Words and Music – Building and Sound

According to Goethe, "Architecture is frozen music”. If that’s the case, then today's programme will be putting some heat under that architecture and seeing what emerges. This exploration of buildings and sound features music written for specific places and music that incorporates the sounds of buildings - Hildegard of Bingen’s plainsong exploits the natural reverb of churches and cathedrals, an Iain Chambers composition uses the sounds of Brutalist architecture in Paris, while Valerie Coleman’s Clarinet Quintet evokes the shotgun house where she grew up in West Louisville, Kentucky. The readings by Marilyn Nnadebe and Henry Goodman take us to the soured utopia of a Peckham estate in the poetry of Caleb Femi; through a vast maze-like fantasy of a house in Susanna Clark's novel Piranesi; and to architect Marwa al-Sabouni’s reflections on the Great Umayyad mosque in Damascus.

Readings:

Thomas Hardy - Architectural Masks
Emily Dickinson - The props assist the house
Susanna Clarke - Piranesi
William Golding - The Spire
Caleb Femi - Because of the Times
Mark Danielewski - House of Leaves
China Mieville - The Scar
Simon Armitage - Still For Sale
Elizabeth Bishop - Jeronimo's House
Andrew Marvell - Upon Appleton House
Marwa al-Sabouni - Building for Hope
Philip Larkin - Church Going
Peter Porter - Doll's House
John Gould Fletcher - Demolition of the Waldorf-Astoria