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Marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme

At 7.30am on 1 July 1916, whistles were blown up and down the British front line and thousands of men climbed from their trenches into no man’s land. It was the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Radio 3 commemorates this anniversary with a series of programmes complementing the BBC's World War One season. Explore and reflect with a thoughtful collection of music and culture including essays, documentaries and concerts to mark the centenary of one of the bloodiest battles of Word War One.

Morning Heroes in Afternoon on 3

Afternoon On 3 will feature a performance of Morning Heroes, a choral symphony by Arthur Bliss. Bliss was injured on the Somme on 7 July 1916, and his brother was killed there in September. Morning Heroes was not composed until 1930, when he finally felt able to express his trauma in a public way. It is dedicated ‘To the memory of my brother Francis Kennard Bliss and all other comrades killed in battle’.

Listen on BBC Radio 3, 1 July 2016 at 2.00pm

Radio 3 in Concert

Conducted by Adrian Partington, the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales presents a concert of choral and orchestral music. Radio 3 In Concert features music by composers with strong links to the battle, including George Butterworth and Frances Purcell Warren, who were both killed in action; and Albert Roussel who served in the transport division for the French army carrying troops to the battlefield.

Listen on BBC Radio 3, 1 July 2016 19.30pm

Opera on 3

The young British composer Iain Bell's new commission In Parenthesis, recorded last month in Cardiff, sets an adaptation of one of the Great War's critically acclaimed texts by the Welsh painter and poet David Jones. The Artistic Director of Welsh National Opera David Pountney directs, while Carlo Rizzi conducts the Chorus and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera.

First published by TS Eliot in 1937, the opera is based on Jones's own experiences serving as an infantryman in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. The opera follows Private John Ball (sung by American tenor Andrew Bidlack) and his comrades from an army parade ground in England in December 1915 to the front line in France seven months later.

Listen on BBC Radio 3, 2 July 2016 6.30pm

The Choir

Sara Mohr-Pietsch interviews Svend Brown, director of the East Neuk festival about a new piece he commissioned from American composer David Lang. The work, entitled Memorial Ground, is inspired by the first world war stories of Scottish families.

Listen on BBC Radio 3, 3 July 2016 4.00pm

Dawn on the Somme

Dr Kate Kennedy follows the lives of composers at the Somme – George Butterworth, Arthur Bliss and his brother Kennard, Ivor Gurney, and Frederick Septimus Kelly – through their letters and diaries, and their responses to the war in music and poetry.

Listen on BBC Radio 3, 3 July 2016 6.45pm

Free Thinking

Free Thinking presents a landmark edition exploring the life of David Jones and the way his epic poem of World War 1, In Parenthesis, fits into his career as a writer and artist. Jones was present at fighting around Mametz Wood during the Battle of the Somme. The programme was recorded in front of an audience at Welsh National Opera before the premiere on 13 May, and broadcast at 10pm on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 18 May.

Listen or download the episode here.

The Essay

A series of Radio 3 Essays featuring five new poems written in response to the battle, commissioned by the World War One centenary arts project 14-18 NOW and broadcast for the first time 4-8 July. The series features poems by Paul Muldoon, Yrsa Daley-Ward, Bill Manhire, Jackie Kay and Daljit Nagra, who each present their poems and explain the inspiration behind them.

Listen on BBC Radio 3, 4 July 2016 22.45pm

Live music commemorating the Somme centenary

At BBC Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff, the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales present music by composers who fought or died in the battle, and works written in memory of them. From the Maxwell Hall at the University of Salford the BBC Philharmonic presents a programme of works by UK composers who served on the Somme including George Butterworth, Cecil Coles and Ivor Gurney plus the world premiere of Stephen Davismoon’s memorial to the fallen, God’s Own Caught In No Man’s Land. At St Paul’s Knightsbridge, the BBC Singers present a concert of works reflecting the anniversary, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo play a key part in the ceremony taking place at the Thiepval Memorial.

The Somme centenary across the BBC