Radio 3's Fifty Modern Classics

Dutch composer Michel van der Aa salutes compatriot Louis Andriessen's 1976 work for amplified voices and large ensemble, De Staat. Gillian Moore highlights the modern scoring of the work, informed as much by rock music as Stravinsky, while the composer himself reveals how a recording of a Javanese women's choir fed directly into the soundworld of this powerful setting of a text from Plato's Republic.

Sir Harrison Birtwistle singles out Pierre Boulez's 1950s cycle for voice and mixed ensemble, and describes encountering the score for the first time, while Paul Griffiths explains how the composer employed total serialism and a radical new approach to instrumentation in illuminating the fleeting, surrealist poetry of Rene Char.

Novelist and poet Mark Haddon explains what it is about Elliott Carter's String Quartet No.3 that reminds him of an argumentative family meal; the composer himself describes with relish his 'eclipses' of sound; and Paul Griffiths explains Carter's use of metric modulation.

Film-maker Sophie Fiennes explains why she chose György Ligeti's Atmosphères for the soundtrack of a film about artist Anselm Kiefer, and Paul Griffiths explains its significance in Ligeti's development of cloud-like musical structures. And we also hear from the composer himself.

Matthew Herbert, songwriter and electronic music producer, reflects on the continuing relevance of Steve Reich's seminal 1988 piece for string quartet and tape, where recorded speech leads the melodic lines to create a remarkable and evocative atmosphere. The feature includes commentary from the South Bank's Head of Contemporary Culture Gillian Moore, and we also hear the voice of the composer himself.

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