Benjamin Britten and Radio

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2017

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Hendy, Glyn Maxwell, Kate Kennedy and Lucy Walker with Philip Dodd and an audience at Aldeburgh in a discussion exploring Britten’s relationship with radio in Britain and in America, with his subjects as varied as mountaineering (with words from Christopher Isherwood), a dramatisation of Homer’s Odyssey and short stories by D.H. Lawrence (with a young W.H. Auden). But why was Britten so reluctant to accept a job at the BBC’s Music department in the 1930s?

David Hendy is a historian of the BBC and Professor of Media and Cultural History at the University of Sussex.

Glyn Maxwell is a poet and librettist who has traced the journey of Auden and MacNeice to Iceland.

Kate Kennedy is a biographer and editor of the forthcoming ‘Literary Britten’

Lucy Walker is Director of Programmes and Learning at the Britten-Pears Foundation.

Recorded in front of an audience as part of the Britten on the Radio weekend at the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings.

Producer: Fiona McLean.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music
0:27.0	when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.0	Hello, I'm Philip Dodd.
0:34.2	I do hope you enjoy this podcast from Radio 3's Free Thinking.
0:39.0	This is the BBC.
1:00.1	It's a cold winter. the year following the end of World War II,
1:03.5	the year when the Arts Council of Great Britain is founded by the Bloomsbury economist John Maynard Keynes with the headline,
1:08.7	Death to Hollywood.
1:10.5	The year when W.H. Orden becomes a US citizen.
1:16.1	1946 is also the year when Louis MacNeice's radio verse play, The Dark Tower, is first broadcast on
1:22.9	the BBC with original music by Benjamin Britain. Radio then still dominates the broadcasting landscape.
1:30.3	Only in 1953 when Queen Elizabeth is crowned, will television rule the roost.
1:36.3	Today, free-thinking explores Britain's relationship with the radio, and particularly the BBC.
1:43.3	Not always an easy relationship, even if it stretches as far back as the 30s
1:49.0	with music for D.G. Britson's drama, King Arthur.
1:53.0	Just before the third programme was launched in 1946,
1:58.0	Benjamin Britain railed against the corporation, attacking its policies and its commitment
2:03.7	to high art. This did not stop him, though, from composing a fanfare for the new third
2:09.9	programme opening concert. To talk about Britain's contribution to radio and he composed music for
2:16.6	Edward Sackville West,
	...

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