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Swimming

Shaun Evans and Rebekah Murrell dip into the waters, reading from EM Forster, Bryon and Stevie Smith alongside music by Max Richter, Anna Calvi, Fanny Mendelssohn and Smetana.

Yeats brings us fish; Emily Dickinson mermaids:, Marriott Edgar Channel swimming; and Lewis Carroll a pool of tears. We visit the Ladies pond at Hampstead in a poem by Linda Gregerson and are transported to the East Coast of America in John Cheever's short story The Swimmer, brought alive by Marvin Hamlisch’s haunting score from the film version. But swimming can also bring perils and we look back to Stevie Smith’s Not Waving, but Drowning and observe ponds and lakes as places where bodies are on display in EM Forster's Room With a View and Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. Our music comes from composers including Max Richter, Fanny Mendelssohn, Bedřich Smetana and also from Marvin Hamlisch, Anna Calvi and REM. Our readers are Shaun Evans and Rebekah Murrell.

Producer: Belinda Naylor

You can find a Sunday Feature from Radio 3 in which Alice Roberts explored wild-swimming and the legacy of Waterlog by Roger Deakin still available on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds
and a Free Thinking episode featuring the poet Elizabeth Jane Burnett and writer Philip Hoare

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 14 Jul 2024 18:00
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3

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Music Played

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

  • 00:01

    Max Richter

    The Swimmer

    Performer: Max Richter.

  • Magi Gibson

    Strange Fish, read by Shaun Evans

  • 00:03

    Fanny Mendelssohn

    Lieder ohne Worte Op.6 for piano: no.2

    Performer: Irene Barbuceanu.

  • WB Yeats

    The Fish, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • EM Forster

    A Room with a View, read by Shaun Evans

  • 00:09

    Judith Bingham

    The Drowned Lovers

    Choir: Tenebrae. Conductor: Nigel Short.

  • Stevie Smith

    Not Waving but Drowning read by Shaun Evans

  • Linda Gregerson

    With Emma at the Ladies-Only Swimming Pond on Hampstead Heath, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 00:17

    R.E.M.

    Nightswimming

  • Seamus Heaney

    Death of a Naturalist, read by Shaun Evans

  • 00:23

    Gregor Joseph Werner

    L'Aprile (Excerpts): V. The Croaking of the Frogs. Prestissimo

    Choir: Rheinisches Bach-Collegium.
  • 00:25

    Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

    Scheherazade, Op. 35: I. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship

    Orchestra: Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

  • Carl Phillips

    Swimming, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 00:28

    Loudon Wainwright III

    The Swimming Song

  • Marriott Edgar

    The Channel Swimmer, read by Shaun Evans

  • Emily Dickinson

    Started Early, Took My Dog, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 00:34

    Franz Liszt

    Annees de pelerinage - 3me annee S.163: Les Jeux d'eau a la Villa d'Este

    Performer: Hélène Grimaud.
    • DG.
    • Tr 11.

  • Robin Robinson

    Swimming in the Woods, read by Shaun Evans

  • John Cheever

    The Swimmer, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 00:39

    Marvin Hamlisch

    The Swimmer

  • Lord Bryon

    Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, read by Shaun Evans

  • 00:43

    Anna Calvi

    Swimming Pool

  • Lewis Carroll

    Alice In Wonderland, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 00:49

    Bedrich Smetana

    The Moldau (Ma Vlast)

    Orchestra: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
  • 00:58

    Nina Miranda

    Underwater Love by Smoke City

  • WB Yeats

    The Mermaid, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 00:58

    Smoke City

    Underwater Love

    • Ministry of Sound Recordings.
    • Tr 44.

  • Alan Hollinghurst

    The Line of Beauty read by Shaun Evans

  • 01:03

    Phil Phillips & The Twilights

    Sea of Love

  • Shelley

    Prometheus Unbound, read by Rebekah Murrell

  • 01:08

    Johann Strauss II

    An der schonen, blauen Donau (The Beautiful Blue Danube), Waltz, Op. 314

    Orchestra: Wiener Symphoniker.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 8 May 2022 17:30
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3
  • Sun 14 Jul 2024 18:00
    Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3

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