In W.H Auden's centenary year, Alexander McCall Smith explores the writer's passion for music and song.

Auden collaborated with Britten, Stravinksy and Henze on opera libretti, but he also had a passion for popular forms such as jazz, blues and cabaret.

McCall Smith will look at the poet's friendship with Britten, and we will hear a wide range of music that he helped create as well as new interviews with the pianist Natasha Spender, widow of the poet Stephen Spender, the poet Peter Porter, Britten's publisher Donald Mitchell and others.

MUSIC & FACTUAL

It was broadcast on Radio 4 in April 2007