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The Rose

Texts and music on the theme of roses with readings by Lindsay Duncan and Iwan Rheon. Including Charles Tomlinson, Dorothy Parker and HD, as well as Britten, Delius and Wagner.

Poems, prose and music on the theme of the Rose. Ruby petals, emerald stems: the rose speaks love. Its language is beauty, tenderness and eternity; its colour is passion. But the rose also speaks a less familiar language, that of peace, nationalism and revolution, the strangeness of mysticism and the finality of death. This hymn plucks rare and wild roses for its verses with music by Britten, Delius and Wagner and words by Charles Tomlinson, Dorothy Parker and HD, read by Lindsay Duncan and Iwan Rheon.

1 hour, 15 minutes

Last on

Sun 17 Jun 2012 18:30

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:00

    Eric Whitacre

    Go, Lovely Rose

    Performer: Stephen Layton, Polyphony

    • Hyperion CDA67543.
  • George Eliot

    Roses, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • Charles Tomlinson

    A Rose for Janet, read by Iwan Rheon

  • 00:04

    Gabriel FaurΓ©

    Les Roses d'Ispahan

    Performer: Kathleen Battle, James Levine

    • DG 4455242.
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    A Dead Rose, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 00:10

    Frank Bridge

    Music, when soft voices die (Shelley)

    Performer: Louise Winter, Roger Vignoles, Roger Chase

    • Hyperion CDA 67181/2.
  • Christopher Reid

    The Ghost of a Rose, read by Iwan Rheon

  • 00:14

    Ralph Vaughan Williams

    Fantasia on 'Greensleeves'

    Performer: Jonathan Snowden, Skaila Kanga, The London Chamber Orchestra, Christopher Warren-Green

    • Virgin Classics VCY7908192.
  • WB Yeats

    The Rose of Peace, read by Iwan Rheon

  • 00:18

    Arthur Sullivan

    Incidental Music to Shakespeare's Heanry VIII

    Performer: Emmanuel Lawler, RTE Concert Orchestra, Andre Penny

    • MARCO POLO 8223461.
  • Hugh MacDiarmid

    The Little White Rose, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • Pablo Neruda

    Sonnet XVII, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 00:29

    Benjamin Britten

    Serenade for tenor, horn & strings, Op.31 - Elegy - O Rose, Thou Art Sick

    Performer: Peter Pears, Barry Tuckwell, The London Symphony Orchestra, The English Chamber Orchestra

    • DECCA 4171532.
  • Aleister Crowley

    The Rose and the Cross, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 00:33

    Benjamin Britten

    Rosa Mystica

    Performer: Andrew Lumsden, The Finzi Singers, Paul Spicer

    • Chandos CHAN9511.
  • WB Yeats

    To the Rose upon the Rood of Time, read by Iwan Rheon

  • 00:36

    Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

    Where the Wild Roses Grow (feat. Kylie Minogue)

    Performer: Nick Cave, Kylie Minogue

    • MUTE CDSTUMM138.
  • 00:40

    Charles Koechlin

    Roses au soleil de midi

    Performer: Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic, Leif Segerstam

    • MARCO POLO 8223504.
  • Emily Dickinson

    Nobody Knows this Little Rose, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 00:43

    Frederick Delius

    The Walk to the Paradise Garden

    Performer: Richard Hickox, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra

    • Chandos CHAN9355.
  • Emily Bronte

    Love and Friendship, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 00:48

    Johann Strauss II - Rosen aus dem SΓΌden

    Performer: The Johann Strauss Orchestra, Jack Rothstein

  • George Szirtes

    Comical Roses in a Cubic Vase

  • 00:58

    Traditional arr Stevens

    There is no rose

    Performer: The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Richard Marlow

    • CONFIER 75605517542.
  • 01:00

    Jean Sibelius

    Svarta rosor

    Performer: HΓ¥kan HagegΓ¥rd, Warren Jones

    • RCA 09026680972.
  • Dorothy Parker

    One Perfect Rose, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 01:03

    Razaf/Waller

    Honeysuckle Rose

    Performer: Fats Waller, Bill Coleman, Gene Sedric, Albert Casey, Billy Taylor, Harry Dial

    • ASV CDAJA5174.
  • Dylan Thomas

    Blue Roses, read by Iwan Rheon

  • 01:06

    Piaf/Louguy

    La Vie en Rose

    Performer: Edith Piaf, Guy Luypaerts, Robert Chauvigny, Marc Bonel

    • EMI 5201422.
  • Sujata Bhatt

    The Stinking Rose, read by Lindsay Duncan

  • 01:11

    Henry Purcell

    Sweeter than Roses

    Performer: Kathleen Battle, James Levine

    • Deutsche Grammophon 4455242.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 15 Jan 2012 18:30
  • Sun 17 Jun 2012 18:30

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