"Les petites girls Anglaises" was the nickname given by a French journalist to the elaborately costumed and rhythmic Tiller Girls troupe. Adjoa Osei is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and a former performer herself, and she's been exploring the complexities involved in being a dancing girl in 1930s Paris, appearing on stage alongside the likes of Josephine Baker and French nude dancers. Her essay focuses on the lives of Marjorie Rowland and Mignon Harman. You can find another Radio 3 Essay building on Adjoa's research as a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker called A Brazilian Soprano in Jazz-Age Paris available on BBC Sounds. Producer: Katy Hickman

1574, and a baby girl on board a ship fleeing from France, arrives in London. Esther Inglis went on to become a successful Tudor bookmaker and artist and Eleanor Chan argues that the inclusion of psalm music in the self portraits created by Inglis is a coded way of symbolising belonging at a time of religious strife. The essay draws on research done by New Generation Thinker Eleanor Chan, who has been working as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Manchester and the Warburg Institute. Work by Esther Inglis is included in the exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920 which runs at Tate Britain until October 13th 2024 You can hear more about Tudor music and art in a Free Thinking episode called a Lively Tudor World which features Eleanor Chan and Christina Faraday. It's available on BBC Sounds. You can also find Eleanor Chan's Essay about another Tudor composer - The discordant tale of Thomas Weelkes. Producer: Luke Mulhall

"Millons be Free" is a Jacobin song which originally celebrated the idea of the French Revolution, whose tune became the American national anthem. Oskar Jensen sings us the melody and tells us a story involving Alexander Hamilton, the advocate of women's rights Mary Wollstonecraft, Haydn and Hummel at a drinking society, a Liverpool lawyer William Roscoe and William Pirsson, a Chelmsford bookseller who immigrated to the USA. Oskar Jensen is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, based at Newcastle University working on a project called The Invention of Pop Music: Mainstream Song, Class, and Culture, 1520–2020. His books include Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-Century London and he also worked on The Subversive Voice research project. You can find more from his research on BBC Sounds in episodes of the Arts & Ideas podcast called Victorian Streets, Napoleon in Fact and Fiction and Eliza Flower and non-conformist thinking.Producer: Jayne Egerton.

How musician Robert Hales and a witty song helped Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's counsellor, win back the Queen's favour. Documents show us that Cecil supported many musicians, paid for a full-time consort, and had to temporarily dismiss one player for "lewdness". New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday tells the story and explores what we know about the role of music at the Tudor court. Christina Faraday is a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and is the author of the book Tudor Liveliness: Vivid Art in Post-Reformation England. You can hear her discussing Tudor history in several Essays and episodes of Free Thinking available as Arts & Ideas podcasts. Producer: Natalia Fernandez

Teresa del Riego's work was a staple of early Prom seasons but the anthem she premiered for the suffrage movement in 1911, at the Criterion restaurant Piccadilly Circus, which had 1,000 copies of the song distributed around the country, has not been heard recently. Naomi Paxton shares her research into the compositions of del Riego (1876-1968) and the music making of the suffrage circle. Singer Lucy Stevens performs The Awakening (with lyrics by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox) alongside Elizabeth Marcus at the piano. Naomi Paxton is a BBC/Arts and Humanities Research Council New Generation Thinker on the scheme which helps early career academics share research on radio. You can find her more of her work on suffragette history as Arts & Ideas podcasts, Sunday features and Essays on BBC Sounds. Lucy Stevens and Elizabeth Marcus have recorded Songs and Ballads by Dame Ethel Smyth and rehearsed this del Riego song especially for The Essay recording. Producer: Lisa Jenkinson

Multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart shares an emotional story of organizing a music festival for a terminally ill neighbor during lockdown. The experience leads her to reevaluate her work and focus on deeper connections and collaborations in her music.

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. As the evening of the gig approaches Karine begins to understand how her discussions with Al are opening up conversations not just with her but also with his family. Written and Presented by Karine Polwart Producer by Peter McManus Mixed by Sean Mullervy

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award-winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine reflects on the strange purposelessness she felt at the time, with no one to play for or with what use was she? The offer of to play in Al's back garden became as much a gift to her as him.Written and Presented by Karine Polwart Producer by Peter McManus Mixed by Sean Mullervy

In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine considers the power of song to transport us to a place and time conjuring up important moments in our lives.Written and Presented by Karine Polwart Producer by Peter McManus Mixed by Sean Mullervy

The multi-award-winning folksinger, songwriter and storyteller, Karine Polwart, crafts an elegy in song for Al Beck, a local legend of rural East Lothian. The songs - were Al's choices for ‘Beckstival' a back garden celebration co-created in the depth of lockdown during June 2020, just weeks before Al's death from cancer. The music ranged from 60s psychedelia and pop classics to a traditional pipe march. The tender and witty email correspondence between the two gives voice to Al himself, and underpins Karine's week-long meditation on the role that song plays in each of our stories of living and dying - as lullaby and love letter, memory marker and memorial. In this first essay Karine describes making the offer of the private gig and being overwhelmed by Al's response, starting what would be remarkable collaboration for them both.Written and Presented by Karine Polwart Producer by Peter McManus Mixed by Sean Mullervy