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Alan Sillitoe

Another chance to hear a programme first broadcast in 2001. Michael Berkeley talks to Alan Sillitoe, author of 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning', who died earlier this year.

Nottingham-born Alan Sillitoe, one of the 'Angry Young Men' generation of British writers, died earlier this year at the age of 82. The author of many novels, poetry collections and an auobiography, he shot to fame in 1958 on the publication of 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning', a gritty depiction of contemporary urban working-class life in the Midlands. The novel was filmed by Karel Reisz in 1960, starring the young Albert Finney as its anti-hero. Sillitoe's other best-known book, 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner', appeared in 1959, and was filmed three years later by Tony Richardson, starring Tom Courtenay.

Alan Sillitoe was a keen music-lover, and his choices include Jerome Kern's 'Ol' Man River', sung by Paul Robeson; Maria Callas singing 'Casta diva' from Bellini's opera 'Norma'; Vaughan Williams' arrangement of the English folk-song 'Seventeen Come Sunday', Artur Rubinstein playing a Chopin Prelude, and two pieces by Soviet composers, reflecting Sillitoe's lifelong interest in the Soviet Union - an excerpt from Prokofiev's ballet 'Romeo and Juliet', and Shostakovich's 'The Execution of Stepan Razin'.

1 hour

Last on

Sun 26 Sep 2010 12:00
大象传媒 Radio 3

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Music Played

  • Kern

    Ol' Man River (from Showboat)

    Performers: Paul Robeson/Chorus and Orchestra of the original 1928 London production

    • EMI CDC 747839 2.

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams

    Seventeen come Sunday (from English Folk Songs Suite)

    Performers: London Philharmonic, Sir Adrian Boult

    • PRT PVCD 8396.

  • Hector Berlioz

    Benvenuto Cellini - overture

    Performers: 大象传媒 Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis

    • Philips 416 955-2.

  • Fr茅d茅ric Chopin - Prelude in D flat, Op.28/15

    Performer: Artur Rubinstein (piano)

  • Sergey Prokofiev

    Death of Mercutio (from Romeo and Juliet)

    Performer: Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky

    • CdM LDX-A 8297.

  • Dmitry Shostakovich

    The Execution of Stepan Razin (opening)

    Performers: Vitaly Gromadsky (bass), RSFSR Russian Chorus, Moscow Philharmic Orchestra, Kiril Kondrashin

    • HMV ASD 3442.

  • Vincenzo Bellini

    Casta Diva (from Norma)

    Performers: Maria Callas (Norma), Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala Milan, Tullio Serafin

    • EMI CDS 556271 2.

  • George Frideric Handel

    Sing ye to the Lord (final chorus from Israel in Egypt)

    Performers: Elizabeth Priday (soprano), Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner

    • Erato 2292-45399-2.

Broadcast

  • Sun 26 Sep 2010 12:00
    大象传媒 Radio 3

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