大象传媒

From Princess Scheherazade who offers to marry a murderous king in order to save her father, to Tinkerbell drinking poison to save Peter Pan, today鈥檚 Words and Music explores themes of selfless love and sacrifice.

For centuries, writers and composers have been inspired by biblical examples of selfless love, from the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei), to King David pleading to have died in place of his son. The Crucifixion becomes a metaphor in Oscar Wilde鈥檚 The Happy Prince and Benjamin Britten鈥檚 Corpus Christi Carol, sung by Jeff Buckley.

Families make everyday sacrifices, giving up their wages in Noel Streatfeild鈥檚 Ballet Shoes, while Bill Withers sings of his grandma, whose hands tended unwed mothers and picked him up when he fell.

Elsewhere, Iphigenia is sacrificed to the gods in Gluck鈥檚 opera about the Trojan war, while the boys in Lord of the Flies plan a much darker sacrifice. In Kazuo Ishiguro鈥檚 futuristic novel Never Let Me Go, three young friends who were bred to be organ donors contemplate their approaching deaths.

And selfless love can be political. Nelson Mandela vows that his is a cause for which he is prepared to die, while Wilfred Owen deplores the empty words that sent so many to their deaths in the trenches. In an archive recording from the Second World War, John Gielgud read a letter from a young RAF pilot to his mother. And diary entries from Captain Scott describe the selfless bravery of a dying man on the doomed 1912 mission to the Antarctic.

The readers are Pearl Mackie and Matthew Tennyson.

Producer: Hannah Sander

READINGS:
Scheherazade traditional tale translated by NJ Dawood
January 22nd, Missolonghi Byron
If I can stop one heart from breaking Emily Dickinson
Peter Pan and Wendy JM Barrie
The Sacrifice George Herbert
Lord of the Flies William Golding
If We Must Die Claude Mckay
Off the Record Curtis Sittenfeld
The Happy Prince Oscar Wilde
Rivonia trial speech Nelson Mandela
Dulce et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen
Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild
A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
Diaries Cpt Robert Falcon Scott
Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare
Meditation XVII John Donne
A Shropshire Lad A E Housman