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Superstition

Irma Kurtz considers why humans often abandon common sense and resort to superstition to deal with life under stress.

Irma Kurtz reflects on why humans often abandon common sense and resort to superstition to deal with life under stress. Superstitions, she reflects, originated long before scientific knowledge as primitive tactics in the human war for survival, their origins unknown and having no basis in logic or reason.

Irma concludes that although anyone today living by superstition would probably qualify as having an obsessive compulsive disorder, nevertheless superstitions are still handed down from generation to generation and are stored in our subconscious. We might not believe in them, but we don't forget them.

To illustrate her theme, we hear readings from W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Alexander Pushkin and Rudyard Kipling. The music is by Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner, and Frederick Chopin .

Read by Liza Sadovy and Greg Hicks.

Producer: Ronni Davis
A Unique production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

28 minutes

Last on

Sun 30 Oct 2022 23:30
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

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When the Chips Are Down

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I'm a Number, Not a Man

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Music Played

  • Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov

    Baba Yaga: Illustration to a Russian Fairy Tale, Op. 26

    Performer: Evgeni Svetlanov, The USSR Symphony Orchestra

    • A Liadov, E. Napravnik: Anthology of Russian Symphony Music.
    • Melodiya.
    • 10-00140.

  • Glenn Miller

    Something Old, Something New

    Performer: Frank Sinatra

    • The Columbia Years (1943-52): The Complete Recordings.
    • Columbia/Legacy.
    • B006JS2FZU.

  • Seth Lakeman

    The White Hare

    Performer: Seth Lakeman

    • Freedom Fields.
    • Virgin UK.
    • B001JQHZ4I.

  • Giuseppe Verdi

    Pieta, Rispetto, Amore

    Performer: Sherill Milnes, Riccardo Muti, New Philharmonia Orchestra

    • Verdi: Macbeth.
    • EMI Classics.
    • B00001SVM0.

  • Richard Wagner - The Flying Dutchman

    Performer: Daniel Barenboim, Chor der Deutschen Straatsoper Berlin

  • FrΓ©dΓ©ric Chopin

    Etude No. 2, in F minor, Op. 25-2

    Performer: Zbigniew Raubo

    • Chopin: The Complete Piano Works Etudes.
    • IMC Music.
    • B0045PK9GG.

  • Ned Washington, Leigh Harline

    When You Wish Upon a Star

    Performer: Louis Armstrong

    • Pinocchio: Original Soundtrack.
    • BMG Music.
    • 2137-2-R.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 19 Feb 2012 06:05
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Sun 19 Feb 2012 23:30
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Sun 30 Oct 2022 06:05
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
  • Sun 30 Oct 2022 23:30
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4