"Barwick Green" is the

theme music Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at ...

to the long-running

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

soap opera A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...

The Archers ''The Archers'' is a British radio soap opera currently broadcast on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word Radio broadcasting, channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now pr ...

''. A " maypole dance" from the suite ''My Native Heath'' written in 1924 by the

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

composer Arthur Wood, it is named after

Barwick-in-Elmet Barwick-in-Elmet (pronounced ''Barrick-in-Elmet'') is a village in West Yorkshire, east of Leeds city centre. It is one of only three places in the area to be explicitly associated with the ancient Romano-British kingdom of Elmet, the others b ...

in Yorkshire's West Riding. The recording used between 1950 and the 1990s was played by Sidney Torch and his orchestra. Sidney Torch recorded a commercial version of "Barwick Green" in the 1950s, but it was not used on ''The Archers'' itself. The familiar opening 7 notes are echoed in the pizzicato in

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

's '' Simple Symphony'', written in 1934. The Sunday omnibus broadcast of ''The Archers'' starts with a more rustic,

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

-arranged rendition by The Yetties, while

BBC Radio 4 Extra BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It mostly broadcasts archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes, and is the sister station of Radio 4. It is the pri ...

's former spinoff, '' Ambridge Extra'', used a version arranged by

Bellowhead Bellowhead is an English contemporary folk band, active from 2004 to 2016, reforming in 2020. The eleven-piece act played traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with arrangements drawing inspiration from a wide range of musical sty ...

References

External links

Item about Woods and "Barwick Green"
on

's '' Front Row'', 24 June 2011, at 18m27s. By chance, the clip begins with the final seconds of the evening's ''The Archers'', so ''Barwick Green'' is heard. {{Authority control Radio theme songs The Archers Light music compositions 1924 compositions