August 2010

We paste the Controller's email newsletter – as is – as being of interest to visitors to this website. Its inclusion here has not been sanctioned by the Controller of Radio 3 and does not imply his endorsement of Friends of Radio 3.

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

PROMS: FORTHCOMING HIGHLIGHTS

The BBC Proms are now in full swing and, as we head towards the end of the second week, I hope you have enjoyed the concerts so far. It has been heart-warming to see such large audiences and to have such positive feedback for what we've put on. There are still six weeks to run, and plenty of great music-making in store.

Don't forget that if you miss any concerts, you can catch up with them using the iPlayer, with broadcasts available for seven days from transmission. With many of the Proms repeated in the afternoons, Radio 3 offers an extended window of opportunity.

As I am sure you know, selecting Proms concerts for this monthly note is never easy. On Saturday night, we will be marking the 80th birthday of the Broadway composer, Stephen Sondheim. It will be the first time Sondheim has attended a Prom - not a bad way to start your Proms experience! It will be a special event bringing together figures from the world of opera and theatre, and including Bryn Terfel, in a role quite different from his appearance as cobbler-poet Hans Sachs at the opening weekend! You can also catch Donald Macleod's fascinating conversations with Sondheim in Composer of the Week, running till Friday this week at 12pm on Radio 3, and on the iPlayer for seven days: Donald's Blog on meeting and interviewing Sondheim can be found by visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/2010/03/radio-3s-donald-macleod-meets.shtml.

On Sunday, we revive the rather unfashionable art of the arranger. The audiences who attended the first Proms would have been extremely familiar with organ arrangements and also with Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, which was performed 29 times in the first five seasons. If you want to search the Proms archive, to find more astonishing Proms facts, then go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive/ - it can take you on some fascinating journeys of discovery. The Albert Hall Organ - nicknamed 'The Voice of Jupiter' - is the perfect instrument for Wagner, particularly in the hands of Wayne Marshall. The same evening, we hear the second act of Tristan and Isolde with Violeta Urmana and Ben Heppner in the title roles, together with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

On August 4th and 5th, we have one of the focal points in our continuing celebration of the Mahler anniversary - three of his symphonies on consecutive nights. On Wednesday 4th, we have the massive Third Symphony performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Donald Runnicles, with the mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill. The following day, the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies will be performed with Valery Gergiev conducting the World Orchestra for Peace. Together these works constitute a remarkable emotional journey, and complement the memorable opening night.

On Saturday 14th, we have our Bach Day which will include the complete Brandenburg Concertos performed by the English Baroque Soloists with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. In contrast, later in the day, we celebrate the world of Bach orchestral transcriptions including the traditional ones by Stokowski and Henry Wood, as well as new works by Alissa Firsova and Tarik O'Regan. There is also a Bach organ recital by David Briggs, once again celebrating the neglected art of arrangement.

The mood changes on Sunday 22nd when John Wilson and his orchestra follow their extraordinary success of last year, this time bringing the world of Broadway to the Royal Albert Hall. It is 50 years since the death of Oscar Hammerstein II, whose partnership with Ri chard Rodgers resulted in a series of inimitable hit musicals. We are going to hear music from Carousel, Flower Drum Song, Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music. This will be a rare opportunity to hear these lavish scores in the concert hall, probably the first time that this has been done. As last year, John Wilson will be working with a hand-picked orchestra and the soloists include Kim Criswell and Rod Gilfry.

The August Proms also give us the chance to hear quite a number of international orchestras, in addition to the World Orchestra for Peace mentioned above. We have the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic - a unique chance to explore and enjoy their range of approaches and repertoire.

I'd also like to draw your attention to the Cadogan Hall concerts, which complement the Royal Albert Hall events: on Monday (2nd), Malin Christensson, whom we heard on the First Night, will perform songs by Brahms, Berg and Wolf; while later in the month we have early music from Musica ad Rhenum, I Fagiolini and Stile Antico. On Monday 9th, in the Royal Albert Hall, we have the concert from the World Routes Academy, a Radio 3 project in which the young Iraqi musician, Khyam Allami, has been mentored by Ilham Al Madfai, a pioneering guitarist, singer and composer. They will be performing together a concert which will include Ilham's own songs.

I hope you continue to find much to enjoy in this year's BBC Proms, and elsewhere on Radio 3. Full details of all Radio 3 programmes are available at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3, and there is a wealth of information about the Proms at www.bbc.co.uk/proms.

With all best wishes for an enjoyable summer

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for July 2010

Dear All

PROMS: THE OPENING WEEKEND

On Friday (July 16th) the world's largest music festival, the BBC Proms, gets under way, with the most spectacular opening weekend ever. The first evening says something about the ambition and scale of this two-month musical feast, all programmes broadcast live exclusively on Radio 3. Mahler himself said of his Eighth Symphony, 'Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving.' We begin the 2010 BBC Proms with this hymn to the creative spirit, the so-called 'Symphony of a Thousand'. The Royal Albert Hall stage will be packed with eight vocal soloists; a large orchestra and over 400 from massed choirs - from Crouch End to Sydney, and the BBC Symphony Chorus. Sir Henry Wood, the Proms founder gave the UK première 80 years ago with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and that orchestra is conducted on Friday by its current chief conductor, Jiří Bělohlávek.

Saturday offers another epic evening with Welsh National Opera performing Wagner's The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. The celebrated bass-baritone Bryn Terfel makes his debut in the role of Hans Sachs, the shoemaker and poet at the heart of this monumental work set around a singing competition in 16th-century Nuremberg. A young knight, Walther, arrives in the city with no experience of singing, but on falling in love performs a song in the hope of winning the hand of his beloved. As the Mahler symphony praises creativity, the opera can be seen as a paean to the power of music. The Chorus and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera is conducted by Lothar Koenigs. There are a number of events introducing the opera on Saturday (including a ‘ Come and Sing Wagner! session) - details on the Proms website.

On Sunday, we have another debut in an operatic role for one of the world's leading singers. Plácido Domingo takes the title role in Verdi's opera Simon Boccanegra with the forces of the Royal Opera House conducted by Antonio Pappano. The opera speaks of the tension between love and power, and the relationship between Boccanegra and his long-lost daughter. Domingo had never sung a baritone role until he took the role of the Doge of Genoa. He is joined in this performance by Marina Poplavskaya, Joseph Calleja and Ferruccio Furlanetto. It will be Domingo's second only appearance at the Proms and he is sure to be given a special welcome by the Promenaders. Well, that's just the opening weekend, almost a festival in itself, but for the BBC Proms merely the beginning of a unique summer of music.


PROMS ARCHIVE

Some of you will already have found the new online BBC Proms Archive listing all performances, composers, works, soloists, conductors and ensembles in its 115-year history. Rob Cowan in his Breakfast programme advised listeners not to browse in the office, as the journey through 7,168 concerts is dangerously compelling. Hours can pass as you create Top 40 lists of Proms performances by composer, ensemble or person, narrowing or widening searches by date.

Some extraordinary and previously inaccessible facts have emerged: + Wagner is the most performed composer with 5,892 performances, mainly excerpts in the earlier years. + Around 100 years ago, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Sullivan were the other most featured composers. + Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Rossi ni's Overture to William Tell and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (Land Of Hope And Glory) are among the most popular single works + Bernstein, Copland, Hindemith and Poulenc have all appeared as performers and composers at the Proms. + Sir Henry Wood - the Proms co-founder and first conductor - conducted more than 23,000 pieces. As well as collecting insights about changing musical taste, your personal memories may well be triggered, and we would love to hear your reminiscences at bbc.co.uk/proms/share.


BEETHOVEN NIGHTS

The earliest Proms seasons had the tradition of Wagner Nights on Wednesdays and Beethoven Nights on Fridays. The performance of Die Meistersinger can count as our Wagner night, but we are reviving the Beethoven night, not every week but in two special concerts dedicated to the composer. In the first of these, on Wednesday July 21st, a leading Beethoven interpreter, Paul Lewis, will begin his Proms cycle of all five piano concertos, the first time one pianist has played all the concertos in one Proms festival. On the 21st we will hear numbers two and four, alongside intense and dramatic overtures, Egmont and The Creatures of Prometheus. The BBC Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek. In the second Beethoven Night (27th), the more classical First Symphony and the demanding, insistent Fifth are heard alongside the Violin Concerto in which the soloist is the American violinist, Hilary Hahn. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen will be performing unde r its artistic director, Paavo Järvi.


SONDHEIM

We pride ourselves on the range and breadth of the BBC Proms, so it is a pleasure to mark the 80th birthday of the Broadway composer, Stephen Sondheim, in a concert ( Saturday 31 July) bringing together figures from the world of opera and theatre, and joined by other special guests. Bryn Terfel, fresh from his Wagnerian incarnation, leads the high profile cast and is joined by musical theatre students and performers supported by the BBC Performing Arts Fund. We have excerpts from horror-opera Sweeney Todd, the Ingmar Bergman-inspired A Little Night Music and the fairy-tale compendium of Into the Woods. This Prom will be the first ever 'signed Prom'. Dr Paul Whittaker, artistic director of Music and the Deaf will guide the audience in the hall through the music of Stephen Sondheim in the company of the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by David Charles Abell (above).

If you can join us in the hall for some concerts that would be wonderful, but Radio 3, the home of the BBC Proms, is dedicated to making sure that you don't miss anything, wherever you live. We will be conveying the unique atmosphere of each event in live broadcasts on Radio 3.

If you miss a concert, there will be afternoon repeats, as well as the opportunity to catch up on-demand using iPlayer for a week after broadcast. There will, as ever, be plenty of other programming placing the music in the Proms in context.

With all best wishes for an enjoyable summer

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for June 2010

Dear All

Opera continues to occupy centre stage in our Radio 3 progamming. I hope you have enjoyed what we have offered so far as part of the BBC-wide celebration of opera. Aside from all of our complete opera performances, you can participate in finding the nation’s favourite operatic aria at Breakfast, or enjoy the inventiveness and authority of our A-Z of Opera broadcast during In Tune. If you have missed any of our operatic alphabet, it is available for online listening and downloading at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/opera. Leading operatic names have come together to create this enjoyable and instructive opera thought for the day.

Whatever your feelings about opera, do listen on Saturday at 12.15pm when Tom Service is going to ask the big questions in Music Matters. Does opera reach the parts that no other art form can? Is opera relevant in today's world or just a museum art form? You can take part by emailing musicmatters@bbc.co.uk. Later the same day, you have the chance to appreciate a stunning production from the Royal Opera House: Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at 6.00pm. Sophie Koch plays the role of Octavian, Soile Isokoski, the Marschallin, and Lucy Crowe, Sophie, in this performance conducted by Kirill Petrenko.

Schumann 200

On Sunday our focus changes to Schumann, as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth. Andrew McGregor and Sarah Walker will be introducing music from around Europe in the company of our German colleagues. We hear the composer's great song cycle Dichterliebe with Christoph Pregardien and Michael Gees, and there’s a rare chance to hear highlights from Scenes from Goethe's Faust. In addition, we have a series of postcards for which Sarah visited locations that played a key role in his life, his birthplace in Zwickau, Leipzig, Dresden and Dusseldorf, and the asylum near Bonn where he spent his final years.

At the end of the EBU day, we have a feature on Schumann and the Music of the Future, in which cellist Steven Isserlis considers the late compositions. Has the fact that the composer was admitted to an asylum impacted on the way his later music was received? Steven Isserlis explores this subject in the company of Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Graham Johnson, András Schiff and Wolfgang Rihm.

During next week, Afternoon on 3 is dedicated to Schumann with performances of his music from around Europe. The Essay also concentrates on Schumann, as five writers and musicians explore aspects of his life and work, including his love for Clara Wieck, his pioneering music criticism, his ‘inner voices’, and finally his long final illness. Listen out too for lunchtime concerts, which feature Schumann’s chamber music from the Hay Festival.

The BBC's Big Concert

For the first time, on Sunday June 13th, we clear our schedule and bring together all of the BBC performing groups (the five BBC Orchestras and the BBC Singers), the Ulster Orchestra and the BBC Big Band for an exceptional day of live music-making. The day features performances from Bach to Bartók and many new works, and it includes features on community work and future plans. We begin at 11.30 with the BBC Philharmonic live from St Philip's Church, Salford in Bach and Haydn, and hear about the Salford Family Orchestra.

We then move to London, where the BBC Symphony Orchestra with chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek and soprano Ailish Tynan include arias by Mozart. Then off to Glasgow to hear the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ilya Gringolts as soloist in Korngold's Violin Concerto, together with the UK première of Sally Beamish's A Cage of Doves. From Cardiff, we have the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from the BBC Hoddinott Hall in a programme that includes Berlioz's King Lear Overture, Simon Holt's St Vitus in the Kettle and Ravel's La Valse. John Wilson then conducts British light music from Plymouth Pavilions with the BBC Concert Orchestra, featuring the actor Brian Blessed and soprano Charlotte Page. That’s followed by the BBC Singers from St Paul's, Knightsbridge with William Byrd's Mass for five voices, and much more besides.

At 9.30pm, David Porcelijn conducts the Ulster Orchestra in Prokofiev and Copland with the world première of Ciaran Farrell's Roots from the Ulster Hall, Belfast. And we end with Jazz Line Up presenting the BBC Big Band in concert, conducted by its principal conductor, Barry Forgie, with vocalists Liane Carroll and Claire Martin.

So it's a busy start to the month - I hope you find lots to enjoy.

With thanks as ever for your interest in the station and all best wishes,

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for May 2010

GREETINGS FROM CONTROLLER ROGER WRIGHT

Dear All

I have delayed writing this month, since I wanted to present our special focus on opera which was launched this week and starts in a few days' time. Opera is an important part of our Radio 3 schedule, and we broadcast performances throughout the year.

PERFORMANCES

You may have been following the live Saturday transmissions from the Metropolitan Opera since December, and our new Thursday afternoon operas building on the success of our complete Handel in 2009. Opera is undeniably a very international world, and on the coming Thursday afternoons we are visiting Pesaro for Rossini's Zelmira, starring Juan Diego Flórez (27 May). Wagner's Tristan and Isolde from Vienna, starring Robert Gambill and Violeta Urmana, will be conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (10 June); and Beethoven's Fidelio from Barcelona stars Karita Mattila (17 June).

INTERACTIVITY

While continuing to provide you with great performances from across the world, we are also hoping that you will share your enthusiasms with other listeners. From May 17th, we are organising a hunt for The Nation's Favourite Aria. You can hear that in the Radio 3 Breakfast programme. Rob Cowan and Sara Mohr-Pietsch will invite listeners to text and email us the names of their favourite arias, and The Nation's Favourite Aria will be revealed on June 14th. Suggestions can be sent by email from Monday to 3breakfast the at sign bbc.co.uk or by text to 83111.

We are also going to create our own A-Z of Opera, or rather from aria to zarzuela! From Wednesday 19 May for 26 days, our drivetime programme, In Tune, will unveil a letter a day, demystifying opera through a series of short features. Each one will feature some aspect of opera, described in interviews with key figures, such as the legendary British bass Robert Lloyd, conductor Sir Mark Elder, voice coach Mary King, and tenor Rolando Villazón. The A-Z series will be broadcast each weekday at 5.40pm and will also be available as downloads.

IN TUNE LIVE FROM THE ROH

On 18 May, In Tune will be presented by Sean Rafferty live from the Paul Hamlyn Hall of the Royal Opera House, with a programme featuring performances from opera stars currently performing there, as well as from members of the ROH Jette Parker Young Artists Programme. There'll be interviews with music director Antonio Pappano, and Monica Mason, director of the Royal Ballet, and from some of the people who work behind the scenes.

MORE PERFORMANCES

Following the end of the Metropolitan Opera season, Radio 3 will present specially recorded operas from the UK each Saturday, beginning with Rossini's Il turco in Italia from the Royal Opera House on 15 May. Also from Covent Garden we have productions of Prokofiev's The Gambler, starring Sir John Tomlinson and Roberto Saccà (22 May), Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier starring Soile Isokoski (5 June), and Massenet's Manon starring Anna Netrebko and Vittorio Grigolo (10 July). We will also be presenting English National Opera's production of Janácek's Katya Kabanova, with Patricia Racette in the title role (12 June) and Opera North's production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda starring Sarah Connolly as Mary Queen of Scots (19 June).

OPERA COMPOSERS

Composer of the Week is going to feature operatic composers throughout 2010. The big names of the nineteenth century - Verdi, Wagner - have whole weeks to themselves. Donald Macleod also explores the history of opera through locations and groups of composers spread across the year. Coming up soon there's a week on the ‘verismo' opera of the 19th century, in which Roger Parker explains exactly what verismo or realism actually was (17 - 21 May). We spend a week listening to the glorious repertoire of the French Opera Comique (23-28 August), and in November we have a visit to Drottningholm near Stockholm, a wonderfully preserved 18th-century theatre, complete with the original stage mechanics, and a focus on the story of Russian opera over Christmas.

ABOUT OPERA

We are so used to the sound quality that modern technology allows that it is strange to think back to the telephone as a medium for entertainment. That's exactly what Edward Seckerson is going to explore in the Sunday Feature on May 16th, when we hear about the telephone being used to relay live entertainment and news direct to subscribers' homes. As early as 1881, live performances from two Paris opera houses were transmitted to an electrical exhibition, and in London, Covent Garden performances could be accessed in private homes, gentlemen's clubs and hotels. It is an astonishing story.

On Sunday May 30th presenter Claire van Kampen sets off in search of the first English opera. The Siege of Rhodes dating from 1656 reached the ears of Samuel Pepys, and remains an important landmark in both English literature and music. Its creator, Sir William Davenant, was one of the great innovators of the English theatre, inventing English opera and promoting the idea of Shakespeare as the national poet.

LIVES SHAPED BY OPERA

In The Essay, starting on 31 May, we hear from five people whose lives have been shaped by opera. They describe how they have interacted with the operatic world as critics, performers and commentators. Michael Chance, one of the world's foremost counter-tenors, ponders the life of an itinerant performer. Critic Tom Sutcliffe argues for the relevance of opera, while Matt Peacock, originator of Streetwise Opera, reflects on how opera has changed the lives of people he has met through his work with the homeless.

Our opera focus is part of a BBC-wide season of opera which extends across radio, television and online. It is the widest range of operatic programming that the BBC has ever undertaken. You can find the full details at www.bbc.co.uk/opera. I hope you enjoy it.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for April 2010

Dear All,

WILLIAM BYRD

As Easter approaches, with its long weekend, many of you might have more time to sample what Radio 3 has to offer. Throughout the week, we have been celebrating William Byrd as Composer of the Week, programmes in which his church music is balanced by keyboard and secular pieces. Much of his sacred music is political in tone, as it reflects the anguish of the Catholic community in the reign of Elizabeth.

When we hear texts that talk about the holy land having become desolate, you can perhaps read that as a coded message meaning England in the composer's mind. Though that series started on Monday, you can still access all the programmes on iPlayer for the next week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rrlsm

SPEAKING ABOUT BELIEF

iPlayer will also be the way to explore Belief if you have missed some of those programmes. All week Joan Bakewell has been speaking to people in her continuing occasional series about their beliefs, and how they influence their lives.

On Monday, Joan spoke to Christian feminist novelist, writer and theologian Sara Maitland. She has recently written of her journey into quietness and solitude in A Book of Silence, and now lives in isolation in a cottage on the Scottish moors.

We can also hear from Junaid Bhatti on finance and Islam, and in tomorrow’s programme, James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, tells of his engagement with social justice, urban planning and the environment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0071lcf

Tonight, in Night Waves, Anne McElvoy goes to Canterbury Cathedral to talk to artist Maggi Hambling about her numerous portrayals of the Crucifixion. For almost 25 years, Hambling has painted a cross every Good Friday, a tradition which started when she created one in memory of her mother in the 80s.

This year, her images are being displayed in the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral. Beyond the Cathedral, Kent is hosting an exploration of the use of the cross in modern art across the county with works by Tracey Emin, Stanley Spencer and Marc Chagall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rpwkh

On Easter Sunday in Private Passions at 12.00 noon, Michael Berkeley meets the newly appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, who studied singing at the Royal Northern College of Music and at New College Oxford.

Music has always been a great passion in his life, and he includes Poulenc's opera Dialogues des Carmelites, which he admires for bearing witness to the courage of Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs4yl

MACMILLAN PREMIERE

On Good Friday evening at 7.00pm, we are presenting the broadcast première of James MacMillan's St John Passion, live from King's College, Cambridge. Baritone Mark Stone sings the role of Christ and is joined by choirs and the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Stephen Cleobury.

The Passion story, as told by St John, is given a very personal setting by MacMillan. He infuses the narrative with his love of both Gregorian chant and opera, creating music that is both sparse and yet dramatic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rpwq6

RAVI SHANKAR

World Routes on Saturday at 3.00pm is a celebration of the career of Ravi Shankar, who celebrates his 90th birthday on 7 April. Mark Tully looks back on an interview recorded for World Routes 10 years ago, and introduces some of his classic recordings. Ravi recalls his early life performing in Paris, and his collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs4s9

MAHLER AND LUCERNE

Easter Monday sees two new themes on Radio 3. In Performance on 3, we begin our journey through the symphonies of Mahler, marking the 150 th anniversary of his birth. The cycle, which we return to each Monday, is a joint project between the BBC Philharmonic and the Hallé.

We start with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda in the first symphony. Mahler declared ‘the symphony must be like the world: It must embrace everything’; it promises to be a fascinating journey following this series of performances which have been critically acclaimed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzqgv

In the afternoon of the same day, Louise Fryer begins a week of performances from the 2009 Lucerne Festival. The first programme features the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in two Mahler performances: the Rückert Lieder and Fourth Symphony; they are joined in both by the Czech mezzo Magdalena Kožená. We also feature the other orchestra founded by Claudio Abbado, the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducted by George Benjamin in a programme including his own music.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs5nq

With thanks as ever for your interest in the station and all best wishes,

Roger Wright

The BBC Trust has today announced that it will carry out Radio 3's service review this spring, along with those of Radio 4 and its sister station, Radio 7.

The press release states: "Radios 3, 4 and 7 all offer output which is hard to find elsewhere […] As well as the current performance of these services we'll also be looking at the BBC's future plans for the stations to ensure they are robust and deliverable. If change is needed the Trust can alter the stations' service licences or ask the BBC Executive to address the issues we raise."

The BBC's recently published Strategy Review may or may not have some bearing on the future direction which will be decided for Radio 3. If there is a consistent approach, then we may note that the television channels BBC Two and BBC Four are to return to something approaching their original remits, strengthening their non-entertainment programming and focusing more strongly on culture, the arts and knowledge.

There will be a 12-week period of public consultation, but this has not yet been opened.

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for March 2010

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR

Dear All

I hope you have managed to enjoy our week-long focus on music-making in Scotland; the concerts are still available on iPlayer, including a performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. I attended the concert and Nicola and the orchestra were in terrific form. To conclude our focus, Music Matters tomorrow comes from Glasgow, as Tom Service brings together Scottish performers to talk about performing for their home crowd. In addition, the new principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Robin Ticciati, discusses his plans, and we learn how the bagpipes have become part of Scottish identity.

Also tomorrow, we have a new production of a Verdi’s rarely heard Attila, live from the Metropolitan Opera. The opera has never been performed at the Metropolitan Opera, and it also represents conductor Riccardo Muti’s Met debut. The story focuses on the collapse of the Roman Empire under the barbarians. Attila, the young Russian bass Ildar Abrazakov, falls in love with an Italian slave Odabella, sung by soprano Violeta Urmana, while she seeks revenge on Attila because he killed her father. The production has proved controversial and the musical performance has received critical acclaim - judge for yourself tomorrow evening.


COMPOSER OF THE WEEK

Composer of the Week is one of our most appreciated, and long-standing programmes, and next week it marks the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Arne in 1710. His most popular works are his songs Rule Brittania and Where the Bee Sucks. Starting on Monday, Donald Macleod will introduce listeners to this musical prodigy and questionable character, one of London's most successful stage composers. He had the misfortune to be a contemporary of Handel, whose brilliant legacy overshadowed a whole generation of British composers.

The following week, starting on the 15th, we move into the 20th century with Prokofiev’s music for stage and screen. We will hear extracts from many opera and ballet scores alongside film and theatre music. When he was just eight, Prokofiev’s parents took him to the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow; on returning home, he announced he was going to compose his own opera. So began the journey which culminated in his masterpiece, War And Peace, as well as his incidental music for film and theatre and collaborations with the pioneering Russian director, Sergei Eisenstein.

AMERICAN PERFORMANCES

On Wednesday and Thursday (17th and 18th), we have American connections in Performance on 3. John Adams conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in the European première of his City Noir , a symphonic work which draws on the film noir, evoking sleaze and moments of panic alongside romance (17th).

On the 18th, we hear an important American orchestra with an all-Finnish cast in a major work by Sibelius. Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra are joined by Päivi Nisula (soprano) and Hannu Niemelä (baritone) as soloists in Kullervo, based on the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. It is a tragic and dark story, as Kullervo suffers the slaughter of his family to be trapped in poverty. After a fated and unfortunate encounter, he is overcome with guilt, and seeks redemption.

THE ESSAY
There's a typically personal feel to The Essay beginning on Monday, in which five artists reflect on the British coastline as a place of personal, imaginative importance. In the first programme, the poet Katrina Porteous speaks of Northumbria and her exploration of the culture and language of fishing. She reveals how this has shaped her own way of seeing the world.

The following week, London-based novelist Kamila Shamsie travels to Karachi to see her family and friends. The city seems fresh to her, now she no longer lives there. She introduces us first to the experience of arrival, as all of Karachi's life seems to approach her once outside the deserted airport terminal.

Listen out also for our drama next weekend, simply called Gone; it is written and directed by Debbie Tucker Green. A young woman has gone missing. She is described by an unconnected group of people whose lives she touched on the last day anyone saw her. Different versions of events build to a disjointed version of who the woman was and what may have happened to her; it is a fascinating study in the absence of objective reality.

HOLY WEEK
For those of you who have enjoyed the EBU Day of Christmas Music over the years, we have a new initiative on Palm Sunday, March 28th - it is a day of Holy Week music. Like its Christmas counterpart, it brings together broadcasting organisations from across Europe to represent a variety of seasonal musical traditions.

Amongst other music, we have orthodox chant from Bulgaria, early choral music from Cambridge, as well as a Madrid performance of Frank Martin's rarely heard oratorio Golgotha, and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius conducted by Sir Colin Davis from Dresden.

Also on a seasonal note, we broadcast on Wednesday Sir Simon Rattle's eagerly anticipated return to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra after a break of four years. He will conduct Bach's St Matthew Passion, with the CBSO Chorus and an international line-up of soloists, including Camilla Tilling (soprano), Magdalena Kozena (mezzo-soprano), Mark Padmore (tenor - Evangelist), Christian Gerhaher (baritone - Christus) and Thomas Quasthoff (baritone). It promises to be a remarkable occasion.

As always, you can find full details of all Radio 3 broadcasts and events at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

I trust you will find much to enjoy on Radio 3 this month.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

The Times yesterday leaked BBC plans to 'downsize' the corporation. The BBC has confirmed that the plans exist and that they are broadly correct. However, they are only proposals and have to be approved by the BBC Trust, so no individual changes - such as the axeing of 6 Music - will necessarily happen.

What is interesting, though, is the general message coming out: a 'pledge to focus on quality rather than quantity', BBC TWO being allowed to go upmarket with extra money to do so, the dropping of the intensive pursuit of the teens-and-twenties market and more for the over fifties, capping the amount for sporting events, and so on.

All this may have benefits for Radio 3, though any directive from the Trust that it should attempt to 'grow its audience' (which was the instruction they gave 6Music a few weeks ago) may or may not be a bad thing, depending on the way it sets about it. 6 Music had been trying to do it by introducing celebrity DJs with a line in excruciating laddish humour but no music credentials.

We have stated our opinion that Radio 3's good ratings over the summer were a significant result of extensive advertising on the popular TV channels. Fine, but there is no need to assume that a new audience needs to be treated gently, still less that those new listeners are somehow more important than the existing ones and that content should therefore be focused on them: too much damage has already been done in that direction. At a time when a majority of people consider the BBC has been 'dumbing down', the way forward is surely to assume higher intelligence and make greater demands on listeners.

The Asian Network is one digital station which is at risk: on the whole it probably ought to go since, at a cost of £9m a year, it is the most expensive of the digital stations, has the smallest audience and, crucially, has been losing listeners. Targeted initially at the 'single, 28-year-old Asian male' it does not even appear to be serving the wider Asian community. If another digital station has to go, why not 1Xtra which, with a predominantly young white audience, must be serving much the same audience as Radio 1, albeit with the emphasis on black music: combine it with Radio 1, why not? Then, let 6 Music (cost £7m per year) remain 'exclusive' as the alternative music station for knowledgeable music lovers, and instead axe BBC THREE (cost £87m per year), the television channel aimed at 15-34-year-olds, and home of such programmes as Snog Marry Avoid and Hotter Than My Daughter.

Too much to hope that the axeing of two digital stations might benefit Radio 3 by allowing its bit rate to be increased to 256 kb/s and making the digital audio quality acceptable?

But there is going to be a lot of pressure on the BBC to alter course on some of the proposals, from the unions over job losses and from sections of the public who stand to lose services which they value. A big chunk of the online webpages are also due for the chop, though it isn't clear where the axe will fall.

Finally, what to say about the National Audit Office's recent report on the BBC's expenditure on building projects? The revamp of Broadcasting House will come in at over £1bn (that's one billion pounds), an overspend of over £100 million. Many people would have thought that that £100 million was perfectly adequate to do the whole job.

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for February 2010

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR
Dear All: February is definitely a month for Beethoven enthusiasts with two high profile projects featuring this great composer.

BEETHOVEN
This week we started the cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos with Daniel Barenboim directing the Berlin Staatskapelle - these are still available on the iPlayer. Two further concerts from the cycle follow on Monday and Tuesday, coupling Beethoven’s music with that of Schoenberg. In Monday’s concert, Beethoven's Third Concerto is paired with Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra. The interesting juxtaposition highlights the essential classicism in Schoenberg’s works, despite the fact that the musical language would have seemed foreign to Beethoven. On Tuesday the cycle concludes with Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto (the Emperor), performed alongside Schoenberg's string masterpiece Verklärte Nacht. I was fortunate enough to attend one of these events and anyone who has heard any of our broadcasts will no doubt agree that it is a remarkable series of concerts. It has received extraordinary critical acclaim, and I am delighted that Daniel Barenboim agreed to Radio 3 broadcasting them. On Wednesday in Performance on 3 we begin a cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies, performed by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. They start with the wonderfully energetic Symphony No. 4, followed by the more popular No. 7. Vladimir Jurowski conducts the orchestra, and as a bonus - setting the music in context - John Suchet reads scenes from his life of the composer.

TURKEY
Turkey is also a major theme for the month. In our Sunday Feature this week Dennis Marks looks at Turkish influence in Europe and the traces of Ottoman rule in Central Europe. Apart from musing on bathing, coffee and croissants, he visits today's Turkish communities in Vienna and Sarajevo, combining this contemporary perspective with historical reflections.

The following Sunday we meet Sinan the Magnificent, Ottoman court architect in the 16th century. He was responsible for some sublime buildings throughout Turkey, the Balkans and the Middle East, yet he is virtually unknown in the West. Jonathan Glancey tells the story of Sinan, who learned his skills working on catapults, mosques and caravanserais during military campaigns. The Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul is perhaps his masterpiece, and apart from Byzantine architecture, his influences probably included Renaissance figures such as his contemporary, Michelangelo.

We remain in Turkey for The Verb on Friday 12th, as Ian McMillan interviews Orhan Pamuk, the much admired Turkish novelist, who remains a controversial figure in his own country. Pamuk discusses his new novel, The Museum of Innocence, with its portrayal of a Turkish elite stranded between the national traditions and Western consumerism. He also introduces some English writers who have made Istanbul their home.

On Saturday 13th, Petroc Trelawny reports from Istanbul in Music Matters about classical music in the European Capital of Culture, and cultural aspects of Turkey's bid to join the European Union. Tom Service meets Fazil Say, an enterprising pianist and composer, and examines classical composers' enduring fascination with the exotic as encapsulated in the Ottoman Empire. Later the same afternoon, World Routes heads to Istanbul, revealing an astonishing cultural melting-pot. We are taken to a session at Badehane's Bar with gypsy clarinettist Selim Sesler; hear troubadour songs from an ancient hamam, and a rare recording from the Alevi branch of Shia Islam.

AND DON'T MISS ...
On Saturday February 13th, we shall bring you a memorable visit to the Metropolitan Opera, as Juan Diego Flórez plays the part of Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du regiment. The opera combines comedy with virtuosic writing, and Tonio is a role which Flórez has famously made his own. On February 20, 2007, at the opening night of the opera at La Scala in Milan, Flórez broke a 74-year-old tradition of no encores when he repeated ‘Ah! mes amis’, its famous virtuoso aria containing nine top Cs. We will be able to hear whether the enthusiasm of the Met audience has the same effect next Saturday.

And on the evening of the 18th, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená performs with pianist András Schiff in the latest instalment of his series, Songs - With and Without Words. The programme takes us from Russia to Bohemia, as well as Kozená's native Moravia and Schiff's Hungary in the musical company of Janácek, Bartók, Musorgsky and Dvoøák.

Drama on 3 this weekend tells the surprising story of Arthur Ransome, most famous for his children's book Swallows and Amazons. Amazonia recounts Ransome's time in Russia when he, aged 29, fled from a failing marriage and libel scandal to Petrograd. With Europe mobilising for the First World War, he took a job as correspondent for the Daily News. Eventually, he became caught up in the revolution, and befriended many leading Bolsheviks, including Lenin and Trotsky, falling in love with and eventually marrying Trotsky's secretary, Evgenia Shelepina. He was certainly a spy, and maybe even a double agent. In this intriguing drama, Arthur Ransome is played by Rory Kinnear and Evgenia Shelepina by Michelle Dockery.

Full details of all Radio 3 programmes are available at the Radio 3 Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

I hope you enjoy our February programming and thanks, as ever, for your continued interest in Radio 3.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

At the request of the BBC Trust, the National Audit Office undertook a study of the BBC’s management of six major sporting and music events of 2008. The report, published two days ago, asked a lot of questions about controls and the answers were that in many cases they could have been a lot tighter. And there were a few duck houses to be explained away.

In fact, the BBC did not appear to know exactly how much the events cost overall because the expenses were spread out over many departments and never brought together to produce a global sum for each event.

The Proms 2008 was one of the six events and, perhaps because it has long been an annual event (the others under review were the Beijing Olympics, Wimbledon, Euro 2008, Glastonbury and Radio 1’s Big Weekend), it appeared to come out well: slightly below budget; producing 67 hours of television coverage for over 17 million viewers and 303 hours of radio coverage for over one million listeners; reasonable cost; reasonable amount of staff. It was not singled out for any strong criticism.

What it looks like, though, is that the Proms hold their own against events like Wimbledon and Glastonbury for attracting an audience and, especially, for audience appreciation (indeed Proms coverage achieves one of the highest scores of any BBC programmes).

The only ones given a bit of a whack have been the BBC Trustees themselves and other BBC fat cats. Still, at least a visit to the Proms would have been a compensation for their much publicised 'compulsory' attendance at Glastonbury…

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for January 2010

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR
Dear All: A very happy new year to you all! I hope you managed to enjoy our Christmas programming. I thought our special New Year's Eve worked well as we celebrated our Four Composers. Judging by the interest shown by our listeners, they enjoyed it too. It was good to have one final chance in 2009 to hear the music of Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn, as well as debating and voting on their lasting value to us. Handel won the day with you, the listeners, and I hope you enjoyed a great year in their company. As we move on, 2010 will be no less rich, and I thought I'd share with you some of our highlights in January.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT
From Monday 11th for two weeks we are continuing our programmes in The Essay, called Enlightenment Voices. The first week is dedicated to the Dutch philosopher Spinosa, whose views on religion were regarded as inflammatory at the time. He can still help the contemporary world examine how a multi-faith society can live together harmoniously. The following week we have Denis Diderot - the driving force behind the biggest publishing enterprise of the Enlightenment, his Encyclopedie. His passion was to classify all human knowledge in the name of human progress, and the work contains 28 volumes, each around a thousand pages in length. Amazingly, it ranges across test-tube babies, pornography, spontaneous generation and religious tolerance. In Night Waves on Thursday 21st, Rana Mitter is joined by historians, theologians and politicians to debate the Enlightenment. To its supporters, it is a cornerstone, defining principles of Western life: the triumph of reason, human rights, free markets, and modern democracy. To critics, it fosters religious intolerance and hostility to those who do not share the same values. It promises to be a fascinating debate.

MADAGASCAR
Tomorrow afternoon in World Routes, Lucy Duran will be taking us far from our own snowy landscape, and sharing with us her recent visit to the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. After her profile of the exciting Malagasy Orkestra last week, she will be visiting the Ambohimanga royal palace in the second programme in the series, filling the space with the tradition music of the Malagasy royal house. We'll also hear some rarely recorded Hira Gasy, troupes who entertain villagers with a satirical view of life, also spreading news and learning. The following Saturday, there will be the chance to hear songs that accompany exhumation ceremonies, as ancestors are removed from their tombs every seven years, re-dressed and introduced to new family members.

PERFORMANCE
On Monday 18th in Performance on 3, there is one of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion events in which one composer is featured in a number of events - on this occasion the music of Hans Werner Henze, with Oliver Knussen conducting. Apart from his massive Fourth Symphony, we hear the moving Elogium musicum, which was first heard in Leipzig in 2008 and is here receiving its UK premiere. It is the composer's serene memorial to his lifelong companion.

We also have two classic operas from the Metropolitan Opera, the one tomorrow is Der Rosenkavalier, as Renée Fleming takes the role of The Marschallin with Susan Graham as Octavian. Strauss's masterpiece mixes comedy and pathos, and, as ever, you can be transported to New York with live back-stage interviews and the regular quiz. The following week, Carmen stars Elina Garanca with Roberto Alagna as Don José. It contains some of the best-known moments in the operatic repertory, so if you are not a Met regular, this might be the place to begin. This is a classic romantic opera and a gritty tale which scandalised audiences some 130 years ago.

STORIES
I use the word stories, because we have two extraordinary tales to tell in the coming weeks. Fourteen centuries ago, three hundred warriors set out from Edinburgh and marched south to meet ten thousand Saxons in battle. There were only three survivors of the three hundred, one of whom returned to Edinburgh and composed an epic poem, The Gododdin. Poet Gwyneth Lewis explores the meaning of this series of elegies for the slain heroes, asking whether the Gododdin is an account of a battle or propaganda to instil courage. That's our Sunday Feature in two days' time.

Another remarkable story centres on Cupids Cove, the first English settlement In Canada. Our feature in the following week marks the 400th anniversary of this site, discovered in 1995. The programme reveals the life of the settlers and their relations with indigenous people. Twenty years before the Mayflower, this unique find provides a fascinating narrative.

We continue our always popular Composer of the Week series with the Russian Alfred Schnittke, whose music was suppressed by the Soviets, and Zelenka whose music represents a more certain world in Baroque form.

On Friday 22nd, Mary Ann Kennedy introduces a Late Night Session in World on 3, live from Glasgow's Celtic Connections. It's a tradition that line-ups that are never divulged before the day, so we have to wait and see. One thing is certain: it will be a lively celebration of the best in the world of folk and roots music.

Details of these and all Radio 3 broadcasts can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

Wishing you a Happy New Year in the company of Radio 3

Best wishes

Roger Wright
Controller, BBC Radio 3

BBC radio chief promises to pursue depth and innovation in programming

Traditional radio has an optimistic future in spite of competing new technologies, according to BBC Director of Audio and Music, Tim Davie. In a speech on The future of audio, delivered to the Manchester Media Festival in November, Mr Davie said a BBC study had shown that radio still accounted for 85% of all audio listening, against competition which included CDs, iPods and mobile phones.

In focusing on creative content, Mr Davie believed that ‘more considered, often inspirational’ programming could well grow in importance.

‘Creatively, we intend to do the reverse of "dumbing down" on my watch. I actually believe that stretching creative work will increase our value and heighten our role as a primary player in the future,’ he said.

He added: ‘I am challenging all our editorial teams to innovate and create more distinctiveness in their programmes, clearly differentiated from anything else available.

‘It is a strategy that prioritises depth as much as breadth and recognising that BBC radio’s job is not to cover every niche or spread itself across every possible area; in fact we will have to make tough choices and stop doing things that are not working.’

‘Linear’ radio - the airtime output of the traditional radio station – would continue into the future, co-existing with on-demand listening, Mr Davie believed.

After a legal battle lasting several years and in which decisions have seesawed backwards and forwards the BBC has won a ruling in the High Court which exempts it from the obligation to disclose certain types of information.

The BBC is a hybrid authority which means that in some matters it is treated as a public authority subject to the Freedom of Information Act while in others – the areas of ‘journalism, art and literature’ – it enjoys an exemption.

The main subject of this legal wrangle was the Balen Report, an internal BBC report which investigated alleged bias in the BBC’s Middle East coverage. Several other unrelated requests were also under consideration at the same time, chiefly relating to specific programmes, including EastEnders and Top Gear.

The BBC had refused the request to release the Balen Report and an appeal went to the Information Commissioner who upheld the BBC’s case. Thereafter a series of appeals and legal technicalities involved the High Court, the Information Tribunal, the law lords and finally the High Court again which has found in the BBC’s favour. It ruled that it was enough for the information to be to a ‘significant extent’ held for the purposes of journalism, art and literature for it to be exempt, even if it was held predominantly for other purposes.

In the matter of the Balen Report, the BBC had a case that the information was covered by the ‘journalism’ exemption. A BBC spokesman said:

"Free and impartial journalism is vital to our viewers and listeners and is at the heart of public service broadcasting. If we are not able to pursue our journalism freely and have honest debate and analysis over how we are covering important issues, then how effectively we can serve the public will be diminished.

"This was recognised by parliament in creating the 'journalism' designation for the public service broadcasters in the first place."

‘Journalism, art and literature’ are bundled together and, as it stands, the ruling exempts the BBC from disclosing any information used to ‘inform programme-making activities’; this includes costs, salaries, scheduling, commissioning, viewing and listening figures and most things that the public might have an interest in finding out. So far there seems to have been no challenge as to what 'art and literature' cover.

The Friends of Radio 3 request for programme listening figures, submitted in 2007, had not passed through the necessary hoops to be specifically included among the cases considered but is, of course, affected by the ruling. We comment on this in FoR3 News.

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for Christmas 2009 and the New Year.

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR

Dear All: We hope you find time to relax over the holiday period and have a chance to enjoy the feast of music which we have prepared for you. For example there are wonderful operas live from the Metropolitan Opera, another chance to hear some of the most popular Proms from this year's record breaking festival, as well as the final celebrations in honour of our Radio 3 Four Composers of the Year.

CHRISTMAS AROUND EUROPE

We begin this Sunday with our traditional day of music from across Europe. It looks like an exciting journey. We start with Vienna for a concert of chamber music, and this is followed by a trip to Tallinn for the Estonian National Men's Chorus performing traditional Estonian songs alongside music by Bach and Gabrieli. We also visit Munich to hear the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra performing Arvo Pärt's Two Christmas Lullabies and Saint-Saens' fine, but seldom heard, Christmas Oratorio. From Warsaw, we have Renaissance motets for Christmas, and then from the Czech Republic we move to the Baroque with music from the extraordinarily rich archives in the Moravian town of Kromeriz.

OPERA

This year the Metropolitan Opera offers three very contrasting pieces across the holiday season. Tomorrow we can hear The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach, and in a darker vein on Boxing Day comes Elektra by Strauss with a cast including Susan Bullock, Felicity Palmer and Deborah Voigt. Then on January 2nd we have a Christmas favourite, Humperdinck's interpretation of the Brothers Grimm fairytale Hansel and Gretel. In this production conducted by Fabio Luisi, Miah Persson and Angelika Kirchschlager play the brother and sister lost in the woods and Philip Langridge sings the role of the Witch.

COMPOSERS OF THE YEAR 2009

This probably needs no introduction by now! However, on New Year's Eve we have the final celebration of the four composers who have been our companions throughout the year, Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn. We hear champions of the composers during the day: Sting and Roy Strong on Purcell; Jon Snow and Julia Neuberger on Handel; Patricia Routledge and Armando Iannucci on Haydn; and Henry Goodman and Sue MacGregor on Mendelssohn. And there is a chance to hear some of the wonderful highpoints again too, such as broadcasts from Handel's London home and the Foundling Museum, originally the Foundling Hospital, where Handel was a governor and benefactor. We hear his charming Italian cantata, Apollo e Dafne; a highly acclaimed production of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas from the Royal Opera House, starring Sarah Connolly as Dido; a short play starring Richard Briers as Joseph Haydn. Then comes the debate, chaired by Petroc Trelawny with Louise Fryer, in which you can vote for your favourite Composer of the Year. Those appearing include poet Jo Shapcott (Purcell), Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger (Handel), philosopher Roger Scruton (Haydn), and actor John Sessions takes up Mendelssohn's cause. The winning composer will then be honoured with a sequence dedicated to his music. I hope you enjoy the debate - voting is open from December 28th.

In the week before Christmas we have another chance to hear some of the most important concerts of the year, including major choral works: Purcell at Westminster Abbey, Mendelssohn's Elijah from Birmingham Town Hall, and a performance of Haydn's Creation from the BBC Philharmonic. On Christmas Day, we have a performance of Handel's Messiah, which ties in with our successful project Sing Halleljah! in which so many choirs have participated in the past month. Laurence Cummings conducts English National Opera's new staged version with Sophie Bevan (soprano), Catherine Wyn Rogers (alto), John Mark Ainsley (tenor) and Brindley Sherratt (bass) with the Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera.

BELIEF

This is an occasional Radio 3 programme, a series of interviews with people with a wide range of religious and spiritual beliefs. Joan Bakewell asks her guests about the influences that have shaped them and how their beliefs affect their lives. In Monday's programme, historian, writer and broadcaster David Starkey talks about how his Quaker upbringing equipped him with the skills to carve out his own moral views. Describing himself now as a 'high Anglican atheist', Starkey believes the church has been hugely important in shaping society, but doesn't offer any answers to the big questions of life. Later in the week, Joan talks to Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe (Friday), who was a life-long Anglican until she converted to Catholicism.

SOLITUDE OR EXCITEMENT

Our Sunday Feature on January 3rd follows Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie for an expedition to the tiny uninhabited island of North Rona, 45 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. She assists with seabird surveys - counting the rare and mysterious Leach's Petrel - and with mapping the island's eighth-century early Celtic Christian buildings. Kathleen, surrounded by thousands of puffins and a herd of grumpy sheep, considers ideas of remoteness and isolation.

In a more animated mood, on Christmas Day late evening we look back on WOMAD 2009 in the company of Lopa Kothari, who recalls three days of sun, wind, rain and the wonderful sets including performances by legendary dub-reggae producer Denis Bovell, Mongolian throat singer Enkh Jargal and UK Bhangra pioneer Channi Singh. The following day in World Routes, Lucy Duran introduces South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, specially recorded in concert at the Brighton Dome.

2009 has been a busy year and a historic one for us as we received our UK Station of the Year accolade. I hope you have liked what you have heard and continue to enjoy what we offer.

From all of us here at Radio 3, a happy and peaceful festive season and best wishes for 2010.

Roger Wright
Controller, BBC Radio 3

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR!

Dear All

In November, we have three substantial themes to provide a focus for your listening. There is the final weekend of our Composers of the Year, this one based around the music of Purcell. Our partnership with the London Jazz Festival will once again offer many great broadcasts of jazz concerts. We are also looking at Berlin, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

THE BERLIN WALL – 20 YEARS ON

On Monday November 9th – the anniversary itself – we are broadcasting live from Berlin during the evening, bringing you the concert which forms a central part of the national commemorations, live from the Berliner Dom (Cathedral) in the centre of the former Eastern part of the city.

Following that, Night Waves stages a debate live in Berlin, in which commentators discuss whether the wall's demolition removed a central focus for Germany's thinkers as it provided the intellectual setting for books, films, articles and plays grappling with what it meant to be German.

Over the weekend leading up to the anniversary, we have Music Matters on Saturday, tracing the city's musical life over the past two decades, and various aspects of the music can be heard later the same evening in Hear and Now, when we see how the city is a continuing magnet for cutting-edge musicians. Jazz Line-up on November 8th looks at the continuing popularity of the big band in Germany, while Jazz on 3 (9th) was recorded in Berlin and features the trumpeter and Radio 3 New Generation Artist Tom Arthurs.

Our Sunday Feature, The Muse of Censorship (8th), moves outwards from Berlin and examines the artistic landscape across Eastern Europe, investigating the idea that oppression spurs the imagination and that censorship can be a muse. The programme looks specifically at two famous centres of artistic activity, Warsaw and Prague.

The spirit of reflection on the past continues in The Essay from the 9th onwards, as writers and artists from the former Warsaw Pact nations reflect on the changing meaning of clocks, cameras, vegetables, telephones and contraceptives. They are all small objects, but ones that speak eloquently of the broader transformations which have reshaped cultural and social life.

FOUR COMPOSERS: PURCELL

We conclude our ambitious weekends dedicated to Radio 3's four featured anniversary composers, featuring the music of Purcell and the world of 17th-century London over November 21st and 22nd. Purcell worked in Westminster Abbey, where he is buried, and on the Sunday evening at 6.30pm, we visit the Abbey for a special celebratory concert marking the 350th anniversary of his birth. It is the climax of our year-long celebration of the composer's music: Carolyn Sampson (soprano) and Iestyn Davies (countertenor) are among the soloists joined by St James's Baroque and James O'Donnell to perform Purcell's Te Deum & Jubilate in D, his Funeral Sentences and Hail! Bright Cecilia.

Around this centrepiece, CD Review looks at new Purcell recordings, while Music Matters reflects on Purcell's final years and how his music has continued to influence British composers until the present day. For a composer who was so open to new continental styles, he felt a perhaps surprising affinity for the English Renaissance, and Discovering Music touches on this in a programme on the consort of viols, of which Purcell was the final exponent. Choral Evensong on Sunday comes from another great royal institution, the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace, and it includes Purcell's Evening Canticles in G minor and Britten's Hymn to St Cecilia. Later on Sunday we have Drama on 3, which presents Thomas D'Urfey's Don Quixote with music by Purcell, which was first performed in 1694. Paul Scofield stars as Don Quixote, Roy Hudd as Sancho Panza, and Douglas Hodge as Henry Purcell.

LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL

November sees the start of our annual coverage of the London Jazz Festival; we are going to be featuring almost 20 events between the start of the festival and early next year. We begin with Jazz on 3 live from Ronnie Scott's on the opening night of the Festival (13 November); Jez Nelson will be joined by a strong line-up of artists from this year's festival, including the young band Empirical, guitarist John Scofield and vibraphone virtuoso Bobby Hutcherson. The following day Jazz Library will broadcast an exclusive interview with Dame Cleo Laine about her life and recordings. On the 17th, Performance on 3 presents Jazz Voice, the star-studded opening night of the London Jazz Festival from the Barbican. The programme celebrates the significant anniversaries of jazz songs, films, singers and songwriters through the decades. Guy Barker has specially assembled the London Jazz Festival Orchestra to present his brand new arrangements celebrating a century of song. On November 23rd, we are broadcasting the concert featuring Carla Bley. She is a constantly evolving performer and bandleader, and a big name in contemporary American jazz. The gig will reunite her with the Lost Chords quartet, featuring leading UK saxophonist Andy Sheppard, US bass luminary Steve Swallow and great US drummer Billy Drummond.

Detailed programme information is available, as always, at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

I hope you enjoy our varied schedule this month and thank you for listening.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for October 2009

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR

Dear All: Thanks, as ever, for your interest in BBC Radio 3. Here are a few areas of our forthcoming programming which I hope will capture your attention and imaginatio [sic]

INTO AFRICA

There is a relaxing and enjoyable way to begin your weekend offered by World On 3 this evening at 11.15pm. Mary Ann Kennedy will be introducing a studio session with the Seckou Keita Quintet, an ensemble which blends Keita's kora style with the playing of Egyptian violinist Sami Bishai, Gambian vocalist Binta Susso, Italian bass player Davide Mantovani and Senegalese percussionist Surahata Susso. Lucy Duran describes Seckou Keita as 'a brilliant live performer with stacks of charisma, and one of the few champions of the less well-known and rhythmically rocking kora repertoire from southern Senegal'. So wherever you are going, or doing over the next few days, why not start by taking a captivating musical journey in the company of Mary Ann.

DARK POOLS

By Saturday evening at 6 we will have travelled from Africa to Sussex to hear one of the successes of this summer's opera festival at Glyndebourne. Louise Fryer will be presenting Dvorak's best-known opera, Rusalka. It's the first time Glyndebourne has staged this tale, based around Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and translated into a Czech idiom. Rusalka, a water nymph, lives in a pool in a dark and brooding forest. She's doomed not only to lose her lover but to live forever as a will-o-the-wisp, tempting other men to their deaths. Ana María Martínez is Rusalka, and American tenor Brandon Jovanovich is the prince with whom she falls in love. The BBC Symphony Orchestra's Chief Conductor Jiri Belohlavek received glowing reviews for his idiomatic conducting – and so the broadcast promises to be a real operatic treat. See also below for more on Belohlavek's forthcoming work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

A TURBULENT PRIEST

There is more drama the following evening, as David Morrissey takes the title role in Becket by Jean Anouilh – one of the great French plays of the 20th century. It tells the story of Henry II, the Norman King of England, and his adviser, Thomas Becket. Henry is determined to bring the Church to heel and appoints Becket as Archbishop, believing his friend will take his side. But Becket is transformed by the appointment, and takes on his role for the honour of God. As politics and personal beliefs collide, the end is the violence and regret which we know about. Toby Stephens stars as the charismatic and emotionally wrought King, while David Morrissey performs the role of Becket. Enjoy it on Drama on 3 at 8pm.

FREE THINKING

We are looking forward to our next Free Thinking festival of ideas which this year will be held in Gateshead at The Sage. Building on the interest in last year's initiative, we are bringing back our popular cultural 'thoughts for the day', 'Free Thought', during Breakfast from Monday onwards. Prominent figures from the arts, media and science offer their personal opinions, either as reflections or provocations, or casting light on some aspect of cultural life. We have an attack on 'relevance' and a plea to bring back 'friendliness' to Britain's public spaces. On Monday, philosopher Simon Critchley launches Free Thought with a memorial to the first man ever to have been called a Free Thinker', John Toland. Do put our Free Thinking weekend of debates, talks, films, drama, performance and conversation in your diaries and join us in Gateshead if you can. It runs from Friday 23 October to Sunday 25 October with broadcasts in the following weeks.

MUSIC

Performance on 3 on Monday features the opening concert of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's new season. It is the first in a series devoted to Bohuslav Martinu's six symphonies, marking the 50th anniversary of the composer's death. Chief conductor Jiri Belohlavek conducts the programme, which concludes with Martinu's Symphony No. 1, a work conceived in exile from Nazi-dominated Europe. We also hear bass-baritone Gerald Finley performing Mahler's Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death.

And on Thursday at 7, we have a live concert by the BBC Singers, from St Paul's Church in Kensington; this features a new BBC commission by Judith Bingham, Actaeon – His Strange New Face. It retells Ovid's story of the hunter changed into a stag as punishment for seeing a goddess naked and then torn to death by his own hounds. Scored for chorus and four horns, Judith's piece explores the story's complex underlying psychology.

Later in the month, we are broadcasting a new production of the complete Threepenny Opera on the evening of Sunday October 18th, with music performed by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by H.K. Gruber. In the evenings leading up to this, we are going to have a rare chance to hear some of the incidental music not usually included in modern performances. And from the Philharmonia, we have the conclusion of an extensive exploration of the music and culture of Vienna in the early 20th century. Berg's operatic masterpiece, Wozzeck, can be heard on the evening of October 15th in a semi-staged version with Simon Keenlyside in the title role, and conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Even 80 years after its first performance, it remains a profoundly disturbing work.

As ever, you'll find full information on all the activities of Radio 3 and the BBC Performing Groups at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

I hope you'll find lots to enjoy in the coming weeks on the UK Station of the Year!

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for September 2009

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR

Dear All

PROMS 2009

Music on Radio 3

The Proms are drawing to a close after a long and enjoyable summer. The First Night seems a long time ago, but time seems to have flown.

With just two days to go there are still some treats in store. After the second Vienna Philharmonic Prom, cellist Yo-Yo Ma brings us the Silk Road Ensemble late on Friday evening to finish our 2009 Late Night Proms. The concert will explore links between East and West, historical and contemporary, inspired by the ancient trade route.

Then, on Saturday, we have the Last Night. Sean Rafferty presents the traditional festivities, conducted for the first time by David Robertson, principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. There is music by three of Radio 3's Composers of The Year: a concerto by Haydn, played by Alison Balsom; Dido's lament by Purcell, sung by Sarah Connolly; and orchestral fireworks by Handel. Oliver Knussen's Flourish harks back to the First Night as it based on Stravinsky's Fireworks which kicked off this year's festival. It is complemented by new fanfares specially written by six young composers. In addition we have fun and games, marking the Gerard Hoffnung anniversary, with Malcolm Arnold's Grand Grand Overture; this piece includes vacuum cleaners, rifles and a floor polisher and is played by well known figures who have been involved in this year's Proms.

As the Proms term ends, the new Radio 3 season begins. On Sunday we bring you the Leeds International Piano competition in two instalments at 2pm and 6pm. You can hear the six finalists and the announcement of the winner following the concerto performances. Then we head to Edinburgh for more coverage of its International Festival. On Monday night we have the opening night performance of Handel's popular oratorio Judas Maccabaeus. Handel and his librettist used the story to make a political statement, celebrating the victory of the Duke of Cumberland over the Jacobites at Culloden. There is a star line-up of soloists, including Rosemary Joshua, Sarah Connolly and William Burden, with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by William Christie. The following night (Tuesday), there is music by Marin Marais and Handel, in which Jordi Savall conducts Le Concert des Nations. Like Handel, the great viol-master Marais was an important opera composer, and we can hear ballet music from his Alcione, coupled with popular Handel: Water Music suites and Music for Royal Fireworks.

On Wednesday evening we continue the Baroque theme from Edinburgh, as the European Union Baroque Orchestra showcases its talents in music by composers active in Rome: Corelli, Muffat, Geminiani and Handel. On Thursday, we hear Sir John Eliot Gardiner bringing the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists to the Usher Hall. Bach's cantatas are incredibly dramatic and varied, and tonight's selection for the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, are no exception. We move from Scotland to Wales on Friday for the new season of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under its associate guest conductor, Francois-Xavier Roth. Musical Vienna is a continuing theme of the orchestra's season, and tonight's programme begins with Beethoven's dramatic Leonore No. 3 overture, and concludes with Haydn's Nelson Mass, composed when Vienna was under threat from Napoleon – and Paul Lewis will perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12.

Drama and Ideas on Radio 3

Our speech programming also launches its new season. On Sunday night we present Edward the Second, one of Christopher Marlowe's greatest works; it tells of a weak king in thrall to his passions, who pays the ultimate price for choosing his heart over his political responsibilities. Toby Jones stars as Edward, Patrick Kennedy as Mortimer and Anastasia Hille as Queen Isabella. Our Sunday feature (10pm) looks at The Audience For Poetry in the company of Julian May, who has been making poetry programmes for two decades; he talks to publishers, people who organise readings, literary historians, poets and their readers to investigate the relationship between poetry and its audience. And throughout the coming week we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Dr Samuel Johnson, creator of the great dictionary. In our increasingly popular late night strand, The Essay, five very different writers explore his linguistic heritage. In the first programme, Philip Hoare ponders thesimilarities between whales and words, and the disparities between Moby Dick author Herman Melville and Dr Johnson.

Night Waves returns on Tuesday 15th at 9.15 pm with a special programme dedicated to revolution, and explores what's left of the revolutionary spirit. We welcome back Music Matters on Sunday 19th, as Tom Service continues to visit some of the world's most important musical centres. This week, the spotlight turns to Budapest, where Tom, amongst other subjects, examines the legacy of Liszt, Bartok and Kodaly and the influence of folk music.

As always, you can find details of all Radio 3 events and broadcasts at: www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

I hope you enjoy the remaining Proms events and the new season on Radio 3!

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for August 2009

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR!

Dear All

PROMS 2009

The Proms are now well underway, and I trust you are finding many opportunities to enjoy the concerts, on the radio, online for seven days and on television. With such a wealth of events, we hope to make it as easy as possible to access all the music. There are also the afternoon repeats of many of the concerts on Radio 3. There is a hugely expanded interactive Proms offer – for example, have you sampled the Maestro Cam experiment yet? It will be helpful to get feedback on the idea and all the other ways we are enhancing the Proms experience this year. From the audience queue conversations I've had recently I can tell you that some of the highlights for the Prommers have been Mahler 9, The Planets and Petrushka conducted by Haitink, Mackerras and Belohlavek respectively. We have had so much so far that the First Night already seems a distant memory!

PROMS WEEKENDS

Selecting individual highlights is impossible, but the themed weekends provide a good focus for August listening. On Sunday 9th we have our Multiple Pianos Day. As Stravinsky memorably showed in Les Noces, there is nothing really like the sheer energy and dynamism of multiple hammers striking simultaneously! The sound has an extraordinary mechanical dynamism, just like impossible-to-play music created on the pianola. And the day leads us on a journey from the gentle world of Fauré's Dolly Suite, originally written for piano duet, through the Mozart Concerto for two pianos K.365, and culminates in some of the more extravagant manifestations of the scoring. We find these in Antheil's Ballet Mechanique, originally composed to accompany a Dadaist film, with an original instrumentation of 16 pianolas, two pianos, three xylophones, at least seven electric bells, three propellers, siren, four bass drums, and tam-tam. The musicians themselves 'dance' the ballet, and at early performances the humans apparently did well, while the 16 pianolas failed to remain synchronised. Well, we won't be attempting the impossible, namely reviving the original instrumentation, but we will be presenting a unique and intriguing experience; it's followed by John Adams' Grand Pianola Music, on the same mechanical theme.

The following Sunday (16th), with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony still no doubt reverberating somewhere in the rafters from the previous evening, we have our Indian Voices Day, celebrating both classical Indian music and Bollywood. The two concerts in the hall are complemented with events in the park opposite, very much in the vein of our successful Folk Day last year. So if you are anywhere near London, do join us for the afternoon of open air music and dance, as well as taking in a concert or even two. The morning concert features the style singing known as khyal, which is a north-Indian tradition blending improvisation with memorised composition. We have the chance to hear some renowned exponents of this from Varanasi and Jaipur. In the evening, we have our own Proms Bollywood extravaganza, with the singer Shaan, The Groove and Honey's Dance Academy.

The following weekend (Friday 21st, Saturday 22nd), we welcome the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra on its tenth anniversary. This orchestra of young Israeli and Arab musicians was founded by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said, and continues to provide a beacon of dialogue. We will have four events from them over the two days. The weekend starts on the Friday night with a Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz programme, including the Symphonie Fantastique. Continuing with extraordinary energy, they then perform the late-night concert of Mendelssohn Octet and the Berg Chamber Concerto. And on the Saturday evening, we have a concert performance of Beethoven's Fidelio, with a great cast including Waltraud Meier and Sir John Tomlinson. In the afternoon some members will perform Boulez at a special Proms Plus event at the Royal College of Music. It promises to be a very special weekend.

OTHER THEMES

Of course there is plenty of programming other than the Proms on Radio 3 throughout August. Do listen out for our lunchtime coverage from the Edinburgh Festival starting on Tuesday August 25th and continuing into the following week. We start with a recital by the Scottish soprano Lisa Milne, who combines Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn with songs by one of the most prolific composers of song to Scottish poetry, Francis George Scott. We hear a selection of his more than 300 songs, a wonderfully appropriate way to start our Edinburgh coverage.

Morocco is only a short hop by air, but the moment you arrive you know you're far from the UK. Walking through the narrow streets of Essaouira you hear the hypnotic sound of chanting of the gnawas. Gnawa music is a mixture of sub-Saharan African, Berber, and Arabic religious songs and rhythms. The music is both a prayer and a celebration of life. Every year Essaouira is home to the Gnawa and World Music Festival. Lucy Duran will be introducing two editions of World Routes starting on 22nd August and you'll be able to hear an improvisation between gnawa musicians and the New Orleans jazzmen Congo Nation which, we're assured, was totally unprepared and unrehearsed, demonstrating the old links between jazz, blues and the traditional music of North and West Africa.

We'll also be marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson this month with a whole range of programmes from The Sunday Feature (2nd), in which Ruth Padel investigates the man behind the sometimes forbidding Victorian image, to Between the Ears (15th), which promises to be an off-beat exploration of Tennyson's visits to Skegness. Do also listen out for Fiona Shaw and Andrew Motion reading Tennyson as part of the Proms Literary Festival (2nd).

You can find details of all these events and broadcasts at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/

Wherever you are and however you listen, have a good Radio 3 August!

With best wishes

Roger Wright
Controller, BBC Radio 3 and Director, BBC Proms

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for July 2009

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR!

Dear All

PROMS 2009

It's that time again as the First Night of the BBC Proms draws near!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2009/

We have been celebrating the music of the Four Radio 3 Composers of the Year – Purcell, Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn – since the beginning of the year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers

With the start of the Proms the various strands come together over our first weekend with great works by three of them. On the first Saturday, July 18th, Paul McCreesh will be conducting Haydn's Creation with the Gabrieli Consort and Players; they will be joined by the Chetham's Chamber Choir to recreate one of the giant versions which Haydn himself conducted towards the end of his life. With Rosemary Joshua, Sarah Tynan, Mark Padmore, Neal Davies and Peter Harvey, there is a cast of soloists to match the splendour of the occasion.

The following evening there is another great work, less well known than Creation, but a great masterpiece which deserves to be more widely known. Handel's operas have taken second place in our minds to his oratorios, and we have been working hard to remedy that here on Radio 3 by broadcasting his complete operas throughout 2009. Partenope with Concerto Copenhagen, directed by Lars Ulrik Mortensen, promises to be an unforgettable evening with a line-up of soloists including Andreas Scholl and Inger Dam-Jensen. There will also be a chance to celebrate his oratorios later in the season with Samson, and a large-scale Messiah performance.

The third great blockbuster is by Purcell, his great stage work, The Fairy Queen, when we are bringing the Glyndebourne production to the Royal Albert Hall in a semi-staged version, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment directed by William Christie. If you have read the critical acclaim for this new production you'll know how eagerly awaited its arrival is at the Proms.

July 30th sees Mendelssohn join the illustrious trio; that's the evening on which we launch our Mendelssohn symphony cycle, with his large-scale Hymn of Praise, Symphony no. 2. The Hallé is conducted by Mark Elder, and the soprano soloist is Sally Matthews, who was part of the Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme.

The New Generation Artists are themselves being celebrated in a weekend at the end of August, when the distinguished alumni of the scheme are being brought together for a wonderful weekend of chamber music– in effect the first ever Proms chamber music festival. Don't forget too, on the subject of Mendelssohn, that our recent Midsummer Night's Dream performance – including the original play – is still available to see on our website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/mendelssohn/dream.shtml

As last year, the opening night on Friday 17th July provides a taster for the whole season. As well as our Four Composers and Radio 3 New Generation Artists, we have some other celebrations running through the season: Stravinsky ballets, Tchaikovsky piano concertos, and a thread of works for multiple pianos which has a special day devoted to it on August 9th. So the First Night contains Stravinsky's Fireworks which kick-started the relationship between Stravinsky and the great Russian impresario Diaghilev and Tchaikovsky's rarely heard Third Piano Concerto. The Fireworks theme has a resonance on the Last Night too as we'll hear Oliver Knussen's Flourish with Fireworks (based on the Stravinsky) as well as Handel's Fireworks Music.

It is not just the great blockbuster pieces which make the Proms what it is, though you can see that we have our fair share of those. We have wonderful intimate musical moments planned, such as the music from the time of Henry VIII at lunchtime on Monday 20th July, and the intensely moving Haydn's Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross, paired with James Macmillan's work on the same theme the same evening.

To get yourself attuned to this wonderful summer of music making, do join us on the evening of Thursday July 16th, when we have our Proms Preview Evening on Radio 3. We will be introducing the season (which this year is the largest ever with 100 concerts), and there will be live music from New Generations Artists during the preview programme.. The evening will be presented by Petroc Trelawny, and is a chance not only to hear about the season but also to learn about all the ways in which you can enjoy the concerts. As always, each will be live on Radio 3 with many repeated in the afternoons; all will be on demand for a week, and many will also be televised.

There will also be Proms coverage on our regular Breakfast and In Tune programmes. I shall again be hosting an online question and answer session throughout the Proms so do give us your feedback. I hope you enjoy the 2009 BBC Proms and all our Radio 3 coverage.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2009/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Controller, BBC Radio 3 and Director, BBC Proms

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for June 2009

GREETINGS FROM THE UK STATION OF THE YEAR

Dear All

SONY RADIO ACADEMY AWARDS

It's been a long wait but, as you may already know, Radio 3 won this award at the recent Sony Awards evening. It is the first time that Radio 3 has won the award and I am thrilled for all my colleagues. They richly deserve this recognition. In addition, three of our programmes won individual Gold Awards:

Vaughan Williams: Valiant for Truth (The Music Special Award)

Words and Music (The Music Programme Award)

Between the Ears: Staring at the Wall (The Feature Award)

Despite Paul Donovan's hot tip in the Sunday Times, I must confess to being surprised on the night by the Station of the Year Award. His article was just one of a number of very positive press pieces in recent weeks and it is very gratifying to read them. With our Composers of the Year celebrations creating ongoing interest and with our rising listening figures it has been a good 2009 so far!

We all owe you, our dedicated and loyal listeners, a big thank you for your continuing interest and support – it is very much appreciated. Do please continue to spread the word about the programmes you enjoy.

I hope you managed to hear much of our Mendelssohn weekend, when we sought out traces of the composer across the UK, through the places he would have known – from Birmingham Town Hall, to Fingal's Cave and Buckingham Palace. If you missed the wonderful production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Mendelssohn's music from the Inner Temple, then you can watch and listen online until the end of 2009 – just follow this link: /composers/mendelssohn/dream.shtml. There will also be a repeat of the performance on the BBC's digital TV red button service, tomorrow night at the conclusion of BBC 2's Birth of British Music documentary on Mendelssohn – that's at about 9.50pm. And while you are looking at the Composers website, you might enjoy looking at our new-style programme pages, as well as visiting the special section dedicated to our four Composers of the Year.

HAYDN

This coming weekend we are turning our attention to Joseph Haydn, exactly 200 years after his death on May 31st 1809. To mark the day we will be joining colleagues around Europe again for another special day, following the Mendelssohn and Handel Days earlier in the year. We will be taken around many of the places related to Haydn's life and creative activity. We'll begin in the magnificent Esterházy Palace in Hungary, one of the houses belonging to the family which Haydn served for almost thirty years, and we return there more reflectively at the end of the day for a serene programme of church music. During the day we'll visit one of the family's other residencies on the other side of the Austrian border in Eisenstadt, for a programme of symphonies from the hall, now called the Haydn Hall, where the composer himself performed for the family and its guests. The BBC contributions recall Haydn's activity in London and present the music which Haydn chose to have performed when he was awarded a doctorate by Oxford University. From Paris we have two of the symphonies written there, and in an excursion to Spain we'll hear the meditative music which Haydn provided to accompany the contemplation of Christ's words from the Cross in the cathedral in Cadiz. A visit to a castle in the Czech Republic reminds us about Haydn's early patronage by the Counts of Morzin, while a concert from Schwetzingen in Germany recalls Haydn's connections with Mozart. In all, it is a unique opportunity to follow Haydn across Europe, in celebration of this great composer.

We continue our celebration of Haydn in next week's Composer of the Week. For such a household name, it is surprising how much of his music remains relatively unknown, so Donald Macleod will be concentrating on his more neglected works. Though we rarely hear his operas now, for much of his life Haydn was absorbed with the genre. The first programme includes a complete performance of his first comic opera, La canterina.

During the afternoons next week, we hear programmes built around Haydn string quartets from Opus 20 onwards. This collection is widely regarded as having revealed the possibilities of the string quartet, and Haydn's later string quartets inspired Beethoven to embark on his own iconic collection. The set of six has been specially recorded for Radio 3 by the renowned Quatuour Mosaïques.

OPERA AND VIDEO

Haydn is inevitably going to dominate the week, but for another musical highlight do remember our eight-week series of operas recorded at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. This continues tomorrow with one of the highlights of the current season, Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. Marc Albrecht conducts Tim Albery's new production with Bryn Terfel in the title role and soprano Anja Kampe as Senta. And of course, there is much else to enjoy.

I mentioned the Mendelssohn video above. It's now not just Mendelssohn that you can see as well as hear courtesy of Radio 3. We have brought our Radio 3 visual material together in a YouTube channel, which you may enjoy exploring: http://www.youtube.com/radio3video. You will find more about our Composers of the Year, an introduction to the Proms, performance by New Generation Artists, and recordings from the London Jazz Festival and Womad. I hope you will enjoy this colourful new dimension to Radio 3.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Dear All

COMPOSERS OF THE YEAR – MENDELSSOHN

I trust that you enjoyed our Handel week, which started at Easter and culminated in a great day of music from around Europe, visiting many of the places associated with the composer. This made a lasting impression with me, in particular the concert from the church in Halle where he was baptised, and closer to home, the concerts from the Music Room of his London house, as well as Messiah from Westminster Abbey where he is buried. I hope that it left you with similar great experiences, as we set out to create a distinctive celebration of one of our great composers. I have received very positive comments about the week. Thanks to all of you who take the time and trouble to give us feedback.

Well, we have scarcely paused for breath, and we are in the final stages of preparing our Mendelssohn Weekend. At the end of May you can look forward to our Haydn celebrations, and I will write another note to give you those details. The Radio 3 'Composers of the Year' celebrations are certainly now in full swing! The build-up to our Mendelssohn weekend begins this Monday: throughout the week, as our Composers of the Week programme features both Felix and his sister Fanny. You will be able to hear choral works and string symphonies during the afternoons, while our lunchtimes are given by members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and all contain chamber works by Mendelssohn.

The weekend itself launches on Friday 8th with In Tune, presented by Sean Rafferty live from Birmingham Town Hall, including performances on the same organ as Mendelssohn played when he visited Birmingham in 1837. The BBC Chorister of the Year sings O for the Wings of the Dove, beginning the chain of performances which will happen through the weekend across the UK.

For Performance on 3 we stay in Birmingham Town Hall, where Elijah was premiered, to hear Mendelssohn's great oratorio performed by Ex Cathedra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore. You can then hear The Verb which continues the Mendelssohn mood, creating a Victorian salon under the watchful direction of Ian MacMillan.

There's a special edition of Breakfast on Saturday, featuring the music of Mendelssohn together with his historical heroes and contemporaries, and celebrating his affinity for Lassus, Bach, Handel and Schubert. Mendelssohn's Octet is the featured work in Building a Library a little later in the morning, while Music Matters follows Mendelssohn to Scotland, as Tom Service seeks out the inspiration behind the Hebrides Overture and Scottish Symphony.

Many of our continuing programmes reflect the theme, such as the Early Music Show, which looks at the role of Mendelssohn in the Bach revival. On Saturday evening we concentrate on the connections between the composer and the British royal family, including a concert of orchestral music with dedications to Victoria, as well as following Sean Rafferty on a visit to Buckingham Palace to explore the composer's friendship with both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

A feature later in the evening takes us into the world of Mendelssohn and anti-semitism, the effect of Wagner's polemic, and the later banning of his music by the Nazis. At the end of the evening, we hear Words and Music based around Mendelssohn's letters written during what the composer called his 'great trip', a journey that began in England and Scotland in 1829.

In Sunday's Private Passions, Michael Berkeley meets both composer and his sister in a special edition featuring John Sessions as Felix and Rebecca Front as Fanny. During the afternoon – surrounded by more Mendelssohn discussion – there is another opportunity to hear Choral Evensong with the composer's music, broadcast from the Temple Church, where Ernest Lough made his legendary recording of O for the Wings of a Dove. Following that, in Discovering Music, Charles Hazlewood and the BBC Concert Orchestra explore the Italian Symphony, particularly the insight it gives into Mendelssohn's work as a symphonist. Our regular Sunday programme The Choir includes the culmination of the 'Wings' project, in which over 100 choirs will have taken part and performed O for the Wings of a Dove during the weekend. And finally, we have a rare chance to enjoy Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream together with Mendelssohn's complete incidental music. It will be specially recorded during the week at the Middle Temple Hall, where Shakespeare himself played. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is conducted by Charles Hazlewood and the production is directed by Tim Carroll. This will also be simulcast on red button TV, and available to view online for the rest of the year. As you can tell, this promises to be a weekend of extraordinary scope and interest, giving unique insights into Mendelssohn. I hope you enjoy it.

To find further details of all these broadcasts, visit:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
www.bbc.co.uk/composers

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for April 2009

Dear All

COMPOSERS OF THE YEAR – HANDEL

Thanks as ever for your interest in what's coming up on Radio 3. I hope you will enjoy our programmes throughout April. I thought I'd concentrate in this note on a major anniversary event, the week we will dedicate to Handel; this starts on April 11th and marks the 250th anniversary of his death. It's part of our ongoing Composers of the Year 2009 project, marking the anniversaries of Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn.

Our Handel Week will provide an insight into the composer's genius, including unique opportunities to hear his music performed by many leading musicians. Perhaps the most significant event is the performance of Messiah from Westminster Abbey on the exact 250th anniversary of his death, Tuesday April 14th. This historic performance, recalling the Handel celebrations of earlier centuries, is directed by James O'Donnell, with the Choir of Westminster Abbey and the period-instrument orchestra St James's Baroque.

During the week we have performances from other Handel places, including concerts from the music room in his own house in Brook Street and from the Foundling Museum, where he was a dedicated supporter of the orphanage.

During the evenings throughout the week, Performance on 3 features Handel's music in concerts by the London Handel Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and English Concert.

Much as we like to own him as a British composer these days, we should not forget Handel was an international figure, born in Halle in Eastern Germany, who received many formative influences during his time in Italy, as shown by his church music, operas and cantatas. To mark his international status, the European Broadcasting Union Handel Day on April 19th presents twelve hours of musical celebrations from across the continent.

Closer to home, throughout the same day, Suzanne Aspden maps out her very own Handel tour through London We have also made a new recording at the Handel House Museum, featuring Laurence Cummings who performs the Eight Harpsichord Suites. These will be broadcast following each weekday evening concert. And Laurence also joins Catherine Bott on the Early Music Show (April 12th at 1pm) to discuss Handel's work as both a virtuoso performer and composer for the keyboard.

Composer of the Week is dedicated to Handel's oratorios, since it was he who established the oratorio in Britain, creating a national version of the genre. Donald Macleod will explore the key works which brought Handel such success, including Esther, Messiah and Judas Maccabeus. During concert intervals, Sarah Walker explores Handel's world, focussing on the years in Brook Street, London, where he lived, rehearsed, performed and sold his music. She also reflects upon Handel the philanthropist at the Foundling Hospital, which holds a fascinating collection of scores and memorabilia, and she walks round Handel's birthplace, Halle, visiting the family house where he was born and the church where he was baptised.

The Essay presents various experts discussing social and musical context; for instance, Jonathan Keates explores Handel's years in Italy, while subsequent themes cover his working practices, relationship with literature and his librettists and his approach to nationality. Before we think of the composer of Messiah as unworldly, the BBC's business correspondent Peter Day delves into Handel's finances in a fascinating documentary called Liquid Assets, and discovers that he was an astute investor, who managed to avoid being stung by the South Sea Bubble crisis in which overpriced stocks crashed in a credit bubble – a story with a contemporary resonance reflecting Handel's lasting appeal,

Breakfast invites you to nominate your favourite 'HandelBars' – your selection of the great moments in his music; these have already started, so join in if you can. The bulk of our celebrations launch on Easter Sunday, as Michael Berkeley recalls nine guests who have chosen Handel pieces in Private Passions; Laurence Cummings speaks about the Keyboard Suites; Radio 3 Requests features listeners' requests with a Handel focus; Choral Evensong comes live from St George's, Windsor with music by Handel; Discovering Music looks at his Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne; The Choir presents Handel at Cannons (near Edgware) and the Chandos Anthems, and then Liquid Assets and a special Words and Musicon Handel's Divas – and that is just the first day!

You'll find full details of all of these broadcasts in the Radio 3 schedule pages at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 and don't forget to visit the Handel pages in our Composers of the Year website: www.bbc.co.uk/composers/handel/

Do join us and listen to all that and much more in our Handel Week. I hope you enjoy it.

Best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for March 2009

Dear All

COMPOSERS OF THE YEAR – PURCELL

Our year of celebrations for the Four Composers continues, and March sees the first of our focuses on the great English composer Henry Purcell, born in 1659. Over the weekend of March 21st and 22nd many programmes will be looking at Purcell's life and work.

His opera Dido and Aeneas will feature twice in the weekend: on Saturday in CD Review's Building a Library, Jeremy Summerly will be looking at available recordings, and in Discovering Music, Stephen Johnson will analyse the opera with musical examples provided by Manchester Camerata and soloists from the Royal Northern College of Music.

One of the most distinguished interpreters of Purcell is Emma Kirkby. She presents a special Purcell edition of Radio 3 Requests. In the Early Music Show, the first Radio 3 New Generation Artist harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani plays Purcell's Harpsichord Suites in recordings specially made for the weekend, and in Hear and Now there'll be Purcell arrangements by composers from Maxwell Davies to Steve Martland.

Leading up to the weekend, Choral Evensong will come from Westminster Abbey where Purcell was organist, and Classical Collection features pioneering 20th-century recordings of his music.

On the afternoon of Thursday March 5th, we continue our epic journey through Handel's operas with Acis and Galatea, premiered on the terrace of Cannons, the North London home of James Brydges (later Duke of Chandos). John Butt's new recording sets out to recreate what was heard that day. The Arcadian story is simplicity itself: the nymph, Galatea, sung by soprano Susan Hamilton, and the shepherd, Acis, sung by tenor Nicholas Mulroy, are in love. However, the giant, Polyphemus, takes a liking to Galatea and kills Acis with a huge rock. Handel's music however brings the simple story to life as a perceptive catalogue of human emotions and longings. I hope you are enjoying this feast of Handel operatic Thursdays, and discovering lots of wonderful music that you didn't know.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/purcell/

MOZART

Not an anniversary figure, simply a great composer, Mozart features in Composer of the Week starting on March 2nd with music from his Vienna years. After 1781 Mozart abandoned the comfortable surroundings of the Salzburg court, and we hear works from the last ten years of his life. We start on Monday hearing how Mozart established himself in the right circles on arrival – above all, at the home of diplomat Baron van Swieten.

And on Tuesday evening (3rd) we stay with Vienna for a concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, launching their exploration of music in Vienna around 1900. 'Vienna – City of Dreams' starts with Schoenberg's Gurrelieder; inspired by Wagner and Mahler; this is a vast oratorio on the theme of 12th-century King Waldemar of Denmark. You'll be able to hear all of this fascinating series on Radio 3.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cotw/

CONCERTS

Listen out too for Performance on 3 on March 10th, which features the BBC Symphony Orchestra and performances from its Xenakis Day. Xenakis produced works of extraordinary complexity and originality, drawing on his training as an architect. Martyn Brabbins and Stephen Betteridge conduct performances of Tracées; Anastenaria; Sea-Nymphs; Mists; Troorkh and Antikhthon.

And on March 18th, two great orchestras come together to celebrate the 75th birthday of Sir Roger Norrington, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra where he is Chief Conductor. This varied evening will range from Bach to Mahler and Elgar. The concert will reflect his early work with the Schutz Choir to his pioneering performances of Beethoven, and celebrates the distinctive style he has created in Stuttgart.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/performanceon3/

IDEAS AND DRAMA

On Sunday March 1st, we have a feature examining the Kaa'ba in Mecca – Islam's holiest shrine that has entranced worshippers, artists and philosophers for two millennia. This black cuboid building is the focal point of the hajj pilgrimage, and the ritual circumambulation performed by many thousands of pilgrims. The empty cube of the Kaa'ba has particular symbolism because, for Muslims, it represents both the earthly and divine realm. The presenter Navid Akhtar is an award-winning journalist, whose work focuses on the Western Muslim experience.

The following weekend, on the evening of Sunday 8th, we have Bring Me the Head of Philip K Dick. Philip K. Dick's work has been taken up by writers, artists and thinkers. Now Gregory Whitehead takes him, or rather his artificial android head, on a surreal fantasy exploring corners of the modern American psyche. Whitehead tracks the lost, android head of Philip K. Dick as it creates chaos across America. The invention of a shadowy research unit in the Pentagon, the android head searches for the rest of its body, while the Department for Homeland Security puts out the emergency message: Bring me the head of Philip K. Dick. It promises an intriguing and surprising evening!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/speechanddrama/

Best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for February 2009

Dear All

I trust you have been enjoying the start of our Four Composers celebrations which will run throughout 2009. The four Composers of the Week – Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn and Purcell – have set the stage. The complete Handel Operas on Thursday afternoons are already proving a revelation to me and our Haydn symphonies are well underway on Classical Collection. I know that the Ulster Orchestra enjoyed its morning performance live from Belfast.

COMPOSERS OF THE YEAR – MENDELSSOHN

The first composer for the full spotlight treatment this year will be Mendelssohn, who was born two hundred years ago on February 3rd 1809. Though his early life was spent in Hamburg and Berlin, he is strongly associated with Leipzig where he became conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in 1835.

We are visiting Leipzig and the places associated with the composer in a special day on Sunday 1st. This is a unique occasion to hear a concert performed in his apartment, as well as performances from St Thomas Church, as well as the chamber and main hall of the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Recognising Mendelssohn's close links with London, we also have a chamber concert from the Wigmore Hall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h9xdv

This great chance to immerse ourselves in his music continues through the week with all five of his orchestral symphonies on Afternoon on 3, beginning on Monday with the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op 11, completed when the composer was just 15. This will be broadcast in a recording by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by the late Richard Hickox.

We also have more music from our four composers as the month continues. Look out for our specially recorded performances in Performance on 3 when Haydn's Harmoniemesse will be performed by the Northern Sinfonia under Thomas Zehetmair (10 Feb); Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto from Leila Josefowicz and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (16 Feb) and Haydn's Cello Concerto in C from the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Truls Mørk (17 Feb).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers

KILLING THE KING

February is one of those months which shows the strength and diversity of our speech programming. On the evening of February 1st, we are marking the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649 with a feature presented by Professor Justin Champion on the King's trial and execution. He pieces together new research about this most important event in English history, the only time a British King has been publicly beheaded. Traditional accounts show a noble King defending his divine right, but it now seems that Charles's death was not a foregone conclusion. It appears that there were many rival schemes for resolving the problem of Charles I's tyranny. Some wanted abdication, others regency and only a few extremists seriously considered the death of the King.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h9xf9

THE WIRE

For those of you who have not discovered it, this is our experimental drama programme. This coming Saturday evening, we have commissioned Mark Lawson to write a new drama. The Number of the Dead is the first play that he has written for the station. It tells of Timothy Freeman, anchorman and voice of a news network, who is facing a crisis. When a call from his wife comes through to the studio, asking if he knows where their son is, Tim knows something is terribly wrong. There was something about the main news item – three missing teenagers holding hostages in an American Merchant Bank in the city – which bothered him. There is an inevitability to this story, so that when a call comes through from one of the gunmen demanding to speak directly to Tim Freeman, he knows who might be on the line. Do listen on Sunday or iPlayer afterwards to hear what happens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h9xbz

NIGHT WAVES

We cover topical arts stories and wider debate about the world of ideas in Night Waves each weekday evening from Monday to Thursday, often looking at the world through a cultural lens. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses. Thursday's Night Waves is dedicated to that subject, as Matthew Sweet and a round table of guests discuss the legacy of the book. Freedom of expression, the nature of offence in art, multiculturalism in British society – the issues it throws up remain at the heart of Britain's political and cultural debates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00h4dcc

OTHER MUSIC

On Monday February 9th, we have a concert from Cardiff, one that Richard Hickox would have conducted with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. This will now become the orchestra's memorial concert to its former principal conductor, who died in November.

The programme includes Brahms' Tragic Overture, the Elgar Violin Concerto, played by James Ehnes, and Mendelssohn's Reformation Symphony. The Minnesota Orchestra makes a rare visit to London in February, and we are broadcasting the concert at the Barbican Hall, conducted by Osmo Vanska, on the evening of the 25th. The programme includes the Barber Violin Concerto played by Joshua Bell, Slominsky's Earbox by John Adams, and Beethoven's 'Eroica' Symphony No. 3. Performance on 3 will be showcasing the orchestra throughout the week, with special recordings each evening. I hope you will find much to enjoy.

As always, you will find details of all Radio 3's programmes at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

Best wishes

Roger Wright

Welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note for January 2009

Dear All

A very happy new year to you all. I hope you have enjoyed our programmes over the festive period.

COMPOSERS OF THE YEAR

2009 is going to be our most extensive celebration of classical music on Radio 3, as we launch our year-long celebrations for Composers of the Year. The incredible conjunction of major anniversaries promises us a remarkable year of music-making: Purcell (b.1659), Handel (d. 1759), Haydn (b.1809) [sic] and Mendelssohn (b.1809). It's difficult to imagine a more splendid gift to classical music enthusiasts. We have made substantial plans, based around weekend and week-long broadcasts on each of the composers, and including major performances by the leading artists, ensembles, orchestras and opera companies from the UK and beyond. We also have specially-staged concerts, features, essays, discussion and dramas. You can learn more at our dedicated website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/

It's only right that our four composers are all honoured with Composer of the Week treatment during January from Donald Macleod, who will provide an introduction of their lives and works: Purcell (5-9 Jan), Handel (12-16 Jan), Haydn (19-23 Jan) and Mendelssohn (26-30 Jan).

Haydn

I always regret that we hear so few of Haydn's symphonies in our concert life. We are launching a series of broadcasts in January to set the record straight about Haydn the symphonist, and during Classical Collection we will present the complete symphonies. That will start on January 2nd, and all 104 symphonies will be broadcast two a week, each Wednesday and Friday. What a convenient number 104 has proved to be some two hundred years later! We start with a performance by the Philharmonica Hungarica under Antal Dorati, from their groundbreaking early 1970s complete recording of the symphonies. We will be representing all styles from historically-informed to archive highlights, as well as some new performances from the BBC Orchestras. http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/haydn/

Handel

Another great body of music which we think deserves to be better known is Handel's operas. They are now more frequently to be heard in the opera house, but many are still not known. We are therefore performing all his 42 operas during the year in chronological order every Thursday afternoon. The recordings have only been recently available to complete the whole cycle, so this is a unique chance to follow Handel's involvement with opera from an early essay in Hamburg, through to considerable success in Italy, and then his extraordinary output amid the vicissitudes of the more commercial and competitive London operatic scene. We'll be following Handel's operatic journey over 40 years, and through some wonderful music. So January will give us Almira, Rodrigo, Agrippina and Rinaldo. Handel performers and experts will join the Afternoon on 3 presenters in the studio to share their insights, and place the works in the context of Handel's life story. http://www.bbc.co.uk/composers/handel/

OTHER COMPOSERS

The four composers are a running theme through the year, but of course there will be lots of other music in 2009! January sees the six programmes of Carl Nielsen: Inextinguishable, a complete cycle of the Danish composer's symphonies broadcast every Monday from 12 January. The cycle is shared between the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé, and each orchestra performs Nielsen concerts in their own venues and that of the other orchestra (Performance on 3: 12, 19, 26 Jan & 4 Feb).

From their own new home, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales perform the opening concert in the Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff. Their Principal Conductor Thierry Fischer conducts works by the Welsh composer, Alun Hoddinott, who died last year, Varèse, Beethoven, Sibelius and there is also a world premiere by Simon Holt (23 Jan).

CONDUCTOR TRIBUTES

2008 sadly saw the loss of two great conductors of British music — Vernon Handley and Richard Hickox. Radio 3 continues its tributes in January as Afternoon on 3 delves into the BBC archives for recordings made by Handley (12 Jan), and Aled Jones is joined by some of Richard Hickox's closest collaborators to explore the prolific career of Hickox as a choral conductor (The Choir, 18 Jan). http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/

ARTS AND IDEAS

We have a chance to experience an extremely thought-provoking Drama on 3 on January 25th, when we broadcast Pornography, Simon Stephens's acclaimed response to the atrocities of 7/7 which represents a world of incredible violence and cruelty. At the other end of the spectrum, The Essay investigates Utopia, as Jane Shaw explores the concept that human beings are often dreamers and idealists (5-9 Jan). Radio 3 will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns in January with a Sunday Feature, Creating Burns's Reputation and The Essay features five Scottish poets who reflect on how Burns's poetry has influenced their writing (19 — 23 Jan). http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/speechanddrama/

With my best wishes for 2009

Roger Wright