Malcolm Martineau – piano HYPERION CDA66878 SEAMUS HEANEY Exposure Nicholas Farrell (reader) MAX RICHTER November Memory House BBCLJ30022 PHILIP LARKIN And now the leaves suddenly lose strength Nicholas Farrell (reader) GUSTAV MAHLER Der Einsame im Herbst Brigitte Fassbaender –mezzosoprano Francisco Araiza – tenor Wiener Philharmoniker Carlo Maria Guilini – conductor ORFEO C654052B