The Listening Service

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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

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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: Sonata Form - or There and Back Again

How Do You Make a National Anthem?

Sonata Form - or There and Back Again

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Sonata Form - or There and Back Again

In this edition of The Listening Service, Tom Service tells stories in sonata form.

In this edition of The Listening Service, Tom Service explores sonata form, used by composers to tell compelling musical stories. How can you hear them? How is it done?

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 and laid the foundations for over two hundred years of sonatas, string quartets, symphonies and concertos.

In this edition of The Listening Service, Tom explores sonata form - according to the revision guides it's all about Exposition-Development-Recapitulation. But it’s so much more than that - the template is just the bare bones of a three act drama - lyrical, exciting and compelling musical stories are told in sonata form. How can you hear them? How is it done?


With David Owen Norris at the piano, with his Sonata of the Prodigal Son.

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.

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Sonata Form - or There and Back Again

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