April Showers
A celebration in anticipation of precipitation. Music includes works by Chopin, Britten and Copland, readings come from Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and George Mackay Brown read by Lucian Msamati and Lisa Dillon.
Last on
More episodes
Previous
Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
-
00:00
Frédéric Chopin
Prelude No.15
Performer: Martha Argerich.- DG 4158362.
- Tr15.
-
Shakespeare
Twelth Night, read by Lucian Msamati
00:02Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The Tempest
Performer: Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Gustavo Dudamel.- DG 4779355.
- Tr2.
Anon
The Book of Genesis, read by Lucian Msamati
00:07Igor Stravinsky
The Flood
Performer: London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen.- DG 4470682.
- Tr3.
Anon
The Book of Genesis, read by Lisa Dillon
00:12Igor Stravinsky
The Flood
Performer: London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen.- DG 4470682.
- Tr6.
Austen
Pride and Prejudice, read by Lisa Dillon
00:17Frédéric Chopin
Prelude No.15
Performer: Martha Argerich.- DG 4158362.
- Tr15.
Hughes
April Rain Song, read by Lucian Msamati
00:23Bernstein
AinÂ’t Got No Tears Left
Performer: Cleo Lane, Michael Tilson Thomas.- DG 4375162.
- Tr17.
Mackay Brown
Greenvoe, read by Lisa Dillon
00:29Peter Maxwell Davies
Naxos Quartet no.5 (Lighthouses of Orkney and Shetland)
Performer: Maggini Quartet.- Naxos 8557398.
- Tr1.
Lewis
All Day it has Rained, read by Lucian Msamati
00:39Tippett
The HeartÂ’s Assurance: Compassion
Performer: John Mark Ainsley, Iain Burnside.- Signum SIGCD066.
- Tr3.
Sitwell
Still Falls the Rain, read by Lucian Msamati
00:45Benjamin Britten
We are the darkness
Performer: Neil Mackie, Roger Vignoles.- EMI CDC7492572.
- tr3.
00:46Frédéric Chopin
The Four Seasons: Summer
Performer: Neville Marriner. Performer: Alan Loveday. Orchestra: Academy of St Martin in the Fields.- Decca.
- 4786883.
- 4.
Dickinson
Summer Shower, read by Lisa Dillon
00:58Bacharach
Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head
Performer: Burt Bacharach.- A&M CD3159.
- Tr5.
Longfellow
Rain in Summer, read by Lisa Dillon
01:01Aaron Copland
The Second Hurricane
Performer: NYPO, Leonard Bernstein.- Sony SMK60560.
- Tr2.
Vaughan
The Shower, read by Lisa Dillon
01:05Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony no.6 (Pastoral)
Performer: Gewandhausorchester, Riccardo Chailly.- Decca 4782721.
- CD3, Tr9.
Hardy
Rain on a Grave, read by Lucian Msamati
01:09Benjamin Britten
Peter Grimes: Storm Interlude
Performer: ROHCG, Benjamin Britten.- Decca 4256592.
- Tr5.
Producer's Note
If erigenia is ‘the harbinger of spring’, it can only be because it is nourished and kissed into life by that other harbinger of spring, April showers.  The nightclub singer of Bernstein’s Ain’t got no tears left (here none other than Cleo Lane) knows this, as did Henry Vaughan in his poem The Shower. Langston Hughes loves the April rain; for WW2 poet Alun Lewis it’s just one more grey aspect to the doomed monotony of combat; for George Mackay Brown’s character Mrs McKee it’s the catalyst that leads to a heartbreaking secret that will haunt her entire life.
Only Noah, his family and just two of every species are spared God’s wrath in the Flood from the Book of Genesis, accompanied here by spiky music Stravinsky wrote for a ‘60s TV version. In Pride and Prejudice, beautiful Jane Bennet foolishly treks cross-country in the rain and succumbs to a remarkably precipitous cold the next morning; Chopin’s health was certainly not helped by his sojourn in soggy Mallorca with George Sand, a stay which nevertheless resulted in his set of 24 Preludes.
Thomas Hardy is moved by rain falling on his wife’s grave, while Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow delight in its rejuvenating qualities. Musical storms come from Britten’s Peter Grimes, Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and Copland’s kids’ opera The Second Hurricane.
Now don’t forget your umbrella…Broadcasts
- Sun 30 Apr 2017 17:3091Èȱ¬ Radio 3
- Sun 22 Apr 2018 17:3091Èȱ¬ Radio 3