Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Listening Service

Podcasts

Music: Classical

An odyssey through the musical universe, presented by Tom Service

Rethink music with The Listening Service. Tom Service presents a journey of imagination and insight, exploring how music works

The Listening Service: Sound of the Underground

Repetition

Sound of the Underground

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Sound of the Underground

What does underground sound like? From earth-inspired music to sounds of the earth itself.

What does the underground sound like? Tom discovers a noisy vibrant place beneath our feet, from plates grinding and volcanoes erupting to composers using the earth as inspiration.

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 of the earth's plates.

All this noise has long inspired composers and musicians - from Stravinsky and Wagner to Howard Shore and Tom Waits, we burrow into the earth itself to uncover the musical treats that lie under our feet. How do you translate the underground into music and does it bear any resemblance to what is actually happening down there?

Tom discovers what really lies beneath with the sound recordist Jez Riley French who reveals the hidden sounds from the earth itself turning to underground woodlice going about their daily business.

Plus music actually made in the deep places of the world - from Pauline Oliveros's Deep Listening Band to the songs of Welsh miners.

Hannah Thorne (producer)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Listening Service

Sound of the Underground

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3