The Listening Service

With magician, performer, and academic Naomi Paxton on what happens when a trick goes wrong...

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the connections between music and magic.

Tom Service waves his magic wand to explore the connections between music and magic.

His music incorporates everything from hymn tunes to brass band marches but foreshadowed many ideas and innovations that were later used widely in 20th-century classical music. As the conductor Leonard Slatkin puts it, 'knowing one Ives piece may not prepare you for another!

Tom Service looks beyond the quirks of Ives's unusual life as a composer and explores how his incredible music actually works.

With literary historian Oliver Tearle.

Tom Service assesses the history of the post of master of the king's (or queen's) music.

TOM SERVICE seeks answers with the help of maths man Marcus du Sautoy and composer Jessica Curry.

David Papp (producer)

After 1,000 years of written music, can there be any more new tunes?

But as a new year dawns how do the drama, power and epic sound worlds of Also Sprach Zarathustra ask and answer the fundamental questions of the universe and our place in it? Tom is joined by our witness philosopher Katrina Mitcheson to find out.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom explores a piece composed by Strauss, inspired by Nietzsche and made famous by Kubrick

Music's power to express and exorcise anger has taken composers, performers, and listeners, to the Dark Side of music's profoundly emotional powers. How do you make the sounds of anger? We'll scream like heavy metal virtuosos and operatic divas, we'll explore the harmonies of anger through the sounds of the angriest classical music over the centuries, and we'll hear what happens in our brains when we just have to express our vexatious impulses.

But while there's a cathartic feeling of release once we've got over the musical, emotional, and hormonal expression of angriness, music itself can also make us angry. It makes TOM SERVICE angry: when you're on hold on that phone-call to the gas-board, when that TV theme or YouTube meme gets stuck in your head and just won't budge: music can make us as exquisitely cross as any other fact of our lives.

We'll get anger management advice from Commander-In-Chief, Shred guitarist Berit Hagen (angry), composer Richard Sisson (very angry) and lecturer in drama and performance Tiffany Watt Smith (seething).

From the sounds of anger to anger-inducing ear-worm:: join us in an emotionally exorcising edition of The Listening Service. You'll feel better. And if you don't you can get very angry with us!

Today at Sage Gateshead Tom finds out how music can induce, express and exorcise anger.

We'll get anger management advice from Commander-In-Chief, Shred guitarist Berit Hagen (angry), composer Richard Sisson (very angry) and Professor of Black Studies Kehinde Andrews (seething).

From the sounds of anger to anger-inducing ear-worm: join us in an emotionally exorcising edition of The Listening Service. You'll feel better. And if you don't you can get very angry with us!

Tom tunes into the background, exploring what background music really is; telling the surprising story of the Muzak corporation, and discovering that there's a range of background functions that music can have: from the 'furniture music' of Erik Satie to the Stimulus Progression albums used in Lyndon B Johnson's White House. Daniel Barenboim, Julian Lloyd-Webber and Brian Eno help explain the power of and problems with background music.

Tom tunes into the background, exploring what background music really is; telling the surprising story of the Muzak corporation, and discovering that there's a range of background functions that music can have: from the 'furniture music' of Erik Satie to the Stimulus Progression albums used in LYNDON B JOHNSON's White House.DANIEL BARENBOIM, Julian Lloyd-Webber and BRIAN ENO help explain the power of and problems with background music.

Tom tunes into the background, exploring what background music really is; telling the surprising story of the Muzak corporation, and discovering that there's a range of background functions that music can have: from the 'furniture music' of Erik Satie to the Stimulus Progression albums used in LYNDON B JOHNSON's White House. DANIEL BARENBOIM, Julian Lloyd-Webber and BRIAN ENO help explain the power of and problems with background music.

Everyone loves good music, but when is music bad? Can we objectively define bad music - are there any rules to help - or is it a matter of taste and fashion? What music was once thought good but we now regard as bad? (And vice versa.)

Join arbiter of taste Tom Service as he dispenses judgment, both considered and otherwise.

Tom service explores the extraordinarily original music of Bela Bartok. This Hungarian composer, who was a contemporary of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, managed to avoid the direct influence of these two giants of modern music and created his own musical style, partly inspired by the folk music that he discovered (and recorded onto wax cylinders) in the Hungarian countryside before the First World War. His six string quartets are unmatched for their intensity and invention, and as a concert pianist himself, he wrote much groundbreaking piano music, including three concertos. Bartok's pedagogical series of pieces called Mikrokosmos is still much used by students of the piano, and Tom discusses the composer's piano music with another virtuoso pianist, C退dric Tiberghien.

TOM SERVICE explores the extraordinarily original music of Bela Bartok. This Hungarian composer, who was a contemporary of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, managed to avoid the direct influence of these two giants of modern music and created his own musical style, partly inspired by the folk music that he discovered (and recorded onto wax cylinders) in the Hungarian countryside before the First World War. His six string quartets are unmatched for their intensity and invention, and as a concert pianist himself, he wrote much groundbreaking piano music, including three concertos. Bartok's pedagogical series of pieces called Mikrokosmos is still much used by students of the piano, and Tom discusses the composer's piano music with another virtuoso pianist, C?dric Tiberghien.

For insights into the essence of composition -- how you decide what comes next -- TOM SERVICE talks to one of today's most exciting young composers. Shiva Feshareki explains how she decides one musical path over another in her own work and what choices she has made in her new piece based on a specially recorded performance of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth.

Part of Radio 3's Beethoven Remixed project, which offers musicians and non-musicians alike the chance to create their own remixes of Beethoven's Fifth, using recordings made by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

David Papp (producer)

How did Beethoven compose one the most famous works in classical music?

Part of Radio 3's Beethoven Remixed project, which offers musicians and non-musicians alike the chance to create their own remixes of Beethoven's Fifth, using recordings made by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08x4b5z

Beethoven: deaf for most of his life, unbearable egotist, flagrant opportunist and musical anarchist whose music reaches the heights of ecstasy. Where do you start with this bundle of contradictions, probably the most admired composer in Western music, whose works have unfailingly filled concert halls for over 200 years? TOM SERVICE goes in search of what makes Beethoven Beethoven and suggests a few key pieces to help unlock the man and his music.

David Papp (producer)

He's the most famous composer in Western music but what makes Beethoven Beethoven?

Beethoven lived in an age of revolution and his music has long been associated with heroism. But does posterity's casting of Beethoven as a hero mean that we miss crucial things in the music of others, or even of Beethoven himself? Is he a musical hero or a musical villain? And what does Beethoven have to say about heroines?

Rethink music, with The Listening Service.

TOM SERVICE asks if posterity's casting of Beethoven as a hero is problematic.

Tom Service explores arguably the most famous piece of music in the world: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's a piece which has been appropriated by everyone from the European Union, to the writer Anthony Burgess, who used it as an unsettling counterpoint to the murderous exploits of the characters in his novel A Clockwork Orange. Tom asks whether Beethoven's original vision of a musical utopia has actually turned out to be far more dangerous than the composer could ever have imagined.

Tom Service explores arguably the most famous piece of music in the world: the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's a piece which has been appropriated by everyone from the European Union, to the writer Anthony Burgess, who used it as an unsettling counterpoint to the murderous exploits of the characters in his novel A Clockwork Orange. Tom asks whether Beethoven's original vision of a musical utopia has actually turned out to be far more dangerous than the composer could ever have imagined.

In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Tom Service explores arguably the most famous piece of music in the world: the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It's a piece which has been appropriated by everyone from the European Union, to the writer Anthony Burgess, who used it as an unsettling counterpoint to the murderous exploits of the characters in his novel A Clockwork Orange. Tom asks whether Beethoven's original vision of a musical utopia has actually turned out to be far more dangerous than the composer could ever have imagined.

So where do we start? This inaugural programme takes 'Beginnings' at its theme - how do you begin a piece of music?

Tom looks at a cornucopia of opening bars - from classical to pop, to see how composers grab our attention, and go on to keep us listening. With thoughts from composer Anna Meredith on the terror of the blank page, tune in and rethink music with The Listening Service..

So where do we start? This inaugural programme takes Beginnings at its theme - how do you begin a piece of music?

When we listen - really listen - we're not just attending to the way that songs, symphonies, and string quartets work as collections of notes and melodies. We're also creating meanings and connections that reverberate powerfully with other worlds of ideas, of history and culture, as well as the widest range of musical genres. We're engaging the world with our ears. The Listening Service aims to help make those connections, to listen actively.So where do we start? This inaugural programme takes Beginnings at its theme - how do you begin a piece of music?

Tom Service explores how to get a piece of music off to a good start.

David Papp (producer)

Is music for theatre more than just a prop?

Producer: Ruth Thomson

TOM SERVICE intrepidly explores Bluebeard's Castle, Bartok's one-act symbolist opera.

Tom Service intrepidly explores Bluebeard's Castle - the one-act Symbolist opera by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok first performed in 1918 which features just two characters: Duke Bluebeard and his fourth wife Judith. Newly married, he brings her home to his murky castle for the very first time, where she finds a torture chamber, armoury, treasury, garden, and lake of tears. And unfortunately for Judith, it's not long before she discovers just what happened to those first three wives...

With Harvard Professor of Folklore and Mythology Maria Tatar.

The most famous beard in classical music? Perhaps. And if so, what does Johannes Brahms's abundant facial hair have to do with his music? Tom Service looks at four contrasting compositions for clues: the First Piano Concerto, the Second Sextet, the choral piece 'Gesang der Parzen' (Song of the Fates) and the A-major Intermezzo.

The most famous beard in classical music? Perhaps. And if so, what does Johannes Brahms's abundant facial hair have to do with his music? TOM SERVICE looks at four contrasting compositions for clues: the First Piano Concerto, the Second Sextet, the choral piece 'Gesang der Parzen' (Song of the Fates) and the A-major Intermezzo.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the world of brass bands.

Tom Service explores the world of brass bands with composer Gavin Higgins and musical director of the Elland Silver Youth Band, Samantha Harrison.

What's the difference between a cornet and a trumpet? How did Czech music and a hill in Dorset sell a million loafs? What happened at Manchester's Belle Vue Zoological Gardens in 1853? TOM SERVICE answers these questions and many more as he explores the world of brass bands: our witnesses are Music Director of the Elland Silver Youth Band Samantha Harrison, who's immersed in today's competitive banding world, and Composer Gavin Higgins, who's written a ballet for brass band.

As part of Radio 3's Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution, The Listening Service asks where the idea of communal singing, especially in religious contexts, came from in modern Europe. It seems natural to us today but the practice of congregational singing was once a radical, revolutionary idea that brought religion and politics together. And - what do the football chants heard on the terraces share with the hymns we sing in church? Tom talks to Bach scholar John Butt and the Reverend Lucy Winkett to find some answers. Rethink music with The Listening Service.

Breaking Free - the minds that changed music.TOM SERVICE explores how to listen to the Second Viennese School - music that exploded with expressive feeling in the early years of the 20th century, and then gradually rebuilt harmony into a new system, using the 12-note series. He explains how the music developed from ARNOLD SCHOENBERG's early expressionist ventures into atonality, to the cool jewel-like precision of his pupil Anton Webern. In conversation with art historian Lisa Florman, he finds parallels in the painter Wassily Kandinsky's journey towards abstraction and his theories of shapes and colours. (Kandinsky was a friend of Schoenberg). And composer George Benjamin describes the intricate structures of Webern's music, which greatly inspired his own compositions.

TOM SERVICE considers how to listen to the Second Viennese School.

Tom Service ponders brevity in music - how short you can go? From Beethoven bagatelles to Webern's chamber miniatures, short doesn't need to mean lightweight. Short pieces may be intricate as a netsuke or as simple as a sonic doodle. Or suggest a fragment of something larger. Tom talks to sonic artist JLIAT, who has made a piece lasting 1/44100 of a second. But he's thinking of shorter pieces.

Tom Service explores brevity in music in the company of sonic artist JLIAT.

TOM SERVICE ponders brevity in music - how short you can go? From Beethoven bagatelles to Webern's chamber miniatures, short doesn't need to mean lightweight. Short pieces may be intricate as a netsuke or as simple as a sonic doodle. Or suggest a fragment of something larger. Tom talks to sonic artist JLIAT, who has made a piece lasting 1/44100 of a second. But he's thinking of shorter pieces.

But Tom Service wants you to think of Bruckner as one of the greatest and most original symphonists of all time (whose symphonies really don't all sound the same), as much master of daring long-range musical form as of the perfect miniature.

David Papp (producer)

Is listening to a Bruckner symphony really like being crushed to death by a giant snake?

Even today, some music-lovers will nod knowingly when they hear Brahms's comparison of Anton Bruckner's epic symphonies with a nightmare-scary giant snake which kills its victims in the inescapable embrace of its crushing coils. Poor Bruckner, ever the easy target of sneering critics. At once childishly obsessive and intensely spiritual, ultra-sophisticated musician and naive country bumpkin: even by composers' standards he stood out as weird. No wonder the music was so hopeless!

Tom Service discovers the darker side of music in a Halloween edition of The Listening Service.

From Berlioz and Ligeti, to Don Giovanni and Psycho - there are some frankly terrifying pieces of music out there. But what is it about them that makes them scary - is it something in the music, or something in ourselves....

Tom enlists the help of the 'Halloween' director John Carpenter, who also composed its iconic eerie synthesiser score, and neuroscientist Nathalie Gosselin to unearth the fear factor in music.

Find out... if you dare...

From Berlioz and Ligeti, to Don Giovanni and Psycho - there are some frankly terrifying pieces of music out there. But what is it about them that makes them scary - is it something in the music, or something in ourselves - Tom enlists the help of the 'Halloween' director John Carpenter, who also composed its iconic eerie synthesiser score, and neuroscientist Nathalie Gosselin to unearth the fear factor in music.

Find out... if you dare...

Tom Service looks at music in flight - the miraculous musical form that is the fugue, where melodies chase each other, work against each other and come together in a supremely logical and often exhilarating fusion. How does it work, why is it important and can we learn to love the fugue in the 21st century? Tom tries his hand at playing Bach's Fugue in C minor from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, a challenge to many a piano exam student, gets tips on tackling fugues from virtuoso harpsichord player Mahan Esfahani, and comes across a very contemporary take on the art of learning about fugue. Lady Gaga is involved

Tom Service looks at music in flight - the miraculous musical form that is the fugue, where melodies chase each other, work against each other and come together in a supremely logical and often exhilarating fusion. How does it work, why is it important and can we learn to love the fugue in the 21st century? Tom tries his hand at playing Bach's Fugue in C minor from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, a challenge to many a piano exam student, gets tips on tackling fugues from virtuoso harpsichord player Mahan Esfahani, and comes across a very contemporary take on the art of learning about fugue. Lady Gaga is involved...

TOM SERVICE looks at music in flight - the miraculous musical form that is the fugue, where melodies chase each other, work against each other and come together in a supremely logical and often exhilarating fusion. How does it work, why is it important and can we learn to love the fugue in the 21st century? Tom tries his hand at playing Bach's Fugue in C minor from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, a challenge to many a piano exam student, gets tips on tackling fugues from virtuoso harpsichord player Mahan Esfahani, and comes across a very contemporary take on the art of learning about fugue. Lady Gaga is involved 

Who are the icons of classical music? And are they born or made?

Tom Service invites you to take stroll around a rogues' gallery of musical musical fakers, from the perpetrators of innocent pranks, to calculating fraudsters' deliberate deceptions. As well as the satisfying sight of seeing musical experts consuming humble pie, what are the motivations behind musical hoaxes? How can aesthetic value shift when work, once thought to be by a musical giant, is discovered to be a forgery or a by a much lesser figure? To help answer these and other questions, Tom is joined by Frances Christie, Sotheby's Head of Modern British Art, and author of An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, Rohan Kriwaczek.

Tom Service invites you to take stroll around a rogues' gallery of musical fakers, from the perpetrators of innocent pranks, to calculating fraudsters' deliberate deceptions. As well as the satisfying sight of seeing musical experts consuming humble pie, what are the motivations behind musical hoaxes? How can aesthetic value shift when work, once thought to be by a musical giant, is discovered to be a forgery or a by a much lesser figure? To help answer these and other questions, Tom is joined by Frances Christie, Sotheby's Head of Modern British Art, and author of An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, Rohan Kriwaczek.

David Papp (producer)

With Brian Lynch from the Barbershop Harmony Society in Nashville and members of the BBC Singers, Tom explores what makes it so unique, from its vocal setting to its use of 'just intonation', and discovers the roots of its history, far from the exclusive Ivy League world it's thought to represent.

Tom Service explores the world of close harmony and barbershop singing.

With Brian Lynch from the Barbershop Harmony Society in Nashville and members of the BBC Singers, Tom explores what makes it so unique, from it's vocal setting to its use of 'just intonation', and discovers the roots of its history, far from the exclusive Ivy League world it's thought to represent.

TOM SERVICE explores the world of close harmony and barbershop.

The Listening Service returns to its regular slot now the Proms are over, and chooses one of the BBC's 'Ten Pieces III', Elgar's 'Enigma Variations', to look at codes, ciphers and hidden messages in music.

What might be the 'dark saying' or mystery tune that the Enigma Variations are based around? Which other composers were keen on the use of codes and ciphers in their music?

And if we can't crack the codes, does it matter?

With Tom Service and Prof. Marcus du Sautoy.

The Listening Service returns to its regular slot now the Proms are over, and chooses one of the BBC's Ten Pieces III, Elgar's Enigma Variations, to look at codes, ciphers and hidden messages in music.

What might be the dark saying or mystery tune that the Enigma Variations are based around? Which other composers were keen on the use of codes and ciphers in their music?

With TOM SERVICE and Prof. Marcus du Sautoy.

Tom's witness is the virtuoso sitarist and composer Jasdeep Singh Degun, who like Berio, took Monteverdi's opera Orfeo and reinvented it.

Produced by Dom Wells

Tom Service explores Luciano Berio's 1968 Sinfonia for orchestra and 8 amplified voices.

Tom Service explores Luciano Berio's Sinfonia - an iconic piece of the late 1960s modernism, scored for orchestra and eight amplified voices who speak, whisper and shout texts by Samuel Beckett and Claude L退vi-Strauss. This groundbreaking work also incorporates a mass of musical quotations, from Bach to Stockhausen and everything in between.

We put music and colour together all the time. A piece of music can be 'dark' or 'bright' or we could be singing the 'Blues' - but what does that mean? Professor Jamie Ward - an expert in synaesthesia - is on hand to help. While Tom delves into a world of musical colour from Messiaen and Copland, Scriabin and Ravel to David Bowie and Beyonc退 to discover whether music can ever be colourful.

Tom Service explores the link between music and colour. Can music be colourful?

We put music and colour together all the time. A piece of music can be 'dark' or 'bright' or we could be singing the 'Blues' - but what does that mean? Professor Jamie Ward - an expert in synaesthesia - is on hand to help. While Tom delves into a world of musical colour from Messiaen and Copland, Scriabin and Ravel to DAVID BOWIE and Beyonc? to discover whether music can ever be colourful.

We put music and colour together all the time. A piece of music can be 'dark' or 'bright' or we could be singing the 'Blues' - but what does that mean? Professor Jamie Ward - an expert in synaesthesia - is on hand to help. While Tom delves into a world of musical colour from Messiaen and Copland, Scriabin and Ravel to DAVID BOWIE and Beyonc? to discover whether music can ever be colourful.

David Papp (producer)

What is a concerto, how do they work and what is it like to be a soloist, asks Tom Service

With the help of violinist Pekka Kuusisto Tom Service explores the concerto from Vivaldi in the early 18th century to today's composers. How has the idea of the concerto evolved over three centuries and what are the challenges for the soloist, walking the tightrope of virtuosity, sandwiched between orchestral colleagues and expectant audience?

What is a concerto? Tom Service asks how they work and what it is like to be a soloist.

Why do they do it? How do they do it? And why is it so uniquely thrilling a sound? And it's not about singing like a woman!

With inside knowledge from countertenor Lawrence Zazzo.

A celebration of the male singers who can hit the high notes!

A celebration of male singers who can hit those high notes!

From Frankie Valli and Jimmy Somerville to Andreas Scholl and Iestyn Davies - TOM SERVICE celebrates the male singers hitting the high notes.

The Listening Service explores the art of the cover version: what happens when one composer 'covers' the art of another? Why was it common practice for baroque composers to recycle their own work and 'borrow' from their colleagues on a regular basis? And what of musical traditions like folk and jazz where key pieces or 'standards' are covered by multiple artists? Tom Service talks to baroque expert Berta Joncas and folk star Eliza Carthy to get some answers.

The Listening Service.

Tom Service explores cover versions - from Baroque to pop.

As the world's greatest celebration of orchestras and orchestral music that is the BBC Proms gets underway, Tom Service has some questions... When did orchestras begin and why? Who decided they should have standardised sections of strings, woodwind, brass and percussion? Why did they seem to get bigger and bigger as the 19th century turned into the 20th? Why have so many of the great composers spent so much of their time writing for them? Are they still relevant to today's composers and what's their future? And to find out what it's actually like to play in an orchestra, an individual working together with sometimes 100 others, Tom talks to Beverly Jones, double bassist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

So is writing about music really like dancing about architecture? No, says Tom Service. But clunky, not-quite-worked-through metaphors are definitely best avoided.

David Papp (producer)

Despite barbed quips about the impossibility of writing about music, people have been at it, successfully, for thousands of years, from Plato in ancient Greece until today. Many composers, too, have felt the need to set down in writing their musical credos; composers like Berlioz and Debussy have themselves been great writers about music. And then, what about the literary representations of music in passages which so clearly and evocatively describe what it's like to listen to music, which manage to articulate the emotions music so readily arouses but we find so hard to describe?

So is writing about music really like dancing about architecture? No, says Tom Service. But clunky, not-quite-worked through metaphors are definitely best avoided.

Tom Service explores Lang's Pulitzer-Prize-winning secular take on the Christian Passion.

Tom Service considers whether Claude Debussy was an Impressionist or not. He is often said to have composed Impressionist music - in such popular works as Claire de Lune and La Mer. But Tom argues that Debussy's music has quite a different character to that of the Impressionist painters - and to prove it he discusses the techniques of those painters with art historian Anthea Callen. Debussy, Tom argues, was a modernist, an abstract composer and also (in his opera Pell退as et Melisande) a creator of nightmares.

TOM SERVICE considers whether CLAUDE DEBUSSY was an Impressionist or not. He is often said to have composed Impressionist music - in such popular works as Claire de Lune and La Mer. But Tom argues that Debussy's music has quite a different character to that of the Impressionist painters - and to prove it he discusses the techniques of those painters with art historian Anthea Callen. Debussy, Tom argues, was a modernist, an abstract composer and also (in his opera Pell?as et Melisande) a creator of nightmares.

She wrote: 'Deep listening for me is learning to expand the perception of sounds to include the whole space/time continuum of sound - encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible.'.

She wrote: Deep listening for me is learning to expand the perception of sounds to include the whole space/time continuum of sound - encountering the vastness and complexities as much as possible..

TOM SERVICE explores deep listening, a practice created by composer Pauline Oliveros.

Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, TOM SERVICE signs his soul in blood as he explores musical versions of the Faust story - including Mahler's epic setting of Goethe's Faust in his eighth symphony. Guest MATTHEW SWEET lends his devilish expertise on Faustian films, from Bedazzled to The Witches of Eastwick.

Recorded earlier today at Imperial College, London, as a prelude to tonight's Proms performance of Mahler's Symphony No.8.

TOM SERVICE explores musical collaborations.

Tom Service explores some of the most successful working partnerships in music. Mozart and Da Ponte wrote some of Mozart's most famous operas but what came first, the music or the words - what's more important? With the help of librettist and translator Amanda Holden, Tom discovers what makes a musical spark.

Produced by Calantha Bonnissent

Tom Service discovers endless variety in music based on a drone - from rustic dance music to mystic religious ecstasy. Medieval Christian music used a drone to provide support for their liturgical chants; old country dances went with a swing to the drone of bagpipes and hurdy gurdy. Much Indian classical music builds elaborate melodic variations over a drone. Minimalist composer Lamonte Young has a never-ending drone piece playing in his loft in New York; and rock band The Velvet Underground brought psychedelic drones into the pop scene of the late 1960s.

Tom talks to Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell about the drones on her bagpipes, and to American Minimalist composer Phill Niblock about his use of microtonal drones in his music.

Tom Service discovers endless variety in music based on a drone - from rustic dance to mystic religious ecstasy. Medieval Christian music used a drone to provide support for their liturgical chants; old country dances went with a swing to the drone of bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy.

Tom talks to Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell about the drones on her bagpipes, and to American Minimalist composer Phill Niblock about his use of microtonal drones in his music.

Tom Service considers drums - ancient instruments, yet capable of great sophistication.

TOM SERVICE considers drums - one of the most ancient and primitive instruments, yet capable of great sophistication in the context of the classical orchestra or a jazz band. He discusses contemporary composition for drums with percussionist Serge Vuille, and looks at non-western drum traditions with Brazilian percussionist Adriano Adewale.

TOM SERVICE unearths the maddening musical secrets behind earworms.

Remember the last tune you had stuck in your head? It's probably back there now... sorry about that... Whether it's Ravel's Bolero or Lady Gaga's Bad Romance we've all had them. But why and how can certain songs or pieces lodge themselves in our musical memory and refuse to budge.

In a special edition live from the Reading Rooms of Wellcome Collection, TOM SERVICE is joined by singer and broadcaster JARVIS COCKER to unearth the maddening musical secrets behind earworms as they pick some of their 'favourites', try to create an earworm out of the most unlikely music possible, and hear from music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski on the science behind it all.

Part of Why Music? The Key to Memory, a weekend of live events, concerts and discussions exploring the implications of music's unique capacity to be remembered, produced by Radio 3 in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

TOM SERVICE and anthropologist Jonathan H Shannon have the answers.

David Papp (producer)

The many long-standing and sometimes surprising connections between food and music.

What have a Mahler symphony and a recipe for saut退ed kidneys got in common? Why do refugees and other displaced people take food and music with them when they are forced to leave their homeland? How do today's Spotify restaurant playlists and their 18th-century equivalents compare? Can you play in an orchestra and then eat your instruments?

Tom Service looks at how pieces of music end, and asks what endings mean. Are they mere framing devices, or can they suggest weightier thoughts of triumph, or conversely, of death? And what of the fading away so prevalent in pop music? From Beethoven's insistent affirmations to Tchaikovsky's bleak despair, from Haydn's witty farewells to Human League's intimations of eternity, the ways that music ends are as various as music itself.

TOM SERVICE looks at how pieces of music end, and asks what endings mean. Are they mere framing devices, or can they suggest weightier thoughts of triumph, or conversely, of death? And what of the fading away so prevalent in pop music? From Beethoven's insistent affirmations to Tchaikovsky's bleak despair, from Haydn's witty farewells to Human League's intimations of eternity, the ways that music ends are as various as music itself.

What makes English music sound English?

What makes English music sound English?

Does English music have a formula? Think of the stirring 'nobilmente' tunes of Elgar and those melodies and harmonies of Vaughan Williams and Holst which have become inextricably linked with the very notion of Englishness. When did English music begin and is it still being written? In an attempt both to define English music and explain its appeal TOM SERVICE enlists the help of Em Marshall-Luck, founder-director of The English Music Festival.

Tom Service looks some of the longest, the most apocalyptic, the weirdest and the most expensive music ever written - what were the composers up to, exactly? And where do we go from here?

TOM SERVICE takes a trip through the many purveyors of vocal pyrotechnics from Mozart and Rachmaninov to Stockhausen, TOM WAITS and Daft Punk, has a lesson in throat singing from overtone singer Michael Ormiston, and finds out whether we're all extreme singers at heart.

Tom Service discovers some of the most extreme vocals in music.

TOM SERVICE explores one of Vaughan Williams's most spellbinding pieces of music.

How did an English jig turn into a Virginian reel?

And what do Bach's violin sonatas have in common with folk tunes from Finland?

In The Listening Service today Tom Service explores fiddles, fiddlers, and fiddle tunes from around the globe, looking at how they connect communities, reflecting the stories of migrants and musicians across time, and staying true to tradition whilst continually changing. And how have classical composers incorporated fiddle tunes into their work? From Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, based on tunes found in a library in Munich, to Aaron Copland's Rodeo Hoe-Down, an orchestral transformation of the Kentucky fiddler Bill Stepp's tune Bonaparte's Retreat.

Our witnesses today are Pete Cooper, who learnt classical violin as a teenager before discovering busking and ending up fiddling in West Virginia, and Lori Watson whose music and research draw on the landscapes and folklore of the Scottish Borders where she grew up.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores fiddles and fiddle tunes from around the world.

TOM SERVICE explores fiddle music from around the world

AKA Fiddles

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the lyrics and legacy of musical theatre composer Stephen Sondheim.

Tom Service explores the lyrics and legacy of Stephen Sondheim who died in 2021, with musical director Jason Carr, and archive interviews with Sondheim himself.

Tom Service examines Dvorak's Symphony No 9, 'From the New World', one of the BBC's current 'Ten Pieces III'. Dvorak told the New York Herald in 1893 that 'a serious and original school of composition should be established in the United States of America' which he hoped would have at its foundation black composers, like those he met, taught, and whose music he promoted at the National Conservatory of Music of America. Alongside Dvroak's Symphony 'From the New World', Tom explores the lesser known Symphonies of three black composers: William Grant Still, Florence Price and William Dawson and how they realised Dvorak's dream for American music and used the symphony to create new languages and communities of listeners.

Tom Service examines Dvorak's Symphony No 9, 'From the New World', one of the BBC's current 'Ten Pieces III'. Dvorak told the New York Herald in 1893 that 'a serious and original school of composition should be established in the United States of America' which he hoped would have at its foundation black composers, like those he met, taught, and whose music he promoted at the National Conservatory of Music of America. Alongside Dvorak's Symphony 'From the New World', Tom explores the lesser known Symphonies of three black composers: William Grant Still, Florence Price and William Dawson and how they realised Dvorak's dream for American music and used the symphony to create new languages and communities of listeners.

TOM SERVICE examines Dvorak's Symphony No 9, From the New World, one of the BBC's current Ten Pieces III. Dvorak told the New York Herald in 1893 that a serious and original school of composition should be established in the United States of America which he hoped would have at its foundation black composers, like those he met, taught, and whose music he promoted at the National Conservatory of Music of America. Alongside Dvroak's Symphony From the New World', Tom explores the lesser known Symphonies of three black composers: William Grant Still, Florence Price and William Dawson and how they realised Dvorak's dream for American music and used the symphony to create new languages and communities of listeners.

TOM SERVICE examines Dvorak's Symphony No 9, From the New World, one of the BBC's current Ten Pieces III. Dvorak told the New York Herald in 1893 that a serious and original school of composition should be established in the United States of America which he hoped would have at its foundation black composers, like those he met, taught, and whose music he promoted at the National Conservatory of Music of America. Alongside Dvorak's Symphony From the New World', Tom explores the lesser known Symphonies of three black composers: William Grant Still, Florence Price and William Dawson and how they realised Dvorak's dream for American music and used the symphony to create new languages and communities of listeners.

TOM SERVICE examines Dvorak's Symphony No 9, From the New World, one of the BBC's current Ten Pieces III. Dvorak told the New York Herald in 1893 that a serious and original school of composition should be established in the United States of America which he hoped would have at its foundation black composers, like those he met, taught, and whose music he promoted at the National Conservatory of Music of America. Alongside Dvroak's Symphony From the New World', Tom explores the lesser known Symphonies of three black composers: William Grant Still, Florence Price and William Dawson and how they realised Dvorak's dream for American music and used the symphony to create new languages and communities of listeners.

Tom Service examines Dvorak's 'New World' Symphony.

Tom Service on what happens when our music goes slow.

Listening to slow music, composing slow music and playing slow music - what happens when our music goes slow? TOM SERVICE asks if going slow means making a chilled out, super-relaxed, concentration-free zone or if slow music is more focused, more intense, more dramatic, more emotionally and intellectually compelling than music that goes fast. This week's witnesses helping him find the answers are composer Thomas Ades and novelist AL Kennedy.

Listening to slow music, composing slow music and playing slow music - what happens when our music goes slow? TOM SERVICE asks if going slow means making a chilled-out, super-relaxed, concentration-free zone or if slow music is more focused, more intense, more dramatic, more emotionally and intellectually compelling than music that goes fast. This week's witnesses helping him find the answers are composer Thomas Adès and novelist AL Kennedy.

Tom Service wonders what makes music an essential part of mourning and how composers straddle the divide between private and public grief. Divided by three centuries what does the music for Queen Mary's 1695 funeral and the funeral for Princess Diana have in common? Why do some pieces become associated with mourning, despite their composers' intentions? And delving into how funeral music became integrated in abstract musical forms, he uncovers the private grief behind one of Bach's most famous works, the D minor Chaconne for solo violin.

Tom Service lifts the lid on Handel's Messiah.

But what exactly is the Messiah? How and why did Handel write it? And does its familiarity make us take it for granted? TOM SERVICE investigates - ¦

Producer: Ruth Thomson

TOM SERVICE lifts the lid on Handel's Messiah.

Written in just 24 days, premiered in Dublin in 1742 to rave reviews, and performed all around the world thousands of times since, Handel's - ˜Messiah' is one of the most popular choral works of all time. But why did Handel have to change its name for the first London performance? How did almost 4000 singers perform it together last year having never met, and most importantly of all, why does everyone stand up for the Hallelujah Chorus? TOM SERVICE investigates.

Written in just 24 days, premiered in Dublin almost 280 years ago, and performed thousands of times since, Handel's - ˜Messiah' is one of the most popular choral works of all time. A staple of many amateur and professional festive concert seasons, it's also raised huge amounts of money for charity through the annual Foundling Hospital performances and Scratch Messiahs which now take place all over the world.

But what exactly is the 'Messiah'? How and why did Handel write it? And does its familiarity make us take it for granted? TOM SERVICE investigates - ¦

Written in just 24 days, premiered in Dublin almost 280 years ago, and performed thousands of times since, Handel's ‘Messiah' is one of the most popular choral works of all time. A staple of many amateur and professional festive concert seasons, it's also raised huge amounts of money for charity through the annual Foundling Hospital performances and Scratch Messiahs, which now take place all over the world.

In a special edition of The Listening Service recorded live at this year's Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, Tom is joined by the composer Richard Sisson (at the piano), and poet Gillian Clarke to discuss the art of setting words to music. From the thwarted romance of Lieder to the game-changing musicals of Stephen Sondheim and the era-defining pop songs of Jarvis Cocker, finding the perfect synergy between written word and musical note is an elusive art. Tom and his guests explore just how it's done and by the end of the show they'll have created their own setting live in front of the eyes and ears of the Hay audience.

Part of Radio 3's week-long residency at Hay Festival, with Lunchtime Concert, In Tune, Free Thinking, The Verb and The Listening Service all broadcasting from the festival.

David Papp (producer)

Historically informed performance practice, or HIPP: what is it and why?

TOM SERVICE dips a toe into the choppy waters of historically informed performance practice. HIPP is the latest term for the well-established vogue of recreating the sounds of music from past centuries. But how can we possibly know what music sounded like before it was recorded? Can HIPP ever be more than a hopeful stab in the dark? Like quinoa and farmers' markets, is it merely another facet of fashion and commercial imperative, a mirror which reflects us and our current concerns straight back at ourselves? Or is it a revitalising and constantly evolving force for good, sweeping away years of lazy and complacent tradition, revealing afresh music we thought we knew? Violinist Rachel Podger and chronicler of HIPP Nicolas Kenyon are on hand to help.

Tom Service dips a toe into the choppy waters of Historically Informed Performance Practice. HIPP is the latest term for the well-established vogue of recreating the sounds of music from past centuries. But how can we possibly know what music sounded like before it was recorded? Can HIPP ever be more than a hopeful stab in the dark? Like quinoa and farmers' markets, is it merely another facet of fashion and commercial imperative, a mirror which reflects us and our current concerns straight back at ourselves? Or is it a revitalising and constantly evolving force for good, sweeping away years of lazy and complacent tradition, revealing afresh music we thought we knew? Violinist Rachel Podger and chronicler of HIPP Nicholas Kenyon are on hand to help.

AKA The Tenor Voice

Can you describe a teaspoon in music? Why would you even want to? Tom Service explores how music is able to tell stories in sound

Tom is joined by musicologist Ken Hamilton for a journey through musical history to reveal music's ability to describe the most everyday actions and the most heartfelt emotions.

From Vivaldi and Beethoven, to the epic tone poems of Richard Strauss (which may or may not contain teaspoons), to Hollywood blockbusters - how does music paint those pictures in our mind, and do those pictures always look the same?

Rethink Music, with The Listening Service.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that 'to listen' is a decidedly active verb.

When we listen - really listen - we're not just attending to the way that songs, symphonies, and string quartets work as collections of notes and melodies. We're also creating meanings and connections that reverberate powerfully with other worlds of ideas, of history and culture, as well as the widest range of musical genres. We're engaging the world with our ears.

When we listen - really listen - we're not just attending to the way that songs, symphonies, and string quartets work as collections of notes and melodies. We're also creating meanings and connections that reverberate powerfully with other worlds of ideas, of history and culture, as well as the widest range of musical genres. We're engaging the world with our ears.

He's joined by writer Alex Marshall, author of the book 'Republic or Death, Travels in Search of National Anthems',and by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas who looks at why some of them are easier to sing than others...

Rethink Music, with The Listening Service.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that 'to listen' is a decidedly active verb.

He's joined by writer Alex Marshall, author of the book Republic or Death, Travels in Search of National Anthems,and by soprano Elin Manahan Thomas who looks at why some of them are easier to sing than others...

TOM SERVICE on the music, meaning and occasional madness of national anthems.

Bleep... bleep.... bleeeeep

It's amazing how a few electronic bleeps can tell us so much about what's going on in a video game without us even being aware of it

But music in video games has come a long way from the arcades, from the bleeps and bloops of Space Invaders and Super Mario to epic orchestral scores of the Legend of Zelda and Bioshock, Tom Service goes on an interactive odyssey to discover the secrets behind our favourite video game music. Along the way he meets composer Jessica Curry and video game expert Tim Summers who tell us what's really happening in the music when we're playing, the composer tricks of the trade and how video games can get new audiences closer to classical music.

bleeeeeeep... GAME OVER.

bleeeeeeep... GAME OVER.

But what exactly is tintinnabulation? What do you get when you cross mathematics with love? And how can strict rules and discipline ultimately mean freedom?

Our witnesses are violinist Viktoria Mullova who has recorded many of P䀀rt's seminal works, and theologian Dr Peter Bouteneff who has researched his music's connections with his Orthodox faith.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom explores Arvo P\u00e4rt's music - what makes it so unique and why is it so popular?

But what exactly is tintinnabulation? What do you get when you cross mathematics with love? And how can strict rules and discipline ultimately mean freedom?

Our witnesses are violinist Viktoria Mullova who has recorded many of Part's seminal works, and theologian Dr Peter Bouteneff who has researched his music's connections with his Orthodox faith.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom explores ARVO PART's music - what makes it so unique and why is it so popular?

TOM SERVICE lifts the lid on the music of the most popular living composer - Arvo P䀀rt. Nominated for 11 Grammy awards and revered by Bj怀rk, P.J Harvey, and Radiohead, as well as classical musicians around the world, his seemingly simple and spiritual music is loved by millions. Born in Estonia in 1935 he did military service in the Soviet Army, worked as a radio producer, and wrote music for films, documentaries and animations, before creating his unique style of composition ‘tintinnabulation'.

Our witnesses are violinist Viktoria Mullova who has recorded many of P䀀rt's seminal works, and theologian Dr Peter Bouteneff who has researched his music's connections with his Orthodox faith.

Tom explores Arvo P\u00e4rt's music - what makes it so unique and why is it so popular?

Tom Service goes to the wobbling heart of the matter of vibrato in singing. Why does it induce such visceral reactions - love and hate? Is it a matter of classical-singing artifice or is it a welcome and naturally occurring phenomenon in the healthy workings of our vocal cords, in the way our bodies make the sounds we call singing?

TOM SERVICE goes to the wobbling heart of the matter of vibrato in singing. Why does it induce such visceral reactions - love and hate? Is it a matter of classical-singing artifice or is it a welcome and naturally occurring phenomenon in the physicality of our vocal chords, in the way our bodies make the sounds we call singing?

TOM SERVICE goes to the wobbling heart of the matter of vibrato in singing. Why does it induce such visceral reactions - love and hate? Is it a matter of classical-singing artifice or is it a welcome and naturally occurring phenomenon in the healthy workings of our vocal chords, in the way our bodies make the sounds we call singing?

Good vibrations or horrible wobbling? Why do singers use vibrato? TOM SERVICE goes to the wobbling heart of the matter of vibrato in singing. Why does it induce such visceral reactions - love and hate? Is it a matter of classical-singing artifice or is it a welcome and naturally occurring phenomenon in the healthy workings of our vocal chords, in the way our bodies make the sounds we call singing?

Ever gone out dancing? Or found your fingers and toes tapping along to your favourite tune? We find rhythm irresistible as humans.

But what is rhythm? How do we feel that beat - and do we need it to enjoy music? Tom Service explores rhythm in music from Bach's courtly dances to Steve Reich's clapping hands, finds out what puts the rhythm in RnB and discovers music that has no rhythm at all.

Meanwhile musical neuroscientist Dr Jessica Grahn is on hand to show us how rhythm affects our brains and together they find out the beat really does go on throughout our human lives.

Meanwhile, musical neuroscientist Dr Jessica Grahn is on hand to show us how rhythm affects our brains and together they find out the beat really does go on throughout our human lives.

Tom Service discovers why we find rhythm irresistible.

Meanwhile musical neuroscientist Dr Jessica Grahn is on hand to show us how rhythm affects our brains and together they find out the beat really does go on throughout our human lives.

We all think we know what 'The Blues' means - whether it's feeling down in the dumps or a musical genre that links Muddy Waters through to the Rolling Stones.

But what is it really? What makes The Blues the Blues? And where did it come from? Tom Service is joined by jazz pianist Julian Joseph to discover its earliest African-American origins right up to current day Blues music and its influence on classical musicians.

Whether we're talking Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, classical composers using 'Blue' notes or that feeling of melancholy - the Blues has often found its way onto the concert stage too. Tom looks back across classical music history to find that actually music has had a bad case of the blues for many centuries.

But what is it really? What makes The Blues the Blues? And where did it come from? Tom Service is joined by jazz pianist Julian Joseph to discover its earliest African-American origins right up to current-day Blues music and its influence on classical musicians.

Whether we're talking Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, classical composers using 'Blue' notes or that feeling of melancholy - the Blues has often found its way onto the concert stage too. Tom looks back across classical music history to find that actually music has had a bad case of the blues for many centuries.

Tom Service discovers 'the Blues', from its earliest origins to its widest influence.

My music is best understood by children and animals, pronounced Igor Stravinsky, no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. According to his critics (and jealous colleagues), Stravinsky's composing consisted of picking up any old musical baubles like a restless musical magpie, sometimes having the effrontery to leave them virtually unchanged. Most annoyingly of all, audiences seemed to lap it up. To make matters worse, when it came to explaining his music, Igor liked nothing better than to hide behind contradictory and gnomic statements, as bewildering and frequent as his changes of musical style.

Neither child nor animal, TOM SERVICE nonetheless attempts to reveal the essence of Stravinsky, at once one of the greatest yet most elusive 20th Century composers. Including contributions from playwright MEREDITH OAKES and Stravinsky biographer Jonathan Cross.

David Papp (producer).

My music is best understood by children and animals, pronounced Igor Stravinsky, no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. According to his critics (and jealous colleagues), Stravinsky's composing consisted of picking up any old second-hand musical baubles he fancied, like a restless musical magpie - sometimes he even had the effrontery to leave them virtually unchanged. Frustratingly, audiences seemed to lap it up. To make matters worse, when it came to explaining his music, Igor liked nothing better than to hide behind contradictory and gnomic statements, as bewildering and frequent as his changes of musical style.

Fifty years to the week that he died in New York City at the age of 88, TOM SERVICE goes in search of the essence of Stravinsky, at once one of the greatest yet most elusive 20th-century composers. Including contributions from playwright MEREDITH OAKES and Stravinsky biographer Jonathan Cross.

David Papp (producer).

My music is best understood by children and animals, pronounced Igor Stravinsky, no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. According to his critics (and jealous colleagues), Stravinsky's composing consisted of picking up any old second-hand musical baubles he fancied, like a restless musical magpie - sometimes he even had the effrontery to leave them virtually unchanged. Frustratingly, audiences seemed to lap it up. To make matters worse, when it came to explaining his music, Igor liked nothing better than to hide behind contradictory and gnomic statements, as bewildering and frequent as his changes of musical style.

TOM SERVICE goes in search of the essence of Stravinsky, at once one of the greatest yet most elusive 20th Century composers. Including contributions from playwright MEREDITH OAKES and Stravinsky biographer Jonathan Cross.

My music is best understood by children and animals,' pronounced Igor Stravinsky, no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. According to his critics (and jealous colleagues), Stravinsky's composing consisted of picking up any old musical baubles like a restless musical magpie, sometimes having the effrontery to leave them virtually unchanged. Most annoyingly of all, audiences seemed to lap it up. To make matters worse, when it came to explaining his music, Igor liked nothing better than to hide behind contradictory and gnomic statements, as bewildering and frequent as his changes of musical style.

My music is best understood by children and animals,' pronounced Igor Stravinsky, no doubt with a twinkle in his eye. According to his critics (and jealous colleagues), Stravinsky's composing consisted of picking up any old second-hand musical baubles he fancied, like a restless musical magpie - sometimes he even had the effrontery to leave them virtually unchanged. Frustratingly, audiences seemed to lap it up. To make matters worse, when it came to explaining his music, Igor liked nothing better than to hide behind contradictory and gnomic statements, as bewildering and frequent as his changes of musical style.

Who?? Despite her many awards and medals - including a damehood in 1987 - and a lifetime spent promoting new music, Elizabeth's work slipped out of fashion and out of view in the latter part of her remarkable career. With concertos and symphonies, vocal music, chamber works, five operas, an operetta and three ballets to her name, Elizabeth's voice is that of economy, elegance and rich expression. And it is in her century-spanning 13 string quartets that her development - and musical outlook - as an artist are most closely expressed.

With a cultural resurgence in all things mid-century, Tom Service chats to Janell Yeo of the Bloomsbury Quartet and considers whether the time is now ripe for a reclamation of Elizabeth's place at our musical top table.

Tom Service surveys the 13 extraordinary string quartets of Elizabeth Maconchy.

Tom Service surveys the 13 extraordinary string quartets of Elizabeth Maconchy - the greatest 20th-century British composer you've probably never heard of.

Improvisation is a fundamental part of music-making - it even has a place in Western classical music, such as the freely invented cadenza in a piano concerto. Other musical traditions are fundamentally based in improvising, such as the classical Indian tradition, and jazz. In the 1950s, Free Improvisation developed from experiments in extending jazz, as an attempt to make music spontaneously with no reference to any style or tradition. David Toop has written a book about improvising, and Joelle Leandre has had a long career as a free improviser, playing with a wide variety of musicians around the world. But, she says, 'we cannot be free...'.

TOM SERVICE considers the art of musical improvisation. When pianist Lenny Tristano first recorded free improvisations in 1949, his record company didn't want to release them. Today, Free Improvisation is a well-established genre. But can improvising ever be free? Tom discusses with musician and writer David Toop and improvising bassist Jo?lle Leandre.

TOM SERVICE considers the art of musical improvisation with David Toop and Joelle Leandre.

TOM SERVICE considers the art of musical improvisation. When pianist Lenny Tristano first recorded free improvisations in 1949, his record company didn't want to release them. Today, Free Improvisation is a well-established genre. But can improvising ever be free? Tom discusses with musician and writer David Toop and improvising bassist Jo뀀lle Leandre.

Improvisation is a fundamental part of music-making - it even has a place in Western classical music, such as the freely invented cadenza in a piano concerto. Other musical traditions are fundamentally based in improvising, such as the classical Indian tradition, and jazz. In the 1950s, Free Improvisation developed from experiments in extending jazz, as an attempt to make music spontaneously with no reference to any style or tradition. David Toop has written a book about improvising, and Joelle Leandre has had a long career as a free improviser, playing with a wide variety of musicians around the world. But, she says, we cannot be free....

Yet the number of musical contests and the seemingly insatiable appetite for them are ever increasing. So, to help pick his way through some thorny questions, Tom Service is joined by Lisa McCormick, author of 'Performing Civility: International Competitions in Classical Music', and 2016 BBC Young Musician finalist, Jess Gillam.

David Papp (producer)

Do musical competitions pick the real winners?

But are musical instinct and the competitive spirit uneasy bedfellows? Why do some musical tournaments consistently produce winners who go on to have spectacular careers, and others winners who sink without trace? What's the value of music written for competitions?

On hand to help Tom Service answer these questions and throw light on the sometimes murky world of music competitions are Lisa McCormick author of Performing Civility, a study of the social aspects of music competitions, and saxophonist and 2016 BBC Young Musician finalist, Jess Gillam.

David Papp (producer)

Tom Service explores the enduring, worldwide appeal of classical music competitions.

Tom Service ponders classical music competitions: are musical instinct and the competitive spirit a happy combination, and what sort of repertoire have competitions produced?

Listed as being broadcast 20220306

With its near-100% record for picking the quickly forgotten, did France's Prix de Rome reveal a fundamental problem with music competitions? After all, the country hardly lacked talent and it's surely telling that Berlioz and Debussy had to enter multiple times before they won; even after five attempts, Ravel never did.

Yet the number of musical contests and the seemingly insatiable appetite for them are ever increasing. So, to help pick his way through some thorny questions, TOM SERVICE is joined by Lisa McCormick, author of 'Performing Civility: International Competitions in Classical Music', and 2016 BBC Young Musician finalist, Jess Gillam.

Do musical competitions pick the real winners?

From Strictly to village fꀀte vegetables, competitions are embedded in our culture. And music is no exception: think of the Pythian Games of ancient Greece, the mediaeval singing competitions which selected the Master Singers, the improvisatory keyboard face-offs of 18th-century Vienna, and the international media-driven events of our own times.

Space. A place few men or women have gone before ... but plenty of composers have. The universe has inspired musicians for hundreds of years and consequently we all know what space music sounds like. Or do we?

From Holst and David Bowie to John Williams via Ligeti, Thomas Ades and the Beastie Boys, Tom Service dons his spacesuit on a mission to explore why cosmic-inspired music sounds the way it does, and discovers how space science is just as inspired by music as musicians are by space.

En route to the stars, space scientist Lucie Green is on hand to tell Tom the reality of sound in space, while mathematician Elaine Chew helps him uncover the music of the spheres.

Space. A place few men or women have gone before... but plenty of composers have. The universe has inspired musicians for hundreds of years and consequently we all know what space music sounds like. Or do we?

En route to the stars, space scientist Lucie Green is on hand to tell Tom the reality of sound in space, while mathematician Elaine Chew helps him uncover the music of the spheres.

With contributions from sound recordist, musician and ecologist Bernie Krause, Messiaen scholar Delphine Evans and naturalist Stephen Moss. Also archive material from Ludwig Koch, the pioneering sound recordist who made the first documented recording of a bird as an 8 year old in 1889.

Rethink Music, with The Listening Service.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that 'to listen' is a decidedly active verb.

When we listen - really listen - we're not just attending to the way that songs, symphonies, and string quartets work as collections of notes and melodies. We're also creating meanings and connections that reverberate powerfully with other worlds of ideas, of history and culture, as well as the widest range of musical genres. We're engaging the world with our ears. The Listening Service aims to help make those connections, to listen actively.

With contributions from sound recordist, musician and ecologist Bernie Krause, Messiaen scholar Delphine Evans and naturalist Stephen Moss. Also archive material from Ludwig Koch, the pioneering sound recordist who made the first documented recording of a bird as an 8-year-old in 1889.

Birdsong has fascinated composers for centuries, but is it really music as we understand it? Tom Service asks how birdsong has inspired and equipped human music over the years. He listens to music inspired by birdsong, made up from elements of birdsong and performed alongside birdsong - why does it have such a deep effect on the human psyche and how have the sounds of the natural world informed the development of human music?

With contributions from sound recordist, musician and ecologist Bernie Krause, Messiaen scholar Delphine Evans and naturalist Stephen Moss. Also archive material from Ludwig Koch, the pioneering sound recordist who made the first documented recording of a bird as an 8 year old in 1889.

Rethink Music, with The Listening Service.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that 'to listen' is a decidedly active verb.

With contributions from sound recordist, musician and ecologist Bernie Krause, Messiaen scholar Delphine Evans and naturalist Stephen Moss. Also archive material from Ludwig Koch, the pioneering sound recordist who made the first documented recording of a bird as an 8-year-old in 1889.

And - spoiler alert - classical music is IN!

Is classical music in fashion? Who's listening and what are they actually listening to?

And ? spoiler alert - classical music is IN!

TOM SERVICE looks at complexity in music - can we actually hear what's going on?

Bach, Beethoven, Brahms - widely regarded as permanent fixtures in the generally accepted canon. But what about the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Louise Farrenc or STEVE REICH?

TOM SERVICE looks at how and why certain composers and pieces of music became part of an established canon, and how things are changing over time, especially with the desire to see better representation of women and composers from more diverse backgrounds in the mix.

With writer and historian Katy Hamilton and oboist and researcher Uchenna Ngwe.

The classical music canon - who decides what's in and what's out? And can it change?

What is music good for? In our concluding link with the BBC's Civilisations season, The Listening Service asks one of the most fundamental questions we can about music, a claim often made on the art-form's behalf in a list of reasons why it's an essential good: is music a universal language?

It's a seductive idea, that music's primal activation of the world of our emotions, bypassing the rationalising parts of our brains, means that it has an essential communicative function that carries across cultures in the way that no other phenomenon of the human imagination can. Music binds us together, because Beethoven and the blues sound the same and mean the same whether you're listening in Oklahoma or Osaka.

It's a nice theory, but on The Listening Service, we'll reveal the limits of these claims to the universal. And we'll suggest that music separates and defines us just as much as it brings us together. Not giving the game away, but music isn't a universal language: it's much, much more powerful than that - as we'll discover!

It may take two to tango but there's a trio here to tease out the complex, multiple strands of this beguiling dance, as Tom Service is joined by tango historian John Turci-Escobar and Buenos Aires-born tango dancer Carla Dominguez.

David Papp (producer)

How did the tango escape its lowly origins to become a world-wide phenomenon?

AKA The Force Is Strong With This One

With Hawaiian born ukulele virtuoso and composer Taimane Gardner.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the world of the Ukulele with virtuoso Taimane Gardner.

Tom Service explores the world of the Ukulele, from the Hawaiian Royal Court of King Kalakaua to Blackpool Pier, the Royal Albert Hall, and thousands of UK classrooms.

It may take two to Tango but there's a trio here to tease out the complex, multiple strands of this beguiling dance, as TOM SERVICE is joined by Tango historian John Turci-Escobar and Buenos Aires-born Tango dancer Carla Dominguez. Part of Radio 3's focus on the music, history and culture of Latin America.

David Papp (producer)

How did the Tango escape its lowly origins to become a world-wide phenomenon?

Tom Service goes in search of Leoš Janက?ek, composer and man, in the company of musicologist and conductor Nigel Simeone, and Relate Counsellor Simone Bose.

David Papp (producer)

What makes the extraordinary music of Czech composer Leo\u0161 Jan\u00e1\u010dek instantly recognisable?

How did Leoš Janက??ek, a committed Czech nationalist whose intensely personal response to the places, landscapes and traditions of his Moravian homeland, produce music that is not only instantly recognisable but also viscerally connects to audiences all over the world? And how, in the last decade of Janက??ek's life, did a chance encounter with a woman almost 40 years his junior release a surely unparalleled burst of creative energy and a spate of late, great masterpieces?

TOM SERVICE goes in search of Leoš Janက??ek, composer and man, in the company of musicologist and conductor Nigel Simeone, and Relate Counsellor Simone Bose.

David Papp (producer)

What makes the extraordinary music of Czech composer Leo\u0161 Jan\u00e1\u010dek instantly recognisable?

How did Leo? Jan??ek, a committed Czech nationalist whose intensely personal response to the places, landscapes and traditions of his Moravian homeland, produce music that is not only instantly recognisable but also viscerally connects to audiences all over the world? And how, in the last decade of Jan??ek's life, did a chance encounter with a woman almost 40 years his junior release a surely unparalleled burst of creative energy and a spate of late, great masterpieces?

TOM SERVICE goes in search of Leo? Jan??ek, composer and man, in the company of musicologist and conductor Nigel Simeone, and Relate Counsellor Simone Bose.

Tom Service explores the music of Franz Liszt, with help from pianist Mariam Batsashvili.

Not if Mahler has anything to do with it.

Tom Service discovers how Mahler is the first non-classical Classical composer, how he happily harvested his tunes from everwhere from folk songs and children's rhymes to the landscape and nature, and how we as listeners are the most crucial part of them all and why he wanted every one of us to hear his music differently.

Tom Service discovers how Mahler was the first 'non-classical' classical composer.

Mahler's music - Huge eighty minute long symphonies, enormous orchestral forces, it should be thought of as the epitome of a complex cerebral classical music culture, surely?

Not if Mahler has anything to do with it.

Tom Service discovers how Mahler is the first non-classical Classical composer, how he happily harvested his tunes from everwhere from folk songs and children's rhymes to the landscape and nature, and how we as listeners are the most crucial part of them all and why he wanted every one of us to hear his music differently.

TOM SERVICE discovers how Mahler is the first non-classical Classical composer, how he happily harvested his tunes from everwhere from folk songs and children's rhymes to the landscape and nature, and how we as listeners are the most crucial part of them all and why he wanted every one of us to hear his music differently.

Less really is more on today's The Listening Service: we're maxing out on minimalism, that most popular but also most divisive and most misunderstood of all 20th century musical movements. Music that either makes you bliss out or brings you out in hives - it's the sound of that rhythmic repetitive music by a quartet of American composers - Steve Reich, Philip Glass, LaMonte Young, and Terry Riley, who have defined the movement, the style, even the genre of minimalism. Take a chord, a pattern, a handful of notes - and repeat them - and repeat agai

Our Listening Service witness today is macroeconomist, fund manager and sometime cellist Felix Martin, who has written the unauthorised biography of money.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the relationship between money and music.

David Papp (producer)

Why are there so many ways to perform the same piece of music? What is interpretation?

Tom Service asks why music has always been an essential part of mourning. With the help of cognitive neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday, he compares the music of two royal funerals separated by three centuries, and by tracing the development of funeral music into abstract art music he uncovers the private grief behind Bach's great D-minor violin Chaconne. And before ending with a Top Ten countdown of today's UK musical funeral favourites, he ponders why some music, never intended to be mournful, becomes indelibly associated with grieving.

Producer David Papp.

Producer David Papp.

A programme recorded earlier this afternoon at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead, in which Tom goes on a journey into musical time and space. Find out what connects Wagner and Stockhausen, speed metal and slow movements - and how you can transform the fastest music in the world into the slowest, right in front of your ears...

Tom Service explores how music warps and changes our sense of how time is flowing.

Toms Service explores the way composers engineer musical crescendos and climaxes.

AKA Crescendos And Climaxes

AKA Revolution And Protest

Across the globe, music has been an essential rallying-cry of revolution and social change: from the Marseillaise to Strange Fruit, from classical symphonies to hip-hop, music has accompanied some of the most vital changes to our world. How does music do it? PEGGY SEEGER, folk music icon and protest-song-writing genius, tells us how her life in music has been a clarion call for political and social activism, and writer and broadcaster Kevin LeGendre charts the story of music's role in the Civil Rights movement, from the 1960s to today. And through the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, we hear what happens when revolutionary fervour curdles into something darker: when does music protest a regime, and when does it support tyranny? A century and more of musical protests and revolutions on The Listening Service at the BBC Proms presented by TOM SERVICE.

Tom looks for clues in the potentially similar music of Mozart and Haydn, and in the English styles of Vaughan Williams and Elgar, and speaks to art historian and discoverer of lost masterpieces, Dr Bendor Grosvenor.

And film music expert Neil Brand examines how this and other classical adagios have been used to great effect in Hollywood blockbusters.

Tom Service on one of Vaughan Williams' most spellbinding pieces of music.

From 2001: A Space Odyssey to Barbie, from The Shining to Maestro, Tom listens in to some of the most iconic film scenes using needle-dropped classical music. He explores how directors harness the resonance and meanings of a piece of music to enrich the film's storytelling, and how a successful fusion of sound and image can leave such a deep impression in viewers' minds that music and film become inextricably entwined in popular consciousness.

Plus, Maggie Rodford - one of the film industry's most sought-after music supervisors - pulls back the curtain on the processes and thinking behind choosing the right needle drop for the right scene to make the most meaningful movie.

Producer: David Fay

Tom Service discovers the power of using pre-existing classical music in films.

Tom Service gets the drop on needle drop - the use of pre-existing music in film soundtracks - and discovers the unique power that it has for film-makers and viewers.

Plus Maggie Rodford - one of the film industry's most sought after Music Supervisors - pulls back the curtain on the processes and thinking behind choosing the right needle drop for the right scene to make the most meaningful movie.

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Tom Service, exploring the music of The Big Apple.

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Tom Service, exploring the music of The Big Apple, from its underground scene to John and Yoko's loft and Superman's skies.

TOM SERVICE wonders what makes music an essential part of mourning and how composers straddle the divide between private and public grief. Divided by three centuries what does the music for Queen Mary's 1695 funeral and the funeral for Princess Diana have in common? Why do some pieces become associated with mourning, despite their composers' intentions? And delving into how funeral music became integrated in abstract musical forms, he uncovers the private grief behind one of Bach's most famous works, the D minor Chaconne for solo violin.

In this parade of the undistinguished, Tom finds parallels with musical mediocrity in the atavistic appeal of the Concours de l'Ordinaire. He talks to its founder Marcus Atkinson about his extraordinary Festival of the Unexceptional which celebrates mundane cars of the recent past like Allegros and Ambassadors, Fiat 124s and Renault 18s, Montegos and Maestros.

David Papp (producer)

In a live edition of The Listening Service, Tom responds to Messiaen's 'Interstellar Call

In a live edition of The Listening Service, TOM SERVICE hears and responds to composer OLIVIER MESSIAEN's ?Interstellar Call', sent out in his epic From the canyons to the stars... The music is inspired by the wild beauty of Arizona, filled with birdsong and the sounds of nature, but also with a cosmic sense of awe - where does Messiaen's visionary work fit in the culture of the early 70s and in the present day?

In a live edition of The Listening Service, Tom Service hears and responds to composer Olivier Messiaen's ‘Interstellar Call', sent out in his epic 'From the canyons to the stars...' The music is inspired by the wild beauty of Arizona, filled with birdsong and the sounds of nature, but also with a cosmic sense of awe - where does Messiaen's visionary work fit in the culture of the early 70s and in the present day?

And yet the form of the march allows for more creativity than those strictures might suggest. Tom falls in with composers including Elgar, Coates, Sousa, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven to discover how the march can beat the drum for many different ideas and emotions.

With historian, Prof Simon Heffer.

Tom Service on musical marches.

As the world's greatest celebration of orchestras and orchestral music that is the BBC Proms gets underway, TOM SERVICE attempts to shed some light on three centuries of orchestral manoeuvres... When did orchestras begin and why? Why do they have standardised sections of strings, woodwind, brass and percussion? Why did they seem to get bigger and bigger as the 19th century turned into the 20th? Why have so many of the great composers spent so much of their time writing for them? Are they still relevant to today's composers and what's their future?

And to find out what it's actually like to play in an orchestra, an individual working together with sometimes 100 others, Tom talks to Beverley Jones, double bassist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

David Papp (producer).

David Papp (producer).

In the second of three companion programmes to BBC TV's Civilisations series, Tom Service unpicks western music's debt to the exotic and ponders the allure of western music for other cultures.

Reflecting contemporary attitudes and trends in fashion and the arts, the exotic has long cast its spell on western composers. Mozart catered to the 18th-century Viennese craze for all things Turkish; in 19th-century France the exotic stretched east to Indonesia and Japan. More recently, the music of Africa has attracted the likes of Steve Reich and Gy怀rgy Ligeti. And 150 years ago, as Japan opened up to outside influences, western culture became suddenly desirable in the east, with profound and lasting consequences. But what does it take to make the exotic in music more than a titillating and imperialist added extra?

Including contributions from composer Unsuk Chin, and cultural historian of Japan, Jonathan Service.

David Papp (producer).

Reflecting contemporary attitudes and trends in fashion and the arts, the exotic has long cast its spell on western composers. Mozart catered to the 18th-century Viennese craze for all things Turkish; in 19th-century France the exotic stretched east to Indonesia and Japan. More recently, the music of Africa has attracted the likes of STEVE REICH and Gy?rgy Ligeti. And 150 years ago, as Japan opened up to outside influences, western culture became suddenly desirable in the east, with profound and lasting consequences. But what does it take to make the exotic in music more than a titillating and imperialist added extra?

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas. Why is there so much cheesy yuletide music?

Borrowed from the French, 'Pathétique' means to arouse great passion and emotion. Tom Service examines how this word applies to Tchaikovsky's monumental 6th and final symphony.

With pianist and teacher Richard Sisson, and violinist Eva Thorarinsdottir, of the Aurora Orchestra, whose members are unusual in that they often play from memory as an ensemble.

Tom Service flexes his musical memory muscles whilst also improving his sight reading.

With pianist and teacher Richard Sisson, and violinist Eva Thorarinsdottir, of the Aurora Orchestra, whose members are unusual in that they often play from memory as an ensemble.

TOM SERVICE flexes his musical memory muscles whilst also improving his sight reading.

Tom Service seeks answers with the help of London Symphony Orchestra principal second violin David Alberman, second trumpet with English National Opera and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Will O'Sullivan and the Berlin Philharmonic's second horn, Sarah Willis.

David Papp (producer)

The joys and frustrations of being the unsung heroes of the orchestral world.

TOM SERVICE ponders the motivation and aesthetic value of musical hoaxes.

TOM SERVICE invites you to take stroll around a rogues' gallery of musical musical fakers, from the perpetrators of innocent pranks, to calculating fraudsters' deliberate deceptions. As well as the satisfying sight of seeing musical experts consuming humble pie, what are the motivations behind musical hoaxes? How can aesthetic value shift when work, once thought to be by a musical giant, is discovered to be a forgery or a by a much lesser figure? To help answer these and other questions, Tom is joined by Frances Christie, Sotheby's Head of Modern British Art, and author of An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, Rohan Kriwaczek.

TOM SERVICE on the motivation and aesthetic value of musical hoaxes.

TOM SERVICE invites you to take stroll around a rogues' gallery of musical fakers, from the perpetrators of innocent pranks, to calculating fraudsters' deliberate deceptions. As well as the satisfying sight of seeing musical experts consuming humble pie, what are the motivations behind musical hoaxes? How can aesthetic value shift when work, once thought to be by a musical giant, is discovered to be a forgery or a by a much lesser figure? To help answer these and other questions, Tom is joined by Frances Christie, Sotheby's Head of Modern British Art, and author of An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, Rohan Kriwaczek.

David Papp (producer)

TOM SERVICE invites you to take stroll around a rogues' gallery of musical musical fakers, from the perpetrators of innocent pranks, to calculating fraudsters' deliberate deceptions. As well as the satisfying sight of seeing musical experts consuming humble pie, what are the motivations behind musical hoaxes? How can aesthetic value shift when work, once thought to be by a musical giant, is discovered to be a forgery or a by a much lesser figure? To help answer these and other questions, Tom is joined by Frances Christie, Sotheby's Head of Modern British Art, and author of An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, Rohan Kriwaczek.

Tom Service plunges into the heady sound world of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.

The flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music' according to composer Pierre Boulez - how does Debussy do it? A ten-minute piece of music that apparently broke all the existing rules of harmony and yet is as minutely detailed as any miniature.

And what do flautists make of the famous opening solo - we hear from principal flute player with the London Symphony Orchestra, Gareth Davies, who demonstrates Debussy's strange magic on a flute of the time.

Tom Service plunges into the heady sound world of the Prelude \u00e0 l'apr\u00e8s-midi d'un faune.

Tom Service plunges into the heady sound world of the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.

The flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music' according to composer PIERRE BOULEZ - how does Debussy do it? A ten-minute piece of music that apparently broke all the existing rules of harmony and yet is as minutely detailed as any miniature.

And what do flautists make of the famous opening solo - we hear from principal flute player with the London Symphony Orchestra, Gareth Davies, who demonstrates Debussy's strange magic on a flute of the time.

TOM SERVICE plunges into the heady soundworld of the Prelude \u00e0 l'apr\u00e8s-midi d'un faune.

TOM SERVICE plunges into the heady sound world of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.

TOM SERVICE plunges into the heady sound world of the Prelude \u00e0 l'apr\u00e8s-midi d'un faune.

TOM SERVICE looks at Prog Rock, and asks: apotheosis of rock music, or vapid pomposity?

The whole concerto can be heard on Radio 3 tonight at 2330.

Tom Service explores Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.

The Listening Service returns after the summer break.TOM SERVICE examines one of the most famous concertos in the piano repertoire. What is the secret of its appeal? Why does it have such emotional impact? Why did the critics hate it, yet why is it such a classical favourite in the world of popular culture - from Mickey Mouse to MARILYN MONROE to Muse? And what did Rachmaninov have to go through to compose it? With pianist Lucy Parham.

Tom Service explores Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.

David Papp (producer)

Amateur musicians' vital role in music and performance over the last three centuries.

Tom Service explores Maurice Ravel's Bolero.

Tom Service explores Ravel's Bolero – a classical chart-topper, concert-hall-filler and the soundtrack to Torvill and Dean's Olympic skating glory. Written in 1928, Ravel described it as a 'piece without music in it' and agreed with the lady at the Paris premiere who shouted 'rubbish! rubbish!' over the applause. But he also admitted that with Bolero he had gambled and won, making one of the most experimental and popular pieces of orchestral music ever composed.

Tom Service explores Ravel's Bolero – a classical chart-topper, concert-hall-filler and the soundtrack to Torvill and Dean's Olympic skating glory. Written in 1928 Ravel described it as a 'piece without music in it' and agreed with the lady at the Paris premiere who shouted 'rubbish! rubbish!' over the applause. But he also admitted that with Bolero he had gambled and won, making one of the most experimental and popular pieces of orchestral music ever composed.

Recorders appear in paintings as early as the 15th century and have long been associated with angels and amateurs as well as children. Henry VIII was a big fan – ‘exercising himselfe dailie in - plaieing at the recorders'; and on hearing one in 1668 Samuel Pepys said it was ‘so sweet that it ravished me ; and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love with my wife'. He bought himself one six weeks later. An understated presence in the history of classical music nevertheless, the recorder has been utilised by composers from Henry Purcell and Handel, to Paul Hindemith and Luciano Berio.

So, what next for the recorder, and can it survive all those ukuleles? Tom Service investigates -

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the music and mystery of that schooldays favourite - the recorder.

Tom Service explores the music and mystery of that humble, plastic and mass-produced schooldays favourite - the recorder.

Recorders appear in paintings as early as the 15th century and have long been associated with angels and amateurs as well as children. Henry VIII was a big fan - ‘exercising himselfe dailie in

It's been estimated that in 90 per cent of the music that we hear in our lives, we're hearing material that we've already listened to before, And if you think about the music you love the most - it's often built on repeated patterns, phrases and riffs.

So why do we need our music to be so repetitive?

Join Tom - as he presses repeat on music from Bach to Beyonc退, Reich to the Rolling Stones, Stockhausen to Schubert - to find out why repetition is hard wired into our musical brains.

Tune in and rethink music with The Listening Service...

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that 'to listen' is a decidedly active verb.

Join Tom - as he presses repeat on music from Bach to Beyonc?, Reich to the Rolling Stones, Stockhausen to Schubert - to find out why repetition is hard wired into our musical brains.

Musicologist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis is on hand as Tom finds out why repetition is hard wired into our musical brains.

So join Tom as he presses repeat on music from Bach to Beyonc?, Haydn to HERBIE HANCOCK, Stockhausen to Schubert.

So join Tom as he presses repeat on music from Bach to Beyonc退, Haydn to HERBIE HANCOCK, Stockhausen to Schubert.

First broadcast in May 2016.

Tom Service and Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis explore why repetition is essential in music.

Especially for New Year, Tom looks at the idea of resolutions - and what they mean in the world of music.

The word 'resolution' has several meanings. It can refer to something that has been settled or resolved. It can infer a desire to do something differently or to behave in a changed way - as in a New Year resolution. It can also mark the final unravelling of some great complication or drama. In music, it means something more specific: the progression from discord to consonance. With New Year in mind, Tom Service considers the idea of resolution in music in the widest sense of the word; including a look at how composers set about creating a resolve to their musical ideas. Tom's guest expert is the composer Dobrinka Tabakova.

Across the globe, music has been an essential rallying-cry of revolution and social change: from the Marseillaise to Strange Fruit, from classical symphonies to hip-hop, music has accompanied some of the most vital changes to our world. How does music do it? PEGGY SEEGER, folk music icon and protest-song-writing genius, tells us how her life in music has been a clarion call for political and social activism, and writer and broadcaster Kevin LeGendre charts the story of music's role in the Civil Rights movement, from the 1960s to today. And through the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, we hear what happens when revolutionary fervour curdles into something darker: when does music protest a regime, and when does it support tyranny? A century and more of musical protests and revolutions on The Listening Service at the BBC Proms presented by TOM SERVICE.

The inspiration for Sibelius's Fifth Symphony - the famous flight of sixteen majestic swans across the lake from his house north of Helsinki was, in the composer's words 'one of my greatest experiences. Lord God, that Beauty...' It's a well-known story, but in today's Listening Service Tom argues that Sibelius's music isn't just a prettified depiction of nature, it's a wilderness itself, with its own teeming, wild ecologies: from the pagan creationism of Luonnotar, to the primeval forest gods of Tapiola, and the elemental forces of the Oceanides.

With writer Jaye Griffiths on wilderness as freedom, listening to a woodlouse, devotion to absolute life, and silence as extinction.

Tom Service explores the music of Sibelius as a force of nature.

TOM SERVICE explores the music of Sibelius as a force of nature with 'Wild' writer Jaye Griffiths.

The inspiration for Sibelius's Fifth Symphony - the famous flight of sixteen majestic swans across the lake from his house north of Helsinki was, in the composer's words 'one of my greatest experiences. Lord God, that Beauty...' It's a well-known story, but in today's Listening Service Tom argues that Sibelius's music isn't just a prettified depiction of nature, it's a wilderness itself, with its own teeming, wild ecologies: from the pagan creationism of Luonnotar, to the primeval forest gods of Tapiola, and the elemental forces of the Oceanides.

With writer Jaye Griffiths on wilderness as freedom, listening to a woodlouse, devotion to absolute life, and silence as extinction.

Tom presses repeat - again and again and again ...

A celebration of 'Signor Crescendo' Gioachino Rossini, operatic genius and gourmand.

Royal music doesn't have to be heraldic, ranging from the pomp and ceremony of Elgar; to the intimacy of lutenists like Dowland writing in the court of Christian IV in Denmark; to the secret music of the Kyoto imperial court, performed exclusively for royal ears. Composers over the centuries and millennia have written for kings, queens, princes and princesses, at times simultaneously praising and even criticising monarchies from within and without.

Music fit for kings, queens, princes and princesses: but what do we mean by royal music?

And in our own confusing times, is sad music what we need - or not? Tom Service looks at music's power to heal, to build community and to redefine historical events. With Associate Professor at University College London, Dr Daisy Fancourt, and author of 'Singing in the Age of Anxiety', Laura Tunbridge.

In times of trouble, is sad music what we need?

In 1649, a month after the execution of King Charles I, the distraught composer Thomas Tomkins wrote a piece of music called A sad pavan for these distracted times.

And in our own confusing times, is sad music what we need - or not? TOM SERVICE looks at music's power to heal, to build community and to redefine historical events. With Associate Professor at University College London, Dr Daisy Fancourt, and author of Singing in the Age of Anxiety, Laura Tunbridge.

In times of trouble, is sad music what we need?

A provincial composer who died young, described as looking like a 'little mushroom', on the face of it Franz Schubert doesn't seem a likely candidate for deep insight into the human condition. But appearances are very definitely deceptive, and some of his music can seem deceptively straightforward as well. Join Tom Service for a journey into Schubert's psyche and discover what his music tells us about the man, and perhaps about ourselves.

With Dr Laura Tunbridge of Oxford University.

A provincial composer who died young, described as looking like a 'little mushroom' - on the face of it Franz Schubert doesn't seem a likely candidate for deep insight into the human condition. But appearances are very definitely deceptive, and some of his music can seem deceptively straightforward as well. Join Tom Service for a journey into Schubert's psyche and discover what his music tells us about the man, and perhaps about ourselves.

With Dr Laura Tunbridge of OXford University.

A provincial composer who died young, described as looking like a little mushroom - on the face of it FRANZ SCHUBERT doesn't seem a likely candidate for deep insight into the human condition. But appearances are very definitely deceptive, and some of his music can seem deceptively straightforward as well. Join TOM SERVICE for a journey into Schubert's psyche and discover what his music tells us about the man, and perhaps about ourselves.

TOM SERVICE delves into the dark side of FRANZ SCHUBERT.

TOM SERVICE delves into the dark side of FRANZ SCHUBERT. What can we hear in his music?

A provincial composer who died young, described as looking like a little mushroom, on the face of it FRANZ SCHUBERT doesn't seem a likely candidate for deep insight into the human condition. But appearances are very definitely deceptive, and some of his music can seem deceptively straightforward as well. Join TOM SERVICE for a journey into Schubert's psyche and discover what his music tells us about the man, and perhaps about ourselves.

The Listening Service investigates music's divine journeys as part of the BBC's Civilisations season.

Humanity has used music to commune with the sacred for as long as we have been human: from the caves of Chauvet, tens of thousands of years ago, to the churches, temples, and synagogues of today, we have sung and hymned and played our connection with our God(s).

Something else has happened in modern Western society: as organised religion has waned, a cult of music has developed, in which we don't just use music to worship, but worship music and musicians as carriers of a divine spark. With the help of Keith Howard, Emeritus Professor of Music at SOAS and The Reverend Lucy Winkett, Tom explores how music has sounded the sacred and itself become sacred.

Something else has happened in modern Western society: as organised religion has waned, a cult of music has developed, in which we don't just use music to worship, but worship music and musicians as carriers of a divine spark. With the help of Keith Howard, Emeritus Professor of Music at SOAS and The Reverend Lucy Winkett, Tom explores how music has sounded the sacred and itself become sacred.

How did William Byrd come to compose three mass settings when celebrating mass was banned?

TOM SERVICE unlocks the mysteries of Shostakovich's baffling Symphony No 15.

Tom Service unlocks the mysteries of Shostakovich's baffling Symphony No 15.

All music begins and ends in silence and often there's a bit in the middle, too. Some pieces skirt silence as they hover at the edge of audibility; in others the performers are completely silent. Tom Service ponders silence's fundamental importance to music and how composers have made it an integral part of their works, from classical concert hall to today's avant-garde, from indie pop to techno dance floor. And as he asks if we, as listeners, can ever actually experience real silence, he's joined by composer Michael Pisaro to hear about the implications of silence for him and his audience.

This word sonata originally meant simply a piece of music. But over the course of music history 'sonata form' came to mean something very specific and laid the foundations for over two hundred years of sonatas, string quartets, symphonies and concertos.

In this edition of The Listening Service Tom explores sonata form - according to the revision guides it's all about Exposition-Development-Recapitulation. But its so much more than that - the template is just the bare bones of a three act drama - lyrical, exciting and compelling musical stories are told in sonata form . How can you hear them? How is it done?

With David Owen Norris at the piano, with his Sonata of the Prodigal Son.

In this edition of The Listening Service, Tom explores sonata form - according to the revision guides it's all about Exposition-Development-Recapitulation. But it's so much more than that - the template is just the bare bones of a three act drama - lyrical, exciting and compelling musical stories are told in sonata form. How can you hear them? How is it done?

This word sonata originally meant simply a piece of music. But over the course of music history sonata form came to mean something very specific and laid the foundations for over two hundred years of sonatas, string quartets, symphonies and concertos.

In this edition of The Listening Service Tom explores sonata form - according to the revision guides it's all about Exposition-Development-Recapitulation. But its so much more than that - the template is just the bare bones of a three act drama - lyrical, exciting and compelling musical stories are told in sonata form. How can you hear them? How is it done?

With DAVID OWEN NORRIS at the piano, with his Sonata of the Prodigal Son.

In this edition of The Listening Service, Tom Service tells stories in sonata form.

Our witness today is composer Emily Hall whose work Life Cycle, written with Toby Litt for singer Mara Carlyle, explores the theme of motherhood.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores the connections between song cycles and concept albums.

Tom Service explores the connections between song cycles in classical music and concept albums in pop and rock music.

With Professor Monica Grady CBE, leading British space scientist.

Producer: Lola Grieve

Tom Service takes us on a musical voyage to the moon (and back).

As part of Radio 3 Live at Southbank Centre, TOM SERVICE explores recorded sound.

Beneath the earth lies a noisy vibrant place, from the explosive roar of a volcano erupting, the echoes of caverns down to the barely audible grinding of the earth's plates.

All this noise has long inspired composers and musicians - from Stravinsky and Wagner to Howard Shore and TOM WAITS, we burrow into the earth itself to uncover the musical treats that lie under our feet. How do you translate the underground into music and does it bear any resemblance to what is actually happening down there?

Tom discovers what really lies beneath with the sound recordist Jez Riley French who reveals the hidden sounds from the earth itself turning to underground woodlice going about their daily business.

Plus music actually made in the deep places of the world - from Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening Band to the songs of Welsh miners.

Hannah Thorne (producer)

What does underground sound like? From earth-inspired music to sounds of the earth itself.

Beneath the earth lies a noisy vibrant place, from the explosive roar of a volcano erupting down to the barely audible grinding of the earth's plates. Tom discovers what lies beneath with geologists and sound recordists. All this noise has long inspired composers and musicians too - from Stravinsky and Wagner to Howard Shore and TOM WAITS, we burrow into the earth itself to uncover the musical treats that lie under our feet

A rollercoaster of a show as Tom experiences how music gets our hearts racing. How do composers from Bach to Jarvis Cocker manipulate speed in music? How can a slow movement by Sibelius be 'faster' than 'speedcore' dance music? Tom takes us inside the mechanics of speed, and discovers that Sibelius controls our heart rate in symphonic music in the same way that a DJ in Ibiza does as their set unfolds. Just to put his theories to the test, Tom rides a roller coaster with the composer Anna Meredith who explains how those mighty rides do much the same thing as she does when writing the music designed to get our pulse rate up.

TOM SERVICE explores minimalist composer STEVE REICH's 1988 piece Different Trains.

Tom Service dispenses music history style counsel - how to tell what you're listening to.

TOM SERVICE dispenses Style Counsel - what are the different eras in music history, and how can you tell them from each other? How did they come about and grow and change? And as Radio 3 is about to launch its New Year New Music season, is there an overarching distinguishing style in music today? Tom is joined by composer and writer NEIL BRAND at the piano for some answers.

Produced by Dom Wells

Tom Service surrounds himself in Tallis's 40-part Renaissance masterpiece.

TOM SERVICE investigates what happens when musical rhythm is loosened by swing or rubato.

He also consults pianist Stephen Hough about how to play Chopin and Rachmaninov with authentic flexibility. So whether it's Count Basie's Band or the Vienna Philharmonic, Tom unlocks the secrets of rubato.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service dissects Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns's Third 'Organ' Symphony.

TOM SERVICE dissects Camille Saint-Sa\u00ebns's Third Symphony.

I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again.' So said child prodigy, virtuoso pianist, intellectual, conductor and composer Camille Saint-Sa뀀ns about his wildly successful 1873 ‘Organ Symphony'. Famously featured in the 1995 porcine Disney film Babe, it's still immensely popular today. But where did it come from? What was Saint-Sa뀀ns trying to achieve and how influenced was he by his Parisian contemporaries? With organist Anna Lapwood on the thrill of playing ‘that chord' in the Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms.

What's the secret musical ingredient that music from salsa to Saturday Night Fever, from Charlie Parker to George Gershwin, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Leonard Bernstein, from ragtime to funk and disco, not to mention baroque sarabandes, has in common?

The answer is that they all swoon to the sounds of syncopation: to rhythms that dance against, as well as with, the beat - to make us tap our fingers and toes, to get us dancing.

On today's The Listening Service: what are the secrets of syncopation: what defines these rhythms in our music, and in our brains and our bodies, in the physiological and psychological ways that we process them?

Tom Service goes off beat! (And tries his hand at Cuban percussion).

TOM SERVICE goes off beat! (And tries his hand at Cuban percussion).

Tom Service explores talking in music - from 'sprechgesang' to rap.

Tom Service explores talking in music - from Gilbert & Sullivan's patter songs to high-art 'Sprechgesang' by Schoenberg, from Mozart's recitative to the rap of present-day LA. Anyway, who's to say what is talking and what is singing? Archive recordings of WB Yeats reveal him intoning his poetry melodically, while Ken Nordine devised what he called 'Word Jazz'.

This edition was first broadcast in 2020: the poet named there as Kate Tempest identified as non binary later that year, changing their name to Kae

TOM SERVICE explores talking in music - from Gilbert and Sullivan's patter songs to high-art ?sprechgesang' by Schoenberg, from Mozart's recitative to the rap of present-day LA. Anyway, who's to say what is talking and what is singing? Archive recordings of WB Yeats reveal him intoning his poetry melodically, while Ken Nordine devised what he called ?Word Jazz'.

TOM SERVICE explores talking in music - from Gilbert and Sullivan's patter songs to high-art ‘sprechgesang' by Schoenberg, from Mozart's recitative to the rap of present-day LA. Anyway, who's to say what is talking and what is singing? Archive recordings of WB Yeats reveal him intoning his poetry melodically, while Ken Nordine devised what he called ‘Word Jazz'.

From the dawn of human music-making, all instrumental music has been made via technology, whether bone flutes, violins, pianos, tape or synthesisers. Is new musical technology driven by the needs of composers and musicians or are they dazzled by its possibilities before they can really get to grips with it? How has cheap technology impacted on music, now that laptops have done for expensive studios and choosy producers. Do the infinite possibilities of today's digital technology limit musical imagination?

To help answer these and many other questions, Tom is joined by Maggie Cole, player of keyboard-based technologies from the clavichord to the synthesiser, and by composer, producer, and surfer of today's digital technological Utopia, Jono Buchanan.

To help answer these and many other questions, Tom is joined by MAGGIE COLE, player of keyboard-based technologies from the clavichord to the synthesiser, and by composer, producer, and surfer of today?s digital technological Utopia, Jono Buchanan.

Music and technology - what do you do when anything is possible?

To help answer these and many other questions, Tom is joined by MAGGIE COLE, player of keyboard-based technologies from the clavichord to the synthesiser, and by composer, producer, and surfer of today's digital technological Utopia, Jono Buchanan.

TOM SERVICE considers an often overlooked but vital element of music: its texture.

For thousands of years human life has been accompanied by the sound of bells - calls to prayer, driving away evil spirits, marking the hours and seasons of life - births, marriages, deaths, alarm bells, peace bells, sleigh bells and Christmas bells. Tom looks at the meaning and magic of the sound of bells, and listens to the interpretations and reverberations of bells in music.

The mystery, magic and music associated with bells.

TOM SERVICE on the mystery, magic and music associated with bells.

For thousands of years human life has been accompanied by the sound of bells - calls to prayer, driving away evil spirits, marking the hours and seasons of life - births, marriages, deaths, alarm bells, peace bells, sleigh bells and Christmas bells. In a programme first broadcast in 2018, Tom looks at the meaning and magic of the sound of bells, and listens to the interpretations and reverberations of bells in music.

Tom Service looks into the hows, whys and copyright pitfalls of musical borrowing with the help of legal expert and historian Olufunmilayo Arewa and composer and sound designer Pascal Wyse.

David Papp (producer)

Is using someone else's music in your own big and clever?

The line-up of early Twentieth Century English composers includes great figures such as Holst, Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax and Frederick Delius. Since the 1950's these composers have been dogged by a casual and unkind slur against their work, namely by referring to it as 'cowpat music'. Tom Service argues that, far from producing shallow and whimsical pastoral scores, the music produced by this English movement is among the most profound and communicative of the last century, rarely far from the influence of the two World Wars.

The line-up of early 20th-century English composers includes great figures such as Holst, Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax and Frederick Delius. Since the 1950s, these composers have been dogged by a casual and unkind slur against their work, namely by referring to it as 'cowpat music'.

Calling 20th-century English music 'cowpat music' is just plain rude! And it's inaccurate.

It's the epitome of the elephant in the room, and yet we'll discover why it is possibly the most underrated instrument in the orchestra.

Tom Service talks about the history and development of the largest and lowest pitched orchestral string instrument, and hears how it's played today. He's joined by performers Leon Bosch and Daphna Sadeh to discuss why the bass is much, much more than the elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room? No, the Double Bass is much more.

It's huge; Its awkward; It's difficult to play; and while it's totally pivotal to the musical spectrum, it's rarely talked about.

It's the epitome of the elephant in the room and yet, we'll discover why it is possibly the most underrated instrument in the orchestra.

TOM SERVICE on the history and development of the largest and lowest pitched orchestral string instrument, and hears how it's played today. He's joined by performers Leon Bosch and Daphna Sadeh to discuss why the bass is much, much more than the elephant in the room.

The immense power of chant to transform both the listener and the chanter has ensured the survival of this ancient musical form. Starting with the Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, Tom explores how chant has resonated across a thousand years of music, taking in American Hopi and Buddhist chants and the Hildegurls, a 21st century reading of Hildegard's music.

AKA Enchanting Chant

The immense power of chant to transform both the listener and the chanter has ensured the survival of this ancient musical form. Starting with the Abess Hildegard of Bingen, Tom explores how chant has resonated across a thousand years of music, taking in American Hopi and Buddhist chants and the Hildegurls, a 21st-century reading of Hildegard's music.

The ability of music to evoke a sense of the ethereal has a strange and powerful effect on listeners, something that composers have been aware of across the ages. Tom Service examines how this music creates its affect and to what ends. He draws on examples from Hldegard of Bingen, Gregorio Allegri, Wolfgang Mozart, James Horner, Einojuhani Rautavaara and George Crumb - among others - and of course Richard Wagner.

Tom Service explores the ethereal in music.

Composers across the ages have been aware that music's ability to evoke the ethereal can prompt extraordinary responses in a listener. Tom Service explores how and to what effect.

To find out how and why studies evolved to transcend their original function, TOM SERVICE is joined by musicologist Katy Hamilton and talks to Pierre-Laurent Aimard for whom Ligeti wrote many of his extraordinary Studies.

David Papp (producer)

How was the humdrum study transformed by great composers into miniature masterpieces?

Studies began life as an aid in the struggle to master the piano within the human limitations of two hands and ten fingers. But from being the bane of many a pianist's life and a means of selling more pianos, these arid technical exercises flowered into some of the greatest music written for piano from Chopin, though Debussy to Gy?rgy Ligeti. And in Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for player piano, they even inspired the greatest set of keyboard works beyond any human ability.

To find out how and why studies evolved to transcend their original function, Tom Service is joined by musicologist Katy Hamilton and talks to Pierre-Laurent Aimard who worked closely with Ligeti on his extraordinary series of studies, widely regarded as some of the greatest piano music of the 20th century.

Tom Service savours the sound of the fifth - an interval with many meanings, from mystic drone to military bugle call. He's joined by Early Music expert Jeremy Llewellyn who explains the significance of the fifth in medieval music, related to The Music of the Spheres and used to invoke the Almighty in religious chant; and by composer David Bruce, who describes how composers today find fresh uses for this primal sound. Tom finds the open, ringing sound of the fifth in all sorts of music, from a Buzzcocks guitar solo to a Mahler symphony, providing the thrill of adventure in the Star Wars theme and underpinning the reels of Scottish bagpipe music.

TOM SERVICE savours the sound of the fifth - an interval with many meanings, from mystic drone to military bugle call. He's joined by Early Music expert Jeremy Llewellyn who explains the significance of the fifth in medieval music, related to The Music of the Spheres and used to invoke the Almighty in religious chant; and by composer David Bruce, who describes how composers today find fresh uses for this primal sound. Tom finds the open, ringing sound of the fifth in all sorts of music, from a Buzzcocks guitar solo to a Bruckner symphony, providing the thrill of adventure in the Star Wars theme and underpinning the reels of Scottish bagpipe music.

TOM SERVICE savours the sound of the fifth - an interval with many meanings, from mystic drone to military bugle call. He's joined by Early Music expert Jeremy Llewellyn who explains the significance of the fifth in medieval music, related to The Music of the Spheres and used to invoke the Almighty in religious chant; and by composer David Bruce, who describes how composers today find fresh uses for this primal sound. Tom finds the open, ringing sound of the fifth in all sorts of music, from a Buzzcocks guitar solo to a Mahler symphony, providing the thrill of adventure in the Star Wars theme and underpinning the reels of Scottish bagpipe music.

TOM SERVICE savours the sound of the fifth - an interval with many meanings, from mystic drone to military bugle call. He's joined by Early Music expert Jeremy Llewellyn who explains the significance of the fifth in medieval music, related to The Music of the Spheres and used to invoke the Almighty in religious chant; and by composer David Bruce, who describes how composers today find fresh uses for this primal sound. Tom finds the open, ringing sound of the fifth in all sorts of music, from a Buzzcocks guitar solo to a Bruckner symphony, providing the thrill of adventure in the Star Wars theme and underpinning the reels of Scottish bagpipe music.

The French horn, elemental and atavistic, noble and heroic, has long held a special place in composers' affections. Just think of the horn writing of Bach and Handel, at once earthy and sophisticated, the concertos and chamber music of Mozart, the horns of Beethoven symphonies! Not to mention Schumann's supercharged Konzertstuck for four horns, or the central role the horn plays in Wagner's epic Ring - and in the orchestra of Brahms, Strauss and Mahler. And then there are today's composers...

Tom Service unwinds this 12-foot metal tube to discover its continuous appeal over three centuries with the help of natural horn virtuoso Anneke Scott and self-confessed French horn superfan Oliver Knussen, whose very personal concerto for the instrument was inspired by family and friendship, as well as the great horn writing of the past.

David Papp (producer).

David Papp (producer).

With pipers Simon McKerrell and Brighde Chaimbeul, Tom Service explores their history against the backdrop of global piping traditions from Sweden to Macedonia, Spain and Hungary. What's the difference between the ceol mhor and the ceol beag? Are modern pipes more likely to be made from goat or gore-tex? And how did they make their way into everything from AC/DC to Eminem, and Berlioz to Bach? Tom is on the case...

Tom Service goes in search of the Great Highland bagpipe.

From shortbread tins to the Royal Mile, rugby games and highland weddings, the bagpipes have long been a symbol of Scottish identity: but where did they come from, what are they for, and who writes their music? With pipers Simon McKerrell and Brighde Chaimbeul TOM SERVICE explores their history against the backdrop of global piping traditions from Sweden to Macedonia, Spain and Hungary. What's the difference between the ceol mhor and the ceol beag? Are modern pipes more likely to be made from goat or gore-tex? And how did they make their way into everything from ACDC to Eminem, and Berlioz to Bach? Tom is on the case...

TOM SERVICE explores the story behind the very first orchestral tone poem.

Baroque, Classical and Romantic... the big categories of music history all have their big-name composers. But what about the composers less easy to categorise, the ones who fall in between the gaps? TOM SERVICE goes in search of the In Betweeners from all eras and, with the help of CPE Bach aficionado Andreas Staier, discovers how these once hugely influential figures still speak directly to us now.

David Papp (producer)

In between the gaps left by the big names lurks many a forgotten great composer.

David Papp (producer)

In between the gaps left by the big names lurks many a forgotten great composer...

For Radio 3's 'Spirit of Bach' season, Tom Service celebrates The Joy of Bach.

So many questions... To attempt some answers, TOM SERVICE enlists the help of harpsichord maker and tuner Andrew Wooderson, harpsichord player Masumi Yamamoto and musicologist Katy Hamilton.

David Papp (producer)

TOM SERVICE asks why is western music in so many different keys and what exactly are they?

TOM SERVICE asks why western music is in so many different keys and what exactly they are.

What is a key? In western music, if all the intervals and possible chords in every scale in any major key are the same (and ditto for every scale and chord in every minor key), why do we need 12 major keys and 12 minor ones? What have keys meant to composers down the centuries and has that changed? Are keys now so last-century (or even before that)? What even is a key? Why is the Pythagorean Comma important and what even is it?

Tom Service explores the idea of polyphony - many voices, of equal importance, independent of each other and yet essential to the greater whole. A musical democratic utopia? Or are some voices always going to be more equal than others?

Taking the theme of this year's festival 'the one and the many', Tom asks what singing together as one, and yet in different parts and voices, tells us about ourselves and our relationships with each other.

Live at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead with the festival house choir, 'Voices of Hope'.

Taking the theme of this year's festival the one and the many, Tom asks what singing together as one, and yet in different parts and voices, tells us about ourselves and our relationships with each other.

Live at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead with the festival house choir, Voices of Hope.

In this special edition of The Listening Service recorded live at this year's Hay Festival, Tom Service explores the parallels between great children's literature and music written for young people. From Debussy to Prokofiev, Bizet to Britten - childhood has fascinated some of the greatest composers - how does their approach compare to children's writers and illustrators? What can we learn from music written by youngsters themselves and what lessons can be learned from music, pictures and words created for children? Joining Tom to answer those questions at the piano, is the composer and pianist Richard Sisson who wrote the score for Alan Bennett's The History Boys at The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Goodnight Children Everywhere; and the award-winning author and illustrator Ed Vere, creator of Mr Big, Max the Brave and Bedtime for Monsters.

In this special edition of The Listening Service recorded live at this year's Hay Festival, TOM SERVICE explores the parallels between great children's literature and music written for young people. From Debussy to Prokofiev, Bizet to Britten - childhood has fascinated some of the greatest composers. How does their approach compare to the likes of LEWIS CARROLL, Judith Kerr and Michael Morpurgo? And how 'childish' are some of the most complex works of music and literature? Joining Tom to answer those questions at the piano, is the composer and pianist Richard Sisson who wrote the score for ALAN BENNETT's The History Boys at The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Goodnight Children Everywhere.

In this special edition of The Listening Service recorded live at this year's Hay Festival, TOM SERVICE explores the parallels between great children's literature and music written for young people. From Debussy to Prokofiev, Bizet to Britten - childhood has fascinated some of the greatest composers - how does their approach compare to children's writers and illustrators? What can we learn from music written by youngsters themselves and what lessons can be learned from music, pictures and words created for children? Joining Tom to answer those questions at the piano, is the composer and pianist Richard Sisson who wrote the score for ALAN BENNETT's The History Boys at The National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Goodnight Children Everywhere; and the award-winning author and illustrator Ed Vere, creator of Mr Big, Max the Brave and Bedtime for Monsters.

Enter the magical musical world of the forest. It's charming, mysterious, beautiful and scary. Tom Service is your guide as he explores the magical role of the forest in music, from the Romantic charms of Schubert songs to the nightmarish spirits of Weber's Freischütz opera, and beyond to the symbolic psychological forests of Schoenberg's Erwartung and Sibelius's Tapiola. He also talks to sound artist Jez Riley French about his close-up recordings of forests, which bring us the truly wild sounds of un-romanticised nature.

Finnish-born, Paris-based Saariaho's music, at once dark and dazzling, immediate and sensual, has ensured her position as one of the world's leading living composers. From operas which explore the big human themes, to orchestral and instrumental works which fuse electronic and acoustic sounds, her voice is completely distinctive and instantly recognisable, a triumph of extraordinary imagination and determination over an unpromising family background.

David Papp (producer)

Tom Service takes a journey through the music of the Finnish-born, Paris-based composer.

TOM SERVICE takes an introductory journey through the beguiling sound world of KAIJA SAARIAHO.

Finnish-born, Paris-based Saariaho's music, at once dark and dazzling, immediate and sensual, has ensured her position as one of the world's leading living composers. From operas which explore the big human themes, to orchestral and instrumental works which fuse electronic and acoustic sounds, her voice is completely distinctive and instantly recognisable, a triumph of extraordinary imagination and determination over an unpromising family background.

David Papp (producer)

TOM SERVICE takes a journey through the music of the Finnish-born, Paris-based composer.

Tom Service looks at the relationship between music and its surroundings, and how that relationship has developed over the centuries.

Tom Service on the mutually creative relationship between music and its surroundings.

He explores the nocturnal sounds of the natural world with sound recordist Ellie Williams and sees how composers like Bartok have tried to incorporate those sounds in their music.

Music is full of dreamscapes as well as nightmares, so science writer Alice Robb is on hand to explain why we dream and how we might be at our most creative when we close our eyes to dream.

Hannah Thorne (producer)

TOM SERVICE discovers what happens to music at night.

Dom Wells (producer)

From composers to composters: how and why do composers re-use their own music?

Many composers re-use music from their earlier works in their later ones. But why? And what do these 'recycled' versions sounds like? Tom Service explores this 'green' phenomenon.

In this parade of the undistinguished, Tom finds parallels with musical mediocrity in the atavistic appeal of the Concours de l'Ordinaire. He talks to its founder Marcus Atkinson about his extraordinary Festival of the Unexceptional which celebrates mundane cars of the recent past like Allegros and Ambassadors, Fiat 124s and Renault 18s, Montegos and Maestros.

David Papp (producer)

The dull, second-rate and banal are the foundation of lasting greatness, says Tom Service.

Tom Service tears the gaudy wrapping paper from Tchaikovsky's balletic masterpiece to remind us you don't always get what you want. Behind the tinsel and fluffy snowflakes lies a story imbued with darkness and death. But maybe that is the secret of its unfading allure and beauty.

Tom is joined by Marina Frolova-Walker and Peggy Reynolds to crack the most popular nut in the repertoire.

Think The Nutcracker is a super-saccharine classic for the feelgood season? Think again.

Think The Nutcracker is a super-saccharine classic for the feel-good season? Think again.

Think The Nutcracker is a super-saccharine classic for the feelgood season? Think again. But don't let its dark undertones spoil your enjoyment of a balletic masterpiece.

From the first, C major prelude with its lean and simple series of arpeggios, taking listeners on an exquisite harmonic journey, through to darker and more complex moments, with plenty of playfulness and joy along the way, The Well-Tempered Clavier is an astonishing feat of imagination. These two books of preludes and fugues are a treasure trove, where Bach combines contrapuntal wizardry with his extraordinary gift for expressing human emotion.

With help from American pianist, Jeremy Denk, Tom Service lifts the lid on The Well-Tempered Clavier to discover its secrets.

Producer: Jonathan Hallewell

Tom Service explores JS Bach's extraordinary The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Tom Service explores JS Bach's extraordinary The Well-Tempered Clavier. Why is it so widely seen as such a cornerstone of classical music?

Tom Service explores J. S. Bach's extraordinary Well Tempered Clavier, a series of 48 preludes and fugues for keyboard in all 24 major and minor keys. It's widely regarded as a towering achievement and a cornerstone of western art music. The 19th century German conductor and pianist, Hans von Bülow famously described it as “The Old Testament of Music ? and generations of musicians and scholars have spoken of its monumental stature in the history and development of music.

From the first, C major prelude with its lean and simple series of arpeggios, taking listeners on an exquisite harmonic journey, through to darker and more complex moments, with plenty of playfulness and joy along the way, the Well Tempered Clavier is an astonishing feat of imagination. These two books of preludes and fugues are a treasure trove, where Bach combines contrapuntal wizardry with his extraordinary gift for expressing human emotion.

With help from American pianist, Jeremy Denk, Tom Service lifts the lid on the Well Tempered Clavier to discover its secrets.

Tom Service explores J. S. Bach's extraordinary Well Tempered Clavier.

Tom Service explores J. S. Bach's extraordinary Well Tempered Clavier. Why is it so widely seen as such a cornerstone of classical music?

Tom Service explores J. S. Bach's extraordinary Well Tempered Clavier, a series of 48 preludes and fugues for keyboard in all 24 major and minor keys. It's widely regarded as a towering achievement and a cornerstone of western art music. The 19th century German conductor and pianist, Hans von Bülow famously described it as `The Old Testament of Music` and generations of musicians and scholars have spoken of its monumental stature in the history and development of music.

From the first, C major prelude with its lean and simple series of arpeggios, taking listeners on an exquisite harmonic journey, through to darker and more complex moments, with plenty of playfulness and joy along the way, the Well Tempered Clavier is an astonishing feat of imagination. These two books of preludes and fugures are a treasure trove, where Bach combines contrapuntal wizardry with his extraordinary gift for expressing human emotion.

Tune in and rethink music with The Listening Service.

With Valentines Day just around the corner, Tom explores the enduring power of love songs. He talks to Ted Gioia, author of Love Songs: The Hidden History who explains that the very first traces of writing in human history are hymns to love. The tenor Ian Bostridge reflects on the inward-looking art of Lieder and what they tell us about true love in the Romantic era. And Tom turns to the operatic stage for some of the ultimate expressions of love as a subversive and even revolutionary force, showing how Verdi and Strauss used thwarted lovers in their operas to shine a light on the hypocrisy and gender politics of their times.

Tom Service explores the enduring power of love songs.

From medieval English music to the Everly Brothers - what is it about the musical interval of the third that sounds so attractive? Why does a major third tend to feel positive, and a minor third tend to feel sad? Nature or nurture? And what about their dark cousin, the tritone - the so-called 'Devil in Music' - what on earth is that sinister about a couple of notes?

Tom Service is joined by Dr Adam Ockelford to try and find some answers.

From medieval English music to the Everly Brothers - what is it about the musical interval of the third that sounds so attractive? Why does a major third tend to feel positive, and a minor third tend to feel sad? Nature or nurture? And what about their dark cousin, the tritone - the so-called Devil in Music - what on earth is that sinister about a couple of notes?

From medieval English music to the Everly Brothers - what is it about the musical interval of the third that sounds so attractive? Why does a major third tend to feel positive, and a minor third tend to feel sad? Nature or nurture? And what about their dark cousin, the tritone - the so-called Devil in Music - what on earth can be that sinister about a couple of notes?

TOM SERVICE is joined by Dr Adam Ockelford to try and find some answers.

From medieval English music to the Everly Brothers - what is it about the musical interval of the third that sounds so attractive? Why does a major third tend to feel positive, and a minor third tend to feel sad? Nature or nurture? And what about their dark cousin, the tritone - the so-called 'Devil in Music' - what on earth can be that sinister about a couple of notes?

Join Tom on a Listening Service voyage across our oceans to discover why music has long been inspired by the sea - from Sibelius and Mendelssohn to John Luther Adams and the Beatles. Meanwhile he discovers music that is literally created by the sea itself and marine biologist Helen Scales reveals the true sound of our oceans.

Join Tom on a Listening Service voyage across our oceans to discover why music has long been inspired by the sea - from Sibelius and Mendelssohn to John Luther Adams and the Beatles - how have composers tried to capture the ocean in their music? Is it even possible?

Meanwhile, Tom discovers music that is literally created by the sea itself from Blackpool to the Arctic, and dives down into the sounds of coral reefs with the marine biologist Helen Scales to hear the noisy vibrant reality of life under the waves, from snapping pistol shrimps and angry damsel fish to singing whales.

Tom Service explores why and how the sea captures the imaginations of so many musicians.

Meanwhile, Tom discovers music that is literally created by the sea itself from Blackpool to the Arctic, and dives down into the sounds of coral reefs with marine biologist Helen Scales to hear the noisy vibrant reality of life under the waves, from snapping pistol shrimps and angry damselfish to singing whales.

Join Tom on a Listening Service voyage across our oceans to discover why music has long been inspired by the sea - from Sibelius and Mendelssohn to John Luther Adams and the Beatles. Meanwhile he discovers music that is literally created by the sea itself and marine biologist Helen Scales reveals the true sound of our oceans.

Meanwhile, Tom discovers music that is literally created by the sea itself from Blackpool to the Arctic, and dives down into the sounds of coral reefs with the marine biologist Helen Scales to hear the noisy vibrant reality of life under the waves, from snapping pistol shrimps and angry damsel fish to singing whales.

In the Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang 'Tee - a drink with jam and bread - that will bring us back to Doh' - but what makes that 'tee' note pull us so inexorably back (by a semitone) to 'doh' - the tonic? Tom calls the semitone 'the piquant spice that drives the change from one key to another' - powerful effects from a little interval.

Tom Service considers the semitone. Music's most fundamental building block, it can mean sorrow when it falls, triumph when it rises, but also provoke fear (in the theme from Jaws). It can become a glittering decoration when repeated as a trill. Tom also talks to musicologist Sarha Moore about its varied significances in musical traditions of the Middle East and India, and also its special effect in the riffs of Heavy Metal rock music.

TOM SERVICE on what can be done with the semitone, the smallest interval in western music.

In the Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang Tee - a drink with jam and bread - that will bring us back to Doh - but what makes that tee note pull us so inexorably back (by a semitone) to doh - the tonic? Tom calls the semitone the piquant spice that drives the change from one key to another - powerful effects from a little interval.

In the Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang Tee - a drink with jam and bread - that will bring us back to Doh - but what makes that tee note pull us so inexorably back (by a semitone) to doh - the tonic? Tom calls the semitone the piquant spice that drives the change from one key to another - powerful effects from a little interval.

Tom Service considers the semitone. Music's most fundamental building block, it can mean sorrow when it falls, triumph when it rises, but also provoke fear (in the theme from Jaws). It can become a glittering decoration when repeated as a trill. Tom talks to mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly about the tragic falling semitones of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, and also to musicologist Sarha Moore about the varied significances of the semitone in musical traditions of the Middle East and India, and its special effect in the riffs of Heavy Metal rock music.

In the Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang 'Tee - a drink with jam and bread - that will bring us back to Doh' - but what makes that 'tee' note pull us so inexorably back (by a semitone) to 'doh' - the tonic? Tom calls the semitone 'the piquant spice that drives the change from one key to another' - powerful effects from a little interval.

With the help of composer Howard Skempton and Tate Modern curator Emma Lewis, TOM SERVICE discovers the hard and often complex truths about simplicity.

David Papp (producer)

When is less more, and less less? How hard is it to achieve meaningful musical simplicity?

Tom Service explores the most celebrated of chamber ensembles, the string quartet.

Why is a chamber ensemble of two violins, viola and cello the most popular in all of music? The string quartet has inspired - and instilled fear into - composers like no other ensemble, and has been used in pop songs from the Beatles to Bjork.TOM SERVICE explores the string quartet, from Haydn's epic 68 works for the medium, to Beethoven's heroic and tortured late masterpieces, to Shostakovich's 15 soul-bearing 20th Century works. Tom's guests are composer Dobrinka Tabakova, who takes inspiration from the wealth of quartets written before her, and one of the best quartets in the business - the Brodsky Quartet who, besides the great classical cannon, have played with pop artists including ELVIS COSTELLO, Sting and Paul McCartney in their nearly 50-year existence.

TOM SERVICE's quirky take on the world of classical music.

Tom Service investigates the rise of the synthesizer. How did this initially crude assemblage of electrical components develop in a few decades to become one of the most ubiquitous and flexible of musical instruments? He consults Peter Zinovieff, inventor of the first British commercially-available synthesizer (the VCS3, made in his garden shed in Putney); and also young composer/performer Hannah Peel, who likes to work with the sound of vintage analogue synths.

Tom Service investigates the rise of the synthesizer. How did this initially crude assemblage of electrical components develop in a few decades to become one of the most ubiquitous and flexible of musical instruments? He consults Peter Zinovieff, inventor of the first British commercially available synthesizer (the VCS3, made in his garden shed in Putney); and also young composer/performer Hannah Peel, who likes to work with the sound of vintage analogue synths.

TOM SERVICE investigates the rise of the synthesizer. How did this initially crude assemblage of electrical components develop in a few decades to become one of the most ubiquitous and flexible of musical instruments? He consults Peter Zinovieff, inventor of the first British commercially-available synthesizer (the VCS3, made in his garden shed in Putney); and also young composer/performer Hannah Peel, who likes to work with the sound of vintage analogue synths.

Tom Service immerses himself in the resonant sound world of 21st-century choral music.

He looks back on over five hundred years of the story of the trombone and offers insight into the meaning of things such as 'Tower Music' and 'Stadtpfeifer'. Tom looks at the role of the trombone in religious music and in music for the theatre, and at its comparitively late arrival within the symphony orchestra, back in the final decades of the 18th Century. And there's a chance to enjoy some of the distinctive qualities that trombones offer to the orchestral music of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Shostakovich and Berg. This week's guest expert is the principal trombonist of the Halle Orchestra, Katy Jones.

What is the role of the trombone section in orchestras, and why do they come in threes?

At the back row of the orchestra, usually three in number, sit the trombone section, but why three and how long have they been there? Tom Service considers their history and purpose.

TOM SERVICE explores the viola's secret influence in music.

Describing it as 'music's secret fire', TOM SERVICE explores the world of the viola. Speaking to Lawrence Power, one of the world's great viola players who has commissioned numerous works for his instrument and SALLY BEAMISH, viola player and composer, Tom sets out to unlock the key to the viola's elusive sound and to understand how it can drive the energy of the orchestra.

Presented in front of a live audience at Imperial College, London, before tonight's Prom.

TOM SERVICE considers how music can be transcendent. From Wagner's sublime harmonies in Tristan und Isolde, to the hypnotic drumming of shamans, what is it about some kinds of music that can take us to a higher plane? He considers music for contemplation (such as church music by Messiaen, and Faur?'s Requiem which you can hear in tonight's Prom); music for dancing to oblivion (the techno Trance genre, whirling dervishes); music evoking ecstasy (Scriabin, Gospel music); and he discusses the ancient practises of shamans in various cultures, with ethnomusicologist Keith Howard.

TOM SERVICE considers musical transcendence.

TOM SERVICE considers how music can be transcendent. From Wagner's sublime harmonies in Tristan und Isolde, to the hypnotic drumming of shamans, what is it about some kinds of music that can take us to a higher plane? He considers music for contemplation (such as church music by Messiaen, and Faur退's Requiem which you can hear in tonight's Prom); music for dancing to oblivion (the techno Trance genre, whirling dervishes); music evoking ecstasy (Scriabin, Gospel music); and he discusses the ancient practises of shamans in various cultures, with ethnomusicologist Keith Howard.

Tom Service considers how music can be transcendent. From Wagner's sublime harmonies in Tristan und Isolde, to the hypnotic drumming of shamans, what is it about some kinds of music that can take us to a higher plane? He considers music for contemplation (such as church music by Messiaen, and Fauré's Requiem which you can hear in tonight's Prom); music for dancing to oblivion (the techno 'Trance' genre, whirling dervishes); music evoking ecstasy (Scriabin, Gospel music); and he discusses the ancient practises of shamans in various cultures, with ethnomusicologist Keith Howard.

Tom Service considers how music can be transcendent. From Wagner's sublime harmonies in Tristan und Isolde, to the hypnotic drumming of shamans, what is it about some kinds of music that can take us to a higher plane? He considers music for contemplation (such as church music by Messiaen, and Faur退's Requiem); music for dancing to oblivion (the techno 'Trance' genre, whirling dervishes); music evoking ecstasy (Scriabin, Gospel music); and he discusses the ancient practises of shamans in various cultures, with ethnomusicologist Keith Howard.

(Presented in front of a live audience)

TOM SERVICE talks to composer Anna Meredith and conductor MARTYN BRABBINS about the fascination and challenge of the off-beat beat.

TOM SERVICE on the fascination of out-of-the-ordinary rhythms.

Tom Service on the supercharged emotional impact of Wagner's epic opera Tristan und Isolde

Tom Service on the supercharged emotional impact of Wagner's epic opera Tristan and Isolde

Today on The Listening Service Tom gets into gear for the truck driver modulation - crunching from one key to another, and not worrying overly about the musical synchromesh .

There's not too much attention paid to the proper rules of harmony in today's programme, which celebrates the emotional and dramatic impact of the well-placed sudden key change. From Bruckner to Bon Jovi, Mahler to Michael Jackson, and less alliteratively, from Schubert to Bill Withers via Barry Manilow, we may love to hate this technique, but join Tom as he stands up for the key change (like Westlife).

Today on The Listening Service Tom gets into gear for the truck driver modulation - crunching from one key to another, and not worrying overly about the musical synchromesh.

With Dr. Dai Griffiths, Senior Lecturer in Music at Oxford Brookes University, and novelist Elizabeth Day.

Tom Service explores cartoon music, from manic Mickey Mouse to moody Batman.

TOM SERVICE explores tunes for 'toons - the music that accompanies cartoons from the earliest Mickey Mouse to the sophisticated animations of today. Unlike conventional film soundtracks, cartoon music is often upfront and very much part of the manic action of cartoons. And that distinctive breakneck energy has inspired concert composers such as John Zorn. Tom talks to Daniel Goldmark, author of Tunes for 'Toons, about the music of Hollywood animated cartoons of the 1930s to the 1950s; and to Lolita Ritmanis, LA-based composer for many recent animations including Batman: The Animated Series.

TOM SERVICE explores cartoon music, from manic Mickey Mouse to moody Batman.

Tom Service explores 'tunes for 'toons' - the music that accompanies cartoons from the earliest Mickey Mouse to the sophisticated animations of today. Unlike conventional film soundtracks, cartoon music is often upfront and very much part of the manic action of cartoons. And that distinctive breakneck energy has inspired concert composers such as John Zorn. Tom talks to Daniel Goldmark, author of Tunes for 'Toons, about the music of Hollywood animated cartoons of the 1930s to the 1950s; and to Lolita Ritmanis, LA-based composer for many recent animations including Batman: The Animated Series.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service travels deep into Olivier Messiaen's epic Turangalila Symphony.

TOM SERVICE discovers just how loud and soft classical music can be, and pop music that is louder still. Is it all about loudness or are the quiet moments more evocative?

With the Royal College of Music's Head of Composition, WILLIAM MIVAL, and BBC Sound engineer Matilda Macari, Tom gives an insight into just how loud the music that we're hearing through our radios is.

Produced by Calantha Bonnissent

Dynamics are crucial to the dramatic effect of music. TOM SERVICE adjusts the volume.

With the Royal College of Music's Head of Composition, WILLIAM MIVAL and BBC Sound engineer Matilda Macari gives an insight into just how loud the music that we're hearing through our radios is.

The Royal College of Music's Head of Composition WILLIAM MIVAL and BBC Sound engineer Matilda Macari give an insight into just how loud the music that we're hearing through our radios is.

Tom Service discovers just how loud and soft classical music can be, and pop music that is louder still. Is it all about loudness, or are the quiet moments more evocative?

Produced by Calantha Bonnissent.

With Tom Service.

TOM SERVICE explores the meaning of musical virtuosity.

Cram packed with heroes, heroines, gods and goddesses, it took 25 years to write and has inspired everyone from JRR Tolkien to Francis Ford Coppola and Bugs Bunny.

Selfishness, deception, hypocrisy, greed, destruction; like all good box sets they're all in there, but what's The Ring really about? And what can we, and perhaps today's world leaders, learn from it?

Tom has half an hour to find out.

TOM SERVICE explores classical music's ultimate binge-listening box set - The Ring.

Cram packed with heroes, heroines, gods and goddesses, it took 25 years to write and has inspired everyone from JRR Tolkein to Francis Ford Coppola, and Bugs Bunny.

As the BBC year-long season 'Our Classical Century' launches, what do we actually mean by the term 'classical music'?

By its narrowest definition it's essentially mid-18th to early 19th century music and yet it's usually used to mean much much more. So how is classical music defined these days? Is it a walled garden of a very distinct style, or can it embrace all sorts of things? Does being played by an orchestra make something classical? Is film music classical? Are crossover artists classical? Is game music classical? Questions, and possibly some answers, with Tom Service, plus thoughts from composer Max Richter and writer Charlotte Higgins.

What do we actually mean when we talk about 'classical music'? What is - or isn't it?

By its narrowest definition it's essentially mid-18th to early 19th century music and yet it's usually used to mean much much more. So how is classical music defined these days? Is it a walled garden of a very distinct style, or can it embrace all sorts of things? Does being played by an orchestra make something classical? Is film music classical? Are crossover artists classical? Is game music classical? Questions, and possibly some answers, with Tom Service, plus thoughts from composer Max Richter and writer Charlotte Higgins..

From Paleolithic caves to Roman arenas, we know that music was made, and even what instruments were played - but what did the music sound like? Tom attempts to find out, with help from flautist Anna Friederike Potengowski, composer Neil Brand, and media historian David Hendy. Journey with them from the prehistoric to ancient Rome, via the 'modern stone age' town of Bedrock.

From Paleolithic caves to Roman arenas, we know that music was made, and even what instruments were played - but what did the music sound like? Tom attempts to find out, with help from flautist Anna Friederike Potengowski, composer NEIL BRAND, and media historian DAVID HENDY. Journey with them from the prehistoric to ancient Rome, via the modern stone age town of Bedrock.

From Paleolithic caves to Roman arenas, we know that music was made, and even what instruments were played - but what did the music sound like? Tom attempts to find out, with help from flautist Anna Friederike Potengowski, composer NEIL BRAND, and media historian DAVID HENDY. Journey with them from the prehistoric to ancient Rome, via the modern stone age town of Bedrock.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that 'to listen' is a decidedly active verb.

Today's programme asks, 'What is it about Mozart?' - how have his life and music become the template for what a composer should be - a child prodigy, a virtuoso, a cultural monument, not to mention a confectionery industry... And is there anything that we can say is uniquely 'Mozartean' - what makes his music so distinctive, and why does it connect so readily with audiences? Explore Mozart's music with Tom and see what conclusions you come to.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that `to listen` is a decidedly active verb.

Tune in and rethink music with The Listening Service.

Tom Service asks, 'What is it about Mozart?' Rethink music with The Listening Service.

TOM SERVICE explores the essence of Mozart. Why does his music continue to make an impact?

Today's programme asks What is it about Mozart - how have his life and music become the template for what a composer should be - a child prodigy, a virtuoso, a cultural monument, not to mention a confectionery industry... And is there anything that we can say is uniquely Mozartean - what makes his music so distinctive and why does it connect so readily with audiences? Explore Mozart's music with Tom and see what conclusions you come to.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that “to listen ? is a decidedly active verb.

TOM SERVICE considers the rise of Sound Art. Is it art music or something else?

TOM SERVICE considers the rise of Sound Art, commonly found in art galleries today, and wonders whether it is a new genre or simply music in an art space? He consults musician and sound artist Mark Fell (who thinks sound appreciation should be taught in schools), finds precedents in Wagner's operas, considers how a 16th-century choral work became a contemporary art installation, and celebrates the American performance artist LAURIE ANDERSON who accidentally had a pop hit with her piece O Superman.

TOM SERVICE considers the rise of Sound Art. Is it art, or music, or something else?

Tom Service considers what makes a good song work - verse, chorus, a good tune and...? Is a pop song using fundamentally the same structure as an art song or lied? From the timeless pop of The Carpenters to the gigantic 'song symphonies' of Gustav Mahler, Tom examines what you can do with a few verses, perhaps a chorus, and maybe a 'middle eight'. He's also joined by composer and pianist Richard Sisson to consider the genius of Robert Schumann's songcraft, and by producer Dan Carey who considers contrasting song structures by The Beach Boys and Frank Ocean.

Tom Service explores what makes a good song work.

TOM SERVICE considers what makes a good song work - verse, chorus, a good tune and...? Is a pop song using fundamentally the same structure as an art song or Lied? From the timeless pop of Burt Bacharach to the gigantic song-symphonies of Gustav Mahler, Tom examines what you can do with a few verses, perhaps a chorus, and maybe a middle eight. He's also joined by songwriter and pianist Richard Sisson to consider the genius of Robert Schumann's songcraft.

TOM SERVICE considers what makes a good song work - verse, chorus, a good tune and...? Is a pop song using fundamentally the same structure as an art song or Lied? From the timeless pop of The Carpenters to the gigantic song-symphonies of Gustav Mahler, Tom examines what you can do with a few verses, perhaps a chorus, and maybe a middle eight. He's also joined by composer and pianist Richard Sisson to consider the genius of Robert Schumann's songcraft, and by producer Dan Carey who considers contrasting song structures by The Beach Boys and Frank Ocean.

Tom Service on the majesty of the organ

Tom Service on the majesty of the organ.

With particular reference to three pictures that you can see on the Listening Service page of the Radio 3 website for this programme - Hildegard of Bingen, Bach and Beethoven.

Rethink music with The Listening Service.

Tom Service asks if the pictures we see of composers influence the way we hear their music

Rethink music with The Listening Service.

The sounds of an empire at whirling play in Vienna... or the final soundtrack to the end of a musical and political world order...

Tom Service invites you to dance through history in three-time, and whirl through waltzes both wonderful and weird.

With dance historian Darren Royston and dancing queen Katie Derham.

TOM SERVICE presents waltzes from history, and discovers why it swept across the world.

Why did the waltz sweep through the musical world - and then what happened to it? Why do we love to dance in three time? TOM SERVICE gives it a whirl.

Long Desc

TOM SERVICE explores the waltz and why we love to dance to music in triple metre.

With dance historian Darren Royston and dancing queen KATIE DERHAM.

Why did the waltz sweep through the musical world - and then what happened to it? Why do we love to dance in three time? Tom Service gives it a whirl.

Long Desc

A hotbed of vice, immorality, and social meltdown... or a musical embodiment of gilded nostalgia and conservatism...

The sounds of an empire at whirling play in Vienna... or the final soundtrack to the end of a musical and political world order...

Tom Service invites you to dance through history in three-time, and whirl through waltzes both wonderful and weird.

With dance historian Darren Royston and dancing queen Katie Derham.

Tune in and rethink music with The Listening Service...

Today - What's all that that Noise? Tom investigates - when is noise just noise, and when is it music? is it just sound in the wrong place? Tom finds that, though we resent noises in the concert hall, music needs some noise in it to give it character. He also investigates the contemporary genre of Noise Music at an avant garde club. He considers noise in our daily lives, and talks to Emily Cockayne, author of Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England 1600-1770; and to David Hendy, author of Noise: a Human History. We can't avoid noise, so can we learn to love it?

Today - What's all that that Noise? Tom investigates - when is noise just noise, and when is it music? is it just sound in the wrong place? Tom finds that, though we resent noises in the concert hall, music needs some noise in it to give it character. He also investigates the contemporary genre of Noise Music at an avant garde club. He considers noise in our daily lives, and talks to Emily Cockayne, author of Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England 1600-1770; and to DAVID HENDY, author of Noise: a Human History. We can't avoid noise, so can we learn to love it?

Tom Service asks when is noise just noise, and when is it music.

So when is a song not a song? Tom Service tackles the complicated world of classical musical titles, catalogue numbers and naming conventions.

Tom Service on the often baffling language of classical music naming and numbering.

With Tom Service and the violinist, composer and music director Rakhi Singh.

Tom Service explores the art of concert programming.

Tom Service explores how we listen today in the digital age and reflects on the pieces of music that changed his life when he heard them first, and then really listened to them, again and again.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service reflects on digital listening and how it impacts our relationship with music.

Isn't it great to be able to listen to so much music, to be able to search, scroll and find anything you want? Or is it? Tom Service reflects on how we listen in the digital age.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

What exactly is a symphony, and are they just a thing of classical music's past?

What exactly is a symphony, and how can one written in the 18th century by the ‘father of the symphony' Joseph Haydn (he wrote over a hundred), have anything in common with one written today? Where did they come from in the first place, and why did they come to dominate classical music for centuries? Why do they still feature in almost every orchestral concert programmed, when so few are actually commissioned? Tom Service investigates with help from our witness, composer Deirdre Gribbin.

What exactly is a symphony, and how can one written in the 18th century by the so-called ‘father of the symphony', Joseph Haydn, have anything in common with one written today? When is a symphony not really a symphony? Perhaps when it's actually a solo piano piece by Charles-Valentin Alkan, or a work that's 17 seconds long like Michael Wolters's Spring Symphony? How can the hundreds of symphonies written in the last 400 years all have that same title when they sound so drastically different? Are young composers still writing them today, or are they a thing of classical music's past? Tom Service investigates with help from our witness, composer Deirdre Gribbin.

The Listening Service had a question from a listener :

'When I see the musicians playing, they seem to be looking at their sheet music, not the conductor. Can an orchestra not function perfectly well without a conductor? If I'm intensely moved by a piece of orchestral music, is it not the musicians which moved me? Why must I applaud some arbitrary conductor, who never touched a single instrument throughout the entire performance?'

Tom Service rises to the challenge and looks at the role of the conductor - is it all about their ego, their clothes, their ability to beat time or their emotional outpouring onstage - or it is something else entirely? Rethink music with The Listening Service.

The Listening Service had a question from a listener:

TOM SERVICE rises to the challenge and looks at the role of the conductor - is it all about their ego, their clothes, their ability to beat time or their emotional outpouring onstage - or it is something else entirely? Rethink music with The Listening Service.

Enlisting the help of ethnomusicologist and folk singer Dr Fay Hield and folklore expert Steve Roud, Tom Service embarks on a quest to the very origins of music. It's a journey that takes him back in time from modern-day folk clubs to the origins of the species (via rural Lincolnshire in the early 20th century).

TOM SERVICE considers the question of who wrote the first folk song.

Tom Service looks at why we are all so tense and silent during classical concerts. Shhhh!

Whether it's melodies by Mozart, Queen, nursery rhymes or Baby Shark, music seems to captivate our babies - but what is it about these tunes that they're enjoying?

Tom is joined by infant psychology expert Dr Laurel Trainor to find out how babies really interact with music - what are they hearing in the womb? Do they have musical preferences? Does participating in music have any developmental benefits? And is there any truth in the so-called Mozart effect?

How do you go about writing music for tiny people? Andrew Davenport, creator and composer of iconic pre-school hit In the Night Garden and Moon and Me explains how babies and music go hand in hand.

And Tom finds out why we've sung lullabies to our infants all over the world since Babylonian times.

Hannah Thorne - producer

TOM SERVICE asks why we seem to love music from the day we're born - are we born musical?

Why does our favourite piece give us the shivers?

And why, when we're feeling down, do we enjoy nothing more than a good wallow in sad music?

Is it something in the music - or something in ourselves?

From Schubert to Stravinsky and Mahler to Miley Cyrus - Tom Service is joined by music psychology expert Dr Victoria Williamson to investigate how music can tug on our heartstrings like nothing else.

Rethink music, with The Listening Service.

TOM SERVICE investigates how music can tug on our heartstrings like nothing else.

Whether it's an epic symphony or a club classic - we love listening to the bass.

But what actually is 'bass'? How is it that we can often feel it as much as hear it? And why is it that every genre of music seems to need it.

Tom Service goes on a whistlestop tour of bass through the musical ages: from Bach to Boulez, via reggae to rock n roll, Stevie Wonder to Dizzee Rascal. He discovers what links whales and horror movies in the world of bass. And he enlists the help of neuroscientist Dr Laurel Trainor to find out how we're hardwired into the bass as humans and whether it might even be true that the bigger the bass, the more we like each other.

TOM SERVICE explores the intrinsic importance to humans of bass in music.

TOM SERVICE goes on a whistlestop tour of bass through the musical ages: from Bach to Boulez, via reggae to rock n roll, STEVIE WONDER to Dizzee Rascal. He discovers what links whales and horror movies in the world of bass. And he enlists the help of neuroscientist Dr Laurel Trainor to find out how we're hardwired into the bass as humans and whether it might even be true that the bigger the bass, the more we like each other.

Can you imagine a piece of music without its bass line? Or going out dancing with no bass to move to?

Whether it's an epic symphony or a club classic - we love listening to the bass.

But what actually is 'bass'? How is it that we can often feel it as much as hear it? And why is it that every genre of music seems to need it.

Tom Service goes on a whistlestop tour of bass through the musical ages: from Bach to Boulez, via reggae to rock n roll, Stevie Wonder to Dizzee Rascal. He discovers what links whales and horror movies in the world of bass. And he enlists the help of neuroscientist Dr Laurel Trainor to find out how we're hardwired into the bass as humans and whether it might even be true that the bigger the bass, the more we like each other.

Tom Service considers opera - capable of the greatest profundity and beauty, why is it so often also ridiculous? From Mozart to Birtwistle, Tom explores the highs and lows of this dramatic genre, and talks to two expert witnesses - the acclaimed comic writer Armando Iannucci, who is an opera-lover who sees the absurd side of it; and international soprano Lore Lixenberg, star of the high-camp Jerry Springer: The Opera, who recently opened a singing caf退 in Berlin called Pret A Chanter where customers must sing rather than speak.

Pret A Chanter is a post-internet real-time opera that seeks to blur the boundaries between art and life. Anyone who steps over the threshold must abide by the rules of the opera. The main rule is: No Speaking. Only Vocalisations other than speaking are allowed.

TOM SERVICE considers opera - capable of the greatest profundity and beauty, why is it so often also ridiculous? From Mozart to Birtwistle, Tom explores the highs and lows of this dramatic genre, and talks to two expert witnesses - the acclaimed comic writer ARMANDO IANNUCCI, who is an opera lover who sees the absurd side of it; and international soprano Lore Lixenberg, star of the high-camp JERRY SPRINGER: The Opera, who recently opened a singing caf退 in Berlin called Pret A Chanter where customers must sing rather than speak.

TOM SERVICE considers opera - capable of the greatest profundity and beauty, why is it so often also ridiculous? From Mozart to Birtwistle, Tom explores the highs and lows of this dramatic genre, and talks to two expert witnesses - the acclaimed comic writer ARMANDO IANNUCCI, who is an opera-lover who sees the absurd side of it; and international soprano Lore Lixenberg, star of the high-camp JERRY SPRINGER: The Opera, who recently opened a singing caf? in Berlin called Pret A Chanter where customers must sing rather than speak.

Pret A Chanter is a post-internet real-time opera that seeks to blur the boundaries between art and life. Anyone who steps over the threshold must abide by the rules of the opera. The main rule is: No Speaking. Only Vocalisations other than speaking are allowed.

TOM SERVICE considers opera - capable of the greatest profundity and beauty, why is it so often also ridiculous? From Mozart to Birtwistle, Tom explores the highs and lows of this dramatic genre, and talks to two expert witnesses - the acclaimed comic writer ARMANDO IANNUCCI, who is an opera lover who sees the absurd side of it; and international soprano Lore Lixenberg, star of the high-camp JERRY SPRINGER: The Opera, who recently opened a singing caf? in Berlin called Pret A Chanter where customers must sing rather than speak.

Remember the last tune you had stuck in your head? It's probably back there now... sorry about that... Whether it's Ravel's Bolero or Lady Gaga's Bad Romance we've all had them. But why and how can certain songs or pieces lodge themselves in our musical memory and refuse to budge.

In a special edition live from the Reading Rooms of Wellcome Collection, Tom Service is joined by singer and broadcaster Jarvis Cocker to unearth the maddening musical secrets behind earworms as they pick some of their 'favourites', try to create an earworm out of the most unlikely music possible, and hear from music psychologist Kelly Jakubowski on the science behind it all.

Part of Why Music? The Key to Memory, a weekend of live events, concerts and discussions exploring the implications of music's unique capacity to be remembered, produced by Radio 3 in partnership with Wellcome Collection.

Our witness today is the award-winning author and naturalist Mark Cocker.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

Tom Service explores musical evocations of wilderness and the natural world.

Inspired by David Attenborough's Wild Isles series, Tom Service goes in search of music that reflects British wildlife and wilderness, and our relationship with it. From the songs of Henry Purcell written whilst wolves still roamed the British Isles to orchestral representations of composers like Hamish MacCunn, Grace Williams and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the score for Wild Isles itself, written by the Oscar nominated film composer George Fenton. But perhaps truly wild music isn't music written about wild places: perhaps it's music which has a wildness of spirit, of process, or of uncontrollably organic construction, music that releases the untamed and the untameable, by composers like Peter Maxwell Davies, Brian Eno, and Chris Wood. But where do the real sounds of nature fit into all this - the sounds of birdsong, bacteria, and fung