Written by BBC R4
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps


Episode 1 - Mendelssohn's Octet (16 Aug 2011)
This exploration of the impact that Mendelssohn's Octet has had on different people's lives, demonstrates the healing power of music in a variety of situations around the world.

Mendelssohn wrote his Octet for double string quartet in 1825 when he was only 16 years old. Despite his youth, this is a mature and brilliant piece of music described in this programme by the interviewees as "carnivalesque", "a romp", "a party".

Choreographer Bill T Jones describes the way in which the Octet showed his company how to keep living during the onslaught of AIDS in the 80's. Cellist Raphael and violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch talk about falling in love whilst learning this music in the 70's. South Korean Lisa Kim tells a story about going on tour with the New York Philharmonic to North Korea and her intense fear and mistrust being replaced by wonder when they played the Octet with a North Korean Quartet. And Matthew Trusler describes the importance of playing this work after the death of his son.

The recording of the Mendelssohn Octet featured in the programme is by the Emerson String Quartet on Deutsche Gramophon.

Episode 2 - Wichita Lineman (23 Aug 2011)
Wichita Lineman, the ultimate country/pop crossover track, is the subject of this week's Soul Music.

David Crary is a lineman from Oklahoma. He describes his job - storm-chasing to mend fallen power-lines; travelling on 'dirt roads, gravel roads, paved roads... up in the farmlands of Illinois and Missouri... down south in the Swamplands... it ain't nothing to swerve in the middle of the road in your bucket-truck to miss an alligator '.

He recalls the first time he heard Wichita Lineman, travelling in the back of his family's Station Wagon, listening to the radio... thinking that being a lineman 'must be a cool job' if someone's written a song about it. Also a part-time musician, David has recorded his own version of the song which sums up his working life... on the road, working long hours, away from his wife and six kids.

Wichita Lineman was written by Jimmy Webb for the Country star Glen Campbell. It tells the story of a lonely lineman in the American midwest, travelling vast distances to mend power and telephone lines.

Released in 1968 it's an enduring classic, crossing the boundary between pop and country. It's been covered many times, but it's Glen Campbell's version which remains the best loved and most played.

Johnny Cash also recorded an extraordinary and very raw version. Peter Lewry, a lifelong Cash fan, describes how this recording came about, towards the end of Cash's career.

Meggean Ward's father was a lineman in Rhode Island... her memories of seeing him in green work trousers, a plaid shirt and black boots, wrapping his cracked hands in bandages every morning before setting off to climb telephone poles are interwoven forever with Wichita Lineman... as a child she always felt the song was written for her father, who else?

Glen Campbell also gave an interview for this programme. Shortly after the interview was recorded, Campbell went public about his diagnosis of Alzheimer's. His contribution to the programme is brief, and includes an acoustic performance of the song. It was a real privilege to record this, appropriately enough, down the line.

Producer: Karen Gregor.

Episode 3 - Spiegel im Spiegel (30 Aug 2011)
Exploring the impact that Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's piece for piano and violin Spiegel im Spiegel has had on people's lives.

Written in 1978, just prior to his departure from Estonia, Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel is musically minimal, yet produces a serene tranquillity.

It's in F major in 6/4 time, with the piano playing rising crotchet triads and the violin playing slow scales, alternately rising and falling, of increasing length, which all end on the note A. The score of the piece looks deceptively simple, but as violinist, Tasmin Little explains, it's one of the most difficult pieces to perform because the playing has to simply be perfect, or the mood is lost.

"Spiegel im Spiegel" in German literally can mean both "mirror in the mirror" as well as "mirrors in the mirror", referring to the infinity of images produced by parallel plane mirrors.

The programme contains an interview with visual artist Mary Husted who heard this work and was inspired to produce a set of collages called "Spiegel im Spiegel" which in a round about way, led to her long lost son tracing her for the first time in his life.

Episode 4 - Dear Lord and Father of Mankind (6 Sept 2011)
The words of one of our most loved hymns, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, were taken from the last six verses of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, The Brewing of Soma, an attack on ostentatious and overt religious practise. But it wasn't until over fifty years later, that a school master at Repton in Derbyshire had the inspiration to pair it with a tune by Sir Hubert Parry, thus confirming it as a favourite for school assemblies, funerals and weddings. The current Director of Music at Repton, John Bowley, explains how this happened, while composer and conductor Bob Chilcott explains why this was a musical mariage made in heaven.
We hear from those for who whom the hymn has special significance, including the MP from Gloucester, Richard Graham; when briefly imprisoned in a Libyan gaol in 1978 he found enormous comfort in the words and tune. Pipe Major Ross Munro remembers recording the piece in the swelting heat of Basra with members of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and film director Joe Wright recalls how the inclusion of this hymn was central to the power of his famous scene depicting the evacuation of Dunkirk in his film, Atonement.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.

Episode 5 - Let's Face the Music and Dance (13 Sept 2011)
The enduring Irving Berlin classic, Let's Face the Music and Dance is celebrated by those for whom it has a special significance. Written in 1932 as one of the dance numbers for Follow The Fleet, a movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, it's since taken on a life of it's own, being recorded by hundreds of artists from Diane Krall to Shirley Bassey, Frank Sinatra to Vera Lynn, Ella Fitzgerald to Matt Munroe.

For Sir John Mortimer's widow, Penny, it conjures up the very essence of her husband, who loved life, romance and dancing - even though he was no Fred Astaire , a fact he always deeply regretted.

Lawrence Bergreen , Berlin's biographer and academic Morris Dickstein explain why this song has such a unique place in popular culture and the cabaret singer and composer, Kit Hesketh Harvey explains why the melody continues to haunt us.

We hear from the bride and groom who decided to dance down the aisle to it after their wedding and the redundant welder for whom the song will be forever associated with the demise of our ship building industry. While one insurance executive recalls how the the song became central to their advertising campaign, bringing success to the firm and also placing Nat King Cole's version back in the charts nearly sixty years after it was written.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.