Podcasts by The Listening Service

New York, New York! from 2023-12-11T10:29

Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Tom Service, exploring the musical life of The Big Apple, from its underground scene to John and Yoko's loft and Superman's skies. He roams The City That Ne...

The Trombone Section from 2023-11-26T17:31

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 reflects on their history and the ways in which ...

The Old Testament of Music from 2023-11-19T17:31

Tom Service explores JS Bach's extraordinary The 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 achiev...

In it to win it from 2023-11-05T17:30

From Strictly to village fête vegetables, competitions are embedded in our culture. And music is no exception: think of the Pythian Games of ancient Greece, the mediaeval singing competitions wh...

Hitting the High Notes from 2023-10-29T17:30

Tom Service explores the enduring appeal of the tenor voice.

Unripe Cherries: Brahms's Symphony No 4 from 2023-10-22T16:30

Tom Service explores one of the most popular, played, and performed works of all time - Johannes Brahms's Symphony No 4 in E minor.

The Ethereal from 2023-10-08T16:30

The opening orchestral strains of Wagner's opera Lohengrin with its high shimmering strings prompted the French poet Charles Baudelaire to observe that in Wagner's music he found "something rapt...

Strange Tuning from 2023-10-01T16:30

Mozart's famous Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola makes its effect not least through the unusual tuning of the strings of one of the solo instruments. Mozart asks the viola player to ret...

Gloria! from 2023-09-17T16:30

Tom Service enters the sublime and joyous world of Poulenc's Catholic choral work Gloria.

What's the Point of Symphonies? from 2023-09-10T16:30

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? Wh...

Musical Time Travel: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams from 2023-07-26T10:15

Tom Service experiences musical time travel as he listens to "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with its magical interplay of ancient and modern.

And film mu...

What's on the programme? from 2023-07-09T16:30

Who decides what goes into a classical music concert? What music will there be? What constraints are there on what can be played? And how have ideas about concerts changed over the years, from B...

Secret Music: Byrd's Masses from 2023-07-02T16:30

England in the 1590s. Elizabeth I is the reigning monarch and the religion of the country is Protestantism. Celebrating Catholic mass is outlawed. What does William Byrd, one of Elizabeth's most...

All American Ives? from 2023-06-25T16:31

What links baseball, life insurance and American art music? Charles Ives does! Unknown during his lifetime in Connecticut and New York the experimental composer and church organist created his u...

Surround Sound: Tallis's Spem in alium from 2023-06-18T16:30

Tom Service surrounds himself in Tallis's Spem in alium, a colossal Renaissance masterpiece for 40 individual voice parts, arranged in eight groups of five voices, each situated all around the l...

Artificial intelligence and music from 2023-06-04T16:30

Tom Service programmes himself into the matrix of musical artificial intelligence.

Ravel's Bolero: A Piece without Music? from 2023-05-28T16:31

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 'piec...

All the King's Music from 2023-05-07T16:30

Tom Service assesses the history of the masters of the king's (or queen's) music - a pantheon of 21 names, some brilliant, some average, some really rather forgettable. What have the incumbents ...

Once upon a time... The Fairy-tale Operas of Judith Weir from 2023-04-23T16:30

Tom Service delves into the deep (and often dark) worlds of Judith Weir's fairy-tale and folk-inspired operas, including Blond Eckbert and The Vanishing Bridegroom.

Wild Isles: Wild Music from 2023-04-09T16:30

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 Purce...

Stravinsky, the puppet master: Petrushka from 2023-03-26T16:30

Tom Service takes you on a journey into the extraordinary world of Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka, based on an archetypal puppet myth that shares the story of Punch.

Here Comes the Bride from 2023-03-19T17:30

Tom Service with a guide to music written for and performed at weddings.

Bluebeard's Castle: Enter at Your Peril from 2023-03-12T17:30

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 ...

Collage, writ large: Berio's Sinfonia from 2023-03-05T17:30

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 ...

Mystery, rumour and deception: Mozart's Requiem from 2023-02-19T17:30

Tom Service examines Mozart's final masterpiece - a work shrouded in mystery, rumour and deception. He’s joined by Dr Kathryn Mannix, a specialist in palliative care, who considers the factors o...

Repetition from 2023-02-09T16:15

The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works.

Today - repetition.

It...

Symphonic Steampunk: Saint-Saëns's Organ Symphony from 2023-02-05T17:30

"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 Sai...

On the March: Pomp, Circumstance and Dam Busters from 2023-01-22T17:30

The musical and military features of the march seem pretty unpromising terrain for composers - you’ve got to constrain your creativity to two-time, easy to remember tunes that keep pace in stri...

David Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion from 2023-01-15T17:30

Tom Service delves into David Lang's secular take on the Christian Passion: The Little Match Girl Passion. Winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2008, the work, scored for chorus and percussion, and las...

Also Sprach Zarathustra: Strauss’s New Dawn from 2023-01-01T17:30

Made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra which was composed by a young Richard Strauss in 1896 is much more than just two minutes of cosmic f...

Britten's Choral Christmas from 2022-12-11T17:30

Tom Service delves into the music of Benjamin Britten and explores the unusual stories behind some of his best-loved festive works, including St Nicolas and A Ceremony of Carols.

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune: Half Man, Half Myth, All Debussy from 2022-12-04T17:30

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...

Kurt Weill and The Threepenny Opera from 2022-11-20T17:30

Tom Service takes a musical dive into the decadent sound world of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's epoque-making The Threepenny Opera.

Steve Reich's Different Trains: Minimalism and Memory from 2022-11-06T17:30

Tom explores Steve Reich’s 1988 work Different Trains, its use of sampling and speech melodies, and its evocation of the Holocaust. Our witness is the author and journalist Jonathan Freedland. Listen

The Hebrides Overture: Mendelssohn's melodious cave from 2022-10-23T16:30

Tom Service explores the story behind the very first orchestral tone poem and one of the best-loved pieces in classical music: Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture. Cave expert Prof Stuart Jeffrey sh...

Musical Ecstasy from 2022-10-02T16:30

Tom Service explores musical ecstasy from techno to classical, dissecting 'Ecstasio' by the British composer Thomas Ades and talking to the Dutch composer and DJ Junkie XL

Stormy Weather from 2022-09-25T16:30

Tom Service explores how and why storms and extreme weather events have inspired classical composers from Beethoven to Britten. With meteorologist, space physicist, and double bass player Dr Kar...

The Enchantment of Chant from 2022-09-18T16:30

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 ch...

Abracadabra from 2022-09-11T16:30

Tom Service waves his magic wand to explore the connections between music and magic, discovering how an 18th century German poet, 19th century French composer, and 20th century cartoon mouse, ca...

TV Themes from 2022-07-14T14:05

Tom Service explores television themes with Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley, who wrote the music for Poldark, Black Narcissus, and Jeeves and Wooster.

The Music of Sound from 2022-06-26T16:30

Did music begin in ancient cave systems? How did medieval cathedrals inspire musical developments? What effect does a particular concert hall have on the music heard there, or the music on the d...

What's the point of cadenzas? from 2022-06-12T16:30

Tom Service is joined at the 2022 Hay Festival by the American pianist, writer and self confessed 'classical music nerd of the highest order' Jeremy Denk, to explore cadenzas - virtuosic solo im...

Royal Music from 2022-06-05T16:30

Royal music throughout the ages. Tom Service asks: what makes it sound royal, and why? And is there really such a thing as a royal sound world?

Royal music doesn’t have to be heraldic, ra...

Can music be funny? from 2022-05-22T16:30

Tom Service on the art of classical music comedy. And it's not necessarily all about timing - see also parody, pastiche, absurdities, incongruity, subverting of expectations and sometimes, just...

The Musical Recycling Plant from 2022-05-08T16:30

For centuries, composers have re-used music from their earlier works in their new ones. But why? Were they simply pressed for time, or might there be another reason? And what do these 'recycled'...

More Than the Score from 2022-05-03T14:00

Are the 100s of recordings of each Beethoven symphony (and the thousands upon thousands of live performances over the years) really so very different from each other? Can one interpretation be b...

What's in a Name? from 2022-04-24T16:30

A listener asks: "What makes a concerto different from a suite? A bagatelle from a caprice? On my way to work once, Radio 3 Breakfast played a gentle, quiet piece, with chords languidly spread...

Song Cycles and Concept Albums from 2022-04-10T16:30

Tom Service explores the world of the song cycle - from the tortured passions and existential angst of Beethoven and Schubert's protagonists in 19th-century Vienna, to Frank Sinatra and Nat King...

Finishing the Hat from 2022-03-27T16:30

Tom Service explores the unique relationship between music and lyrics in the work of Stephen Sondheim who died in 2021. Credited with 'reinventing the American musical' his works include Follies...

John Williams - the Force of Music! from 2022-03-20T17:30

Tom Service has a close encounter with the film music of John Williams.

Classical Crossover from 2022-02-20T17:30

The genre of classical crossover music has produced some of the highest-selling artists of all time. Why has it become so popular, who are the great exponents of the art, and what techniques tra...

Recorders from 2022-01-30T17:30

For many years, the humble, plastic and mass-produced recorder has been a mainstay of music education. The first instrument put into the hands of thousands of 20th-century primary school childre...

Dancing about Architecture from 2022-01-23T17:30

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, ...

Playing at sight and playing from memory from 2022-01-16T17:30

Tom Service on two of the most astounding musical skills, which the majority of professional classical musicians have in abundance - the ability to play from memory, and the ability to play at s...

Making Overtures from 2022-01-02T17:30

Tom Service explores the rise and fall of the musical curtain-raiser.

From the birth of the opera with Monteverdi, to the lavish cinematic releases of the 20th century, the overture has ha...

Handel's Messiah: Hallelujah! from 2021-12-12T17:30

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 man...

How to listen to...Erik Satie from 2021-11-21T17:30

Tom Service explores the maverick world of one of the most popular French composers, Erik Satie, composer of the three Gymnopédies, with help from pianist Nicolas Horvath and composer Christine ...

The Borrowers from 2021-11-14T17:30

Taking other people's music and using it for your own purposes might look like the very opposite of creative originality. But down the centuries, from the parody masses of the middle ages and th...

Klezmer from 2021-11-07T17:30

Tom Service explores the connections between Klezmer and classical music. With violinist and founder of the London Klezmer Quartet Ilana Kravitz and writer and musicologist David Conway.

The timeless power of contemporary choral music from 2021-10-17T16:30

The vocal music of contemporary composers like Morton Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre, Ola Gjeilo and Caroline Shaw, is hugely popular with choirs, congregations and audiences. How do they achieve ...

Eat to the Beat from 2021-10-03T16:30

What have a Mahler symphony and a recipe for sautéed 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?...

Out of Tune from 2021-09-26T16:30

What does it really mean to be in tune? In tune with what - or who? And why is it simultaneously something that’s so important yet so relative, flexible and movable a feast when it comes to our ...

How to listen to... Arvo Pärt from 2021-09-19T16:30

Tom Service lifts the lid on the music of the most popular living composer - Arvo Pärt. Nominated for 11 Grammy awards and revered by Björk, P.J Harvey, and Radiohead, as well as classical music...

Fiddles and Fiddle Tunes from 2021-07-25T16:30

What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin?

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?...

Themes and Variations from 2021-07-18T16:30

Tom Service explores the endless potential of musical variations on a theme. On the one hand it's the simplest of all musical ideas - take a basic tune and play around with it - and yet on the o...

Money Makes the Music Go Round from 2021-06-27T16:30

What have the Pet Shop Boys and Prokofiev got in common? How can you sing about not wanting money at the same time as making it? What does it feel like to burn a million pounds? Tom Service expl...

How to listen to... Gilbert and Sullivan from 2021-06-13T16:30

Tom Service immerses himself in the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert and Sullivan, and finds things are seldom what they seem...

With Derek Clark of Scottish Opera and pianist and composer Ric...

Playing Second Fiddle (and Horn and Trumpet...) from 2021-06-06T16:30

What's it like to play second fiddle in an orchestra? Or to sit beside the first horn or trumpet as they garner the limelight with their flashy solos and are stood up for a bow by the conductor ...

Brass Bands from 2021-05-16T16:30

What’s the difference between a cornet and a trumpet? How did Czech music and a hill in Dorset sell a million loaves? What happened at Manchester’s Belle Vue Zoological Gardens in 1853? Tom Serv...

Is Music Good for You? from 2021-05-09T16:30

Tom Service examines the intimate relationship between music and our minds. How does music affect our mental health? How do we use music to alter, deepen or understand the way we feel?

Tunes for 'Toons from 2021-05-02T16:30

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, carto...

Leoš Janáček: music is a being come alive from 2021-04-18T16:30

How did Leoš Janáček, 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 ...

Perfect Harmony from 2021-03-21T17:30

How does harmony work? How do certain chord sequences bring a sense of tension and release, and actually how many chords do you really need? With improvisor extraordinaire Wayne Marshall at the...

The Viola - Music's Secret Fire from 2021-03-07T17:30

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 ...

The Feasibility of Studies from 2021-02-21T17:00

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 sellin...

Musical Signatures from 2021-02-07T17:30

What gives away a composer's personal style? How can we spot their musical signatures? And having done so, could they be convincingly copied?

Tom looks for clues in the potentially similar...

Dream Teams from 2021-01-24T17:30

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...

The Inbetweeners from 2021-01-10T17:00

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 g...

What if...? Tom's Marvellous Musical Multiverse from 2020-12-27T17:00

As we move from one year to the next, Tom indulges in some speculative musical time travel.

Swing, Rubato and Bounce from 2020-12-13T17:00

Tom Service investigates what happens when musical rhythm gets stretched or loosened. What is going on when a jazz band makes a tune swing, or a Viennese orchestra makes a waltz swirl? Libertie...

Becoming Beethoven's Fifth from 2020-12-06T17:30

Beethoven 5: one of the most instantly recognisable and enduring works in all classical music. How did Beethoven compose it? How did he whittle down his musical choices from the endless number a...

Rewilding Sibelius from 2020-11-15T17:30

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 swa...

How to Sing Classical - Vibrato! from 2020-11-04T11:06

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 an...

Tricky timing from 2020-11-01T17:30

Two, three and four beats in a bar are pretty standard in music. But what happens when a composer decides to go with 7 or 5 or 13 as the underlying structure? And why would they do that?

T...

It Takes Two from 2020-10-18T16:30

What is it about the tango that has enabled it to transcend its origins in the late 19th-century slums of Buenos Aires to become one of most popular dances in the world's glittering ballrooms and b...

It Takes Two from 2020-10-18T16:30

What is it about the tango that has enabled it to transcend its origins in the late 19th-century slums of Buenos Aires to become one of most popular dances in the world's glittering ballrooms an...

What makes the organ so mighty? from 2020-10-04T16:30

Tom Service takes on the largest instrument created by human hands: the organ. With the help of organist Anna Lapwood, Tom asks: what makes the organ so mighty? Why has it fascinated musicians f...

Musical Highs from 2020-09-27T16:30

Tom Service looks under the bonnet at musical climaxes and crescendos. How do composers negotiate musical drama to often devastating beauty and power?

Is Classical music fashionable? from 2020-09-20T16:30

You might think classical music is timeless and sits above passing trends and fashions, but in this edition of The Listening Service Tom discovers otherwise. He talks to newspaper fashion dire...

HIPP to Be Square from 2020-08-30T16:30

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 ce...

Is it canon? from 2020-08-09T16:30

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

Bach, Beethoven, Brahms - widely regarded as permanent fixtures in the generally accepted can...

The Goldberg Variations from 2020-07-26T16:30

Tom Service is joined by harpsichordist Richard Egarr to explore one of the most mysterious, complex and rewarding pieces in all music, Bach's keyboard work The Goldberg Variations.

Going Slow from 2020-07-12T16:30

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, concentrat...

Music and breathing from 2020-06-28T16:00

How is the rhythm and physicality of our breathing reflected in music? From operatic breath control to circular breathing techniques to a flautist inspired by the relearning of her technique af...

The Musical Universe of Maurice Ravel from 2020-06-14T16:30

Tom Service scopes the musical world of one of his favourite composers, Maurice Ravel.

Wagner’s Ring Cycle: The Ultimate Box Set Binge from 2020-05-31T16:30

Tom Service explores classical music’s ultimate binge-listening box set - Richard Wagner’s apocalyptic four-part 16-hour marathon music drama, The Ring.

Cram packed with heroes, heroines, ...

English Music from 2020-05-24T16:30

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...

Talking in music from 2020-05-03T16:30

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 ...

Lisztomania from 2020-04-19T16:30

Tom takes a deep drive into the music of Franz Liszt, celebrated, and sometimes denigrated, for his ultra-virtuosity. Tom is joined by former Radio 3 New Generation Artist Mariam Batsashvili who...

Close Harmony from 2020-03-29T16:30

From Corsican polyphony to Jacob Collier, 50s rock and roll and global hit TV series Glee, close harmony runs through music traditions around the world: but nowhere is it more important than in ...

The music of Kaija Saariaho from 2020-03-08T17:30

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...

Sad songs say so much from 2020-02-09T17:30

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...

The String Quartet from 2020-02-02T17:30

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 ...

Beethoven Unleashed: Getting to grips with Beethoven from 2020-01-19T18:30

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 contradict...

Texture from 2020-01-12T17:30

Tom Service considers the texture of music. We often talk about the pitches and the rhythms in a piece of music, but how does it strike the ear? Is it rough or smooth, dense or transparent? And ...

How to love new music from 2020-01-05T17:30

All noise and no tunes?

Why is contemporary classical music often thought of as hard work and how can we learn to love it?

With music from Beethoven to Birtwistle to Burna Boy and S...

Parapapampam from 2019-12-22T17:30

The office party... unwelcome relatives... indigestion... alcoholic overindulgence... hideous decorations... Among all the inevitable woes that accompany the festive season, yuletide music is su...

Why backing vocals matter from 2019-12-08T17:30

Every "sha-la-la-la" and every "wo-o-wo-oh"...Tom Service brings the backing singers of both the pop and opera worlds to the fore. With backing singers David Combes and Izzy Chase, and Royal Ope...

The Great Highland Bagpipe from 2019-11-17T17:30

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 wri...

How to Compose Music from 2019-11-10T17:30

So you want to write a piece of music? Where do you start? And then how do you carry on? How much music theory do you need to know? Or can you get away with knowing very little about music? Tom ...

The Real Red Priest from 2019-11-03T17:30

Can we get beyond The Four Seasons? Was he really a priest? Did he write the same concerto several hundred times? Antonio Vivaldi wrote arguably the most famous piece of classical music of all t...

Turn up the Volume, Dial up the Drama from 2019-10-20T16:30

From loud to soft, even louder and even softer, dynamics are crucial to the dramatic effect of music. Tom Service discovers just how loud and soft classical music can be, and pop music that is...

The Simple Truth from 2019-10-13T16:30

Isaac Newton's 'Truth is ever to be found in simplicity...' has often been echoed in music by many of the great composers down the ages. But during the 20th and 21st centuries, akin to movements...

Prog Rock - apotheosis or nadir? from 2019-10-06T16:30

Tom Service looks at Progressive Rock, to find out whether it was an apotheosis of rock music, thanks to the influence of classical music, the virtuosity of the performers and the ambition of it...

Al-Andalus: What makes music sound Spanish? from 2019-09-29T16:30

Tom Service looks for the essence of Spain in the music of later centuries. Why was so much "Spanish" music written by Russian, French or German composers, and how do we recognise a "Spanish" so...

The Music of the Night from 2019-09-22T16:00

From nocturnes and nightmares to dreams and dances - music loves the night. Tom discovers the music and sounds found after the sun sets, from Wagner and Mozart to Faithless and Aerosmith via the...

All the Tunes from 2019-09-15T16:00

What links pre-war picker George Formby and Wagner, US rock duo The White Stripes and Bruckner, crooning legend Barry Manilow and Chopin? The surprising answer is that they've all shared tunes. ...

Olivier Messiaen and the Interstellar Call! from 2019-07-29T08:17

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 i...

Is complicated music better than simple music? from 2019-07-07T16:00

Tom Service looks at complexity in music. From Bach fugues to contemporary pop production, musicians and composers love to elaborate ideas to the limits of their imaginations. But when we listen...

Why do babies love music? from 2019-06-20T09:11

Why do we seem to love music from the day we're born? Are we born musical or do we learn it along the way?

Whether it's melodies by Mozart, Queen, nursery rhymes or Baby Shark, music seems...

Better than background music? from 2019-06-16T16:30

From ancient Greek drama until today, music has often been an integral part of the theatre and it's where many concert hall staples - think Beethoven's Egmont... Schubert's Rosamunde... Mendelss...

Countertenors - classical rock gods! from 2019-06-09T16:30

From Frankie Valli and Jeff Buckley to Andreas Scholl and Iestyn Davies - Tom Service celebrates the male singers hitting the high notes. Why do they do it? How do they do it? And why is it so ...

What's the point of practice? from 2019-05-26T16:30

Does practice make perfect? And what is perfect practice? Tom Service asks whether anyone can become a good musician by just putting in the hours. Pianist James Rhodes talks about the role pract...

Sound of the Underground from 2019-05-19T16:30

What does the underground sound like?

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...

What Is Sound Art? And Why? from 2019-05-05T16:30

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 M...

Ranked Amateurs from 2019-04-28T16:30

Today, 'amateur' has become a byword for sloppiness and low standards. But for centuries amateurs were the bedrock of musical life and an essential and vitalising force for composers, providing ...

Why are classical audiences so quiet? from 2019-04-21T16:30

Tom looks at how modern audiences are hooked on silence in the concert hall. Citing a recent incident where the rustling of a sweet wrapper by an audience member in Malmo created a ruckus so pow...

The Power of One from 2019-04-07T16:30

Music where the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many - but also where the many can become one... Tom Service looks at music performed solo or in unison. What is happening in music wh...

Anger in Music from 2019-04-02T12:09

LET'S GET ANGRY!

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 so...

Bruckner and the Symphonic Boa Constrictors from 2019-03-24T17:00

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 that kills its victims in the inescapab...

The Double Bass from 2019-03-19T09:54

It's huge, it's 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'...

Can music be gendered? from 2019-03-10T17:00

Can you hear 'masculine' and 'feminine' in music? And how have these concepts had an impact on music and how people have heard it over the centuries? With Tom Service.

Style Counsel from 2019-03-03T17:00

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 abou...

The Key to Keys from 2019-02-10T17:00

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...

Schubert - The Dark Side from 2019-02-03T17:00

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 ...

Riffs, loops and ostinati - the art of repeating yourself! from 2019-01-26T17:00

Tom Service investigates the ostinato, a repeated phrase in music that can nag or hypnotise the listener (the word derives from the Italian for "stubborn "). From Ravel's Boléro to Donna Summer'...

Classical Icons from 2019-01-20T17:00

As BBC 2's epic history series Icons is underway, Tom Service takes a closer look at four icons of the classical music world: Maria Callas, Nigel Kennedy, Jacqueline du Pré, and Luciano Pavarott...

What Makes a Song? from 2019-01-06T17:00

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 C...

The Nutcracker - Strange Enchantments from 2018-12-30T17:00

Think of The Nutcracker as a super-saccharine classic for the feel-good season? Think again. Is everything really all sweetness and light in the world of sugar-plum fairy? No! But don't let the ...

The bells, the bells... from 2018-12-23T17:00

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,...

Concertos: All for one and one for all? from 2018-12-09T17:00

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 centu...

Extreme Classical! from 2018-12-02T17:00

What are the most extreme pieces of classical music ever written? And is today's shock-of-the-new tomorrow's old-hat?

Tom Service looks some of the longest, the most apocalyptic, the weird...

The Power of Three from 2018-11-25T17:00

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...

Rossini - Master Chef and Maestro from 2018-11-18T17:00

To mark the 150th anniversary of Rossini's death, Tom Service salutes the opera composer who was a celebrity in his own time, whose music was whistled in the street. A colourful, jovial characte...

What counts as 'classical music'? from 2018-11-11T17:30

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 usual...

What's the Point of the Conductor? from 2018-11-04T17:00

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 per...

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony from 2018-10-28T17:30

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 app...

The Magical Forest from 2018-10-21T16:00

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...

The Cowpat Controversy from 2018-10-14T16:00

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 ...

Speed from 2018-10-07T16:00

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 'fa...

Technical Mastery from 2018-09-30T16:00

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 need...

In space no-one can hear you sing... from 2018-09-23T16:00

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 ...

Maxing out on Minimalism from 2018-09-16T16:00

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...

Searching for Paradise - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-09-02T23:01

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...

Virtuosity - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-08-26T23:01

What does it mean to be good? If you're a virtuoso pianist, violinist, cellist, does that mean you can play faster than everybody else - or better? What does it mean to be a virtuoso? Are you in...

Endings - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-08-19T23:01

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 t...

Colour and Music - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-08-12T23:01

Tom Service investigates the link between music and colour ahead of Prom 45 and Stravinsky’s colourful folk-ballet Petrushka.

A piece of music can be 'dark' or 'bright' or we could be sing...

Britten's Sea Interludes - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-08-05T23:01

The sea in all its musical majesty

Folk Music - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-07-29T23:01

Tom delves in to folk music’s mysterious history before Prom 27, celebrating folk music across Britain and Ireland with Sam Lee and The Unthanks.

Mahler's 8th Symphony - 2018 Proms Special from 2018-07-23T10:56

Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight

Devilish Musical Pacts from 2018-07-23T10:18

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 ei...

Pioneers of Sound - Proms 2018 Special from 2018-07-15T23:01

Why synths are so cool

Orchestral Manoeuvres from 2018-07-15T16:00

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......

Beginnings - Proms 2018 Special from 2018-07-12T23:01

Music – where do we start?

The Fifth from 2018-07-01T16:00

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 signifi...

Truck Driver Modulation from 2018-06-24T16:30

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 t...

Igor Stravinsky: Understood Best by Children and Animals from 2018-06-17T16:00

"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 c...

The Listening Service recorded live at Hay Festival from 2018-06-03T16:00

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 peo...

Syncopation Syncopation Syncopation from 2018-05-20T16:00

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 ...

What does ancient history really sound like? from 2018-05-14T10:35

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 ...

The Sea from 2018-05-06T16:00

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 c...

How does video game music work? from 2018-04-29T16:00

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 ga...

Is Music a Universal Language? from 2018-04-22T16:00

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...

Drums from 2018-04-08T16:30

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 contem...

Orientalism and the Music of Elsewhere from 2018-04-01T16:00

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. Listen

Searching for Paradise from 2018-03-19T11:24

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: ...

The Listening Service at Free Thinking from 2018-03-12T15:20

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 a...

The French Horn Unwound from 2018-03-04T17:00

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 sophisti...

Debussy the Impressionist? from 2018-02-18T17:00

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 argu...

Sonata Form - or There and Back Again from 2018-02-11T17:00

Tom Service tells stories in sonata form.

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...

I guess that's why they call it the Blues from 2018-02-04T17:00

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 m...

From the New World? from 2018-01-21T17:30

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 compo...

Bartok from 2018-01-14T17:30

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 the...

The Joy of Bach from 2017-12-12T17:30

Tom Service celebrates The Joy of Bach.

Mahler from 2017-12-10T17:02

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...

Bad Music from 2017-12-03T17:02

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...

Pranked! from 2017-11-19T17:02

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 sati...

The Synthesizer. Hannah Peel, Peter Zinovieff from 2017-11-12T17:02

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 ...

Shostakovich's Symphony No 15 from 2017-11-05T17:05

Ahead of Radio 3's 'Breaking Free: A Century of Russian Culture' season, Tom Service unlocks the mysteries of Shostakovich's baffling late masterpiece, his Symphony No. 15. Why does Shostakovich...

Can Music Scare Us? from 2017-10-29T17:05

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 piec...

Earworms from 2017-10-16T10:17

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 ...

Silence! from 2017-10-08T16:05

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...

Why is opera so ridiculous? from 2017-10-01T16:05

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...

Music for Mourning from 2017-09-24T16:05

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...

Musical Protests from 2017-09-20T10:29

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 so...

Codes, Ciphers, Enigmas from 2017-09-10T16:08

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 message...

The Proms Podcast Episode II - A New Episode from 2017-08-01T14:58

While The Listening Service takes a break, why not try this episode of The Proms Podcast?

Extreme Voices from 2017-07-09T16:02

Whether it's an eye-wateringly high soprano or profoundly low bass, lightning quick rappers, the star castrati of the 18th century, the screamers, the growlers, the robots or the singers that ca...

Drones from 2017-07-02T16:02

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 cha...

I Got Rhythm from 2017-06-25T16:01

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 ...

Hay Festival 2017 from 2017-06-06T14:22

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 ...

Endings from 2017-05-07T16:01

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 t...

Breaking Free: Martin Luther's Revolution from 2017-04-30T16:01

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 se...

Who Wrote the First Folk Song? from 2017-04-24T09:28

Who wrote the first folk song? It's an age old question, these tunes that everyone knows which have been passed down from generation to generation... Where do they come from? Enlisting the help...

Brahms - Behind the Beard from 2017-04-24T09:16

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 c...

Brevity from 2017-03-26T16:05

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 ...

Deep Listening: Pauline Oliveros from 2017-03-25T17:30

Tom Service immerses himself in Deep Listening, a practice created by composer Pauline Oliveros. It's a kind of sonic meditation, a way of approaching music with more sensitivity that anyone can...

Music - It's About Time from 2017-03-20T11:08

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 Stockha...

What's All that Noise? from 2017-03-12T17:30

The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works.

Today - What's all that that...

The Power of Love Songs from 2017-02-12T17:30

The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works.

With Valentines Day just aro...

What you see is what you hear? from 2017-02-05T17:00

Tom Service asks whether the way we see composers depicted in art influences the way we hear their music. With particular reference to three pictures that you can see on the Listening Service p...

Virtuosity from 2017-01-22T17:01

Virtuosity: what does it mean to be good? Really, really good? If you're a virtuoso pianist, violinist, cellist, does that mean you can play faster than everybody else - or better? From Liszt to...

Whatever Happened to the Waltz? from 2017-01-15T17:01

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 soun...

Breaking Free: Tom Service on the Second Viennese School from 2017-01-01T17:00

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 centur...

The Listening Service Extra 12 of 12 - Schoenberg’s Compositional Vision from 2016-12-29T14:40

Tom explores how Schoenberg hears the music that he is going to write.

'I hear the music which I am going to write. I hear the music and I have acquired a thing which every composer has to...

The Listening Service Extra 11 of 12 - Twelve-tone music and its reception from 2016-12-29T14:39

We hear Schoenberg on the reception of his music in America, Europe.

'When in 1933 I came to America I was a very renowned composer, even so that Mr. Goebbels himself in his "Der Angriff" ...

The Listening Service Extra 10 of 12 - Do the correct notes matter? from 2016-12-29T14:38

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s plea to musicians to play the correct notes in his String Trio, and why it matters so much to his serial music...

'A true musician, reading the score during the p...

The Listening Service Extra 9 of 12 - Tennis Partners from 2016-12-29T14:37

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s love of Gershwin, who was also his tennis partner in Hollywood.

'George Gershwin was one of these rare kind of musicians to whom music is not a matter of more or ...

The Listening Service Extra 8 of 12 - Alban Berg from 2016-12-29T14:36

We listen to Schoenberg’s praise of his pupil, Alban Berg - and his surprise that this “soft-hearted young man” could write an opera of the ferocity and tragedy of Wozzeck.

'When Alban Ber...

The Listening Service Extra 7 of 12 - Expressive Melodies from 2016-12-29T14:35

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s own demonstration of how to harmonize a melody to maximum effect, using his Orchestral Variations as an example. As Schoenberg says: "There is nothing I long for more i...

The Listening Service Extra 6 of 12 - Twelve Tones from 2016-12-29T14:34

Tom listens to Schoenberg’s distillation and defence of his theory of composition with 12 tones: serialism in a nutshell.

'The method of composing with twelve tones substitutes for the ord...

The Listening Service Extra 5 of 12 - Boiling Water from 2016-12-29T14:33

Tom looks at Schoenberg’s own experience in the new atonal world that he entered, which Schoenberg likened to being dropped in boiling water.

‘Personally I had the feeling as if I had fall...

The Listening Service Extra 4 of 12 - Schoenberg’s IDEA from 2016-12-29T14:32

Schoenberg’s conception of what the “idea” of a piece of music really was - something even bigger than the sounds it makes.

‘I personally believe in "l'art pour l'art." In the creation of ...

The Listening Service Extra 3 of 12 - Dissonance from 2016-12-29T14:31

Tom explores what Schoenberg meant by the dissonance and how he broke free from tonality in his music.

‘Contemporary music has taken advantage of my adventurous use of dissonances. Let us ...

The Listening Service Extra 2 of 12 - Heir to the German Mainstream from 2016-12-29T14:30

Tom illustrates why Schoenberg felt such a strong lineage from Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Bach.

‘there is a possibility to learn something of my technical achievements. But I think it i...

The Listening Service Extra 1 of 12 - Who am I? from 2016-12-29T14:29

Tom explores Schoenberg’s objection to being dubbed a “famous theoretician and controversial musician”.

‘I wonder sometimes who I am. When the Committee on Lectures and Drama announced my...

Background Music from 2016-12-11T17:29

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...

The Semitone from 2016-12-04T17:29

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 becom...

What is it about Mozart? from 2016-11-20T17:30

The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works.

Today's programme asks, "Wha...

Improvisation from 2016-11-13T17:29

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 Improv...

Cover Versions from 2016-11-06T17:29

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 wor...

Colour and music from 2016-10-16T16:00

Tom Service listens to the world in glorious technicolor as he investigates the link between music and colour.

We put music and colour together all the time. A piece of music can be 'dark'...

Tristan und Isolde from 2016-10-03T12:27

How do you listen to a four-hour opera? Tom Service considers the extraordinary impact of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, a medieval romance that became in Wagner's hands a highly-charged ero...

Sound Frontiers: Listening to Recordings from 2016-09-26T09:44

As part of Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre, London, Tom Service considers the strange art of recorded sound - how can a cardboard speaker cone sound exactly like all the different instruments i...

Why is music addicted to bass? from 2016-09-18T16:29

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.

Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto from 2016-09-11T16:27

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 i...

Transcendence from 2016-07-18T12:36

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 tak...

Chasing a Fugue from 2016-07-10T16:29

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 ...

Why does music move us? from 2016-07-03T16:29

How can music make us cry? 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 ...

Beethoven - Hero or Villain? from 2016-06-26T16:29

Presented by Tom Service

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 ...

Is Birdsong Music? from 2016-06-19T16:29

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 mus...

How do you describe a teaspoon in music? from 2016-06-12T16:29

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 t...

How Do You Make a National Anthem? from 2016-06-05T16:30

Tom Service on the music, meaning and occasional madness of the world's national anthems. How are they chosen, what are they for, and is the music any good?

He's joined by writer Alex Mar...

Beginnings from 2016-05-01T16:30

The Listening Service - an odyssey through the musical universe with Tom Service. Join him on a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works.

Each week, Tom aims to open ...