The Listening Service

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

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: Song Cycles and Concept Albums

Song Cycles and Concept Albums

BBC Radio 3 - The Listening Service, Song Cycles and Concept Albums

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

Tom Service explores the connections between song cycles in classical music and concept albums in pop and rock music.

Tom Service explores the world of the song cycle - from the tortured passions and existential angst of Beethoven and Schubert's protagonists in 19th-century Vienna, to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole's ebullient takes on the genre with the birth of the concept album, and Kate Bush's groundbreaking experimental pop suite The Ninth Wave. 

Our witness today is composer Emily Hall whose work Life Cycle, written with Toby Litt for singer Mara Carlyle, explores the theme of motherhood.

Producer: Ruth Thomson

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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The Listening Service

Song Cycles and Concept Albums

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BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3