Saturday 23rd February 2013
| Howard Goodall's Story of Music (5/6) |
In the fifth episode, composer Howard Goodall looks at the period when modernism in music arrived, and when the birth of recorded sound changed the way music was heard, played, and sold, forever.
The death of Richard Wagner in 1883 led, not to a series of pseudo-Wagners, but to a series of developments that in many ways were in opposition to his monumental ambitions. In France the uncluttered and 'chillaxed' music of Gabriel Faure, Erik Satie and others was like a long hot lazy afternoon. The symphonies of Gustav Mahler invited all forms of music, including Jewish folk music into their generous embrace.
Elsewhere folk music was beginning to make an impact on musical form and texture. The self-taught Mussorgsky actually sounded Russian - unlike Tchaikovsky, the most famous Russian composer of the day! When Mussorgsky's music came to the Paris World Fair in 1889 it astonished non-Russian composers, especially Claude Debussy. He was also greatly influenced by the music of Java, also showcased at the World Fair. These influences from abroad were to change mainstream music and prefigure what we'd now call 'World Music'. And when Diaghilev and Stravinsky collaborated on a series of ballets, the results - also using Russian folk forms, with revolutionary rhythms attached - astonished, terrified and scandalised the audience in equal measure, in works like the ground-breaking Rite of Spring. So too the extraordinary dissonant and erotic operas of Richard Strauss, especially Salome. Modern music had begun.
But meanwhile another crucial building block of modern music was sliding into place. More than anything recording brought the music of America - particularly the folk idioms of African Americans, Chinese, and Irish and Scottish labourers into the mainstream as the blues, ragtime and then jazz developed, and then swept the planet. Classical music - for a time - retreated into a golden summer of nostalgia, exemplified by the enduring appeal of Elgar's Enigma Variations, written as the nineteenth century drew to a close. And before the First World War ripped Europe apart.
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Sunday 24th February 2013
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Monday 25th February 2013
| Britain on Film |
In 1959 Britain's biggest cinema company, the Rank Organisation, decided to replace its newsreels with a series of short, quirky, topical documentaries that examined all aspects of life in Britain. For the next ten years, Look at Life chronicled - on high-grade 35mm colour film - the changing face of British society, industry and culture. Britain on Film draws upon the 500 films in this unique archive to offer illuminating and often surprising insights into what became a pivotal decade in modern British history. The series shows how Look at Life reflected the radical shifts in the position of women in British society, and shows how the country adapted to the new demands and expectations of women at home, in the workplace and at play.
| Penguins - Spy in the Huddle (3/3) |
The chicks are growing up fast and becoming increasingly independent. Emperor and rockhopper chicks are placed in a creche as their parents go fishing. The Humboldts are left in their burrows, as the adults enjoy a soft landing of feathers by a beach swarming with cormorants.
Packed in a huddle, the emperor chicks have to be identity checked before they are fed, and their parents are swamped by hungry impostors. Giant petrels are an ever-present danger, while vampire bats target the Humboldts. As the young grow bigger and preen out baby fluff they sport punk hairdos. The emperor chicks go skating on a newly-formed ice rink, while the rockhopper chicks practice jumping skills.
Eventually all the chicks leave for the sea, tackling the same hazards as their parents before them, from sea lions to predatory birds, high cliffs to glaciers. All face huge challenges. There are plenty of surprises along the way, but soon the chicks discover their true home - the sea.
From egg to adolescent, spycams have been with the young penguins through their tough early months. They are with them as they leave. It will be years before they follow in their parents' footsteps and return to breed.
| Her Majesty's Prison - Aylesbury (2/2) |
Second part of an observational documentary filmed over five months in the UK's most notorious young offenders institution. HMP Aylesbury houses some of the most dangerous criminals in Britain, including murderers, rapists, violent gang members and paedophiles. One in five of the inmates is serving a life or indeterminate sentence, but what makes this prison exceptional and disturbing is that the oldest among them is just 21. Behind the crumbling Victorian perimeter, 434 prisoners live in cells in seven separate wings. It is often the officers who are the brunt of these young men's frustrations, with frequent floodings, dirty protests and assaults on staff. Many have to be segregated for their own protection, while harder cases can expect to end up in an even more secure area within the prison.
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Tuesday 26th February 2013
| The Railway: Keeping Britain on Track (3/6) |
Some of the most overcrowded trains in Britain are the rush hour trains between Reading and Paddington, and every morning, thousands of commuters resignedly squeeze on to packed trains at Reading. It's a packed schedule and when a train accidentally cuts through some vital signalling cables, the track staff are under intense pressure from their bosses to get the hundreds of irate passengers on the move again.
There's good news though - a multi billion pound overhaul of the line will bring faster, longer and more trains to the route, but to get there, the commuters have to endure line closures, building works and delays. For the railway staff, they're stuck between a rock and a hard place - as many people complain if they do the work, as those who complain if they don't. With Christmas approaching and Paddington empty for the holidays, up the line in Reading, hundreds of track workers are putting the festivities on hold with just 3 days to knock down and rebuild an entire bridge and re-build the platforms.
| My New Hand |
Documentary telling the story of Britain's first hand transplant, carried out by surgeons at Leeds Infirmary on Boxing Day night 2012, from the moment Professor Simon Kay and his team decided to go ahead to the moment the patient was able to move the transplanted hand.
During that time, candidates came forward from all over the UK and beyond - including a hairdresser, an IT consultant, a former pub landlord, a DJ and a retired housewife - all of whom had lost the use of at least one of their hands.
But before they could go ahead, the doctors had to be sure they were physically and psychologically prepared. Some decided that the risks - including the potentially life-shortening drugs that would need to be taken for the rest of their life - weren't worthwhile. Others decided that the misery of living without a hand outweighed everything else.
This thought-provoking film is with them as they make their decisions - and with the surgeons as the patient who comes through the process is finally taken into the operating theatre.
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Wednesday 27th February 2013
| Richard III: the Unseen Story |
This documentary digs deeper into how the remains of England's long-lost king Richard III were found in a Leicester car park. With unseen footage of the dig and tests, and new interviews.
| From Romania With Love |
Three Romanian children adopted by UK families in the early 1990s try to contact their relatives. In the 1990s, harrowing news reports highlighted the plight of thousands of abandoned Romanian children dumped in orphanages. Many British families adopted these babies and gave them new lives in the UK. Twenty years on, three of the adopted children try to trace the parents who gave them away. Nicci, 22 and from Bournemouth, has never met her birth mother and has no idea where she lives. Following clues in her adoption paperwork, she returns to Romania for the first time in the hope of meeting her relatives, in particular a brother who was left behind. Cezarina, from Birmingham, was one of the oldest children brought to Britain. Aged ten when she left the orphanages, she can remember the harsh conditions there. Now a message from a contact in America may reveal the whereabouts of her mother. Will is 23 and at Oxford University. He has an address for his mother and decides to write to her.
| The Making of Derek |
Ricky Gervais gives an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour and talk about the making of his Channel 4 series, Derek.
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Thursday 28th February 2013
| Britain's Secret Shoppers (3/5) |
Justin helps a couple get the deal of the century on their dream kitchen and explores fixed rate mobile phone tariffs with the team at Which? magazine.
| Bank of Dave: Fighting the Fat Cats |
In 2012, Burnley minibus dealer Dave Fishwick took on the big banks and became a hero overnight. But what happened next? Did the banking world and politicians listen to him?
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Friday 1st March 2013
| Sea City (3/3) |
| Dusty Springfield at the BBC |
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