The Last Waltz
Alan Hall reflects on how facing the end of something can often take us back to its beginnings.
Alan Hall reflects on how facing the end of something can often take us back to its beginnings.
The Irish writer Flann O'Brien pointed out in At Swim-Two-birds that he didn't agree with the idea of "one beginning and one ending for a book". And certainly, endings - and not just in literature - can become confused with a sense of where something started or the likelihood of various start points which suggest the possibility of more than one ending.
In this edition of Something Understood, Alan dances through ideas of what is retained, what is reawakened and what might be left behind when we approach an ending, with the help of writers - including O'Brien and Keith Douglas, Lydia Davis and Kazuo Ishiguro - and music that ranges from a late Schubert piano sonata, to Persian singer Aida Shahghasemi Beman's Stay, to The National's account of renewal after an end (Pink Rabbits) and Elly Stone's What I Loved.
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
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Music Played
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Sufjan Stevens
Death With Dignity
- Carrie & Lowell.
- Asthmatic Kitty.
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Elly Stone
I Loved
- Jacques BrelΒ’s Alive and Well and Living in Paris.
- Sony.
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Franz Schubert
Sonata in A, D. 959: slow movement
- Radu Lupu - Schubert.
- Decca.
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Julia Holter
Night Song
Performer: Julia Holter.- Have You in My Wilderness.
- Domino.
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Beman (Stay)
- Wind Between the HorseΒ’s Ears.
- self-published.
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TheNational
Pink Rabbits
Performer: The National.- Trouble Will Find Me.
- 4AD.
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Sufjan Stevens
Bucket of Gold
- Carrie & Lowell.
- Asthmatic Kitty.
Readings
Title: The End of the Story
Author: Lydia Davis
Publisher: Penguin
Title: At Swim-Two-Birds
Author: Flann O’Brien
Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics
Title: Canoe (from The Complete Poems)
Author: Keith Douglas
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Title: Giovanni’s Room
Author: James Baldwin
Publisher: Penguin
Title: A Valediction – Forbidding Mourning
Author: John Donne
Publisher: Penguin
Title: The Snow Queen
Author: Michael Cunningham
Publisher: Β Fourth Estate
Title: Never Let Me Go
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Broadcasts
- Sun 20 Mar 2016 06:05Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Sun 20 Mar 2016 23:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- Sun 17 Mar 2024 06:05Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4