The Lonely Voice: Recent Episodes
Anonymous29
Short stories, with music.
"There is in the short story at its most characteristic something we do not often find in a novel – an intense awareness of human loneliness" (Frank O'Connor, The Lonely Voice, 1962).
A man reflects on his life on a summer evening.Music: Clannad, 'A Gentle Place' (from Banba), 'Lady Marion' & 'Now is Here' (from Legend), and incidental music from Robin of Sherwood (series 3)
Sound FX: from freesound.org
'John and Mary meet. What happens next?'
Music: Extracts from Jacques Loussier, The Best of Play Bach
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A widow writes a letter to a younger correspondent.
Music: Penguin Cafe Orchestra 'Nothing Really Blue', 'Hugebaby', 'Zopf: Milk'; John Cage 'In a Landscape'
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'She may say to herself it is too much strangeness for a single March or April evening'.Music: Richard Chartier, How Things Change & series 01; John Cage, The Perilous Night (III)
A tale of a severed hand, and the man who severed it.Music: Joseph Haydn, String Quartet No. 18 (I) (performed by the Kodály Quartet); Gerald Fried, 'Amok Time Suite' (Star Trek)
An old woman seeks revenge for the death of her son.Music: E. Neff, 'A View to an Improvisation'; 'Arú' (featuring Germán Díaz), from unrecalled
A mother and father fret about their son, who lives in his own mad world.Music: Excerpts from Quartet for the End of Time by Olivier Messiaen; Brian Ferneyhough, Time and Motion Study II; Paul Whiteman, 'My Blue Heaven'
A father mourns his son on Christmas Eve.Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto, '20220123', '20220207', '20220304' from 12; John Tavener, The Protecting Veil (I) (performed by Yo-Yo Ma and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra)
A bird speaks only one word.
Music: Excerpts from Béla Bartók, String Quartet No. 2 (performed by the Hungarian String Quartet)
A man encounters a pigeon and comes undone. Part 5 of 5. Music: Béla Bartók, 'The Night's Music' (performed by Zoltán Kocsis); Iannis Xenakis, à r. à r (performed by Claude Helffer); Erik Satie, excerpts from Complete Piano Works (performed by Cristina Ariagno); The Keylings, 'Demented Chopsticks'; Satie, Vexations.
A man encounters a pigeon and comes undone. Part 4 of 5.
Music: Erik Satie, excerpt from Complete Piano Works (performed by Cristina Ariagno); Dmitri Shostakovich, Piano Sonata No. 1 Op. 12 (performed by Lilya Zilberstein); Eric Satie, Vexations
A man encounters a pigeon and comes undone. Part 3 of 5.
Music: Erik Satie, excerpts from Complete Piano Works (performed by Cristina Ariagno)
A man encounters a pigeon and comes undone. Part 2 of 5.
Music: Erik Satie, Vexations; Satie: excerpts from Complete Piano Works (performed by Cristina Ariagno); The Keylings, 'Demented Chopsticks'
A man encounters a pigeon and comes undone. Part 1 of 5.
Music: Erik Satie, Vexations; Satie: excerpts from Complete Piano Works (performed by Cristina Ariagno); The Keylings, 'Demented Chopsticks'
In the far reaches of the universe, an astronaut makes a discovery that shakes his faith in a merciful God.
Sound design: 'NASA Voyager Space Sounds – Jupiter', reworked and mixed by Jeffrey Thompson; Ryoji Ikeda +/-; Enya, 'Oíche Chiúin'
For a soldier in the Irish Civil War it's kill or be killed.
Music: Massive Attack, 'Angel'; Psilonaut, 'Third from the Sun' (from the π soundtrack)
Birth was the death of it.
Music: Mark Anthony Turnage, 'GG part II', performed by The G Project; Henry Cowell, 'Ostinato Pianissimo', performed by the George Barton Ensemble
A goose leads a charmed existence, for a while.
Music: Maurice Ravel, Mother Goose Suite (performed by Ensemble Q); Gabriel Prokofiev, String Quartet No. 2 (IV) (performed by The Elysian Quartet)
A young pianist provokes rapture and mystery.
Music: Johannes Brahms, Intermezzo in A major, op. 118 no. 2 (performed by Stephen Kovacevich); Frédéric Chopin, Mazurka op. 17 no. 4, performed by Christina Kwok; Gabriel Fauré, 'In Paradisum' (arranged for piano; performed by Emile Naoumoff)
A canon has a trying time in a confessional.
Music: César Franck, Andantino in G Moll; J.S. Bach, Trio Sonatas & Toccata and Fugue in D Minor; Ennio Morricone, 'Music Clock', from For a Few Dollars More; Cirque Plume, 'Quand Nestor Danse' from L'harmonie est-elle municipale?
'A few minutes before death...the Devil always appeared to the dying'.
Music: Modest Mussorgsky, 'The Old Castle' from Pictures at an Exhibition (performed by James Crabb and Geir Draugsvoll); Astor Piazolla, Flora's Game (performed by Grenade Rotari); Alberto Posadas, Snefru(Rotari); Mick O'Shea/AC, playing 'the maids'
'I jumped out of bed to feel my stocking, well knowing that the worst had happened'.
Music: Trio Mio, 'Pigeon Scottish' from Stories Around a Holy Goat (2007); Barry Phillips, 'Nos Galan (Deck the Hall)' from Colonial Christmas (2008); Adrian Patrick Gebruers, 'Celtic Suite 2' from The Bells of Cobh (2007); The Jackson 5, 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' from Jackson 5 Christmas Album (1970)
'The old sickness has me in its grip again: amnesia in litteris, the total loss of literary memory'.
Music: Erik Satie, Gnossiennes 1-6, performed by Reinbert de Leeuw
'I'm Death, and I make everyone equal'.
Music: Peter Gabriel, 'San Jacinto (Instrumental)' & 'Diggin in the Dirt (Instrumental)' from New Blood (2011)
'A mouse, a bird and a sausage decided to set up home together...'
Music: Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 'Dirt' from Signs of Life (1987)
'It's just as dark down among the dead as it ever was.'
Music: Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata (1st mvt.) & Tchaikovsky, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, performed by Donghyuk Heo on modular synthesiser
'For we are like tree trunks in the snow'.
Music: Zoe Keating, 'Icefloe' from Snowmelt (2018)
'Alas', said the mouse, 'the world is getting smaller every day'.
Music: Bernard Herrmann, Psycho Suite [Tippett Quartet ]
'An angel, then!' I thought; 'it has been flying toward me all the day and in my disbelief I did not know it'.
Music: John Metcalfe & Matthew Barley, 'Tracing the Outline' & 'The Appearance of Colour' from Constant Filter (2010)
'What kind of people are these? Do they ever think, or do they just shuffle pointlessly over the earth?'
Music: Mouth Music, 'Whaling Ship', from Seafaring Man (2001)
'And what is the point of this continual being together anyhow?'
Music: (1) Leroy Anderson, Plink, Plank, Plunk (2)The Typewriter Orchestra Performs from Home
'A certain philosopher used to hang about wherever children were at play. And whenever he saw a boy with a top, he would lie in wait.'
Music: Martin Molin, 'The Marble Machine Song'
'I have a curious animal, half kitten, half lamb'.
Music: Cirque Plume, 'Bateleurs' from Plic Ploc; 'Jumeau Jumelle' & 'Nestor Tango' from L'harmonie est-elle municipale?
'The longer one hesitates before the door, the more estranged one becomes'.
Music: Bernard Herrmann, Souvenirs de Voyage for clarinet quintet, first movement
'I was stiff and cold. I was a bridge'.
Music: Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8, first and second movements [Éder Quartet]
'A vulture was hacking at my feet'.
Music: Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8, third movement [Éder Quartet]