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Satire and the State

Writer and satirist Chris Addison explores how composers have used music to challenge the power of the state throughout the ages - from playful parodies, to bold defiance. 1/6

In the first episode of this six part series, writer and satirist Chris Addison (The Thick Of It, Veep) explores how composers have used music to challenge the power of the state throughout the ages - sometimes with playful parodies, sometimes with bold defiance.

Chris has selected tracks to demonstrate that music has often been a voice for resistance. This programme features music by Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Sullivan, Roxanna Panufnik, Charles Ives, and more.

In this series, Chris Addison - himself a classical music devotee, keen amateur choral singer and opera buff - takes listeners on a tour of how composers have used their music to question, parody, and challenge power and ideas over the years. Classical music can amplify the most glorious and spectacular state power. But it can also undermine it - satirising and thumbing the nose of the status quo. Composers have used classical music to critique, undermine and even lampoon - often in cleverly nuanced, surprising ways that reconnect us to the flawed humans - and shared humanity - beneath the pomposity. Each episode in this series takes a big idea, and illustrates it with a playlist of entertaining and diverse music spanning the entire history of Western classical music.

Leonard Bernstein: Slava! - concert overture
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Leonard Bernstein, conductor

Charles Ives: Variations on 'America', orch. William Schuman
St Louis Symphony Orchestra
Leonard Slatkin, conductor

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No 45 in F sharp minor H.1.45 (Farewell)
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Neville Marriner, conductor

Jean Sibelius: Finlandia Op 26
Philharmonia Orchestra
Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor

Gilbert and Sullivan: When Britain Really Ruled the Waves (Iolanthe)
Donald Adams, bass
New Symphony Orchestra of London
D’Oyly Carte Opera Chorus
Isidore Godfrey, conductor

Claudio Monteverdi: L' Incoronazione di Poppea
Il Pomo d'Oro​
Jakub Józef Orliński, countertenor

Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No 9 in E flat major, Op 70
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Kirill Petrenko, conductor

Produced by James C Taylor
An Overcoat Media Production for Â鶹Éç Radio 3

Release date:

56 minutes

On radio

Next Saturday 13:00

Broadcast

  • Next Saturday 13:00

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