The Dreams

The Radio Times entry for its first broadcast in 1964

The Radio Times entry for its second broadcast in 1975

The Dreams (1964) is the first of Delia's four Inventions for Radio produced in collaboration with the poet and dramatist Barry Bermange.

Part of the four programme "Inventions for Radio" series, created in collaboration with Barry Bermange, Dreams is a collection of spliced/reassembled interviews with people describing their dreams. Delia's editing and repetition, together with her dissonant, often terrifying musique concrete soundbeds, make this distinctly uneasy bedtime listening. The entire piece is 45 minutes in length.

The text from the two Radio Times entries for when it was broadcast:

7.15 The Dreams
This programme of sounds and voices is an attempt to re-create in five movements some sensations of dreaming—running away, falling, landscape, underwater and colour. All the voices were recorded from life and arranged in a setting of pure electronic sounds.
   -- The Radio Times, 1964

10.15 The Dreams
The first of three Inventions for radio by Barry Bermange, in collaboration with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. More than ten years have elapsed since these ‘re-creations in sounds and voices’ were first broadcast. They introduced a fresh genre to the medium and remain classics of radio technique.
   -- The Radio Times, 1975

It also gets called "Within Dreams".

Structure

Two different edits of the work were broadcast: one, for the UK, with five movements:

• 1. Running (8:08)
  

• 2. Falling (8:45)
  

• 3. Land (7:02)
  

• 4. Sea (8:31)
  

• 5. Colour (6:23)
  

and one for overseas broadcast, labelled "TX (Third) 5.1.1964", which lacks the third movement and has shorter, less elaborate versions of the other four.

• 1. Running (3:48)
• 2. Falling (7:47)
• 3. Sea (8:31)
• 4. Colour (6:23)

Papers

• DD105933 Radio Times clipping for its second broadcast
• DD153803 Delia's notes for the piece

Tapes

• DD014: "Amor Dei Part 2 & The Dreams Part 1"
• DD015: "The Dreams Part 2"
• TRW 5099: "The Dreams" for series "Mid Century Attitudes"
• TRW 6203: "The Dreams (for transcription)"

Copyright

The Performing Right Society's list of works by Delia Ann Derbyshire has:

Title: The Delian Mode
Writer(s): Derbyshire Delia Ann
Publisher: BBC Worldwide Music
Creation date: 11 August 1999

Availability

• Broadcast 5 Jan 1964 on the Third Programme.
• Broadcast 14 Jan 1964 on the Third Programme.
• Broadcast 28 Nov 1969 on Bayerische Rundfunk
• Broadcast 19 Oct 1993 21:45-22:45 on BBC Radio 3.
• In the BBC Sound Archive on tape TRW 5099.
• An excerpt is on TRW 7059.
• An audio clip from the start of Sea is available at delia-derbyshire.org
• Falling can be downloaded from divShare