TONUS PEREGRINUS - authentic and original
ANTONY PITTS - composer/director/teacher/producer
GOLDEN RADIO - clarity, proportion, integrity
November 2010: under the wire

November 2010: under the wire

NEWS.TP/NOVEMBER 2010
Our Price: £0.00
This month the unimaginable is back - every word of the Apocalypse broadcast on BBC Radio 3 from start to finish in a new, specially extended version...
  
"Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is at hand." 
(Revelation 1:3) 
  
 
SATURDAY 20 NOVEMBER 9.25pm (2125-2230GMT)
*A Wireless Revelation (2010)*
A Golden Radio production for BBC Radio 3
90-93FM in the UK and on the web at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/radio3/
At the back of the Bible hides perhaps the most misunderstood but profoundly influential little book of them all: the Apocalypse of St John, also known as the Book of Revelation. The Apocalypse - which means "unveiling" - is a breathless and intense sequence of visions given to the exiled John on the Aegean island of Patmos, 70 miles or so from Ephesus in what is now Turkey, at the end of the first century AD. Although it’s well-known for being a challenging read, Revelation compensates right from the start with an explicit blessing on both reader and listener. Thereafter its twenty-two chapters are packed full of pictures and patterns that have inspired artists and composers down the nineteen centuries since it was written: seven seals including the seventh seal with its seven trumpets, a beast with seven heads and ten horns, a woman with a crown of twelve stars on her head, and a Hallelujah chorus!
http://goldenradio.co.uk/sounds/trails/AWRtrail.mp3

However, the book also ends with a curse on anyone tampering with its text, and so this radiophonic version sagely presents the complete text from mysterious beginning to epic end - in a communal reading from a number of translations old and new (including echoes of New Testament Greek as well as Mandarin, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu). John Ashenfelter reads from the English Standard Version of the Holy Bible; additional voices include the Reverend Alan Walker (Thyatira), the Reverend Clifford Hill, Ekene Akalawu, Kathryn Knight (presenter), the former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali (Smyrna), and the Reverend Richard Coles (Sardis).

Like an illuminated manuscript, the sacred text is decorated and underscored as it unfolds with an historical panoply of music featuring iconic fragments from Handel’s Messiah and every movement of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, as well as choral music by Hildegard of Bingen and by Antony Pitts - including a setting of the Seven Letters from the Book of Revelation, sung by TONUS PEREGRINUS.
http://goldenradio.co.uk/AWirelessRevelation2010.pdf (full KJV text & music details)

"It's undoubtedly still one of the most challenging programmes I've ever made - both to put together and to listen to", says producer and composer Antony Pitts, "It's a bit like being an icon-maker - trying to create a stylized, clear 'window into heaven' based directly on a given sacred text. Heard aloud, the structure and rhythm of the text become a carrier wave for layers of meaning that are all the more powerful without any textual commentary. It was wonderful to be given the chance to remix it for this extended broadcast on Radio 3: there's definitely no lack of pace or tension, but now there's more light and shade, and a little bit more room for the words and music to breathe."
A Wireless Revelation is another Golden Radio production for BBC Radio 3, Executive Producer: Jeremy Summerly; originally broadcast in July 2009, this extended remix can be heard this Saturday, 20 November at 9.25pm (GMT), and for seven days afterwards on the BBC iPlayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lkm83

reviews:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6632652.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jul/06/radio-review-elisabeth-mahoney


Next month, an 'Open' Messiah in Tunbridge Wells, and music on the Road to Jericho (literally)....

Thank you for listening,

Antony Pitts

  


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