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Song Cycles and Concept Albums

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

• 29 mins

What's in a Name?

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

• 29 mins

The Musical Recycling Plant

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

• 29 mins

Can music be funny?

Tom Service on the art of classical music comedy. And it's not necessarily about timing.

• 29 mins

Royal Music

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

• 29 mins

What's the point of cadenzas?

Tom Service explores cadenzas with the American pianist Jeremy Denk at the Hay Festival.

• 28 mins

The Music of Sound

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

• 29 mins

TV Themes

Tom Service explores television themes with Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley.

• 28 mins

Abracadabra

Tom Service explores the connections between music and magic.

• 28 mins

The Enchantment of Chant

Tom explores how chant has resonated across a thousand years of music.

• 29 mins

Stormy Weather

Tom explores how storms have inspired composers and musicians from Beethoven to Britten.

• 29 mins

Musical Ecstasy

Tom Service explores musical ecstasy from techno to classical

• 29 mins

Musical Time Travel: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis by Vaughan Williams

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

• 29 mins

The Hebrides Overture: Mendelssohn's melodious cave

Tom Service explores the story behind the very first orchestral tone poem.

• 29 mins

Steve Reich's Different Trains: Minimalism and Memory

Tom Service explores the minimalist composer Steve Reich's 1988 piece Different Trains.

• 29 mins

Kurt Weill and The Threepenny Opera

Tom Service dives into the decadent sound world of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera.

• 29 mins

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune: Half Man, Half Myth, All Debussy

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

• 29 mins

Britten's Choral Christmas

Tom Service explores the stories behind some of Britten's best-loved festive works.

• 29 mins

Also Sprach Zarathustra: Strauss’s New Dawn

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

• 29 mins

David Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion

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

• 29 mins

On the March: Pomp, Circumstance and Dam Busters

Tom Service on musical marches.

• 29 mins

Symphonic Steampunk: Saint-Saëns's Organ Symphony

Tom Service dissects Camille Saint-Saëns's Third 'Organ' Symphony.

• 29 mins

Mystery, rumour and deception: Mozart's Requiem

Tom Service dissects Mozart's final, unfinished masterpiece.

• 29 mins

Collage, writ large: Berio's Sinfonia

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

• 29 mins

Bluebeard's Castle: Enter at Your Peril

Tom Service intrepidly explores Bluebeard's Castle, Bartok's one-act symbolist opera.

• 29 mins

Here Comes the Bride

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

• 29 mins

Stravinsky, the puppet master: Petrushka

Tom Service delves into the extraordinary world of Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka.

• 29 mins

Wild Isles: Wild Music

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

• 29 mins

Once upon a time... The Fairy-tale Operas of Judith Weir

Tom Service delves into the deep (and often dark) worlds of Judith Weir's dramatic works.

• 29 mins

All the King's Music

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

• 29 mins