Exile [Afternoon Concert]

Series of performances by BBC orchestras featuring music by composers who left their native countries.

Although Stravinsky spent the period from 1914-1918 in Switzerland, unable to return to his native Russia because of his involvement in both the First World War and the Russian Revolution, it was a creative period for him, which produced works like Pulcinella and The Soldier's Tale.

Both Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill fled Nazi Germany, as the regime not only banned performances of their music, but moved against them personally. Hindemith had naively invited Hitler himself to come and sit in on one of his music tutorials to prove to him he was no threat, but Weill was under no illusions and he fled Germany in March 1933 with just a few of his personal belongings.

Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending

Jennifer Pike (violin)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Richard Hickox (conductor)

2.15pm

Stravinsky: The Soldier's Tale

Kenneth Cranham (narrator)

Members of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Stephan Solyom (conductor)

3.10pm

Weill: Symphony No 2

Mark Stringer (conductor)

Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No 1 in D, Op 19

Alina Ibragimova (violin)

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Edward Gardner (conductor)

4.25pm

Hindemith: Symphony (Mathis der Maler)

Ulster Orchestra

Howard Shelley (conductor).

Jonathan Swain with music by Stravinsky, Weill, Hindemith, Vaughan Williams and Prokofiev.

Performances by BBC orchestras of music with the theme of displacement, featuring composers who left their native countries.

Stravinsky, who emigrated to America in 1940, settled in California, but found life there completely alien to him. Angry after Walt Disney used his Rite of Spring in Fantasia, he returned to his Russian roots with the Symphony in Three Movements, and its punchy rhythms and harmonies. He had written his most popular works before he left Russia, and while he toured the USA as composer/pianist, there are very few works from his time there.

Martinu and Britten were on the East coast, the former having escaped the pro-Nazi government in Czechoslovakia, and the latter an exile of conscience in a time of war. Walton was never forced into exile by anyone, but perhaps growing up in Oldham, an opportunity to move to an exclusive island in the Mediterranean was just too good a chance to pass up.

Sibelius: Karelia Suite

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Pietari Inkinen (conductor)

Martinu: Rhapsody Concerto

Steven Burnard (viola)

BBC Philharmonic

Tomas Netopil (conductor)

2.35pm

Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements

Andrew Davis (conductor)

Britten: Diversions for piano left hand and orchestra, Op 21

Steven Osborne (piano)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Illan Volkov (conductor)

3.15pm

Walton: Cello Concerto

Peter Wispelwey (cello)

Rachmaninov: Three Symphonic Dances, Op 45

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Takuo Yuasa (conductor).

Jonathan Swain with music by Sibelius, Martinu, Stravinsky, Britten and Walton.

Performances by BBC orchestras of music with the theme of displacement, featuring composers who left their native countries.

With music by Britten, who, unlike Rachmaninov and Martinu, left his home by choice, having objected to Britain's participation in the Second World War, and Milhaud, who was forced to flee Europe as the Nazis overran the continent. He never forgot his roots in rural southern France - as his suite for wind quintet La cheminee du roi Rene shows. But after the war he continued to live and teach in the USA for many years, enjoying travelling backwards between the two countries and cultures.

Smetana: Vltava (Ma Vlast)

BBC Philharmonic

Michal Dworzynski (conductor)

Britten: Serenade for tenor, horn and strings

Andrew Kennedy (tenor)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Tadaaki Otaka (conductor)

2.40pm

Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Op 43

Lukas Vondracek (piano)

Vassily Sinaisky (conductor)

Martinu: Fantaisies symphoniques (Symphony No 6)

Gunther Herbig (conductor)

3.30pm

Milhaud: La cheminee du roi Rene, Op 205

Galliard Ensemble.

Jonathan Swain presents music by Smetana, Britten, Rachmaninov, Martinu and Milhaud.

As part of BBC Radio 3's complete cycle of Handel's operas, Jonathan Swain presents the third act of the composer's most popular - and arguably best - opera, Giulio Cesare in Egitto.

Handel: Giulio Cesare in egitto (Act 3)

Giulio Cesare - Marijana Mijanovic (mezzo-soprano)

Cleopatra - Magdalena Kozena (mezzo-soprano)

Cornelia, widow of Caesar's enemy Pompey - Charlotte Hellekant (mezzo-soprano)

Sesto, her son - Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano)

Tolomeo, Cleopatra's brother - Bejun Mehta (countertenor)

Achilla, Tolomeo's sidekick - Alan Ewing (bass)

Nireno, Cleopatra's sidekick - Pascal Bertin (countertenor)

Curio, Caesar's sidekick - Jean-Michel Ankaoua (bass)

Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble

Marc Minkowski (conductor)

Plus Exile:

Jonathan Swain presents BBC orchestras performing music with the theme of displacement, featuring composers who left their native countries.

Including works by Chopin and Heine - whose text Schumann set in his song cycle Dichterliebe - who knew each other in Paris in the 1820s, one being an exile from his Polish homeland, the other having fled from his Jewish birthright and German countrymen.

Plus a work by Bartok, who, because of the outbreak of the Second World War, fled Europe for America, where he was decidely unhappy. Ill-health and neglect led to his death in 1945, and he left behind an incomplete viola concerto.

3.05pm

Chopin: Piano Concerto No 2 in F minor, Op 21

Louis Lortie (piano)

BBC Philharmonic

Michel Dworzynski (conductor)

Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op 48

Jonathan Lemalu (baritone)

Michael Hampton (piano)

4.10pm

Bartok: Viola Concerto

Maxim Rysanov (viola)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Benjamin Ellin (conductor)

Gerhard: Don Quixote

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Andrew Davis (conductor).

Act 3 of Handel's most popular opera, Giulio Cesare in Egitto. Plus Exile: Chopin, Bartok.