Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

A String of Pearls

Texts and music about pearls, with readings by Aysha Kala and Jude Akuwudike. With Pliny, Keats, Shakespeare and Steinbeck, plus Debussy, Bartok, Gershwin, Bruckner and Britten.

Pearls of Oyster, born of the new moon and harvested at great peril; pearls for tears and teeth, pearls flung round the neck of a lover; pearls of joy and pearls of sorrow; pearls of poetry and myth; Jude Akuwudike and Aysha Kala read the pearly words of Pliny and Keats, Shakespeare and Erasmus, Darwin and Steinbeck to the sound of Debussy and Bartok, Gershwin and Bruckner, Shankar and Britten.

1 hour, 15 minutes

Last on

Wed 20 Dec 2017 16:30
成人快手 Radio 3

More episodes

Previous

Women Walking

Next

Encoded

See all episodes from Words and Music

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:00

    Alexander Scriabin

    Five Preludes Op74 - No 3 Allegro

    Performer: Robert Taub.
    • HARMONIA MUNDI HM907019.
    • Tr12.

  • John Keats

    聭Hyperion聮 excerpt read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:00

    Claude Debussy

    La Cathedrale Engloutie

    Performer: Fran莽ois鈥怞o毛l Thiollier.
    • Naxos.
    • Tr2.

  • John Dryden

    Couplet from 聭All For Love聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • Sir Edwin Arnold

    聭Orient Pearl聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • Pliny The Elder (translated by Jonathan Couch)

    聭Nature of Pearls聮 extract read by Aysha Kala

  • 00:07

    Anoushka Shankar

    Naked

    Performer: Anoushka Shankar.
    • Angel Records.
    • Tr4.

  • Robert Browning

    聭Paracelsus聮 short extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:11

    Eddie Grey / Jerry Delange

    A String of Pearls

    Performer: Billy May, Alec Fila, Dale McMickle, Johnny Best, trumpets; Glenn Miller, Jimmy Priddy, Paul Tanner, Frank D聮Annolfo trombones;.
    • KAZ KAZCD303.
    • Tr14.

  • George Frederick Kunz & Charles Hugh Stevenson

    聭How Divers Prepare to Dive聮 extract read by Aysha Kala

  • George Frederick Kunz & Charles Hugh Stevenson

    聭How Divers Prepare to Dive聮 extract read by Aysha Kala

  • George Frederick Kunz & Charles Hugh Stevenson

    聭How Divers Prepare to Dive聮 extract read by Aysha Kala

  • George Frederick Kunz & Charles Hugh Stevenson

    聭How Divers Prepare to Dive聮 extract read by Aysha Kala

  • 00:14

    Michael Nyman

    Full Fathom Five

    Performer: Sarah Leonard, Michael Nyman Band.
    • DECCA 4252242.
    • Tr1.

  • John Steinbeck

    聭The Pearl and the Gods聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:17

    Igor Stravinsky

    Ave Maria

    Performer: King's College Choir of Cambridge, Stephen Cleobury cond.
    • EMI.
    • Tr16.

  • John Steinbeck

    Extract from 聭The Pearl聮 read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:20

    Louis Prima

    Sing, Sing, Sing (with a Swing)

    Performer: Benny Goodman Clarinet, Teddy Wilson piano, Lionel Hampton Vibes, Gene Krupa Drums.
    • MCA MCAD4055.
    • Tr20.
  • 00:21

    Claude Debussy

    Sonata for Cello and Piano

    Performer: Benjamin Britten piano, Mstislav Rostropovich cello,.
    • DECCA 4178332.
    • Tr9.

  • Erasmus Darwin

    The Temple of Nature: Canto V 聭Emigration of the Animals from the Seal聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • 00:26

    Benjamin Britten

    Peter Grimes Four Sea Interludes Op33: Dawn

    Performer: Li-wei cello, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Zhang Yi cond.
    • ABC CLASSICS ABC 4811243.
    • Tr4.
  • 00:27

    TRAD

    The Song to the Seals

    Performer: John McCormack vocal, Edwin Schneider piano.
    • MOIDART MUSIC MIDCD005.
    • Tr18.

  • Jane Struthers

    聭Finfalkaheem聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:29

    TRAD

    The Song to the Seals

    Performer: John McCormack vocal, Edwin Schneider piano.
    • MOIDART MUSIC MIDCD005.
    • Tr18.

  • John Gerard

    聭The Tree Goose聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • 00:31

    TRAD

    The Song to the Seals

    Performer: John McCormack vocal, Edwin Schneider piano.
    • MOIDART MUSIC MIDCD005.
    • Tr18.

  • Flora Annie Steel

    聭The King Who Was Fried聮 from 聭Tales of the Punjab: Folklore of India聮, extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:33

    Capercaillie

    An Eala Bhan (The White Swan)

    Performer: Capercaillie.
    • Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd.
    • Tr7.

  • Herman Melville

    聭Moby Dick聮 extract read by Aysha Kala

  • 00:40

    Anton Bruckner

    Os Iusti

    Performer: Polyphony, Britten Sinfonia, Stephen Layton.
    • HYPERION CDA676629.
    • Tr11.

  • John Webster

    Extract from 聭Duchess of Malfi聮 read by Aysha Kala and Jude Akuduwike

  • 00:46

    Igor Stravinsky

    Firebird: Infernal Dance of all Kashchei聮s subjects

    Performer: London Symphony Orchestra cond Kent Nagano.
    • VIRGIN CLASSICS 4821062.
    • Tr20.

  • Hans Christian Andersen (translated by Charles Wharton Stork)

    聭The Pearl聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • Robert Herrick

    聭The Tear Sent To Her From Staines聮 read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:51

    Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

    Kashey the Immortal Tableau One

    Performer: Konstantin Pluzhnikov soloist, Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev cond..
    • Philips 446 704-2.
    • Tr3.

  • Sir Edwin Arnold

    聭The Sultana聮s Pearls聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:53

    Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

    Song of India from the Opera Sadako

    Performer: London Symphony Orchestra, Yan-Pascal Tortelier (cond.).
    • CASTLE CJCD1001.
    • Tr2.

  • Sir Edwin Arnold

    聭The Sultana聮s Pearls聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • Sir Edwin Arnold

    聭The Sultana聮s Pearls聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • Sir Edwin Arnold

    聭The Sultana聮s Pearls聮 extract read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 00:59

    Enya

    Less Than A Pearl

    Performer: Enya.
    • Warner Bros. Records ?聳 25646 2797 2.
    • Tr1.

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

    聭Friendship聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • 01:02

    Roque Ba帽os

    The White Whale Chant

    Performer: Roque Ba帽os.
    • Water Tower Music.
    • Tr16.

  • John Keats

    聭Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl聮 read by Jude Akuwudike

  • Laurence Hope (Adele Florence Nicholson)

    聭Lilivanti聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • 01:06

    Ustad Amir Khan

    Raga Marwa

    Performer: Ustad Amir Khan.
    • Cherry Red ACMEM 198.
    • Tr3.

  • Percy Bysshe Shelley

    聭My Thoughts聮 read by Jude Akuwudike

  • 01:08

    B茅la Bart贸k

    Harvest Song

    Performer: Andras Kiss, Ferenc Balogh.
    • HELIOS CDH55267.
    • Tr33.

  • Abraham Sutzkever (translated by Jacqueline Osherow)

    From 聭Epitaphs聮 read by Aysha Kala

  • 01:11

    Claude Debussy

    Sonata for Cello and Piano

    Performer: Mstislav Rostropovich cello, Benjamin Britten piano.
    • DECCA 4178332.
    • Tr11.

Producer's Note

A string of pearls.聽 There was a story I loved as a child about a pearl that was a whole world.聽聽聽 It was Persian and probably in some old book of tales for children of the Empire that my babysitter would pull down from her shelf. The stories from all points east, from Russia to India, may well have suffered in translation but that idea of the Pearl as an entire World stuck with me and along the way I鈥檝e always noticed references, mostly from Arabic sources, to the way music and poetry, even prose, can be likened to a string of pearls.聽

So when I first read Keats鈥� 鈥楬yperion鈥� I was enchanted by a passage where he likens music to pearls

A living death was in each gush of sounds,
Each family of rapturous hurried notes,
That fell, one after one, yet all at once,
Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string

Such words - each one a world of sound, ideas and feeling, all threaded and linked together on a string of Time.聽 In Classical Arabic poetry, and Arabic lends itself to such art, every verse, let alone each word, is a pearl equal in size and weight to its neighbour in terms of rhyme and rhythm so each verse is interchangeable with every other.聽聽 For prose, the catch loosens, the pearl-words run off the string, scattering and coming together in new ways to create new meanings.聽聽 And music?聽 The notes are the pearls, the size of the intervals between them are the knots between, describing their size and beauty.聽 And yes, the octatonic scale has, rightly or wrongly, been linked back to Persia and a mode called鈥�.the string of pearls.聽

So all this gives a grand excuse to dive into the wonderful musical experiments of Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Debussy and Bartok, Benny Goodman and Gershwin whilst also visiting musicianship from the Indian world, source of so many pearls. There are also songs, poems and writing arising from the natural history and legends of pearl and those associated with it.聽 The life of this most magical gem is born of sea dew at the full moon.... or a piece of grit in an oyster.聽 As a jewel it is beloved of the mermaid, finfolk and Scottish selkies.聽 It is equally a symbol of childhood purity and tears and death - and of grown up avarice, lust, love, fear and loss.聽 In the natural world, the pearl is grown in pain and harvested with difficulty and great danger to life.聽 Its roundness, its pure whiteness, lends itself to religious metaphor in many languages and faiths.聽 So Jude Akuwudike and Aysha Kala read from John Steinbeck about the life of the pearl diver, from Sir Edwin Arnold, a diplomat who wrote down tales of India, from Pliny who gathered a compendium of evidence as to the wayward conception of pearls and from Hans Andersen, Keats, Shelley and Dryden who in their own ways explored pearls of the heart and mind and there is one of those stories of my childhood that I do possess in a tome called Tales of the Punjab 鈥� the one about聽 the White Swans that eat only seed pearls鈥n a sequence I like to think of as the Dream of the Pearl.聽聽

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Broadcasts

  • Sun 11 Dec 2016 17:30
    成人快手 Radio 3
  • Wed 20 Dec 2017 16:30
    成人快手 Radio 3

Featured in...

  • Arts

    Creativity, performance, debate

The hidden history of plant-based diets

The hidden history of plant-based diets

Forget social media influencers - the meat-free movement started with the Victorians.

Books website

Get closer to books with in-depth articles, quizzes and our picks from radio & TV.

Gallery