"MY fingers closed on the fingers of a little ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me. I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it and a most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in. Let me in.'"
There were more than a few ghosts haunting the corners of the radio schedule this week. The prospect of Hallowe'en will do that, I guess. The most enjoyable was This Haunted Land, the latest episode of the Words and Music series on Radio 3 on Sunday evening.
There weree readings from the likes of MR James, Emily Bronte (quoted above, but you knew that, right?), Algernon Blackwood, John Donne and Thomas Hardy (all read with a nervous intensity by Tim McInnerny, above, and Ayesha Antoine). These wee interspersed with musical selections that stretched from Henry Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary to Goblin's soundtrack for Dario Argento's Italian horror masterpiece Suspiria. Together, they conjured up an enveloping, misty atmosphere.
The words were good, the music maybe better. A bit of Bartok, Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind's score for The Shining, a snatch or two from Schubert's gloomily pretty Winterreise and Paul Giovanni's creepily beautiful folk tune Willow's Song (the only good thing about the film The Wicker Man if you ask me).
The programme understood that horror is essentially all about heightened moments. No need to worry about plot or characters or credibility. All it asked was for us to give ourselves over to its shivery pleasures.
There were other ghosts haunting the airwaves on Sunday evening. Over on 6 Music, Amy Lame offered up two hours of ambient house, as part of the station's Slow Sunday theme. Listening to The Orb, the KLK, Max Richter and many others I found myself all nostalgic for the late, lamented (in my house) Chill FM.
Listen Out For: The Essay, Radio 3, Monday to Friday, 10.45pm. Enough spooks, here's sheepdogs. All week Fiona Stafford looks at composers and their dogs, kicking off with Wagner and his Newfoundland dog Robber.
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