Starting with
an underwater concert, Midge Ure sounds the depths of the complex relationship
between music and water.
Water has
fascinated classical composers, modernist musicians and contemporary sound
artists alike, and in this programme Midge hears some of the extraordinary ways
in which water has been represented, evoked and even used as an instrument by
musicians over the centuries. It flows through an extraordinary range of
pieces. Midge meets experts on water compositions by Beethoven, Wagner and
Debussy and explains why Handel's Water Music is not technically speaking water
music at all.
While some of
the water music we know best might be classical, water continues to appeal to
those working at the musical cutting edge. Midge has a go at playing a bizarre
instrument called a 'waterphone' and talks to sound artist Lee Patterson as he
performs a strangely hypnotic piece of 'drip music'. He also listens to
recordings of the Danube by sound artist Annea Lockwood. She believes the sound
of running water is itself music, raising the question of whether or not water
and music are actually different at all. Water, it seems, continues to excite,
mystify and intrigue, and musicians have engaged with it with whatever
instruments they have had at their disposal: orchestras, pianos, and now
computers.
Midge goes to
meet Simon Harding who makes electronic music on his computer using the water
sounds from appliances in his house, while Professor Doug James, a computer
scientist at Cornell University, explains some of the science behind water's
unique musicality. There is a wealth of beautiful water music already in
existence as this programme shows, but water is still a vigorously flowing
source of musical inspiration, even expanding our ideas of what we consider
music to be.
Presenter:
Midge Ure
Producer: Tom
Rice
A Pier
Production for BBC Radio 4.
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