Deception
Can you trust your ears? Can you trust your eyes? How often do you tell lies? Watch out for fraudsters here, for cheats, charlatans and spies. Nothing is what it seems.
Can you trust your ears? Can you trust your eyes? How often do you tell lies? Watch out for fraudsters here, for cheats, charlatans and spies. Nothing is what it seems. William Wordsworth sees an island that he knows isn’t there. Musical mirages are conjured by Shulamit Ran and Kaija Saariaho. Saariaho’s mirage contains a Mexican shaman bursting free from the deception of β€reality’ to a greater truth beyond.
There are lovers too. Many lovers. Vernon Scannell’s furtive adulterers. Tony and Maria from West Side Story sharing a delusion that there’s a place for them (there’s not). Meanwhile in the shadowy world of espionage, John Hollander’s undercover operative has a crisis of confidence, Joseph Conrad’s secret agent not only misleads his associates but betrays his wife in a terrible way and, as the Rhinemaidens sing in a performance of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung at the Bayreuth festival in 1942, none of the Nazi officials watching suspects that one of them – contralto Margery Booth – is a British spy.
What of the tricksters? The west African spider god Anansi fools stronger, fiercer animals into parting with gold and even their lives, while the β€sandy-whiskered gentleman’ lulls Jemima Puddle-Duck into a false sense of security. Sometimes we can’t help being deceived and there are examples here – in the opening poem by Walter Savage Landor and the closing sonnet by Shakespeare – where deception in love is positively welcomed.
But make no mistake: deceiving other people is rarely a good thing, so heed the words in Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s Lies and extract the appropriate moral lesson from Pete Seeger singing Oh How He Lied.
The readers are Sheila Atim and Guy Masterson
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
READINGS:
Walter Savage Landor You Smiled, You Spoke and I Believed
Yevgeny Yevtushenko Lies
Vernon Scannell Taken in Adultery
Beatrix Potter The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
Walt Whitman Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
William Wordsworth Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country
Virgil, translated by C. Day Lewis Aeneid
John Hollander Reflections on Espionage
Joseph Conrad The Secret Agent
Robert Browning Mr Sludge, The Medium
Kwame A. Insaidoo How Anansi Survived the Great Famine
William Shakespeare Sonnet 138
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Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:00
Shulamit Ran
Mirage (1990) for five players
Performer: Mary Stolper (flute), Cliff Colnot (conductor).- ERATO 0630127872.
- Tr1.
-
00:01
Shulamit Ran
Mirage
Performer: Mary Stolper. Conductor: Cliff Colnot. -
Walter Savage Landor
You Smiled, You Spoke and I Believed, read by Guy Masterson
00:02Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Six French Songs Op. 65: Deception
Performer: Ljuba Kazarnovskaya (soprano), Ljuba Orfenova (piano).- NAXOS 8570438.
- Tr3.
00:02Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Deception, Op.65 no.2
Performer: Ljuba Orfenova. Singer: Π›ΡΠ±ΠΎΠ²Ρ ΠΠ°Π·Π°Ρ€Π½ΠΎΠ²ΡΠΊΠ°Ρ.Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Lies, read by Sheila Atim
00:05Salma Al Assal
El Ghaddara Deema - Life, The All Time Deceiver
Performer: Salma Al Assal.- ARC Music EUCD 1945.
- Tr1.
00:06Salma Al Assal
El Ghaddara Deema (Life, the all-time Deceiver)
Vernon Scannell
Taken in Adultery, read by Guy Masterson
00:11Giuseppe Verdi
Era la notte, Cassio dormia
Performer: Sergei Leiferkus (baritone - Iago), Orchestre de lΒ’OpΓ©ra Bastille, Myung-Whun Chung (conductor).- DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4398052.
- CD1 Tr21.
00:11Giuseppe Verdi
Era la notte... Oh! mostruosa colpe (Otello)
Singer: Sergei Petrovich Leiferkus. Orchestra: Bastille Opera Orchestra. Conductor: Myung-Whun Chung.00:14Giuseppe Verdi
Oh! mostruosa colpa!
Performer: Placido Domingo (tenor Β– Otello), Sergei Leiferkus (baritone - Iago), Orchestre de lΒ’OpΓ©ra Bastille, Myung-Whun Chung (conductor).- DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4398052.
- CD1 Tr22.
Beatrix Potter
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, read by Sheila Atim
00:18Edvard Grieg
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 - 2. Adagio
Performer: Stephen Bishop Kovacevich (piano), Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis (conductor).- PHILIPS 4129232.
- Tr2.
00:18Edvard Grieg
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 (2nd mvt: Adagio)
Performer: Stephen Kovacevich. Orchestra: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Colin Davis.Walt Whitman
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances, read by Sheila Atim
00:25Kaija Saariaho
Mirage (2007; Text: Maria Sabina)
Performer: Karita Mattila (soprano), Anssi Karttunen (cello), Orchestre de Paris, Christoph Eschenbach (conductor).- ONDINE ODE11302.
- Tr9.
00:25Kaija Saariaho
Mirage
Performer: Anssi Karttunen. Singer: Karita Mattila. Orchestra: Orchestre de Paris – Philharmonie. Conductor: Christoph Eschenbach.William Wordsworth
Lays and Legends of the English Lake Country, read by Guy Masterson
00:33Leonard Bernstein
Somewhere
Performer: Jim Bryant, Marni Nixon.- Sony Masterworks SK 48211.
- Tr14.
00:33Leonard Bernstein
Somewhere (West Side Story)
Performer: Jimmy Bryant. Performer: Marni Nixon.Virgil, translated by C. Day Lewis
Aeneid, read by Sheila Atim
00:36John Barry
The Ipcress File
Orchestra: Studio Orchestra. Conductor: John Barry.- Echo ECHCD 54A.
- Tr5.
00:36John Barry
The Ipcress File
John Hollander
Reflections on Espionage, read by Guy Masterson
00:41Richard Wagner
Frau Sonne sendet lichte Strahlen
Performer: Hilde Scheppan (soprano), Irmgard Langhammer (mezzo-soprano), Margery Booth (contralto), Chorus and Orchestra of Bayreuther Festspiele 1942, Karl Elmendorff (conductor).- PREISER 90164.
- CD4 Tr1.
00:41Richard Wagner
Frau Sonne sendet lichte Strahlen (Gotterdammerung)
Singer: Hilde Scheppan. Singer: Irmgard Langhammer. Orchestra: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Conductor: Karl Elmendorff.Joseph Conrad
The Secret Agent, read by Sheila Atim
00:45Gustav Holst
Uranus, the Magician
Performer: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis (conductor).- TELDEC 4509945412.
- Tr6.
00:46Gustav Holst
Uranus, the Magician (The Planets)
Orchestra: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Andrew Davis.Robert Browning
Mr Sludge, The Medium, read by Guy Masterson
00:53Gaetano Donizetti
Ardir! Ha forse il cielo mandato
Performer: Luciano Pavarotti (Nemorino Β– tenor), Enzo Dara (Dr Dulcamara Β– basso buffo), The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine (conductor).- DEUTSHE GRAMMOPHON 4297442.
- CD1 Tr11.
00:00Gaetano Donizetti
Voglio dire, lo stupendo elisir
Performer: Luciano Pavarotti (Nemorino Β– tenor), Enzo Dara (Dr Dulcamara Β– basso buffo), The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine (conductor).- DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4297442.
- CD1 Tr12.
00:53Gaetano Donizetti
Ardir!... Voglio dire (L'Elisir d'amore)
Singer: Luciano Pavarotti. Orchestra: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.Kwame A. Insaidoo
How Anansi Survived the Great Famine, read by Sheila Atim
01:03Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 26, op.81A Β– Les adieux: Adagio, Allegro
Performer: Arthur Rubinstein (piano).- RCA 09026630562.
- Tr10.
01:03Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Sonata in E flat major, Op.81a (Les Adieux) (1st mvt: Adagio - Allegro)
Performer: Arthur Rubinstein.William Shakespeare
Sonnet 138 - When my love swears that she is made of truth, read by Guy Masterson
01:11Pete Seeger
Oh How He Lied
Performer: Pete Seeger.- SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS SFWCD40155.
- CD4 Tr7.
01:12Pete Seeger
Oh How He Lied
Broadcasts
- Sun 7 Oct 2018 17:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
- Sun 21 Nov 2021 17:30Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3