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Music and the Mechanical Mind

Fictional robots and poetic automata alongside music created by and played by machines. With readings from Annette Badland and Daniel Millar.

The possibilities and dangers of Artificial Intelligence is one of the major issues of the day, but for centuries people have imagined machines that could think, able to create and possibly even enjoy art, so we feature early fictional examples of mechanical minds from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Thea Von Harbou's Metropolis, and automata like a moving sculpture of a silver swan and what was known as the 'talking Turk'

We consider the limits of art created by computers in poetry by Adrienne Rich and musings from Nick Cave.

And our playlist features pianola recordings from Rex Lawson, alongside a reading from HG Wells's Tono-Bungay in which the player piano assists romance, but we also make space for music very much outside of the world of the machine, such as Benjamin Britten’s ode to country life and honest hard work, The Useful Plough

The readers are Annette Badland and Daniel Millar
Produced in Salford by Jessica Treen

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 1 Mar 202618:00
BBC Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:00

    Arthur Sullivan

    Pineapple Poll: Overture

    Performer: Rex Lawson.
    • Other Minds Records.
    • Tr6.

  • H.G Wells

    Tono-Bungay

  • 00:04

    Léo Delibes

    Coppelia - suite: Danse de fete and Danse des heures

    Performer: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
    • Brilliant Classics.
    • Tr3.

  • ETA Hoffman

    The Automata

  • Rebecca Morgan Frank

    Silver Swan Automaton, c. 1773

  • 00:12

    Orlando Gibbons

    The Silver Swan

    Performer: Shirley Collins.
    • Lodestar.
    • Domino.
    • 10.
  • 00:13

    Kris Bowers

    You’re His Mother Now

    Performer: Kris Bowers.
    • Back Lot Music.
    • Tr12.

  • Peter Brown

    The Wild Robot

  • 00:15

    Peter Maxwell Davies

    5 Klee pictures for orchestra: no.3; The Twittering Machine

    Performer: Philharmonia Orchestra.
    • Maxwell Davies: Trumpet & Piccolo Concertos.
    • Naxos.
    • 3.
  • 00:16

    Alexandre Desplat

    Creature’s Tale

    Performer: Alexandre Desplat.
    • Netflix Music.
    • Tr23.

  • Mary Shelley

    Frankenstein

  • 00:20

    Will Healy

    Etude for Melancholy Robots No. 3 "Trains"

    Performer: Jenny Lin.
    • Sono Luminus.
    • Tr7.
  • 00:24

    Claude Debussy

    Arabesque No. 1

    Performer: Isao Tomita.
    • RCA.
    • Tr5.

  • Kazuo Ishiguro

    Klara and the Sun

  • 00:27

    Charles Mingus

    Work Song

    Performer: Charles Mingus.
    • Documents 2.
    • Tr4.

  • Kurt Vonnegut

    Player Piano

  • 00:31

    Scott Joplin

    Maple Leaf Rag

    Performer: Scott Joplin.
    • Public Domain.
    • Tr1.

  • Marge Piercy

    He, She, It

  • 00:34

    Benjamin Britten

    Friday Afternoons, Op. 7: IX. The Useful Plough

    Choir: Girls’ Choir of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Conductor: Edward Wickham. Conductor: Edward Wickham.
    • Resonus Classics.
    • Tr33.

  • The Noise

    Raymond Antrobus

  • 00:38

    Andy Williams

    Wives and Lovers

    • Columbia/Legacy.
    • Tr5.

  • Ira Levin

    The Stepford Wives

  • 00:40

    Marco Beltrami

    Round Up

    Performer: Studio Orchestra.
    • Varese Sarabande.
    • Tr15.

  • Isaac Asimov

    Robot Dreams

  • 00:44

    Marco Beltrami

    Round Up

    Orchestra: Studio Orchestra.
    • I, Robot (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack).
    • Varese Sarabande.
    • 15.
  • 00:45

    Squarepusher & Z-Machines

    Sad Robot Goes Funny

    • Music For Robots.
    • Warp Records.
    • 1.

  • Douglas Adams

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

  • 00:47

    Bebe & Louis Barron

    Robby, Make Me A Gown

    Performer: Bebe & Louis Barron.
    • Chrome Dreams.
    • Tr36.
  • 00:50

    Joe Meek

    Robot

    Ensemble: The Tornados.
    • The Tornados Play Telstar And Other Great Hits.
    • BMG.
    • 36.
  • 00:52

    Caroline Shaw

    Machine Drawings (Leonardo da Vinci)

    Performer: Caroline Shaw.
    • Leonardo da Vinci: A Film by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, & David McMahon (OST).
    • Nonesuch.
    • 1.

  • Simon Rich

    The New Poem-Making Machinery

  • 00:54

    Johann Sebastian Bach

    Partita No. 2 in C Minor, BWV 826: V. Rondeau

    Performer: Simone Dinnerstein.
    • Sony Classical.
    • Tr5.

  • Margaret Rhee

    Machine Testimonal 1

  • 00:57

    Nick Cave

    The Ship Song

    Performer: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
    • Mute.
    • Tr1.
  • 00:58

    Philip Glass

    Are You A Robot

    Composer: Paul Leonard‐Morgan. Performer: Philip Glass. Performer: Paul Leonard‐Morgan.
    • Tales from the Loop (Original Soundtrack).
    • Hollywood Records.
    • 5.

  • Nick Cave

    The Red Hand Files

  • Hanna Silva

    An Artificially Intelligent Guide to Love

  • Margaret Atwood

    The Handmaid’s Tale

  • 01:02

    George Antheil

    Ballet Mecanique for pianola, 8 pianos and percussion

    Performer: Ivan Davis.
    • Music Masters.
    • Tr4.
  • 01:05

    Igor Stravinsky

    Étude pour Pianola

    Performer: Rex Lawson.
    • NMC.
    • Tr4.

  • Adrienne Rich

    Artificial Intelligence

  • 01:09

    Johannes Brahms

    Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83 (IV. Allegretto grazioso)

    Performer: Simon Trpceski.
    • LINN.
    • Tr7.

Broadcast

  • Sun 1 Mar 202618:00
    BBC Radio 3

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