Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson approaches music without preconceptions; as he puts it, “Every note we play anywhere, anytime, is a reinterpretation, a transcription.”

In the third and final episode of the series, Víkingur explores how composers from George Crumb, Heinrich Biber and Olivier Messiaen were inspired by sounds of the natural world, from tiny birds to huge whales. We’ll also hear music by Steve Reich reimagined for the harpsichord, Mascagni’s famous Intermezzo in the hands of a steel pan orchestra and Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy given a wild reinterpretation by US vocal supergroup Pentatonix.

A Tandem Production for BBC Radio 3 Show less