Composer

Saturday

James MacMillan

James MacMillan, Sebastian Morello, Amy Wilentz, Sam Leith and Lloyd Evans

32 min listen

This week: composer James MacMillan reads his diary on the beautiful music of football (01:11); Sebastian Morello tells us about the deep connection between hunting and Christianity (07:17); Amy Wilentz explains how Vodou fuels Haiti’s gang culture (16:14); The Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith reviews The Virago Book of Friendship (22:38); and – from the arts pages – The Spectator’s theatre critic Lloyd Evans writes about a new play on the last days of Liz Truss and also about Bette and Joan, which includes ‘brutal’ and ‘brilliant’ portraits of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (26:37). Presented by Oscar Edmondson. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Wednesday

Simon Heffer

Vaughan Williams’s genius is now beyond dispute

Classical music plays hell with people’s posthumous reputations, as any admirer of the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams will tell you. In 1972, on the centenary of his birth, ample respects were shown. Not only were there special concerts of his music but the Post Office, which is now more focused on commemorating gay pride, issued a stamp. Since the composer’s death in 1958 he and his works had gone into an eclipse, not least because of the atonalists who controlled the Third Programme and many of our concert halls. These were people who believed the British music-loving public should be fed on a diet of what Kathleen Ferrier called