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 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 Orchestraexplore 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

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 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

Welcome to December's Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

I am sorry to start this new note on a sad theme, but I just want to comment on the tragic news of the death of Richard Hickox. Through his work with the BBC orchestras and BBC Singers and at the BBC Proms he was a regular part of our world and we have lost a wonderful musician, friend and colleague. With the death of Vernon Handley earlier this year 2008 has been a particularly sad one for British music.

Messiaen

No-one who heard the Quartet for the End of Time during the Proms this year can forget the experience of four performers in a vast hall, bringing to us a work composed by Messiaen in rather different circumstances – as a prisoner of war at Stalag VIII-A, Görlitz. Discovering Music explores the quartet on the afternoon of Sunday 7th, as a prelude to a week celebrating Messiaen whose centenary we have been marking through the year. On the eve of this birthday itself ( Tuesday 9th) Performance on 3 presents the BBC Philharmonic in an all-Messiaen programme conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. His song cycle Poèmes pour Mi is Messiaen's love letter to his first wife, comprising nine poems by Messiaen himself. The concert ends with Chronochromie, whose title merges the Greek words for time and colour. It is one of his major orchestral works, all too rarely performed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvn3t

BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year

On the evening of Monday 8th you can hear the category Finals of this competition which has involved over 5,000 singers, as the remaining six choirs compete at London's Royal Festival Hall. It is introduced by Petroc Trelawny and hosted by Aled Jones. It is the UK's largest amateur choral competition, arranged into four categories: children's, youth, adult and open. Since the competition began, 120,000 singers from over 2,000 choirs have taken part. Open to all, the competition is free and aims to encourage participation in singing across all age groups and local communities. If you have heard our coverage of the build-up to this grand final you will know how exciting the event has been so far.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvnb4

John Milton and Paradise Lost (complete)

The Sunday Feature on December 7th is John Milton's Adventurous Song, the first programme in our season marking the 400th anniversary of the birth of the great English poet. David Norbrook explores evolving views of Milton and his importance to us today. He places Milton's work within the social and political turmoil of his times and our own. Throughout the week, actor Robert Glenister will read Milton's poems in Breakfast, Afternoon on 3 and In Tune. On December 14th you can hear a new production of Samson Agonistes, the dramatic poem published three years before his death. Written in the form of a Greek tragedy, it follows the biblical story of the blind Samson wreaking his revenge on the Philistines. For total immersion, listen to Anton Lesser reading the complete Paradise Lost, Milton's best known work, every weekday at 5.00pm and at the weekend at 9.30pm, from Monday 22 December – a real holiday treat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvn42

Opera on 3

On Saturday 6th December, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is conducted by Daniel Barenboim in his long overdue Met debut. A leading interpreter of Wagner, Barenboim is joined by tenor Peter Seiffert as T ristan and soprano Katarina Dalayman as Isolde. Ever since its premiere in 1865, Wagner's setting of the ancient Cornish myth of two lovers locked into a doomed love affair has had enormous impact on audiences. The composer Giuseppe Verdi said that he "stood in wonder and terror", while Bernard Shaw described the opera as a "poem of destruction and death".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvyjm

Free thinking

I trust you are finding the continuing broadcasts from the 2008 Free Thinking festival stimulating and provocative. One of the events which most captured the audience imagination was hearing from Tony Benn. You can hear his contribution in Night Waves on Thursday 11th. With ten grandchildren, Benn has found himself thinking about the world that they will live in. At a time when experience and youth are pitted against each other, Tony Benn reflected on the value of experience. There are some unforgettable moments, such as his memory of being taken by his father to meet Gandhi when he was six years old.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/freethinking/2008/

Christmas

As usual, we have a strong line-up of Christmas music towards the end of the month. One event I would draw your attention to is Britten's cantata St Nicolas. It comes live from Lancing College in Sussex, the institution which commissioned it 60 years ago. The BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers and Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral are conducted by Paul Brough. It presents the life of Nicolas, patron saint of children, sailors and travellers, with the part of Nicolas sung by tenor Andrew Kennedy. During the interval, Louise Fryer explores how St Nicolas came to be written, using Britten's letters and conversations with some of the surviving members of the first performance. And you can watch as well as hear the concert at bbc.co.uk/radio3; it is also the first Red button offering for television from BBC Radio 3.

Throughout December, Breakfast will play a Bach dance after the news at 8am each morning, a joyous start to the day for the winter mornings. In 2009 we have a wonderful year for you – the most ambitious year of classical music programming we have ever mounted as we celebrate the anniversaries of Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn – more about that in due course.

With my best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

There's a major theme to my note this month, namely our Free Thinking festival of ideas, which is taking place in Liverpool for the third time, in collaboration with Radio Merseyside.

Free Thinking

This year's line-up of thinkers is as impressive as ever, and they will be engaging with audience in debates, talks, performance and conversation from Friday 31 October to Sunday 2 November. Free Thinking presents leading thinkers from the arts, science, politics, philosophy and technology in front of a live audience. The festival programme also includes audience workshops, live performance, music and drama, with almost every event broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during November 2008.

We start with author and columnist Will Self giving the Free Thinking lecture this Friday evening, examining the way the mind is represented in the novel. Does literature represent the mind as we really experience it, in all its terror, exhilaration and confusion? You can hear that on Radio 3 at 9.15pm.

And we are also looking forward to hearing the Reverend Ian Paisley, one of the most prominent figures from Northern Ireland's history; he talks about his writings, his faith and his long and often controversial political career. Other speakers are Tony Benn on passing knowledge across the generations; Trevor Phillips on whether liberal democracies have all the answers; and a rare chance to hear the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy.

Poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan will be hosting Radio 3's cabaret of the spoken word, The Verb. He'll be joined by the writer and comedian Alexei Sayle and this year's Free Thinking writer in residence, Angela Clarke, who has been exploring the generation gap. Free Thinking will look at the 21st-century Brain, The Value of Experience and Private Lives, Public Spaces: exploring how advances in neuroscience are questioning the way we think about ourselves; looking at the importance of age in a society where people are living longer whilst the gap between experience and outlook of the young and old seems to be growing ever wider; and examining at the meaning of public and private space today from the internet to the city.

There will be a special four-hour Free Thinking at 8.00pm on Sunday evening. As well as presenting lively conversation about the festival weekend it will include 24 Weeks, a specially commissioned drama on the subject of abortion by Tony Marchant, and a special edition of Words and Music on Shakespeare's The Seven Ages of Man with the Elias String Quartet, folk singer Belinda Sykes and rock/jazz percussionist Bill Bruford (formerly of Yes, Genesis and King Crimson) and leading British pianist Ashley Wass. It kicks off a week of evening programmes from the festival all beginning at 9.15pm, and special festival editions of Night Waves will continue until Christmas.

You may have noticed that we have been getting ready on Radio 3 for some time with our daily Free Thoughts broadcast on Breakfast and debated on Night Waves. These come from an astonishing range of contributors, and are a stimulating archive of audio ideas, which you can browse on demand. So do visit bbc.co.uk/freethinking, where you can find ways to participate, by commenting on the existing thoughts, uploading a photo of your free thinking space, and simply to find out more. And if you can join the Radio 3 team and contributors in Liverpool you are most welcome, and you can find details of events on the site. If not, I hope you will find this feast of thinking a stimulating listening experience on Radio 3. If you miss anything you will be able to catch up on http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3, where some of the talks will also be available as video.

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

Metropolitan Opera

And there's much music as ever to enjoy on the station. To mention just two events, on the final Saturday in November (29th), the new Metropolitan Opera season begins with a rarely-staged drama, Berlioz's epic contest between good and evil, The Damnation of Faust. It is the first of our many visits to New York, and the strong cast includes Susan Graham and Marcello Giordani, and the performance will be conducted by James Levine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/operaon3/schedule0809.shtml

London Jazz Festival

The annual London Jazz Festival also gets under way in November. This extraordinary rich feast of music starts with an eye-catching collaboration between the Britten Sinfonia, Joanna MacGregor, and the oud-player and vocalist Dhafer Youssef. It will certainly be an intriguing evening on November 18th.

http://www.londonjazzfestival.org.uk/

As always, you'll find details of all our broadcasts, iPlayer and other web features at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3. From next month my note will have a new format, making it easier for you to sample a variety of highlights that Radio 3 has to offer. I hope you like it. Do feel free to give us feedback about it.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

NEW SEASON

Fresh from its regular appearances at the Proms, the BBC Symphony Orchestra launches its new season at the Barbican this evening. Jiri Belohlavek directs the orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's monumental Missa Solemnis. There is a distinguished line up of soloists: the soprano Christine Brewer, who performed so memorably at the first night of the Proms, mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk, tenor Paul Groves and bass Stephen Milling. Beethoven hoped that the work would speak directly to humanity, inscribing the score 'From the heart — may it go to the heart', and it seems to contrast divine glory with the insignificance of mankind. It's certainly a memorable start to the weekend, and another one of our new 'Live at 7' broadcasts.

Music News

The new series of Music Matters continues tomorrow at 12.15. Tom Service meets the conductor Andris Nelsons as the young Latvian takes over as Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. His distinguished predecessors, Simon Rattle and Sakari Oramo, are indeed a hard act to follow and an exciting challenge for Nelsons. We continue with conductors by looking at a new life of Thomas Beecham, as author John Lucas presents new material on the conductor's private life. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dmxzc

Kurdish Music

World Routes on Saturday afternoon at 15.00 regularly gives us the opportunity to hear output from little known musical worlds and tomorrow we have the chance to hear music of the Kurdish people. The performances are given by The Kamkars, a family ensemble from Iran, which performs arrangements of ancient Kurdish folk songs. The seven brothers and one sister play instruments ranging from the lute-like oud and setar, the Iranian hammered dulcimer and a type of frame drum. Their concert was given in the Barbican's Ramadan Nights which celebrated the diversity of Muslim cultures at the end of Ramadan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00drsyb

Composer of the Week

From Monday in our popular, long running series, we can hear Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, who is 80 this month. His early experiences formed the basis for one of his best-known works, Cantus Arcticus, a concerto which uses recorded bird sounds and orchestra, evoking the far north, where his mother was born. You might have heard it played by the London Sinfonietta at this year's Proms. Orphaned during the Second World War, Rautavaara dedicated his composition, A Requiem in Our Time, to his mother, and it was this work which first developed his international reputation in 1954. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00drwt4

Moving to warmer climes, presenter Donald Macleod has visited Venice in the footsteps of Monteverdi. In his forties, Monteverdi became maestro at the astonishing Byzantine jewel box, which is St Mark's Basilica in Venice. In Monday's programme we travel with him down the Grand Canal to the basilica, where he speaks to the vice maestro di cappella Justine Rapaccioli. The music comes from Monteverdi's epoch-making Vespers of the Blessed Virgin of 1610 and highly personal and intense Sixth Book of Madrigals. You can hear Monteverdi as Composer of the Week, starting on October 13th with its new repeat time at 10p.m. every weekday evening.

Drama on 3

On Sunday evening we follow the disturbing life of the radical philosopher Spinoza, still an influence on many modern thinkers. Michelene Wandor imagines a world in which Spinoza rubs shoulders with Rembrandt and one of Cromwell's diplomats George Downing. He was ostracised by his Jewish community due to his unorthodox views and never allowed back. Tulips in Winter explores the death of his father, a merchant; his new job as a lens grinder and a plot against him. Ben Meyjes plays Spinoza with Angela Pleasence as the Angel, Timothy Spall as Rembrandt and Gabriel Woolf as Spinoza's father. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00drwby

Visualisation

You may remember our video streaming of Carmen from English National Opera. Well, we are still developing various visual ideas, and on 26th September we started a project to film some concerts with the BBC performing groups. You may have seen the opening video of the BBC Philharmonic's performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony last week. They are available on demand for seven days and the next one will be given by the BBC Concert Orchestra on the 29th of October – available online the following day. It's a programme of English Light Music with the violinist Tasmin Little as the soloist.

More highlights…

There's much more of course. If you developed a taste for Messiaen during the Proms, you can explore his influences starting on Monday afternoon in Afternoon on 3. Listen out too for the energetic pairing of the London Symphony Orchestra and Gergiev as they launch their Emigrés series, starting with a focus on Rachmaninov. On Tuesday evening that's followed by our October celebration of amateur orchestras, Play to the Nation. There is also a new London concert hall, Kings Place, and during the next week we are able to broadcast exclusively from the new venue, with contrasting concerts from their resident ensembles, the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

As always, fulls details of all the boadcasts are available on our website – www.bbc.co.uk/radio3 – I hope you continue to enjoy what Radio 3 offers!

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

Having featured the Proms concerts prominently in the last two newsletters, I won't start with them on this occasion. However, I trust you have managed to enjoy many of the wonderful concerts during the summer.

Edinburgh

You may already have noticed the beginning of our Edinburgh coverage in our lunchtime concerts and the Early Music Show last weekend. Next week, we have lunchtime concerts from the Belcea Quartet, playing Bartok, as well as hearing the violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Miska Maisky.

Once this year's Proms festival is over, we have Performance on 3 programmes which will give the chance to hear some of the leading musicians who have been visiting Scotland in the summer. We have Dimitri Hvorostovsky in Russian song, Les Arts Florissants performing French Baroque music, and as orchestral guests, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Dresden Staatskapelle. In addition, we have two oratorios, Handel's Israel in Egypt from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and our own BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, in Tippett's A Child of Our Time. And we also have two operas from the festival.

On September 20th, we are broadcasting Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with a cast including Susan Bickley and Sir Willard White, directed by H.K. Gruber, and the following Saturday the Mariinsky Opera with Valery Gergiev in a critically acclaimed performance of Szymanowski's King Roger. These broadcasts end our coverage from UK Summer Festivals, which this year has taken us to Bath, Hay, Spitalfields, Wyastone, Aldeburgh, Mananan, St Magnus, York, Cheltenham, Brinkburn, and London. I hope you have been able to join us for some of the journey. The summer will live on throughout the year, since we have now a good store of recordings from festivals around Europe, which we have not been able to broadcast because of our own busy programme – we look forward to sharing them with you in the months to come.

Visit the Radio 3 Edinburgh Festival page at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/festivals/festivaledinburgh.shtml

New Season

Our new season has plenty of exciting performances in store. From Manchester, we will be bringing you a live broadcast of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra's opening concert on September 26th, when it will be performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Berio's Formazioni, one of his most striking orchestral works, directed by Gianandrea Noseda.

The BBC Scottish Symphony, conducted by Ilan Volkov, will be starting its season with a voyage to other worlds in the UK premiere of Saariaho's Asteroid 4179: Toutatis and Holst's The Planets.

At the Wigmore Hall we start our renowned lunchtime concert series with one of the world's longest standing and most accomplished piano trios, the Kalichstein/Laredo/Robinson Trio, which will be including music by Beethoven in its concert on September 15th. The following week we have Angela Hewitt in Bach and Barber, together with a world premiere by Muldowney, and then a song recital by Kate Royal and Malcolm Martineau on the 29th. Visit the Wigmore Hall lunchtime concerts page at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/lunchtimeconcerts/

Proms

There is still plenty of fine music to come in the BBC proms season. Many of the concerts are very well sold, so queuing early or listening on Radio 3 may be your only chance to hear them. A few of the treats in store are:

• A piano recital by Lang Lang (August 31)
• A performance of Verdi's Requiem, with Violeta Urmana (August 31)
• The BBC Singers putting Messiaen and his beloved Indian music side by side (September 1)
• In a climax to our Messiaen celebrations, Turangalila with Berlin Philhamonic and Rattle (September 2), and his Quartet for the End of Time (September 4), and the epic opera on the life of St Francis (September 7)
• The rare opera Kashchey the Immortal by Rimsky Korsakov (September 5)
• From abroad, the Chicago Symphony under Haitink (September 8/9) and the Orchestre de Paris under Eschenbach (September 11)
• And finally the Last Night, conducted by Sir Roger Norrington and Hélène Grimaud and Bryn Terfel as soloists, and a new work by Anna Meredith. (September 13)

Visit the Proms website at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/

Plenty to think about…

That's a veritable feast of music, and one which propels us into a busy autumn. So do enjoy it, and don't forget that with iPlayer everything is now available for a week from transmission. In addition, do look out for the growing amount of really stimulating material available on demand. You can hear the Proms Plus series of talks and lectures from the last week at http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/plus.shtml, so if you enjoyed a concert and want to find out more, then that's the place.

At the same time, you may have caught our short and provocative thought-pieces during Breakfast, leading up to our next Festival of Ideas, Free Thinking. As usual it's being held in Liverpool, the European Capital of Culture, and you can hear them every morning just after 8.30am. The speakers include a diverse range of figures from across the UK, offering their personal cultural thoughts for the day. This month's Free Thinkers include the neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield, Barbican director Sir Nicholas Kenyon, the playwright Roy Williams, and Justin Welby, Dean of Liverpool Cathedral. You can find them at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/freethinking/2008/free-thought/.

I have found them really stimulating and recommend them to you as an engaging two minutes, which will stay with you for the rest of the day!

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Dear All

BBC Proms

The Proms are now up and running, and I hope you have had the chance to enjoy some of the great music making throughout the first weeks. Apart from the concerts themselves, there has been a strong festival atmosphere throughout the folk day, the literary festival, and the other Proms Plus events – talks, discussions and interviews every evening.

In a new development this year, these extras are all available on demand throughout the season and we hope that they enhance your enjoyment of the Proms. Visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/plus.shtml to see what is available; of course, the list of programmes will grow on a daily basis!

The BBC Radio 3 Proms website is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms

Composers

During August, we have two contrasting special days, focussing on the music of Stockhausen (August 2nd) and Bach (August 24th).

These give us the chance to immerse ourselves in the works of a single composer. Stockhausen did not live to celebrate his 80th birthday, and so we will be remembering his achievement his year with a rare opportunity to hear some ambitious works, including the memorable early scores, Gruppen and Kontakte. There is also the opportunity to hear some of his last work, parts of his large-scale sequence Klang – and it will be splendid to hear Stockhausen in the extraordinary space of the Royal Albert Hall. Thinking of the meditative and serene atmosphere we had the other evening with the Tallis Scholars, I am particularly looking forward to hearing Stockhausen's Stimmung as it unfolds hypnotically over a single chord. This performance by the Theatre of Voices should be a really unforgettable experience.

Stockhausen Day at the Proms is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/0208.shtml

Three weeks later, and three hundred years earlier, we celebrate the work of Bach in a day (August 24th) dedicated specifically to his music: we have an organ recital from Simon Preston, using the restored instrument which sounded so spectacular on the first night; a performance of the St John Passion directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and finally late night, three cello suites with Jian Wang.

Bach Day at the Proms is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/2408.shtml

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Vaughan Williams, and on the actual anniversary (26th) we have a complete concert dedicated to his work from the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sir Andrew Davis; this includes the much-loved Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, along with Job, the Serenade to Music, and the Symphony no. 6. Listen out also on August 12th for a rare performance of his Piano Concerto with Ashley Wass as soloist with the BBC Philharmonic.

Vaughan Williams Anniversary at the Proms is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/2608.shtml

Jazz

The other evening we were able to hear Nigel Kennedy's late night jazz, as well as – of course – his stunning performance of the Elgar violin concerto. On August 9th, the Proms returns to a jazz theme, including a work by our first Radio 3 New Generation jazz Artist, pianist and composer, Gwilym Simcock. Together with the BBC Concert Orchestra, he will be giving the premiere of one of this year's Proms commissions, his piano concerto Progressions. There's also music by Jason Yarde, Stravinsky, Gershwin and Bernstein.

BBC Concert Orchestra Prom is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/0908.shtml

Opera

We have three rarely heard one-act operas in this year's festival. On August 11th, the Prom features the BBC Philharmonic and BBC Singers in Puccini's Il Tabarro, the first panel of Il trittico, reflecting a particular interest of the orchestra's chief conductor, Gianandrea Noseda.

Puccini's Il Tabarro is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/1108.shtml#prom34

Leoš Janácèk died 80 years ago in 1928, and he is celebrated with a concert performance of the opera Osud (21st August); this swift-moving opera – with a melodramatic plot involving unmarried motherhood, suicide, murder and madness – was not performed for three decades after its composer's death and contains inspired and captivating music.

Leoš Janácèk – Osud is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/2108.shtml#prom47

The BBC Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Janácèk's compatriot Jiøí Bìlohlávek. Finally, on September 5th, 100 years after his death, Rimsky-Korsakov's music is heard in his rarely performed one-act opera about the evil wizard, Kashchey The Immortal.

Rimsky-Korsakov's – The Immortal is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/whatson/0509.shtml#prom68

Interviews

Alongside the Proms themselves, we have our annual series of interviews with Norman Lebrecht. Once again there is a wonderful line-up, providing insights into the lives and artistic influences on some of the leading figures in the musical world. German mezzo-soprano, Brigitte Fassbaender was also one of the foremost concert and Lieder singers of her day. On August 4th she talks to Norman Lebrecht about growing up in wartime Germany, the great conductors she worked with, and her current activity as a theatre and opera director in Innsbruck.

The following week, we hear Sir Peter Jonas, former director of English National Opera and Bavarian State Opera, talking about the challenges of working with such companies. We then hear from Antonio Pappano, Music Director for of the Royal Opera House, who was born in London of Italian descent, and worked as Daniel Barenboim's assistant at Bayreuth. On the 25th, the conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi shares his story; he comes from an intriguing family, which includes not only the composer and pianist Erno von Dohnanyi, but also the pastor and philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The Lebrecht Interviews are at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/lebrechtinterview/

Unmissable

Don't forget that you should not have to miss any of the Proms, as they are on demand for seven days on the BBC iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_radio_three. Many of you have found them already, since they are being accessed frequently, but if you have not listened this way, I am sure you will find it convenient and simple to use. And to keep in touch with us, you can use the Proms mailing list at http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/interactandreviews/mailinglist/ or textclub at http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2008/promsbroadcasts/mobile.shtml.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

The festival season continues on Radio 3, and during July we shall be visiting York, Cheltenham and Womad. It promises to be another varied month and I hope you are enjoying the festival spirit on the station.

The art of interpretation is one of the most important elements of our programming. Programmes like CD Review and Classical Collection remind us that the performer of a work is vital to our understanding, and this also influences the choices we make in broadcasting. So it is good to be able to examine the work of one artist in more detail. This month we look back at the great achievement of the conductor Herbert von Karajan, born 100 years ago. For some he was a controversial figure, for others a musical and business powerhouse whose like we may never see again. Inevitably, though, the second half of the month will be dominated by the BBC Proms.

BBC PROMS

The 2008 Proms will be a particular pleasure for me, since it is my first year as Director and I am looking forward to it enormously. There will be more events than ever: 76 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, eight at Cadogan Hall and, four Proms in the Park around the UK on the Last Night. Radio 3 listeners can of course hear every concert live on BBC Radio 3, including online via the BBC iPlayer, and on demand up to seven days later. We have also enriched the Radio 3 offering with a new series entitled Proms Plus, including talks, interviews and discussions, and developed the Proms experience for listeners both on the station and though rich new online content. Across the summer we have some special festival days encapsulating the vast range of the Proms: a Folk Day, a Stockhausen Day and Bach Day. And the Folk Day (20th) — related to the Vaughan Williams anniversary — will include the first free Prom in the Royal Albert Hall, featuring among other performers, the London Sinfonietta. We are also launching a new Sunday afternoon series featuring four organ recitals and a piano recital by Lang Lang.

COMPOSERS

2008 marks the anniversary of four major composers: 50 years since the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the centenaries of both Olivier Messiaen and Elliott Carter and the 80th anniversary of Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died last year. Vaughan Williams died in 1958, so we will some focus on that year in which, incidentally, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was founded. Its most famous output was the evocative theme tune to a well-known science fiction drama — and so there will be a Dr Who Prom!

There is a particular emphasis on British music, allowing us to hear Vaughan Williams's music in context together with works by his teachers, friends and fellow students and pupils, including George Butterworth, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Gerald Finzi, Gustav Holst, Charles Stanford and Grace Williams. As always, the Proms contains many new works, including eleven BBC commissions and a further nine UK premieres. The eleven BBC commissions and nine UK premieres will include: Michael Berkeley, Chen Yi, Anna Meredith, Gwilym Simcock, Karlheinz Stockhausen, (world premieres) and Elliott Carter, Jonathan Harvey, Magnus Lindberg, Sir John Tavener and Mark-Anthony Turnage (UK premieres). There will also be the chance to hear concert performances of three rarely-heard short operas: Puccini's Il tabarro, Janácek's Osud and Rimsky-Korsakov's Kashchey the Immortal.

ARTISTS

The Proms provides a unique opportunity to hear the world's leading orchestras in close succession, so that we can compare and contrast their performances and styles. This year guests include the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Bernard Haitink, the Berliner Philharmoniker with Sir Simon Rattle, the New York Philharmonic with Lorin Maazel and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel. Many fine artists are performing from around the world, but it is worth mention that both Murray Perahia and Nigel Kennedy are returning to the Proms after absences of more than twenty years. Our ten Late Night Proms are another remarkably varied group of concerts, with that special Royal Albert Hall, end-of-day atmosphere. These feature the Tallis Scholars, The King's Singers, Nigel Kennedy and his quintet NKQ, the London Sinfonietta, Daniel Barenboim and members of his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Jian Wang.

THE FIRST WEEKS

Well, that was the overview… It all starts on July 18th with a concert presenting the season, including the Messiaen and Carter themes, and with some soloists who will feature in the season, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Nicholas Daniel and Wayne Marshall, and there is a special bonus in welcoming Karita Mattila who will perform the Four Last Songs by Strauss. And for this opening concert the BBC Symphony Orchestra is directed by its Chief Conductor Jirí Belohlávek.

What to look out for in July? This question is even more difficult for me than usual, but special moments will inevitably be Nigel Kennedy's return to the Proms (19th), the Folk Day (20th), the special atmosphere of the late-night Tallis Scholars (22nd), Messiaen's La Transfiguration with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (27th), and for the first time the annual concert given by the winners of the Awards for World Music as part of the Proms (30th). It's going to be a summer to remember, and I hope you can join us at Radio 3 for what is regarded as the world's largest classical music festival — live on radio, over the internet, on demand, or maybe even in the Royal Albert Hall!

www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

www.bbc.co.uk/proms

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

FOCUS ON CHINA

For many reasons, China has featured in our consciousness over the past months. So it seemed a good moment to focus on the culture of this still largely unknown country, home to around one in five of the world's population. Between June 15-26th, we are presenting Focus on China, a unique view of the country experienced in villages and urban settings. We have an overview of classical music, as Petroc Trelawny travelled to Beijing for Music Matters (14th). There is a considerable revival of interest, as parents introduce their children to classical instruments – a far cry from the attempt to eradicate it during the Cultural Revolution. An extraordinary, related story is presented in the Sunday Feature: Rhapsody in Red (15th), as Petroc visits the Pearl River Piano Factory in Guangzhou, the world's largest manufacturer of pianos. He investigates the popularity of the piano, and discovers that millions of Chinese children are now learning the instrument.

For World Routes Lucy Duran travelled to two remote regions, the far south west to visit the Yi and Hani minorities in the mountains near Vietnam, Laos and Burma, where instruments are made from grass and accompany songs from the world's most spectacular paddy fields. She then travels to China's largest province Xinjiang, remote deserts bordering Mongolia, Russia and Afghanistan, to meet and record the music of the Uyghur people.

Hear and Now finds itself in a more urban setting for two City Reports. In Shanghai, Robert Worby explores electronic music, experiencing the underground 'noise' scene. In Beijing, he attends a concert devised for Hear and Now by the Beijing New Music Ensemble, featuring music from three generations: from Gao Weijie, part of the 'lost generation' who went underground, to Zhang Shouwang, a young composer inspired by the incessant rhythms of Beijing traffic.

Night Waves will consider the state of the media in modern China, and exploring the influence of government on the news agenda. Isabel Hilton talks to journalists, editors and academics about the media scenes, while Philip Dodd speaks to the key Chinese opinions formers.

Performance on 3 broadcasts a concert recorded in Beijing by the China Philharmonic Orchestra, including a new piece – extremely popular in China – based around the life of a Chinese businessman during the Boxer Rebellion.

THE MINOTAUR

In addition to China, we have a rich and wide-ranging programme to enjoy this month. Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur has been much discussed and reviewed, and tomorrow evening is your chance to hear it (May 31st). This is the latest opera by Birtwistle and features the larger-than-life, mythical creature. Is the Minotaur man or beast? The ambiguity interested Birtwistle and his librettist David Harsent, and the result is an extraordinary piece of musical theatre. John Tomlinson takes the title role, with the Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera conducted by Antonio Pappano. For more details go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/operaon3/pip/au6ab/

THE SOFT MACHINE

And the following evening (1st June), we once again consider the human condition, this time the physical aspect, as Words and Music turns its attention to the body – a 'soft machine' of dazzling complexity. Human fascination and frustration with the flesh has often found expression in music and literature. We hear from Whitman, Homer and Auden, as well as Seamus Heaney, Vicki Feaver and Ezra Pound. For more details go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/wordsandmusic/pip/6sc62/

BATTLE OF STYLES

One of the big musical debates of the 18th century concerned the superiority of the French or Italian musical styles. We have the chance to judge for ourselves starting on Monday, when François Couperin is Composer of the Week, and we are celebrating the music of Venice in the afternoons. Coming from a long dynasty of musicians, François was known as Couperin le Grand, and the programmes take us through his keyboard and choral music.

Afternoon on 3 features four centuries of Venetian music: Monteverdi, arias premiered at La Fenice, the marriage of Venice to the Adriatic Sea, and much more besides.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner has done a great deal for Venetian music, indeed his Monteverdi Choir was founded in 1964 to perform Monteverdi Vespers in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. He joins Aled Jones on The Choir (8th) to talk about the Choir's activities, including its epic performances of Bach's sacred cantatas across Europe.

FESTIVALS

The Bath International Music Festival turns 60 this year, and starting on June 3rd we are presenting four lunchtime concerts recorded in the city's Assembly Rooms, the first of which features the Alison Balsom Ensemble. It's a colourful programme, taking us from the Italian Baroque to the dance halls of South America. Later in the month (starting on 20th), we hear from Aldeburgh and from the City of London Festival, where twelve concerts will be devoted to New Generation Artists such as the Aronowitz Ensemble, the Pavel Haas Quartet and Gwilym Simcock. For more details go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/festivals/index.shtml

STARING AT THE WALL

Between The Ears on Saturday 7th June gives us an unusual sound picture, far removed from the pleasures of summer festivals. It centres on Pentonville Prison which is surrounded by local-authority flats, private homes, factories, pubs and cafés. Using long-range microphones to capture effects from within the walls and close-held microphones to interview those who live outside and pass by the prison, Alan Dein captures the sounds and thoughts of everyday life just outside the walls. One inmate was born close to London's Pentonville Prison: lying inside his cell, he would hear noises that he recognised – including, the footsteps of his girlfriend coming home. For more details go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/betweentheears/

I hope you enjoy the range of this month's programmes on Radio 3 and thank you for your continued interest. You can find full details of all Radio 3's progrrammes [SIC], as always, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

There's one main theme to my monthly note for May as we're looking forward to another of our composer 'experiences', this time immersing ourselves in the world of Frédéric Chopin. Following Beethoven, Bach, Webern, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, it is now the turn of the great Polish composer for this comprehensive treatment.

Given the relatively modest dimensions of Chopin's output, it will only last for an intense two days. So The Chopin Experience takes place this coming weekend, 17 and 18 May. In the build-up to the weekend, Chopin has been our Composer of the Week. Like all editions of Composer of the Week, this will be available as a podcast, lasting about a hour and creating a perfect introduction to Chopin's life story.

Rather than abandoning our normal schedule, Chopin runs as the theme throughout our regular programmes. Tomorrow morning (17th) CD Review will focus on Chopin interpretation, concentrating on the Second Piano Sonata in Building a Library. We will hear the pianos played and owned by Chopin on The Early Music Show, while Discovering Music looks at how his four Ballades achieve their musical effect. Iain Burnside's Sunday morning show focuses on Paris, the city in which Chopin received some of his greatest acclaim. Our Breakfast programme will set some of Chopin's greatest works alongside music by composers influenced by him. We will be broadcasting the greatest Chopin recordings, including those by Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Artur Rubinstein, Ignaz Friedman and Krystian Zimerman.

Two areas of Chopin's work will be broadcast as uninterrupted sequences with different performers: the 24 Preludes take us through a century of recorded Chopin, while the 24 Etudes feature the same number of leading interpreters. Tomorrow lunchtime, Music Matters will visit Warsaw to discover Chopin's legacy in his homeland.

Complementing the main dishes in this feast of Chopin, World Routes talks to Polish musicians who are keeping alive some of the Polish folk traditions, and Jazz Line-Up invites jazz artists to improvise on Chopin. The Nocturnes are a late-night gift to our programmers and to us all Saturday evening; Sarah Walker will present the cycle and travel to Majorca to explore the locations where Chopin and George Sand's romantic break turned sour in a stark and cold disused monastery. Rob Cowan is hosting his own Chopin Salon tomorrow evening. Joining Rob are Tamás Vásáry, Stephen Kovacevich, the critic and commentator Dermot Clinch, and the Chopin biographer Adam Zamoyski. The reflections are mixed with commentary from Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fou Ts'ong and Piotr Anderszewski. Their task will be to take us through the bigger issues – romanticism, exile, nationalism, and changing performance styles.

And for all of us who have played Chopin, but not as professionals, Erica Worth, editor of Pianist magazine, joins the group to talk about the frustrations and joys of amateur performance. If you are one of those aspiring pianists, do visit The Chopin Experience website which has video piano lessons from David Owen Norris. The online presence has much more besides, including a Chopin timeline and map, and the opportunity to test our Chopin knowledge with an interactive quiz.

Why Chopin, you may ask… Well, we often hear individual pieces, but rarely have the chance to look at his achievement in a deeper way. And there are many contradictions. He is regarded as a great composer, but his range seems to be very restricted in his concentration on the piano. At the same time, he is one of Poland's most famous sons, yet he hardly lived there as an adult. A great performer, yet he rarely played in public in later life. And for all his sickly nature, his romantic entaglement [sic] with George Sand is one of the most discussed affairs of the entire century. Having died at the age of only 39, he seems to be a true romantic hero. Join us as we discover the composer behind the various masks this weekend. I hope you enjoy it.

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

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All,

You might well have been enjoying the colourful music of de Falla as our Composer of the Week, but if you have missed the programmes, you can catch up online or by accessing the podcast. I have been enjoying the podcasts of composer of the week, as a rather different experience from following the complete series, in that they provide a one-hour introduction to a particular composer, as well as the chance to sample the music.
BBC Podcast Directory: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/

TONIGHT

Tonight in Performance on 3 we have a treat for Wagner lovers as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra makes a rare visit to Britain. Conducted by its Music Director, Mariss Jansons, the orchestra performs excerpts from some of Richard Wagner's most popular operas, including two extracts from his epic Ring Cycle. They are also joined by renowned Wagnerian mezzo-soprano, Mihoko Fujimura, for a performance of Wagner's moving Wesendonck Lieder.

And later this evening, we have Jazz Library on the tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, a major innovator in the soul jazz and hard-bop movement of the Fifties and Sixties. It includes an archive interview from 2000, in which he describes his life and work. And, of course, that programme is also available as a podcast.
Performance on 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/performanceon3/
Jazz Library: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazzlibrary/

OPERA

Tomorrow at 12.15 is a special edition of Music Matters, devoted to Harrison Birtwistle's new opera, The Minotaur – his first for 14 years. It will be receiving its world première at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday 15 April, and we will be broadcasting it here on Radio 3 next month. Birtwistle has once again drawn on Greek myth, and the opera explores the inner world of the Minotaur and the pitiless labyrinth he inhabits. We are going to be taken behind the scenes to find out what is involved in producing a new piece of this scale in a major opera house.

Staying in the opera house, we have another evening of theatrical music around a rather different story tomorrow evening, when we go live to the Metropolitan Opera for Puccini's La Bohème. It has a splendid cast, as Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu plays Puccini's tragic heroine in one of the most popular operas in the repertory, with tenor Ramón Vargas in the part of Rudolfo. Puccini's portrayal of the poverty, jealousies and tragedy of Bohemian life in Paris have made this score the stuff of operatic legend.
Music Matters: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/musicmatters/
Opera on 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/operaon3/

BRITISH MUSIC

A number of our programmes this month are dedicated in various ways to music from these shores. On Sunday 6th, The Early Music Show explores the turbulent times of Elizabethan London and the lives and music of two Catholic composers, Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, both of whom flourished despite the Protestant spirit of the age. Harry Christophers is Kate Bott's guest on this programme, which complements the current BBC Four series, Sacred Music, in which he has been involved.

Moving on just a few years, Composer of the Week from Monday 7th concentrates on Music at The Court of James I. Donald Macleod explores music and musicians in the age of King James I; the series is based around five key moments of his turbulent reign. Despite the turmoil, James was a keen patron of the arts. We hear stories of high living at state banquets which ended in food fights, and of great refinement, such as The Masque of Oberon – a lavish piece including dances for twenty lutes.

Moving to more modern times, we are beginning our commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of Vaughan Williams. We are celebrating his achievement by broadcasting a complete cycle of his symphonies over the next two weeks during the afternoons. It also represents the end of our British Symphony Series which has been exploring and reviving music over the last two years. During the fortnight, all nine symphonies are heard in performances by the BBC's performing groups, including a historic recording of the Eighth Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski at the 1964 BBC Proms.
The Early Music Show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/earlymusicshow/
Composer of the Week: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/cotw/
Afternoon on 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/afternoonon3/

DRAMA

We are proud of our record of commissioning new drama on Radio 3, but this month we are reviving a piece from 1675 – indeed, it perhaps follows in a logical succession from the seedier aspects of the royal court described in Composer of the Week. On the evening of Sunday 13th, Ben Miller leads the cast as the libertine Horner in a bawdy Restoration Comedy, The Country Wife by William Wycherley. Celia Imrie appears as Lady Fidget and The Fast Show's Mark Williams is in his element as the pompously foolish fop, Sparkish. Geoffrey Whitehead is the jealous cuckold Pinchwife, and Clare Corbett his wife Margery – the country wife of the title. The play tells the story of Horner, who devises a scheme for seducing London women by spreading the false rumour that he is impotent. Events soon spiral out of control…
Drama on 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/dramaon3/

AWARDS FOR WORLD MUSIC

Do listen on Friday 11th to Performance on 3, when Mary Ann Kennedy hosts an evening to announce the winners of this, our seventh Awards For World Music. The evening includes performances from Indian classical singer Kaushiki Chakrabarty, a previous winner, and from one of this year's nominees, Algerian rai-rocker Rachid Taha. The event also marks the launch of the Audience Award, a public vote on all the 30 nominated artists, the winner of which will be invited to appear at the Winners' Concert in July.
Performance on 3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/performanceon3/
Awards for World Music: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2008/

BBC PROMS 2008

And finally… Our Rites of Spring season has finished and summer is already on its way. This year's BBC Proms festival is launched on April 9th and so you will find the Proms Guide in the shops at the end of the week, and you can get the details of all the events on our website bbc.co.uk/proms. I hope you enjoy reading about what's in store. Of course, every concert will be broadcast live on Radio 3.
BBC Proms 2008: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/

With best wishes,

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

Whatever the date of Easter, and indeed whatever the weather, Spring will inevitably arrive towards the end of March. And this happy conjunction of Easter and Spring gives Radio 3 the chance for some special programming later in the month.

RITES OF SPRING

Spring has long been a theme in music and poetry, and our exploration goes way beyond Stravinsky and Daffodils. Our Rites of Spring run for a week from March 22nd. Inevitably, the Rite of Spring takes a prominent place as Rob Cowan, our regular morning presenter, will take on the challenge of reviewing the available recordings of Stravinsky's masterpiece in Building a Library on the Saturday morning (22nd). Do remember that like all Building a Library editions, this is now available as a podcast so you can listen where and when you want.

This is of course a time of year associated with birth and rebirth: Words and Music on Easter Sunday evening takes up this theme, with poetry and prose by Sylvia Plath, William Wordsworth, William Blake, John Donne and the Bible, and music by Delius, Warlock, JS Bach and Saint-Saens. Night Waves will be looking at Spring festivals across the world, taking us from Egypt to Calcutta, and the Balkans to China. We also look at the natural world in the Sunday Feature on the 23rd, when Richard Maybe visits the Chilterns, Norfolk and Suffolk, exploring the impact of climate change. In Hear and Now on the evening of March 22nd, we have a performance of Edward Cowie's INhabitAT, a BBC commission inspired by nature and performed by the BBC Singers together with Endymion. In the afternoons, much more Spring music, from Britten to Schumann and Copland.

EASTER

Naturally, we have a feast of seasonal choral music at the end of Holy Week, and this includes Handel's Messiah, Brahms' Requiem and Bach's St John Passion from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. This continues on Easter Sunday (23 March) itself, as Choral Evensong comes live from Winchester Cathedral. (In addition to the music, we have another series of Belief, in which Joan Bakewell talks to influential figures about how belief affects their lives. Her varied group of guests are military strategist Major-General Tim Cross, award-winning novelist A. L. Kennedy, the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, and Sister Frances Dominica, founder of the world's first children's hospice.

MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS

Aside from Spring and Easter, we have some important musical landmarks during March. We are making a visit to Liverpool 2008 for the premier of Tavener's Requiem in the Metropolitan Cathedral, and you can hear this in Performance on 3 tonight. This is another dramatic and ambitious work from Tavener, and follows his current interest in bringing together different faith traditions. Within the circular nave, four groups of performers set out in the shape of the cross, represent the four great faiths of Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam, while a solo cello symbolises a Primordial Light from which all things emanate and to which we return at the end. It is performed in this impressive setting by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir.

We have two other major focal points for music, namely a celebration of the music of the French composer, Henri Dutilleux. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales has made something of a speciality of his music, and recently staged a weekend festival in the presence of the 93-year old composer. Though his output is very small, he has developed a highly original use of orchestral colour, and draws on resonances of art and literature in his fascinating music. Do take the chance to explore his music on Performance on 3 on the evenings of March 10th and 11th. We also pleased to bring you an entire week of evening concerts from the current season of the New York Phlharmonic; there is no space here for full details, but this promises to be exceptional, especially since they are performing in the company of Gustavo Dudamel, Riccardo Muti, Gil Shaham and Leif Ove Andsnes.

On a rather different note, Lucy Duran has been visiting the London Flamenco Festival at Sadler's Wells for World Routes; on March 15th she will be presenting some of the highlights, featuring a wide range of performers such as Carmen Linares, Miguel Poveda, Juan Carlos Romero and Pastora Galván.

This week we are continuing our series of Greek and Latin Voices in The Essay at 11.00pm from Mondays to Thursdays, and we are featuring Euripides at the moment and Tacitus next week. Do try and tune in for these essays which make such ancient culture fresh and often very relevant to our own time. I am also looking forward to hearing Joss Ackland and Alison Steadman star in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (16 March); this is a turbulent story of a Deep South family in crisis, and a good opportunity to hear the play which one the Pulitzer Prize rather than the various screen adaptations.

And a final note, to say that I hope many of you are discovering and enjoying our new podcasts: www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/station/radio3

Best wishes

Roger Wright

Hello and welcome to the Controller's Monthly Note

Dear All

PODCASTS

I am pleased to tell you that two of Radio 3's oldest and best-loved programmes are available for download from February 9th – Building A Library, starting with Mozart's last string quartet, and Composer of the Week in an omnibus edition, bringing together the week's series of programmes. At the same time BBC Radio 3 launches a World Routes podcast with a special from Azerbaijan. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/station/radio3/.

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

There are some strong highlights coming up, including a broadcast from Britain's longest-established professional orchestra on Monday 4th. Radio 3 has celebrated the partnership between Mark Elder and the Hallé orchestra in broadcasts in recent years and we are featuring the orchestra again as it celebrates 150 years since it started its life at Mr Charles Hallé's Grand Orchestral Concerts. The programme includes a work that Hallé himself played at the first concert, Weber's Konzertstück for piano and orchestra, as well as three works they have premiered: Elgar's overture In The South, Constant Lambert's jazz-inspired The Rio Grande and These Premises Are Alarmed by Adès, written for the Bridgewater Hall. Mark Elder and the orchestra are joined by Sir John Tomlinson on the stage, while Dame Janet Baker, who frequently worked with the Hallé, introduces the concert. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/performanceon3/.

SOUTH AMERICA

Our colleagues at the BBC Symphony Orchestra are offering to drive away winter blues with South American music. You should find their Performance on 3 on Thursday 7th enjoyable , and perhaps even transforming. There's tangos, bossanova, samba drumming and orchestral music from Brazil and Argentina. There's more South American culture the same week in the afternoons and Late Junction; a specially commissioned Drama on 3, and a Night Waves on contemporary South American culture. Starting on Sunday 3rd, we have three features on the same part of the world. In the first of these, novelist Juan Gabriel Vasquez explores how solitude has shaped his work. Vasquez takes listeners to the Colombian capital, Bogota, to share the urban environment he finds inspirational.

WORDS AND MUSIC

Our unpresented sequence is proving very popular on Sunday evenings, exploring the themes of happiness on the 3rd, and birdsong on the 10th. On the 3rd, Simon Russell Beale mixes nature, love, dreams, birthdays and pastimes – everyday experiences. And birdsong shares the songs of nature's finest musicians. We hear the nightingale, evoked by Blake, Milton and Rameau; the skylark, represented by Meredith's Lark Ascending; and the thrush, celebrated by Hardy's Darkling Thrush; the calls of the cuckoo through Wordsworth, Bunyan and Saint-Saëns; the swan, with Tennyson and Sibelius's Swan Of Tuonela; and the hen, through John Heywood and Rameau. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/speechanddrama/.

OPERA

We have at least two operatic highlights this month. We offer you 'the best seat in the house' on the evening of Saturday 9th, we have La Traviata from the Royal Opera House. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is perhaps the Violetta of her generation. She is joined by German tenor Jonas Kaufman as Alfredo, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Germont.

The following Wednesday we have another dramatic opera, Strauss's Salome, based on Oscar Wilde's play. The BBC Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor, Gianandrea Noseda, are working with a cast from Teatro Regio, Turin, where Noseda has recently become music director. Noseda's colourful conducting promises to make this a very special performance. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/operaon3/.

JAZZ AND WORLD

In Jazz Library on February 8th, we are commemorating Oscar Peterson as Alyn Shipton presents a personal tribute to the pianist, who died in December. The programme includes an interview and much music. As well as his own acclaimed trios, we hear Peterson's favourite recordings with Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins and Sarah Vaughan.

We have been on the road again in World Routes: on February 9th, Lucy Duran travels to Azerbaijan. The country is growing fast economically, but the ancient song tradition and the music of virtuosic instrumentalists is proving extremely enduring. This music is rarely heard outside the country, and Lucy travels extensively in search of the most wide-ranging and authentic experience. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/jazz/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/.

IDEAS

On the evening of Sunday 10th, we broadcast The Trial and Death of Socrates starring Joss Ackland as Socrates. The trial and execution of Socrates puzzles historians. Why, in a society enjoying freedom and democracy, would a 71-year-old philosopher be put to death? The play was devised by Sebastian Baczkiewicz, and his investigation reveals a thin veneer of democracy in the State just emerging from a period of oligarchic rule.

In The Essay starting on Monday 11th we gain an outsider's view of the UK in A Sense of Ourselves. Four immigrants to Britain describe modern Britishness. They represent the most significant waves of immigration to Britain, offering a picture of how national identity has evolved since the War.

Between The Ears on Saturday 2nd is another reflection on the UK. The Wall of a Million Bricks explores Belfast's peace lines, which survived long after the fall of the Berlin Wall. One wall is known as the "wall of a million bricks" and separates parts of West Belfast. The programme explores the need for walls in a city which still houses pockets of hatred.

So, it's another varied and stimulating month on Radio 3. I hope you enjoy it.

With best wishes

Roger Wright

Today's published listening figures for Quarter 4, October-December 2007 are undramatic: no huge plunge into freefall but also no obvious upturn in the depressed figures of recent years.

The reach at 1.95 million would have been considered weak five or six years ago, yet now it represents the highest figure so far for the year 2007/08. This means that when the final figure, for the fourth quarter, is published in May, the yearly average is almost certain to show this year's listening as the lowest ever under RAJAR's current methodology.

The BBC press release described the performance as 'solid' which has a more positive ring than is merited. To give a historical perspective: RAJAR's current methodology has now been in operation for 36 quarters. Radio 3's average weekly reach over this period has been 2.033 million, the median 2.020 million. The average for the present year is unlikely to exceed 1.920 million; after three quarters it stands at 1.893 million, but the fourth quarter is often a stronger one.

Slightly better news was that the breakfast reach showed a sharp increase. It would not be safe to call it an 'improvement', since only a trend shows a clear improvement: individual quarters can be volatile. In spite of the substantial rise in reach from 713,000 in Quarter 3 to 809,000 in Quarter 4, the weekly average taken over the past 12 months shows a decrease from 798,000 in 2006 to 754,000 in 2007, and all four quarters are lower than the corresponding quarters in 2006 (which had 833,000 in Quarter 4). The question is therefore whether the new Breakfast programme has finally settled to near the previous Morning on 3 average, or whether it will dip again over the next few quarters.

'Share of listening' ( the station's weekly listening hours as a percentage of the total UK radio listening hours) is something which very much concerns the commercial stations, and, as a consequence, the BBC too, in that it is a clearer measurement of how well it is performing competitively. In the case of Radio 3, share is statistically of little significance since only huge (in Radio 3 terms) increases and decreases would register significantly when presented as a percentage of the over one billion listening hours clocked up by UK radio each week.