Fathers and Daughters

Available for 29 days

Starting with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and his daughter Avril Coleridge-Taylor, we hear music from other families; Clara Schumann, who was coached by her father Friedrich Wieck, and Ravi Shankar with daughters Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones, who followed in his footsteps. There are famous fictional fathers, from the beloved Mr Bennet to the more daunting father figure in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus and the absent father in The Railway Children. We also hear from precocious daughter Cassandra Mortmain in Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle, poetry from Helen Mort, who confronts her father's old age, and Virginia Woolf paints a literary portrait of her father Leslie Stephen. Musical extracts include O Mio Babbino Caro from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, John Alden Carpenter's Adventures in a Perambulator and Debussy's Children's Corner, dedicated to his daughter Claude-Emma. The readers are Sam Dale, who features in a new production of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca soon to be on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds; and Isis Hainsworth, recently on the West End stage in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Produced in Salford by Jessica Treen Readings: Edith Nesbit – The Railway Children Nancy B Reich - Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman John Milton - To the Lady Margaret Ley Naomi Ayala - My Dad Says Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice Virginia Woolf - Leslie Stephenson WB Yeats - A Prayer for My Daughter Avril Coleridge-Taylor - The Heritage of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor suggested by Avril's biographer Leah Broad Dodie Smith – I Capture the Castle Ian McMillan - Pushing, May 1984 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Purple Hibiscus William Shakespeare - King Lear The Brothers Grimm - The Singing, Soaring Lark John McGahern - Amongst Women Helen Mort – Glyderau Lord Byron - Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (extract) Judith Kerr – The Tiger Who Came to Tea