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Within Limits

Anthony Howell and Amaka Okafor with readings exploring ideas of constraint in art and life, including poems from Fulke Greville, Wallace Stevens and Christina Rossetti.

Anthony Howell and Amaka Okafor with readings exploring ideas of constraint in art and life, including poems from Fulke Greville, Wallace Stevens, and Christina Rossetti, and music ranging from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, to the Velvet Underground.
The title ‘within limits’ is taken in the widest possible sense. There are readings and music in here which reflect upon the limits of human experience, on what we can and can’t do with language, and plenty in which writers and composers have worked within specific limits they've set for themselves: music composed at random within a set of defined parameters, a novel written without any words containing the letter ‘e’, the same insignificant incident retold again and again in different styles, a few experiments with the sonnet form.
There are also a few pieces of music that are supposedly test the limits of performers by being notoriously difficult to perform.

Readings:
Pensées - Pascal (tr. C. Kegan Paul 1885)
Proslogion - St Anselm
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Library of Babel - Jorge Luis Borges (tr Andrew Hurley)
Exercises in Style - Raymond Queneau - 4 excerpts (tr Barbara Wright)
Sonnet 100 - Sir Fulke Greville
Peace - Gerald Manley Hopkins
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - Ludwig Wittgenstein (tr. Pears & McGuinness)
The Unnameable - Samuel Beckett
Trying To Learn - Lydia Davis Collected Short Stories:
A Void - Georges Perec (tr Gilbert Adair)
The Idea of Order at Key West - Wallace Stevens
Sonnet - Elizabeth Bishop
Of Circumnavigation - Matthew Francis
No, Thank You, John - Christina Rossetti

Producer: Luke Mulhall

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 9 Jun 2019 17:30
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3

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Music Played

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

  • 00:01

    Alexander Scriabin realised by Alexander Nemtin

    Preparation for the Final Mystery - Part I: Lent, Impérieux

    Performer: Alexei Lubimov (piano), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Vladimir Ashkenazy (Conductor).
    • DECCA 4663292.
    • CD1 Tr15.

  • Blaise Pascal

    Pensées, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 00:03

    Johann Sebastian Bach

    The Art of Fugue: Fuga a 3 Soggetti

    Performer: Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Mariner (Conductor).
    • PHILIPS 4425562.
    • CD2 Tr4.

  • St. Anselm

    Proslogion, Chapter 2, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:09

    Ludwig van Beethoven

    Piano Sonata no 21 in C major, op.53 “Waldstein” – Allegro con brio

    Performer: Daniel Barenboim (piano).
    • DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4631272.
    • Tr9.

  • Lewis Carroll

    Alice in Wonderland, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 00:16

    György Ligeti

    Musica Ricercata 4. Tempo di valse (pocco vivace – 'à l’orgue de Barbarie')

    Performer: Fredrik Ullén (piano).
    • BIS BISCD1688384.
    • CD2 Tr20.

  • Jorge Louis Borges

    The Library of Babel, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:20

    Witold Lutosławski

    Venetian Games – Mov. I

    Performer: National Philharmonic Orchestra in Warsaw, Witold Rowicki (Conductor).
    • MUZA PNCD041.
    • Tr1.
  • 00:23

    Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

    Polyphonic Studies – VI. Moderato, “The Last Rose of Summer”

    Performer: Josef Spacek (violin), Gordon Back (piano).
    • NAXOS 8572575.
    • Tr8.

  • Raymond Queneau

    Exercises in Style, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 00:25

    Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

    Polyphonic Studies - VI: Moderato, “The Last Rose of Summer”

    Performer: Josef Spacek (violin), Gordon Back (piano).
    • NAXOS 8572575.
    • Tr8.

  • Raymond Queneau

    Exercises in Style, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:26

    Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

    Polyphonic Studies - VI: Moderato, “The Last Rose of Summer”

    Performer: Josef Spacek (violin), Gordon Back (piano).
    • NAXOS 8572575.
    • Tr8.

  • Raymond Queneau

    Exercises in Style, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 00:29

    Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

    Polyphonic Studies VI: Moderato, “The Last Rose of Summer”

    Performer: Josef Spacek (violin), Gordon Back (piano).
    • NAXOS 8572575.
    • Tr8.

  • Raymond Queneau

    Exercises in Style, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:30

    Roger Edens

    Tongue Twisters

    Performer: Danny Kaye.
    • MUSIC CLUP MCCD233.
    • Tr12.

  • Sir Fulke Greville

    Sonnet 100, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:33

    Lou Reed

    Venus In Furs

    Performer: The Velvet Underground.
    • Polydor 531 250 2.
    • Tr4.

  • Gerard Manley Hopkins

    Peace, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:37

    W.A. Mozart

    Musikalisches Würfelspiel, K516f

    Performer: Erik Smith (harpsichord), Sir Neville Marriner (conductor).
    • PHILIPS 4649402.
    • CD3 Tr10.

  • Ludwig Wittgenstein

    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 00:39

    Morton Feldman

    Intersection 2

    Performer: Steffen Schleiermacher (piano).
    • HAT HUT HATARTCD6146.
    • Tr3.

  • Samuel Beckett

    The Unnameable, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:43

    Brian Ferneyhough

    Etudes Transcendentales IX

    Performer: Brenda Mitchell (Soprano), Nieuw Ensemble, Ed Spanjaard (Conductor).
    • ETCETERA KTC1070.
    • Tr12.

  • Lydia Davis

    Collected Short Stories: Trying To Learn, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 00:49

    Ornette Coleman

    Free Jazz

    Performer: Ornette Coleman Double Quartet.
    • ATLANTIC 13642.
    • Tr1.

  • Georges Perec

    A Void, read by Anthony Howell

  • 00:55

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Ein musikalischaler Spass, in F major, KV522 - iv. Presto

    Performer: Wiener Kammerensemble.
    • DENON CO75200.
    • Tr10.

  • Wallace Stevens

    The Idea of Order at Key West, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 01:03

    Henry Cowell

    Mosaic Quartet (String Quartet No. 3) - II

    Performer: Colorado Quartet.
    • MODE MODE7273.
    • CD1 Tr7.

  • Elizabeth Bishop

    Sonnet, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 01:04

    Henry Cowell

    Mosaic Quartet (String Quartet No. 3) - IV

    Performer: Colorado Quartet.
    • MODE MODE7273.
    • CD1 Tr2.

  • Matthew Francis

    Of Circumnavigation, read by Anthony Howell

  • 01:07

    György Ligeti

    Etudes pour Piano, 2nd book: LÂ’escalier du diable

    Performer: Fredrik Ullén (piano).
    • BIS BISCD1688384.
    • CD1 Tr13.

  • Christina Rossetti

    No thank you, John, read by Amaka Okafor

  • 01:13

    Gilbert & Sullivan

    The Mikado, Act 1: I Am So Proud

    Performer: Eric Roberts (Ko-Ko), Malcolm Rivers (Pooh-Bah), Gareth Jones (Pish-Tush); DÂ’Oyly Carte Opera, John Pryce-Jones (Conductor).
    • THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT CDTER21178.
    • CD1 Tr13.

Broadcast

  • Sun 9 Jun 2019 17:30
    Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3

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