Look to the Skies
Music, poetry and prose which gaze at the sky and the objects in it. Readings by Emilia Fox and Anthony Calf
Producer Harry Parker.
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Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:00Gustav Holst
Jupiter the Bringer of Jollity
Performer: Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.- Hanssler Classic 93043.
- 4.
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WB Yeats
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven read by Anthony Calf
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00:08George Frideric Handel
Waft Her Angels Through The Skies
Performer: Collegium Musicum 90.- Chandos CHAN 0685.
- Tr 17.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Plough of Time read by Emilia Fox
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00:12Patrick Gowers
Viri Galilaei
Performer: Choir of Queens聮 College Cambridge.- Guild GMCD7287.
- tr 14.
Rudyard Kipling
From 聯At the End of the Passage聰 read by Anthony Calf
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00:19Claude Debussy
Nuages
Performer: Les Phil聮Art聮Cellists.- Saphir LVC 1186.
- tr 13.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Cloud read by Emilia Fox
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00:26Django Reinhardt
Nuages
Performer: Quintette du Hot Club de France.- RCA PD71298.
- Tr 14.
Roger McGough
Sky in the Pie read by Anthony Calf
Walter de la Mare
Silver read by Emilia Fox
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00:32Vincenzo Bellini
Vaga Luna Che Inargenti
Performer: Cecilia Bartoli.- Decca 4555132.
- Tr 2.
Henry David Thoreau
The Moon read by Anthony Calf
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00:37John Addison
Reach for the Sky
Performer: 大象传媒 Concert Orchestra cond. Rumon Gamba.- Chandos CHAN 10418.
- Tr 6.
Antoine de Saint-Exup茅ry
From 聯Wind, Sand and Stars聰 read by Anthony Calf
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00:41Karlheinz Stockhausen
Helicopter Quartet
Performer: Arditti Quartet.- Montaigne MO782097.
- tr1.
Colette Bryce
Helicopters read by Emilia Fox
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00:42Charlie Barnet
Skyliner
Performer: Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra.- Empress RAJCD898.
- tr 1.
James Fenton
The Vapour Trail read by Anthony Calf
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00:46John Martyn
Solid Air
Performer: John Martyn.- Island IMCD274.
- Tr 1.
Sylvia Plath
I Am Vertical read by Emilia Fox
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00:53Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending
Performer: 大象传媒 Symphony Orchestra cond. Andrew Davis. Violin, Tamsin Little.- Teldec 9031731272.
- Tr 6.
Edith Nesbit
The Nest read by Emilia Fox
Edward Thomas
The Lofty Sky read by Anthony Calf
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01:00Israel Kamakawiwo驶ole
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
- Hot 大象传媒D5901.
- Tr 14.
Emily Bronte
From 聯Wuthering Heights聰 read by Emilia Fox
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01:05Johann Strauss II
Overture to Die Fledermaus
Orchestra: Bratislava Radio Symphony Orchestra听.Producer's Notes
The sky is everything above us, all that is not earth or sea; a vast vault of seeming nothingness which stretches from where we are to the horizon and upwards beyond the limits of the atmosphere and into space. Unless we are indoors or underground we can always see it, although in a sense it is invisible. We cannot touch it although we can feel its effects. But the sky is not empty. It is made of the air that we breathe and blows as the wind, water vapour that forms the clouds and gives us the rain and it is scattered听 with all manner of objects. Leaving aside the sun, which colours the sky by its presence - or absence, there are all the other bodies of the firmament, the moon, the planets, the stars., And then there are things that fly, both natural and man made.听
We invest the sky and its contents with significance real or imaginary. Gustav Holst in his suite 'The Planets' ascribed psychological qualities to seven of the planets and 'Jupiter' was seen as the 'Bringer of Jollity', possibly because the deity was associated with wine festivals.听 He was also the god of the heavens and the Roman poet Horace used his name as a synonym for sky.听听听
听'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' by WB Yeats conjures the concept of the sky at night as a celestial embroidery which might be brought down and laid on the earth as a carpet while 'The Plough of Time' by the American beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti speaks of the link between the light of the stars and the land.听
In many religions the sky is also notionally the location of heaven. Handel's 'Waft Her Angels Through the Skies' from the oratorio Jephtha, here an instrumental interlude, sees it as the domain of the heavenly hosts. Patrick Gowers, who sadly died recently, wrote 'Viri Galilaei' for the consecration of the Bishop of Oxford in 1987.听 Viri Galilaei is a church on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem said to be the spot where Jesus ascended into heaven accompanied, according to this text, by the sound of the trumpet and choirs of angel voices. And the ascension of a man's soul to heaven,or possibly not, is the subject of the 'Himalayan' poem which Rudyard Kipling places at the beginning of his ghost story 'At the End of the Passage', only this time the noise is that of the cholera-horn.
听The fascination of clouds is given three different treatments next. Claude Debussy's impressionistic nocturne 'Nuages',听 said to be inspired by the paintings of Whistler, evoking, as he himself put it,鈥渢he slow, solemn movement of the clouds dissolving in grey tints lightly touched with white鈥澨� whilst Django Reinhardt's jazz guitar take on 'Nuages' is even more languid. He recorded听 his composition many times in a variety of arrangements this being an early one with the Quintette du Hot Club de France. 'The Cloud', as interpreted by Percy Bysshe Shelley in this extract, is much more a shaker of nature and a maker of weather.
听We often see the sky as the metaphorical home of fanciful notions; blue sky thinking, the sky's the limit and pie in the sky. Roger McGough turns the latter idea on its head with his 'Sky in the Pie' and asks for the moon - which听 is supplied by Walter de la Mare in the听 poem 'Silver'. The light of the silvery moon has been an inspiration for the fanciful notions of poets and composers for ever. The arietta 'Vaga Luna Che Inargenti' by Vincenzo Bellini and sung by Cecilia Bartoli tells of the moon as a messenger of love, looking down on romance and longing while Henry David Thoreau's poem 'The Moon' deals with lunar indifference to human fate.
听The aspirational aspects of the sky are also reflected in 'Reach for the Sky', the title of Lewis Gilbert's 1956 film about flying ace Douglas Bader, for which John Addison provided the score. Man only took to the the air just over a century ago but the conquest has provided plenty of inspiration for writers and musicians since. One pioneer pilot was Antoine de Saint-Exup茅ry , famous as听 the author of The Little Prince but also for his aviation memoir 'Terre des Hommes', known in English as 听'Wind, Sand and Stars'. Saint-Exup茅ry disappeared听 in 1944 on a reconnaissance mission in a Lockheed听 Lightning fighter.听 A very different kind of aircraft is involved in the Helikopter-Streichquartett by Karlheinz Stockhausen which not only involves the chopper-like playing of the expected string quartet听 but the presence and sound of a less expected quartet of actual helicopters. Contemporary poet Colette Bryce has a rather ambivalent attitude to them in her poem 'Helicopters'.
听Charlie Barnet's swingband composition 'Skyliner' has a more upbeat approach. Perhaps the title just refers to the horizon but equally it seems to anticipate the dawning of the jet age when a line in the sky 'The Vapour Trail', the subject of James Fenton's poem, would come to be a common sight in the sky.
The relationship between the air and the human spirit is explored in John Martyn's 'Solid Air' about his friend the musician Nick Drake suffering from depression at the time and later to die of an overdose while Sylvia Plath in her poem 'I Am Vertical' imagines lying on the ground and being in conversation with the sky.
听'The Lark Ascending' by Ralph Vaughn Williams also has a conversation with the sky at its heart; a musical one.听 The lark is called the skylark because of its practice of soaring while singing, until the sky is 'drenched with song', as the children's author Edith Nesbit puts it in her poem 'The Nest'. The urge to ascend spiritually and literally is also given voice in Edward Thomas's 'The Lofty Sky' .
The sky as place of escape, for bluebirds if not for us, is sung simply and effectively in the impromptu version of听 'Over the Rainbow' by the late Hawaiian ukulele star Israel Kamakawiwo'ole while it is larks again that provide the soundtrack to Emily Bronte's听 description of heavenly happiness from 'Wuthering Heights'.
听But it is the night sky, with its nocturnal flying creatures, that is the finale to the sequence; the overture to Johann Strauss's 'Die Fledermaus'. The reference in the opera is to a man dressed as a bat, perhaps a prototype for the superhero Batman, but hinting at the human wish to waltz through the skies.
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Harry Parker
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Broadcast
- Sun 15 Mar 2015 17:30大象传媒 Radio 3
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