The 13 Most Popular Posts On The BBC Radio 3 Tumblr

The BBC's picture archive is called Elvis. Nobody knows why. It's awesome. There are over three million photographs in there, from the whole ninety-year history of the Corporation, and lots of them have literally never been seen. We post gorgeous and strange and fascinating pictures from Elvis on the Radio 3 Tumblr a couple of times per week.

13. The 2LO Orchestra, 1927

2LO was the radio service that became the BBC and the 2LO Orchestra was the orchestra that became the BBC Symphony Orchestra. There's another pic in this set, from after the photographer says "you can put your bows down now."

12. Dylan Thomas, 1948

Before Radio 3 there was the Third Programme. Dylan Thomas appeared on the Third dozens of times, sometimes in small roles in plays written by friends of his, sometimes as a voice and sometimes, of course, as writer. Under Milk Wood, his masterpiece, had its premiere on the Third Programme a couple of months after his death in 1953.

11. The Queen's Hall, 1928

The Proms wasn't always the BBC Proms and it wasn't always put on at the Royal Albert Hall. The BBC took over the operation of the festival in 1928, over thirty years after it was founded. Its home back then was the Queen's Hall in Langham Place. It was, by all accounts, a gorgeous venue with an almost perfect acoustic. Sadly we can't confirm this because the Hall was destroyed in a German incendiary raid in 1941.

10. Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1956

Stockhausen was a fabulously glamorous, kooky figurehead for the European avant-garde, a leading light of the Darmstadt School, with his young friends Boulez, Nono and Maderna. He broke every rule in composition and staging, invented electronic music more-or-less on his own and, famously, wrote a piece scored for four helicopters and a string quartet. The Third Programme was among his earliest supporters.

9. William Herschel, 1792

Herschel was a composer but also an important astronomer. In 1781 he discovered the planet Uranus. These days he's a space telescope (although sadly defunct).

8. Christopher Stone, the first DJ, 1924

Stone played records on the radio. In the 1920s. He also, evidently, had a pretty slick two-deck set-up.

7. Seal playing a saxophone, 1932

Back before television they used to put variety shows on the radio - comedians, singers, monologuists. But also jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists. And seals, obviously.

6. Krzysztof Penderecki conducting his 'St Luke Passion'

Penderecki (/ˈkʃɪʃtɔːf ˌpɛndəˈrɛtski/), Polish modernist, teacher, conductor, national hero. Composer of half a dozen really important modern works. In the picture he's rehearsing the BBC Symphony Orchestra for a performance at the BBC Proms in 1983.

5. Thelonious Monk at Ronnie Scotts in 1970

Monk was still an important figure in 1970, and this appearance at Ronnie's would have been a big deal. The photographer for this shoot obviously didn't know this, though. Monk's on the edge of every picture. I hope there was no question of a fee.

4. Unnamed string quartet, Aberdeen, 1928

Heartbreaking, really. The archive records that this tidy, Edwardian string quartet is performing for a BBC radio broadcast but we have no idea who they are.

3. Nureyev and Fonteyn on BBC TV in 1963

Together for the first episode of a new BBC TV show called ‘Gala Performance’. They danced a pas de deux from Khachaturyan’s ‘Gayaneh' and another from Act III of 'Swan Lake’.

2. Rahsaan Roland Kirk, 1963

Kirk was an awkward, eccentric, brilliant jazz musician, a virtuoso on half a dozen different instruments (sometimes at the same time). This picture's from a session for a BBC TV programme about him from 1963.

1. Leonard Bernstein in 1986

The number one post on the Radio 3 Tumblr, by about a mile. An amazing set of B&W pics of composer, conductor and educator Leonard Bernstein, taken during the recording of a BBC TV programme in 1986, four years before his death.