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From chamber music by Beethoven and Isabella Leonarda to the call and response of Jean Daetwlery’s dialogue between alphorn and piccolo, and the jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker: we are celebrating conversation this week, and not just in the way musicians are attuned to each other, listening and responding to every change of harmony and rhythm, but also through words exchanged and overheard.
The poets George Herbert and Margaret Cavendish delight in the dialogue poetic form, pitting man against death; joy against discretion. And in Genesis Abraham doesn’t just commune with God, he challenges Him too.
There are conversations teasing, eavesdropped and ghostly from the pens of Jane Austen, Emily Bronte and Toni Morrison. But it’s the missed intimacies of close friends that Hollie McNish regrets, and the ‘sweet nonsense talking’ that Caleb Femi brings alive. There are gossip mongers plotting in Britten’s Peter Grimes, and a grapevine for Marvin Gaye.
Writers and composers also communicate across the ages, Max Richter shares a tune with Vivaldi, Mozart is infused with Mambo, and the poet Jean Sprackland has the last word in her response to DH Lawrence.
The readers are Gemma Whelan and Clarke Peters.

Producer: Katy Hickman

READINGS:
The Art of Conversation, Catherine Blyth
To Women, As Far as I’m Concerned, DH Lawrence
Feelings, Jean Sprackland
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Genesis, King James Bible
A Dialogue-Anthem, George Herbert
Beloved, Toni Morrison
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
On Talking, Kahlil Gibran
Nests in Elms, Michael Field
The Club of Queer Trades, GK Chesterton
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
Dialogue between joy and discretion, Margaret Cavendish
Here Too Spring Comes to Us with Open Arms, Caleb Femi
my friends are scattered, Hollie McNish
A Time to Talk, Robert Frost