Running time | 28 minutes |
---|---|
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
Original release | 26 November 2000 – present |
Website | Soul Music |
Soul Music is a music documentary series on BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in November 2000, which aims to focus on the emotional impact of famous pieces of music. [1] The works chosen can be anything from classical, popular, jazz or religious. The first episode examined Sir Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor . [2]
The programme does not have a presenter, but features a montage of interviews interspersed with clips of the work in question. Each programme usually has three to five contributors who have a personal story connected to the piece of music. One is usually a musicologist, conductor or performer who discusses the background to the work or composer, the other contributors are people who have a personal story connected to the piece. [3] For example, a 2010 episode on Gabriel Fauré's Requiem featured Fauré biographer Jessica Duchen discussing the history of the work; veteran choral conductor Sir David Willcocks, who reflected on his experience in the artillery during World War II; Christina Schmid, widow of Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid GC; and Paul Hawkins, vicar of St Pancras New Church, who organised a performance the weekend after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. [4]
Soul Music has been broadcast for 30 series, as of 2024, [ref] and has featured works as diverse as "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins , George Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad Rhapsody , Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" and the hymn "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind". [1] Antonia Quirke, writing in the New Statesman , notes that each episode is produced by one person and can take up to five years before a suitable range of speakers can be compiled, citing the episode on Richard Wagner's Siegfried Idyll . [3]
The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a choral and orchestral composition by Benjamin Britten, composed mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, in the English county of Warwickshire, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.
Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Sir John Kenneth Tavener was an English composer, known for his extensive output of choral religious works. Among his best known works are The Lamb (1982), The Protecting Veil (1988), and Song for Athene (1993).
Sir Stephen John Cleobury was an English organist and music director. He worked with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, where he served as music director from 1982 to 2019, and with the BBC Singers.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.
The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras.
Film '71 – Film 2018 is a British film review television programme, which was usually broadcast on BBC One. The title of the show changed each year to incorporate the year of broadcast until its cancellation in December 2018.
Something Understood was a weekly radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 1995 to 2024 which dealt with topics of religion, spirituality, and the larger questions of human life, and took a particular spiritual theme, exploring it through speech, music, prose, and poetry. It was broadcast early on Sunday mornings with a repeat late on Sunday evening. New episodes have not been produced since 2019.
Front Row is a radio programme on BBC Radio 4 that has been broadcast regularly since 1998. The BBC describes the programme as a "live magazine programme on the world of arts, literature, film, media and music". It is broadcast each weekday between 7:15 pm and 8 pm, and has a podcast available for download. Podcasts consisted of weekly highlights until September 2011, but have been full daily episodes since. Shows usually include a mix of interviews, reviews, previews, discussions, reports and columns. Some episodes however, particularly on bank holidays, include a single interview with prominent figures in the arts or a half-hour-long feature on a single subject.
Leeds Student Radio is a student radio station broadcasting every day during term time from Leeds University Union at the University of Leeds.
Peter Nicholas Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at The Guardian since 1999, and is a contributing editor at Esquire.
Sounds of the 70s is the name of BBC radio programme, currently broadcast on Sundays on BBC Radio 2, with the Sounds of the Seventies name also having been used by BBC Television for a number of themed music compilations, now repeated on BBC Four.
The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) is an amateur philharmonic orchestra based in Cardiff, Wales. The CPO played its first concert in 1982 and subsequently played over 250 concerts, primarily in Wales but also in England, Switzerland, and France. The CPO has a wide repertoire and appears regularly at Wales' premier concert hall, St. David's Hall.
The Film Programme was a British film review radio programme, broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4, from 2004 to 2021, presented by Francine Stock.
David Attenborough's Life Stories is a series of monologues written and spoken by British broadcaster David Attenborough on the subject of natural history. They were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 as part of the station's "Point of View" strand, in the weekly timeslot formerly occupied by Alistair Cooke's Letter from America. In each of the 20 programmes, Attenborough discusses a particular subject of personal resonance, drawing on his experience of six decades filming the natural world. The series was produced by Julian Hector, head of radio at the BBC Natural History Unit.
Staff Sergeant Olaf Sean George Schmid, GC was a British Army bomb disposal expert who was killed in action in the Afghanistan conflict. Schmid was posthumously awarded the George Cross after he made safe 70 devices before his death in October 2009. The citation was presented to Schmid's widow, Christina Schmid, by the Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Jock Stirrup on 18 March 2010 in a ceremony in the City of London. The announcement of the award of the GC to Staff Sergeant Kim Hughes was made at the same time.
The Living World is a long-running natural history radio programme, made by the BBC and broadcast on its Radio 4. The series was created at the BBC Natural History Unit by Dilys Breese and Derek Jones, initially as a 52-week series, in 1968. It chiefly covers topics related to the flora and fauna of the British Isles, with occasional forays further afield, such as a 1997 episode on the wildlife of the Rock of Gibraltar.
Philip Hammond is an Irish composer. He has also been a teacher, writer and broadcaster.
Living with the Gods is a 30-part BBC Radio 4 series presented by Neil MacGregor, a former director of the British Museum. It explores human societies and what MacGregor describes as "the connections between structures of belief, and the structures of society". The series examines artefacts from the 40,000 year-old Lion-man sculpture to the contemporary Lampedusa Cross created by Francisco Tuccio in response to the 2013 drowning of refugees off the island of Lampedusa.
Brexitcast is a British political talk show and television programme produced by BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC News. It was launched on 5 June 2017 following the success of Electioncast, a podcast that had covered that year's general election. Originally aired on radio, it was announced on 3 June 2019 that Brexitcast had been commissioned as a television programme for BBC One. It was the first BBC podcast to be commissioned for television.