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Wagner’s Ring Cycle: The Ultimate Box Set Binge

Tom Service explores classical music’s ultimate binge-listening box set - Richard Wagner’s apocalyptic four-part 16-hour marathon music drama, The Ring.

Tom Service explores classical music’s ultimate binge-listening box set - Richard Wagner’s apocalyptic four-part 16-hour marathon music drama, The Ring.

Cram packed with heroes, heroines, gods and goddesses, it took 25 years to write and has inspired everyone from JRR Tolkien to Francis Ford Coppola and Bugs Bunny.

Selfishness, deception, hypocrisy, greed, destruction; like all good box sets they’re all in there, but what’s The Ring really about? And what can we, and perhaps today’s world leaders, learn from it?

Tom has half an hour to find out.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Fri 18 Nov 2022 16:30
BBC Radio 3

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Music Played

  • Richard Wagner

    Gotterdammerung [Part 4 of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen']

    Conductor: Karl Bohm. Performer: Birgit Nilsson. Performer: Josef Greindl. Performer: Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele. Performer: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
    • Decca.
    • 478 2367.

  • Anna Russell

    The Ring of the Nibelungs (An Analysis) for piano

    Performer: Anna Russell. Performer: Harry Dworkin. Performer: John Coveart.
    • Sony.
    • G010001222306F.

  • Richard Wagner

    Das Rheingold [Part 1 of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen']

    Conductor: Karl Bohm. Performer: Theo Adam. Performer: Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele. Performer: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
    • Decca.
    • 478 2367.

  • M J Franklyn

    What's Opera, Doc?

    Composer: Richard Wagner. Conductor: George Daugherty. Performer: The Warner Bros. Symphony Orchestra.
    • WARNER BROS.
    • 9-26494-2.

  • Richard Wagner

    Die Walkure [Part 2 of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen']

    Conductor: Karl Bohm. Performer: Theo Adam. Performer: Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele. Performer: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
    • Decca.
    • 478 2367.

  • Rick Wakeman

    The Inferno Ride

    Performer: Rick Wakeman.
    • vpt.
    • VPTCCD1.

  • Richard Wagner

    Siegfried [Part 3 of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen']

    Conductor: Karl Bohm. Performer: Chor der Bayreuther Festspiele. Performer: Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
    • Decca.
    • 478 2367.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 31 May 2020 17:00
    BBC Radio 3
  • Fri 5 Jun 2020 16:30
    BBC Radio 3
  • Sun 14 Feb 2021 17:00
    BBC Radio 3
  • Fri 19 Feb 2021 16:30
    BBC Radio 3
  • Sun 13 Nov 2022 17:00
    BBC Radio 3
  • Fri 18 Nov 2022 16:30
    BBC Radio 3

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