In a series of three shows, Nora Fischer celebrates what the voice can do with a fabulously diverse playlist of tracks from around the world and across the centuries.

She listens to raw and passionate Bulgarian and Scandinavian singing alongside the profound warmth of Russian basses. She compares the ethereal angst of the voice of the last castrato to the effect of the longest high tenor C in classical music. And she sets the twisting ornamental lines of an 18th-century Handel opera aria next to the runs perfected by Whitney Houston and Beyoncé.

In this first episode, Nora listens to the way singers blend their voices, from an unearthly mystic unison in a piece by medieval composer Hildegarde of Bingen to the multi-track digital mixing of singer-songwriter James Blake. She also listens to the way singers and composers can add twists, turns, trills and runs to a vocal line for maximum effect - whether it’s in an Indian rag, an ornate aria from Italian baroque master Barbara Strozzi, or a powerful RnB ballad.

A Tandem Production for BBC Radio 3 Show less