7 episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 02 | 100-500 - Golden Mouth, Clanging Cymbal | 20000101 | An exploration of the earliest surviving pieces and traditions from Egypt, Milan and Gaul, their musical influences and legacy. With Ian Stewart, Jeremy Summerly, Mary Berry, Donald Greig and Valentine Cunningham. |
| 03 | 500-1000 - A Trope On The Daughter Of Memory | 20000101 | David Wulstan, Jonathan Thorpe and Adrian Jack question the theory of music as a branch of mathematics and recall the practice of handing down the musical elements of the Mass by oral communication. Music ranges from Gregorian chant to early polyphony in the Winchester Troper. |
| 04 | 1000-1500 - Divine Proportion In Imperfect Measure | 19991231 | An investigation into the development of musical notation that made it possible to construct detailed edifices in sound - from Hildegard of Bingen and Perotin of Paris to Ockeghem, treasurer of St Martin of Tours. With Christopher Cook, Mary Remnant, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, Dermot Clinch, Margaret Bent, Bayan Northcott, John Butt and Julian Anderson. |
| 05 | 1500-1800 - Divisions Above A Ground | 19991231 | Michael Burden and Cyril Ehrlich chronicle the extraordinary operatic legend of Orpheus and his lute. With music from the old world of Josquin Desprez to the turbulence of twentysomething Beethoven. |
| 06 | 1800 - A Cycle Of Fifths | 19991231 | John Thorley, Anthony Payne and Lewis Foreman consider the moment of composition, from Schubert's smallest swansong to Wagner's grand compositions. |
| 07 | 1900 - And All Kinds Of Music | 19991231 | Julie Brown examines the network of musical cross-references which characterise the 20th century, from Russian Stravinsky to American Stravinsky and beyond. |
| 08 | 2000 - Fade To Black | 20000101 | Following the news, the machine takes over with the beginning of an interactive musical experiment. A computer programme written by Jonathan Finn offers up-to-the-moment instantaneous composition and a glimpse of a virtual future world, where human creativity simply retreats to the conceptual level advocated by theorists stretching back into antiquity. |