Radio Listener by Jim Gilchrist

As that ever-impending ring cycle looms closer, Radio Scotland and Radio 3 broadcast live from Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium tonight in MUSIC NATION: A SPORTING FANFARE. The highlight of the BBC’s Music Nation weekend of live music shows as part of the count-down to the London Olympics, the event unites violin virtuoso Nicola Benedetti and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with such former Olympic stars as Liz McColgan, Allan Wells and David Wilkie.

The Olympians, we hasten to add, will be recounting past glories, rather than singing, but they’ll be joined by the emerging generation of performers in the ranks of the National Youth Orchestra and Choir of Scotland, students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and players from the celebrated Big Noise project in Stirling’s Raploch Estate, in a programme including such old chestnuts as Ravel’s Bolero, Vangelis’s Chariots of Fire theme (of course) and a newly commissioned fanfare from James MacMillan. Benedetti will also perform a duet with Orcadian fiddler Kristan Harvey, Radio Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of 2011. Highlights from the event will be televised tomorrow on BBC2.

Meanwhile, Radio 4’s Afternoon Drama on Thursday asks whether an illicit relationship conducted solely online constitutes adultery. In LOVE VIRTUALLY, adapted from the novel by Austrian writer Daniel Glattauer, David Tennant and Emilia Fox play Leo Leike and Emmi Rothner, who enjoy a brief and mistaken encounter when one erroneously sends an e-mail to the other. Emmi is married, but a “virtual romance” develops as they embark on a secret shared life far removed from reality. But can a relationship based on escapist fantasy have any substance – and what will happen if they actually meet?

Returning to sport, Radio 3 combines art and physical jerks in THE ESSAY: LISTENER, THEY WON IT! when five writers look at how sporting endeavour has been enshrined in the arts. Sports writer and author Simon Barnes fires the starting pistol as he considers the black and white photo which freeze-frames Roger Bannister’s immortal “four-minute mile” of 1954.

Music Nation: A Sporting Fanfare

Today, Radio Scotland and Radio 3, 7:30pm

Love Virtually

Thursday, Radio 4, 2:15pm

The Essay: Listener, They Won It!

Mon-Fri, Radio 3, 10:45pm