麻豆约拍

Composer David Owen Norris explains the musical concept of counterpoint and plays examples to Mark Tully, who also looks at the metaphorical use of it in religion and literature.

With the help of Johann Sebastian Bach, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Gilbert and Sullivan, and some bawdy Lay Clerks from Canterbury Cathedral, David Owen Norris takes Mark on an interweaving tour of contrapuntal history and development from the earliest experiments in Plainsong to his own latest composition.

But the last word is left to Gerard Manley Hopkins and the remarkable rhythmic counterpoint of his poem The Windhover, with its depiction of a Flacon鈥檚 flight:

鈥溾��..in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy!鈥�

Producer: Adam Fowler
A Unique production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4