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Emma Paetz and Nicholas Farrell read from Cervantes and Louise Doughty to Abd al Qadir. The music includes Sibelius, Gavin Bryars, Takemitsu and Tinariwen.

Emma Paetz and Nicholas Farrell read from Cervantes and Louise Doughty to Abd al Qadir as today's journey of words and music moves from the desert to tramping along English country roads ahead of Refugee Week 2022 (June 20th - 26th).

Our past is nomadic. Our ancestors roamed around, moving according to the seasons and the availability of food. The historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests that our subsequent adoption of settled, agricultural lives represented a massive blow to human well-being, bringing with it unstinting labour and disease. Does this go some way to explaining the distrust and unease with which the settled have tended to regard nomads? Is there an atavistic envy at its root? That desire to wander still burns within many of us. We may be tethered to a particular part of the world by our work, our homes, our families, but we are restless, forever planning journeys to somewhere distant, somewhere new.

This programme explores the relationship between the nomad and that settled world. Nomads not just in the sense of traditionally itinerant people (including Bedouin, some Native American tribes and Roma – referred to as β€˜gypsies’ by some of the writers here), but also those who are homeless or refugees. In short, those who have no fixed abode. So we hear field recordings both of Tuareg singers with a traditional Danse de tazengharaht, and an unnamed homeless man singing a hymn in Gavin Bryars’s Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. The chorus of Hebrew slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco echoes the painful longing for a lost homeland experienced by refugees through the ages, while songs by Sibelius and Schubert show the figure of the wanderer in nature, gripped by both a sense of freedom and existential melancholia.

Readings:

Bakhu Al-Mariyah - My longing for a tent
Abd al Qadir - The Life of the Nomad
T.E. Lawrence - The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - To the Driving Cloud
Louise Doughty - Fires in the Dark
Miguel de Cervantes - La Gitanilla
Matthew Arnold - The Scholar Gypsy
Thomas Hardy - A Trampwoman's Tragedy
Dominic Hand – Borderlines
Martha Sprackland - Refugees [juvenilia]
J.M. Coetzee - Waiting for the Barbarians
John Masefield - Sea Fever

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 19 Jun 2022 17:30
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3

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Music Played

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

  • 00:01

    Jean Sibelius

    Der Wanderer und der Bach

    Performer: Tom Krause (baritone), Irwin Gage (piano).
    • DECCA 4788609.
    • CD4 Tr3.

  • Bakhu Al-Mariyah

    My longing for a tent, read by Emma Paetz

  • 00:02

    Adam Summerhayes

    Caravan

    Performer: Adam Summerhayes (violin), Emil Chakalov (violin), London Concertante.
    • CHANDOS CHAN10453.
    • Tr4.

  • Abd al Qadir

    The Life of the Nomad, read by Nicholas Farrell

  • 00:07

    Traditional

    Danse de tazengharaht

    Performer: Hoggar musicians.
    • CHANT DU MONDE LDX274974.
    • Tr4.
  • 00:08

    Ibrahim Ag Alhabib

    Amassakoul 'N' TΓ©nΓ©rΓ©

    Performer: Tinariwen.
    • Wrasse Records WRASS 125.
    • Tr1.

  • T.E. Lawrence

    The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, read by Nicholas Farrell

  • 00:12

    Franz Schubert

    Fantasy in C Major (Wanderer Fantasy) - Adagio

    Performer: Aaron Pilsan.
    • NAÏVE V5385.
    • Tr22.

  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    To the Driving Cloud, read by Emma Paetz

  • 00:21

    Giuseppe Verdi

    Il Trovatore - Act II - Scene I - Vedi! le fosche notturne

    Performer: London Voices, London Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano (Conductor).
    • EMI CDS5573602.
    • CD1 Tr13.

  • Louise Doughty

    Fires in the Dark, read by Nicholas Farrell

  • 00:26

    Dresch DudΓ‘s MihΓ‘ly

    Nagy Puszta (Great Plains)

    Performer: Dresch Quartet Β– features BalΓ‘zs Unger on cimbalom.
    • NOVEMBER NVR20032.
    • Tr4.

  • Miguel de Cervantes

    La Gitanilla, read by Emma Paetz

  • 00:32

    Franz Schubert

    Der Wanderer

    Performer: Florian Boesch (baritone), Roger Vignoles (piano).
    • HYPERION CDA68010.
    • Tr1.

  • Matthew Arnold

    The Scholar Gypsy, read by Nicholas Farrell

  • 00:40

    Gavin Bryars

    JesusΒ’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet

    Performer: The Cockpit Ensemble.
    • VIRGIN CDVE9387243.
    • Tr2.

  • Thomas Hardy

    A Trampwoman's Tragedy, read by Emma Paetz

  • 00:45

    Giorgio Federico Ghedini

    Concerto dellΒ’albatro - Largo

    Performer: Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali, Damian Iorio (Conductor), Emanuela Piemonti (piano).
    • NAXOS 8573180.
    • Tr4.
  • 00:51

    Giorgio Federico Ghedini

    Concerto dellΒ’albatro Β– Andante un poco mosso

    Performer: Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali, Damian Iorio (Conductor), Emanuela Piemonti (piano).
    • NAXOS 8573180.
    • Tr5.

  • Dominic Hand

    Borderlines, read by Nicholas Farrell

  • 00:54

    Toru Takemitsu

    Itinerant

    Performer: Robert Aitken (flute).
    • NAXOS 8555859.
    • Tr7.

  • Martha Sprackland

    Refugees [juvenilia], read by Emma Paetz

  • 00:59

    Giuseppe Verdi

    Va pensiero, sullΒ’ali dorate

    Performer: Ambrosian opera Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti (Conductor).
    • EMI 4564472.
    • CD2 Tr10.

  • J.M. Coetzee

    Waiting for the Barbarians, read by Nicholas Farrell

  • 01:05

    John Luther Adams

    The Wind In High Places: 1 - Above Sunset Pass

    Performer: JACK Quartet.
    • Cold Blue Music CB0041.
    • Tr1.

  • John Masefield

    Sea Fever, read by Emma Paetz

  • 01:11

    Franz Schubert

    Wandrers Nachtlied II

    Performer: Florian Boesch (baritone), Roger Vignoles (piano).
    • HYPERION CDA68010.
    • Tr13.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 19 May 2019 17:30
    ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
  • Sun 19 Jun 2022 17:30
    ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3

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