Napoleon the gardener and art thief
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2021
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The day before Napoleon's death on May 5th 1821, the willow tree he liked to sit under on St Helena was felled by tempestuous winds. Ruth Scurr has written Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows. Natasha Pulley's novel The Kingdoms imagines a history with Napoleon victorious in England, Emma Rothschild has traced a family in France over three centuries. Rana Mitter chairs a discussion about how looking at Napoleon as gardener, collector of art and founder of an institution dedicated to the arts and sciences in Egypt adds to our understanding of him as a military man and the panel consider alternative histories of France.
Ruth Scurr's book Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows is out now. You can hear her discussing her book about John Aubrey in this episode of Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06rwvrf Natasha Pulley's novel The Kingdoms is published May 25th 2021. You can hear her discussing the Japanese novel and film Rashomon https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01vwk and the writing of Angela Carter https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038jdb7 Emma Rothschild has published An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France over Three Centuries
Producer: Ruth Watts
You might be interested in another Free Thinking discussion about Napoleon in Fact and Fiction hearing from actor/director Kathryn Hunter, biographer Michael Broers historians Oskar Cox Jensen and Laura O'Brien, journalist Nabila Ramdani https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09s2nml and Radio 3's weekly curation of Words and Music features an episode focusing on authors and composers inspired by the life of Napoleon with readings from Jane Austen, Wordsworth, Anthony Burgess and Thackeray and music from Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev.
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 when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:37.9 | Hello, 200 years ago, a man obsessed with gardens died on the island of St Helena. |
| 0:44.0 | He also happened to have conquered half of Europe and changed the direction of global history. |
| 0:49.1 | Find out more about Napoleon, as you may never have known him, man of war and lover of nature, after this word. |
| 1:00.6 | Sound of Gaming, the monthly show from BBC Radio 3, which opens up the incredible world |
| 1:07.1 | of gaming music. I'm Louise Blaine, and every month I'll be featuring some of the very best gaming scores, |
| 1:15.2 | offering insights into how the music works with the gameplay, talking to composers about how |
| 1:20.3 | they set about creating their scores. |
| 1:23.3 | I've classic tracks, I've also got the latest new releases. |
| 1:28.6 | Subscribe to Sound of Gaming on BBC Sounds. |
| 1:33.5 | Hello and get ready. We're about to see the entire universe come into existence. |
| 1:40.2 | Adam and Eve are waiting in the wings for their big scene, though with their clothes on, I should add. |
| 1:45.0 | It's Paris, 1800, Christmas Eve, and at the Theatre Desire, an audience of 1,500 people, are assembled for the first performance in France of Haydn's The Creation. |
| 1:57.6 | The Queen, the Heaven, the Svet and the King, and the Pirates and Sard. The Creation. |
| 2:21.6 | And I'm turning now in my own theater theaterour theatre seat to the historian Ruth Skir. |
| 2:26.9 | Ruth, you've talked about this particular concert in 1800 because of someone who was there, |
| 2:29.1 | but actually someone who didn't want to be there. |
| 2:33.5 | And that was the Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, who's the subject of your new biography. |
| 2:34.8 | And in fact, it was a rather dangerous knight for the Emperor, although Bonaparte, who's the subject of your new biography. And in fact, |
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