Plague, Pox and Pestilence
Daniel Defoe to W B Yeats, Koechlin to Cole Porter, Fanny Burney to Mrs Beeton. Music, poetry and prose on the subject of disease. This edition pops a thermometer under the tongue and examines for buboes, sores and carbuncles. The readers are Michael Fenton Stevens and Josette Simons.
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Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:00Henry Purcell
March Z.860
Performer: Orchestre du Collegium Vocale, Philippe Herreweghe (conductor).- Harmonia Mundi 941462.
- Tr6.
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Daniel Defoe
A Journal of the Plague Year (Extract) read by Michael Fenton Stevens
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00:00Henry Purcell
Man that is born of woman and Canzona Z860
Performer: Choeur et Orchestre du Collegium Vocale, Philippe Herreweghe (conductor).- Harmonia Mundi 941462.
- Tr6.
Daniel Defoe
A Journal of the Plague Year (Extract) read by Josette Simons
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00:00Henry Purcell
In the midst of life we are in death
Performer: Choeur et Orchestre du Collegium Vocale, Philippe Herreweghe (conductor).- Harmonia Mundi 941462.
- Tr6.
Thomas Nashe
A Litany in Time of Plague read by Michael Fenton Stevens
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00:00Constant Lambert
King Pest (from Summer聮s Last Will and testament) (extract)
Performer: English Northern Philharmonia, David Lloyd-Jones (conductor).- Hyperion CDA66565.
- Tr8.
Mrs Beeton
A Cure for Warts (from The Book of Household Management) read by Josette Simons
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00:00Cole Porter
The Physician (from Nymph Errant)
Performer: Lisa Kirk (soprano), Orchestra, Donald Pippin (conductor).- EMI 7540792.
- Tr11.
Ben Johnson
To Sickness read by Michael Fenton Stevens
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00:00Richard Wagner (arr. Henk de Vlieger)
Parsifal, an Orchestral Quest (Flowermaidens) (extract)
Performer: Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Jarvi (conductor).- Chandos 5077.
- Tr4.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 118 read by Josette Simons
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Against Nature (extract) read by Michael Fenton Stevens
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00:00Benjamin Britten
Elegy from Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings (extract)
Performer: Peter Pears (tenor), Barry Tuckwell (horn); LSO, Benjamin Britten (conductor).- Decca 4363952.
- Tr4.
Mrs Beeton
A Cure for Toothache (from The Book of Household Management) read by Josette Simons
Ogden Nash
This Is Going To Hurt Just A Little Bit read by Michael Fenton Stevens
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00:00Camille Saint鈥怱a毛ns
Fossils from Carnival of the Animals
Performer: Pittsburgh SO, Andre Previn (conductor).- Philips 4426092.
- Tr15.
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00:00Giuseppe Verdi
Prelude from La Traviata (extract)
Performer: LSO, Carlo Rizzi (conductor).- Teldec 9031763482.
- Tr1.
W B Yeats
Upon a Dying Lady read by Josette Simons
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00:00Hildegard von Bingen
Ave generosa
Performer: Margaret Philpot (contralto).- Hyperion 44251.
- Tr2.
Fanny Burney
Account from Paris of a Terrible Operation聴1812 (extract) read by Josette Simon
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00:00Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No 15 in A minor, op. 132, 3rd mvt (extract)
Performer: Mosaiques Quartet.- Na茂ve 5445.
- Tr3.
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00:00Charles Koechlin
La Caravane from Les Heures persanes (extract)
Performer: Michael Korstick (piano).- SWR Music 19047.
- Tr2.
Thomas Mann (Translated by Martin C. Doege)
Death in Venice (extract) read by Michael Fenton Stevens
Mrs Beeton
A Cure for Palpitation of the heart (from The Book of Household Management) read by Josette Simons
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00:01John Dowland
Lachrimae Tristes (extract)
Performer: Phantasm, Elizabeth Kenny (lute).- Linn 527.
- Tr4.
Robert Burton
Anatomy of Melancholy (extract) read by Michael Fenton Stevens
Mrs Beeton
A Cure for A Cold on the Chest (from The Book of Household Management) read by Josette Simons
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00:01Frank Loesser
Adelaide聮s Lament from Guys and Dolls
Performer: Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, Orchestra, Edward Strauss (conductor).- RCA 09026 613172.
- Tr7.
Producer's Notes
Don鈥檛 panic 鈥� if the subject matter itself is not exactly uplifting, authors and composers down the ages have often responded to the pain and indignity of disease with honesty, compassion and sometimes even a certain black humour.
We start in the 17th Century which had a very direct and earthy attitude towards disease and death. Purcell鈥檚 Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary sets the timeless poetry of the Book of Common Prayer with a powerful simplicity which reminds us that 鈥淢an that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery鈥�. Daniel Defoe鈥檚 鈥淛ournal of the Plague Year鈥� is an account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the Great Plague struck the city of London 鈥� an event that would still have been very fresh to Purcell鈥檚 contemporaries.
To lighten the mood we pause for the first of Mrs Beeton鈥檚 no-nonsense cures. In the words of historian Graham Nown, Isabella Beeton was 鈥渁 singular and remarkable woman, praised in her lifetime and later forgotten and ignored when a pride in light pastry were no longer considered prerequisites for womanhood. Yet in her lively, progressive way, she helped many women to overcome the loneliness of marriage and gave the family the importance it deserved. In the climate of her time she was brave, strong-minded and a tireless champion of her sisters everywhere.鈥�
The connection between love, sickness and death came to haunt the imagination of many artists in the Nineteenth Century when syphilis, or 鈥渢he great pox鈥�, was largely incurable.
Against Nature is a 鈥渄ecadent鈥� novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans which deals with the inner life of an eccentric aesthete who retreats into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. In this surreal scene he visualises the figure of syphilis as a frightening but fascinating creature that transforms from a phallic woman into something darkly rapacious and vaguely floral. It鈥檚 like a nightmare version of the Flowermaidens in Wagner鈥檚 Parsifal.
Fanny Burney was a successful novelist in her day, and her diaries still fizz with the gossip and scandals of literary London in the late 18th century. But her most powerful piece of writing is the letter she wrote to her sister, Esther describing her breast cancer and mastectomy without modern anesthetic. It is a harrowing account, through which her bravery and strength shine out.
After that, only Beethoven can take over where words leave off. His late A minor string quartet was written after recovering from a serious illness and the third movement is headed with the words 鈥淗oly song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode鈥�.
No meditation on sickness and disease would be complete without an extract from the disease-obsessed Thomas Mann who said 鈥淒isease, and most specially opprobrious, suppressed, secret disease, creates a certain critical opposition to the world, to mediocre life, disposes a man to be obstinate and ironical toward civil order, so that he seeks refuge in free thought, in books, in study.鈥�
The passage from Mann鈥檚 鈥淒eath in Venice鈥� describes the relentless journey of the Indian cholera which eventually kills the protagonist of the novella. 鈥淏orn in the sultry swamps of the Ganges delta, ascended with the mephitic odour of that unrestrained and unfit wasteland, that wilderness avoided by men, in the bamboo thickets in which the tiger is crouching, the epidemic had spread to Hindustan, to China, to Afghanistan and Persia and even to Moscow.鈥� This atmospheric passage is underscored with a movement from Koechlin鈥檚 Persian Hours describing a caravan, or group of travellers on a long slow journey.
A brief glance back at the 17th Century with the dyspeptic and flatulent belchings listed in Robert Burton鈥檚 Anatomy of Melancholy before a final visit to matron in the company of the permanently unmarried Adelaide who complains that 鈥渏ust from waiting around for that plain little band of gold, a person can develop a cold.鈥�
PRODUCER: CLIVE PORTBURY
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