Films of orchestras and choirs

Narrator:
Listen to this music. What's it make you think of? Are you a rocket about to lift off? I'm a horse galloping across a field. I'm a rollercoaster climbing higher and higher.

Khalil Madovi:
Or about to ride a super fast home made car. What? You weren't really gonna expect me to stay still with this kind of music playing were you?

Khalil Madovi:
Can you hear that pile of sounds repeating over and over? [LAUGHS] Yeah, that's the rhythm. And I like to think of it like an engine, you know? It keeps pushing me along. [LAUGHS] Faster! Faster! [LAUGHS]

Khalil Madovi:
The musical notes become like real objects in the road. Racing towards me in a whoosh, bam. They shoot straight past my ears. Whoa!

Khalil Madovi:
No wonder John Adams, the composer of this piece called it "Short Ride in a Fast Machine."

Khalil Madovi:
[LAUGHS] The rhythms never stop. And now I'm picking up speed. Swerving, bucking, dodging, racing. Faster and faster. [LAUGHS]

Khalil Madovi:
This car is out of control.

Kerry Andrew:
And my home makes me feel like me.

Children:
And we come from the Big Bang.

Presenter:
Where is your home and what does it sound like?

Choir:
[SING] My home is down the road, down the hill far way…

Presenter:
And what is home? This piece of music is all about finding out the answer and it's called No Place Like, and musician and composer Kerry Andrew created it especially for the Ten Pieces Project with help from lots of you.

Kerry Andrew:
And No Place Like is a piece for voices and it's all about home, so it's about where we're from, how we've connect, uh our home towns and our home town sounds.

Choir:
[SING]

Kerry Andrew:
And I wrote it with the help of children from all over the country, I asked them questions about their homes and I got hundreds and hundreds of amazing responses back.

Choir:
[SING]

Presenter:
And Kerry took some of those answers and turned them into the lyrics for her piece. It's a piece that uses a musical instrument we all have, our voice.

Choir:
[SING] It's the one place we go to bed…

Kerry Andrew:
I am a big believer in voices not just singing in the traditional way so in No Place Like uh there's some humming, uh there's some beat boxing like this … [BEAT BOX SOUNDS]

Choir:
[SING]

Kerry Andrew:
There's also uh some body percussion um so that's clicks and slaps and things.

Choir:
[SING]

Kerry Andrew:
The response to my questions uh was amazing, I got hundreds and hundreds of uh responses back, uh so many that I spent days looking through them all. Um and uh there were so many lovely answers and I couldn't use them all in my lyrics, but they all inspired the feeling of No Place Like.

Choir:
[SING]

Presenter:
So what is home?

Girl - orange top, long black hair:
It's usually where your um favourite things are.

Girl - black top:
My mum's roast chicken. [LAUGHS]

Boy - blue top, short hair:
Somewhere like where you belong.

Girl - orange top, pulled back hair:
Pasta and pizza.

Girl - orange top, ponytail:
Lasagne.

Boy - blue top, brown hair:
And pepper.

Girl - orange top, ponytail:
[LAUGHS]

Presenter:
As part of her song Kerry creates a giant collage of sounds that you might hear in your home town, and all these sounds are made using the voice and … the body.

Kerry Andrew:
So there are loads of different sounds being built up, so you hear things like people talking very annoyingly on their mobile phones…

Choir:
[TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]

Kerry Andrew:
There are police sirens.

Choir:
[TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]

Kerry Andrew:
There's a traditional May Day song.

Choir:
[SING]

Kerry Andrew:
There are football chants and uh they're all looping round and round making this big collage.

Choir:
[SING]

Boy - grey top, short hair:
And people um call 'em repeatin' each other.

Boy - grey top, black hair:
Like a busy city.

Choir:
[TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]

Girl - orange top, ponytail:
And they all sound together and like they sound safe.

Choir:
[SING]

Girl - orange top, black hair:
It sounds like they're having fun the studio or playing a game with their friend.

Choir

[SING]

Boy - blue top, short brown hairThey feel quite lucky to be in a…, they sound like they're happy that they have a home.

Choir:
[SING]

Presenter:
And you could be singing this piece soon and if you don't have a choir, why not get one together.

Kerry Andrew:
Well I wrote No Place Like with some spaces for you to put in your own ideas uh being inspired by your own home town sound. So I can't wait to hear what you come up with using your voices and maybe also instruments as well, uh inspired by those sounds.

Choir:
[SING] No place like home.

Presenter:
It's a village, it's a town, it's a city. What does home sound like to you? Time to get singing.

Choir:
[SING]

Ten Pieces Choir:
We come from the big bang.

Ten Pieces Choir:
My home is down the road, up the hill, far away.

Ten Pieces Choir:
My home is an estate on a farm by the sea.
My home makes me feel like me
The heart of the galaxy

Ten Pieces Choir:
[HUMS]

Ten Pieces Choir:
My hometown is my hometown
Where the root of the rhythm comes from
It’s somewhere I know like the back of my hand
[HUMS]

Ten Pieces Choir:
It’s the one place the only place
A hive of people busy as bees
We are a community
Home is where the
Home is where the
Home is where the
Home is where the
Home is where the
Home is where the sound is
Home is where the sound is
Home is where the sound is
Home is where the sound is
Home is where the sound
Tweet tweet tweet
Tweet tweet tweet
Tweet
[UNSURE OF WORD]
Tweet
Beep beep beep
Can you hear me?
Tweet
[UNSURE OF WORD]
Can you hear me?
[UNSURE OF WORD]
Can you hear me?
Tweet
[UNSURE OF WORD]
[TALKING OVER EACH OTHER]
Oh.
It’s a village, it’s a town, it’s a city
It’s a city, it’s a country it’s the world
It’s a village, it’s a town, it’s a city
It’s a city, it’s a country it’s the world
No place like home.
No place like home.
No place like home.
No place like home.
Home is where the [UNSURE OF WORD] the love is.
No place like.

Narrator:
In the middle of all the music we listen to, sometimes there's one band, one singer, one composer that cuts through. One musical voice that seems to be speaking just to us.

James May:
When I was about six years old my Dad bought a new record player. And it came with a free record. It an album organ music by Johann Sebastian Bach. And I must have listened to it hundreds of times. To be honest it was the only record we had for a while. And I sort of fell in love with it.

James May:
I went on to learn the piano and the flute and the saxophone and eventually the harpsichord. I studied music at University and I suppose today I can't really imagine my life without a classical music sound track. And that's all down to a free Bach record.

James May:
This piece is probably one of Bach's most famous. It was written about 1706 and he, of course, would not have known that it would eventually be used in gaming or…or as a ring tone. Or indeed as a form of shorthand meaning something well spooky is about to happen. That's probably for the best.

James May:
It's called "Toccata and Fugue In D Minor." And it's a piece of two parts. The first part of "Toccata" is basically an opportunity for the musician to show off a bit.

James May:
To grab everyone's attention. To get them ready for this amazing ride ahead. Hold on a minute.

James May:
I reckon the orchestra's itching for a go now.

James May:
That was a section of the Toccata." But now we come to part two. "|The Fugue." Do you mind if I have a go?

Male organ player:
Yeah, sure. Be my guest please.

James May:
Cheers. A "Fugue" is like a sort of perfect musical pattern. Bach would start off with a fairly straight forward, simple little melody.

James May:
Like that one. And then he might repeat it higher up.

James May:
Or maybe lower.

James May:
And then he might turn it upside down, break it up into fragments and so on. But gradually this incredible piece of music emerges. Bach's brain could work out these patterns better than any brain before or since. Apparently he could improvise this stuff. He could make it up as it went along.

James May:
But remarkably, this never created chaos. It just created incredible, beautiful music.

James May:
And in fact the word "Fugue" means "Flight" in Italian. And that's what this music seems to do to me. It does take flight. It takes off on a journey. An incredible one. And it's a different journey every, single time you listen to it. That's what's so amazing about it.

Kate:
The most northerly islands in the UK are surrounded by magnificent and dramatic seas.
Calm and beautiful one moment, dark and stormy the next.

Imagine for a moment you're at sea. The waves are high and rough, and your ship is being tossed and thrown about.
But then you see it.
In the distance…land, safety…home.

Composer Sally Beamish was inspired to write this piece called Seavaigers, by the journey between two Scottish ports: Dundee and here in Shetland.

The title of the piece means seafarer: the people who sailed the dangerous North Sea, around the coast of Scotland.

Sally beamish wrote Seavaigers for Scottish harp and fiddle. It could be described as a double concerto - a piece for solo instruments and orchestra.

Seavaigers tells the story of a sea journey in three parts, or movements. This movement called Haven is the last and follows a ship safely home after a difficult journey.

That was wonderful. What a treat to be able to hear this piece of music in this setting. And when you set about writing it, did you have this, sort of in your head?

Sally:
Well in fact I was thinking about this very boat which is called The Swan, and I believe it's the oldest fishing boat that is left and it's over a hundred years old. And I had heard a piece of music written by Catriona and played by the two of them called The Swan, which was about them travelling on this very boat.So yes, I was thinking about that. And I was also thinking about that sea journey between their two homes, Dundee and Shetland. And what that might be like on a boat like this.

Kate:
And Chris and Catriona, how did it feel when a composer like the great Sally Beamish comes to you and says, “I want to write a piece of music specifically for you”?

Chris:
Feels amazing, I mean Sally as you say, she’s an incredible composer. It's like she's given us a stretch of water, a big sea in sound and we get to have this wonderful voyage on it you know and create that journey, you know it's fantastic so we're very honoured.

The fiddle, or the violin is such an expressive instrument with such a broad range of sounds and emotions. You can create a sound which could be really raw and brutal, just in a moment. And yet, a split second later you could play something tiny, small, and tender and beautiful. And it can be as unpredictable as the sea, as the weather that we are thrown at when we’re on a journey.

Catriona:
Just for example, you’ve got the strings that you can pluck normally, but also, Sally has me strumming them. So, I'm actually stopping – dampening - a few of the strings and strumming the ones that are loose there. So, I do lots of fun things within the whole journey.

Kate:
And Sally how did you work with Catriona and Chris to musically convey all the moods of the sea?

Sally:
Well in the last movement, in Haven, I wanted to create the idea of coming home. So, the excitement of coming home and the direction.But at the same time, you’re still in danger. Until you reach land you’re still in danger. So, in passages like this one, if you listen to it and try and tap your foot, you’ll find you can’t, because it sounds rhythmic, but you’re going to be wrong footed. The beats are uneven.

Kate:
How much as musicians, does your physical environment - this environment - the land and the sea that you both know so well, how important is that when it comes to playing and contributing to a piece of music like this?

Chris:
The sea and the land when you’re brought up next to it, it shapes people's character. It shapes people's character in the way they speak, and not only in our accents and how we talk to people but also in the way we speak in our instruments, and it shapes the accent of our sound. And that is what brings an incredible sort of authenticity to music because it’s exactly shaped by the environment and where it's from.

Narrator:
Let me tell you about a [UNSURE OF WORD] for my favourite notes.

Narrator:
Sound familiar? Some people say these eight notes…

Narrator:
…could be the most famous line of music ever written.

Narrator:
Not exactly a shy start, is it? This is music that lets you know it's arrived.

Barney Harwood:
Oh. But it also sounds to me like it could be two men arguing about who's the best dancer. The first one goes, "Hey look at me," and the second one goes, "What is it now?" And then he starts to dance. De de de de little la. De de de little la.

Barney Harwood:
Then he goes, "Well, that was good, but what about this?" And then he starts dancing and just when you're looking for somewhere to catch your breath, the music starts again driving forwards, it's like a whirlwind.

Barney Harwood:
For me, this music is full of fire and passion, just like the guy who wrote it, Ludwig van Beethoven. He didn't write music to make people feel nice, he was there to make them feel alive.

Barney Harwood:
Phew.

Narrator:
But as he continued to compose at the piano, something terrible was happening to him.

Barney Harwood:
Beethoven, a man who loved making music more than anything else in the world, was going deaf. Can you imagine that?

Barney Harwood:
Oh, that's better. But Beethoven was brave and he was determined and every day he would sit at his piano, working out his symphonies, even though he couldn't hear them.

Narrator:
Think about that, Beethoven had to remember the sound of the flute, he had to hear the sound of every single instrument of the orchestra in his head.

Barney Harwood:
How amazing is that?

Pixie Lott:
Music is for listening to; definitely. But when I hear music, I don't want to just listen.

I want to move. I want to dance. A dance can be romantic. It can be frenetic. It can be a party or a battleground. Romeo and Juliet, perhaps the most famous lovers of all, meet during a dance at a masked ball. A moment of happiness before their two warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets, tear them apart. And if you update Shakespeare's tragic love story, what do you get? West Side Story; a stage musical composed by Leonard Bernstein. Shakespeare's Verona, in Italy, becomes New York City in the 1950s where a turf war is under way. The Montagues and the Capulets become two rival street gangs; The Sharks and The Jets. And Romeo and Juliet make way for Tony and Maria.

Pixie Lott:
Bernstein had seen Latin dance music when he visited Puerto Rica and now he watched as one particular dance craze swept through New York City in the '50s. And so, for his musical, out went Shakespeare's masked ball and in came mambo.

Bernstein's mambos got fast rhythms packed with semi quavers and great melodic lines. It's full of passion and danger, just like the emotions on those hot city streets. Its music to make you move.

Naomi Wilkinson:
You know what I think inspires great music, great stories.

Bobby Lockwood:
I reckon this is it.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Stories of love, jealousy and revenge.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Love is a rebellious bird.

Bobby Lockwood:
That no one can tame, a great idea fo lyric.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Already taken, it belongs to a gypsy named Carmen. She sings it in an opera named after her, composed by Georges Bizet.

Bobby Lockwood:
She looks fiery, dangerous.

Naomi Wilkinson:
She's got every man and woman in here watching, and she knows it.

Naomi Wilkinson:
A young soldier, already with another girl, now he's lost it, lost his heart to her.

Bobby Lockwood:
She's cast a spell.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Carmen's story is set under a sizzling Spanish sun. Her music makes me think of a cut, stretching out in the heat, slow, enchanting, but with deadly claws, ready to pounce.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Well you were warned, in opera the music tells you what you need to know.

Bobby Lockwood:
What about this then? It's more music from Carmen.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Sounds brave, proud, and charming.

Bobby Lockwood:
It belongs to Escamillo, and he deserves it. A big celebrity, bull fighter.

Naomi Wilkinson:
He can get a fanfare, think of him strutting around the bullring. This is music for a guy who loves being a star.

Bobby Lockwood:
We all know the story, boy loves girl, but girl loves another boy, but and then what?

Naomi Wilkinson:
I don't know, but Escamillo kills bulls, Carmen kills hearts. I am sticking around to find out.

Interviewer:
[CLOCK CHIME] Can music help you time travel? [MUSIC CONTINUOUS] Where would this music take you and who is waiting for you there? How about meeting a superhero, because I'm pretty sure the person who wrote this music was one. Let's travel back in time to 1753 and take a journey from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean to Paris. The composer of this music did,aged just 13. His name was Joseph Bulugne Chevalier de Saint-Georges. His dad was a wealthy trader in Guadeloupe. His Mum was a slave whose family were from Africa. Together they arrived in sophisticated, fashionable, elegant Paris.

Girl in white t shirt:
I can imagine them wearing a big dress and going to like…

Girl in yellow t shirt:
The ball.

Girl in white t shirt:
Yeah every night.

Interviewer:
After arriving in Paris Saint-Georges immediately had a battle on his hands. He was part African, so imagine trying to live in Paris when most people at that time thought anyone from Africa was only fit to be a slave. Life must have been very tough. Saint-Georges had to fight racism because of the colour of his skin but he wasn't going to let anything stop him. Victory number one;he became a composer and wrote music like this piece, from 1779, the Allegro from his Symphony Number One. Victory number two; he learned to play a musical instrument and he didn't play quite well, he became a superstar performer, just ask our violinist, Anna.

Anna:
Saint-Georges himself was a violinist and he was one of the best violinists around at his time and he wrote all this really difficult music for himself to play so that he could really show off. So we have lots of runs like this…

Interviewer:
Victory number three; Saint-Georges became a fashion trendsetter. People followed him everywhere. His clothes were full of beautiful patterns and so was his music. You can almost hear him strutting into an elegant party, or onto a catwalk. Saint Georges became so good at sword fighting at school, he was made a knight, or chevalier, and before long he was beating everyone induels all over Europe, victory number four.

Girl in blue t shirt:
The higher parts on the violin kind of sound like the swords clashing against each other.

Boy in red t shirt:
It sounds kinda like cocky and that he always wins.

Dark haired girl in red:
Yeah, show off, bit of a show off.

Anna:
You can hear that swagger and that bravado and you can imagine the clashing of swords and Chevalier de Saint-Georges prancing around after winning a fight. It's a piece full of joy and confidence.

Interviewer:
I keep thinking of those cellos, horns and oboes. They're helping to create a strong beat, but they also sound to me as if they're having a sword fight of their own. They jab forward and then take a few quick steps back [BLOWS OUT] en garde.

Boy in orange t shirt:
It sounds like there's some kind of battle because it's like people are jumping back and forth.

Boy in yellow t shirt:
The fencing's quite quick motions [INTERRUPTION] so it's like really quick.

Girl with plaits:
Kind of like people like bouncing around.

Interviewer:
A brilliant runner, dancer, skater, swimmer and a brave soldier, Saint-Georges fought people's prejudices about him and had many more victories. And his music takes us back to the elegant, flamboyant world of performance, fashion and sword fighting that, despite so many obstacles, Saint-Georges conquered. What an incredible life. So if you went time travelling, wherewould you go? Who would you meet and what would the music sound like there?

Molly:
Can you hear the footsteps? Who could be marching and why?
Rules are important. They keep us safe, they keep things running. But what if a rule was wrong? Would you do something to change it?

Composer Margaret Bonds was inspired to write this piece of music by a group of people standing up to rules that were unjust, prejudiced, and needed to be changed.

In the 50s, many states across the United States of America had segregation laws. This meant that black people and white people were treated very differently.

It's hard to imagine now, but back then, black and white people were not allowed to eat together in a restaurant, sit together in a cinema, or sit on the same part of a bus.

Black people had to sit at the back whilst white people were given better seats at the front. If the white section was full, black passengers had to give up their seats.

This prejudiced treatment of black people led to a huge protest in the city of Montgomery in Alabama, and the actions of those people went on to change laws across America.

It was this historic event that inspired Margaret Bonds to compose The Montgomery Variations.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott began in December 1955, when a lady called Rosa Parks was arrested and fined for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. This act of defiance set the wheels turning - the wheels of change!

People across Montgomery began boycotting the buses in protest. They took to the streets, and they marched, shared car journeys or even taxis, rather than travelling by bus. In fact, so many people stopped using the buses, that they almost put the bus companies out of business.

In December 1956, the US Supreme Court finally ordered Montgomery to allow black and white people sit together on the buses. This huge change didn't just affect the people of Alabama, but the whole of the United States.

Margaret Bonds was a composer at the time of the bus boycott. She often wrote music combining classical music with folk tunes and African American spirituals that she'd grown up with. The Montgomery Variations are based on a spiritual theme called “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me".

Margaret Bonds used the melody from this song in lots of different ways, or variations, throughout the seven sections of the piece. Each movement tells part of the story.

Can you hear how she uses the music to show the strength and the anger of the people? But also, the hope and pride?

40,000 people boycotted the buses on the first day of the protest in Montgomery.

In this movement called March, Margaret Bonds represents the boycott with the timpani and double basses playing the same notes together in unison.

It sounds like thousands of feet pounding the streets together. The music draws us into the crowd as though we are marching with the people. It's almost impossible to keep your feet still.

The melody is passed between the instruments of the orchestra. First bassoons, then cellos, violins and cor anglais. The melody builds in strength each time, just like the community of Montgomery. Single voices joining together as one.

The next movement has a very different mood. It's hopeful, like an early morning - dawn, new beginnings, and the feeling of change.

Margaret Bonds has been inspired by the same spiritual melodies in the March, but she's written it very differently this time. Can you hear the woodwind playing the melody? The music swells around the orchestra, like the sun rising or birds in a dawn chorus, reflecting a community waking up to the change they've helped to make happen.

Margaret Bonds was inspired by the people who marched. The people who marched were inspired by Rosa Parks. And Rosa Parks was inspired by her belief in what was right, and that changed the world.

Naomi:
What do you notice when the seasons change? Different colours? A change in the weather?
What about the sounds that you can hear?

The leaves in the trees sound different when they're fresh in the spring, rather than when they're dry and crispy in autumn, or in winter when there aren't any leaves at all.

Each season has its own soundscape, and none is busier and more hopeful than the spring.

When you're out and about in springtime you can hear bees buzzing and birds singing. It's all going on. And it was the busyness and joy of springtime that inspired French composer Marie Juliet Olga Boulanger, known to her friends -that's us- as Lili, to write her piece D’un matin de printemps. That's French for ‘On a Spring Morning’.

Lili Boulanger is using the instruments to create the sounds and feeling of a busy spring morning out in the garden or in the park. The string instruments are playing a fast repeated rhythm, over and over. It's called an ostinato. Almost feels like the hum or buzz of bees, busy and constant.

The melody played by the flute at the beginning is copied by different instruments as it echoes through the orchestra.

It's a bit like birds singing or calling to one another.

Lili Boulanger was born in Paris in 1893, and even from a really young age, she loved playing music, and she was a very talented composer.

D’un matin de printemps - On a Spring Morning - was written as part of a pair of pieces. The other half of the pair was D’un soir triste, which means On a Sad Evening. That's quite a different vibe from a spring morning, isn't it?

I wonder why Lili wrote these two pieces to go together. This young woman was feeling inspired by the hope of spring, so she was feeling hopeful. But she was also very ill, and sadly, she died when she was just 24 years old. By writing both pieces, Lili Boulanger is showing the world that she was feeling several emotions all at once.

Oh, now what kind of bird is that? I have a trusty book of bird facts here to help me. It’s like a handy set of instructions for nature. And luckily many composers give instructions too, on how their pieces should be played. It means the musicians are able to play the piece as the composer intended.

At the beginning of On a Spring Morning, Lili Boulanger asks that the notes be played, in French, léger and gai, which means light and cheerful. After a happy and energetic start to the music, the mood changes. Here, the instruction from the composer is to play mystérieux, or mysteriously, with slower, longer notes.

I wonder what could be happening out in the garden during this change?

The clouds are rolling in. The music builds and builds and listen, here comes the rain.

But don't give up and head inside just yet. No, a violin solo plays the spring melody from the beginning of the piece.

The rain is stopping. Sun is peeking through the clouds. Typical spring weather!

Narrator:
Time to swap our car for a boat and head far out to sea where I can hear trouble brewing.

Leanne Dunstan:
If all the water in the ocean can make music, would it sound like this?

Leanne Dunstan:
When I hear this music I'm not listening to the stormy sea. I'm in it.

Sarah Rayson:
I know. It's brilliant.

Leanne Dunstan:
This music's called 'Storm.'

Sarah Rayson:
What?

Leanne Dunstan:
'Storm.'

Leanne Dunstan:
I can hear the trumpetslike the wild wind whirling around me and the rumbling basses.

Sarah Rayson:
I can hear drums roaring like a big angry wind.

Leanne Dunstan:
What?

Sarah Rayson:
Wind.

Leanne Dunstan:
Benjamin Britten, the Englishman who wrote this music, loved the sea. He lived beside it. He watched it in the summer, the winter, day after day. He got to know the ocean, all it's different moves. Deadly, dangerous, calm and beautiful. On those days he saw the sunshine sparkling on the water and the sound of harps and flutes. No sign of that today.

Sarah Rayson:
The trumpets are getting higher.

Leanne Dunstan:
Trumpets mean trouble.

Sarah Rayson:
I love it when the trumpets get higher.

Leanne Dunstan:
Time to hold on tight.

Doc Brown:
So, where do musical ideas come from?

Doc Brown:
Most of us aren't gonna get very far staring at a blank screen or an empty page.

Doc Brown:
But, ideas, inspiration can come from sounds around us. Memories, stories, poems, photos. Or a picture, like the image of dark turbulent waves. That's what composer, Anna Clyne saw in her head back in 2012 and the first thing that she did was to paint it. Then she went over to her piano and started to improvise. Notes, melodies, rhythms, any music that the image made her think of. To do this, you don't need to know how to read or write music. You just need to want to make it. Anna's music grew, the images grew. Both took on a life of their own and soon the Night Fairy emerged.

Doc Brown:
Charcoal, ribbon, gauze, illustrations all went onto the painting.

NarratorThe ice was here. The ice was there. The ice was all around.

Doc Brown: (VO)And scratched in pencil with thick paint and lines from poems like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the tail of his cursed ship.

NarratorIt cracked and growled and long howls, like noises in a swound.

Doc Brown:
You know, our minds our mysterious places. Where our moods can suddenly turn from light and clear to dark and stormy. And that's what Night Fairy is. The journey of a ship struggling through the night, but also a journey through a whirlwind of our own minds.

Doc Brown: (VO)And that whole musical voyage started in Anna's mind with one single idea. One image. One wave.

Lemn Sissay:
[HOOVES, HORSES NEIGHING] [MUSIC CONTINUOUS] It sounds like a party's about to start. But who are the guests and where's the party? Follow the cowboy's galloping rhythm across the plains, because we're heading to the Wild West for a rodeo where cattle are running, lassoes are flying, horses are reeling. It's a chance for cowboys to show off their skills. And at the endof the day, it's time to dance. It's time for a hoe-down and this is what it sounds like. The melody's whooping about, leaping around, it can't keep still. It's as if the whole orchestra is trying to ride a bucking bronco. American composer Aaron Copland created this music to be danced to as part of a ballet all about the rodeo, and so he filled it with traditional folk songs thatcowboys liked to dance to. Like this one, called McCleod's Reel. The trumpets are getting in on the party. Copland loved trumpets and brass instruments. They sound so proud don't they? You can imagine them calling across those big, open fields, calling everyone home to the dance. Aaron Copland loved using lots of percussion in his music too. There's the snare drum. Is that thesound of a cowboy cracking his whip? And what about the wood block? What does that sound like to you? Horses' hooves? And then there's the xylophone, full of energy like jumping feet that don't want to touch the floor.

Musician:
As you can see the the sticks are moving quite high off the instrument so I can get a nice bright sound so I can penetrate through the orchestra with the sound of the xylophone and uh these hard sticks are creating that nice, brittle, bright, energetic sound.

Lemn Sissay:
So what do you feel when you hear this music?

Boy in orange t shirt:
There's a giant parade going on in the street.

Boy in blue t shirt:
Very happy and–

Girl in burkha:
Yeah, joyful.

Boy in blue t shirt:
Joyful yeah.

Girl in blue t shirt:
Springy, uh like the countryside springy not like bouncy springy.

Black boy in blue t shirt:
Someone's in China and there's there's like a flying dragon.

Interviewer:
Do you hear flying dragons? Or are you still imagining those cowboys?

Boy in yellow t shirt:
I can imagine like a cowboy riding on a horse just through the desert, really fast.

Girl in grey skirt:
Someone's like running away on a horse [FOOTSTEPS]

Lemn Sissay:
In Aaron Copland's ballet, one of the cowboys at the rodeo is actually a girl in disguise trying to impress the head wrangler with her skills. But he's ignored her, all day. At the hoe-down when she appears wearing a dress, the wrangler finally realises who she is and strolls over. Can you hear the music slowing down as he swaggers towards her? Step by step. And I think he'sgonna try and kiss her. But what do you think her answer is? Sounds like a big fat no to me. She'd rather dance with the friendly roper, who's been kind to her all day, so off the brass, percussion and violins go again, leading the way, yeehah. How do you think it felt for the cowgirl? Happy ? Sad? On with the hoe-down and you decide.

Naomi Wilkinson:
What does this melody make you think of? A person? A place? A feeling? Are you going on a long journey? Or arriving home? The cor anglais is playing, but what story is its song telling you?

Naomi Wilkinson:
One of this melody's stories could be about the man who composed it. Antonín Dvořák. In 1892 Dvořák took a journey by boat from Europe to New York City. He'd never been there before, he was a long way from home and America was a whole new world to him.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Dvořák soon discovered the songs of the African Americans who'd been brought by boat from their homes back in Africa to work as slaves. [SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT] Their songs were full of sadness and longing.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Perhaps Dvořák was thinking of these songs as he wrote his melody for the cor anglais, but you know, he could also have been thinking about bird song. Because Dvořák loved birds, especially pigeons.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Or, he could've been remembering the huge open prairies he saw in America.

Naomi Wilkinson:
He thought they were beautiful, but lonely. Does the cor anglais sound lonely to you? How does it feel for Patrick, who's playing this music?

Patrick:
What I love about the solo is that it just starts from nowhere after the string introduction. And you have all the time in the world just to sit down and sing, sing through the cor anglais. I think with this solo, the voice of the cor anglais is possibly like when you're a young child and your mother sings you a lullaby to go to bed. You just have this warmth of feeling, of safety and I think that'smaybe what Dvořák was going for.

Naomi Wilkinson:
That's one idea about Dvořák's melody, but what about yours?

Girl:
It makes you feel a bit like, like your stomach is churning.

Boy:
Yeah, makes you feel like you're in a place where you don't know anyone, it's like you're alone.

Older Boy:
He's discovered a new place where he's going and he's trying to remember what it's like and his old home.

Girl 2:
He wants to stay in America, but he really wants to go back to Europe and see his family and friends.

Girl 3:
When I was on holiday, like with a few friends at a camp and I felt a bit homesick.

Girl 4:
And like, you kind of feel like you're missing everyone and you don't really think about the positive things, you think about the things that aren't going very well when you feel homesick.

Naomi Wilkinson:
Have you ever felt homesick? The thing is Dvořák was happy in America, but he missed his home, the Czech Republic and his children who were still living there. He wrote them letters that were carried by boat, slowly across the ocean.

Naomi Wilkinson:
This music travels slowly too, it's title is Largo, which means slow. And it's one movement from Dvořák's symphony number 9. So, perhaps this beautiful tune was also like one of Dvořák's letters. A musical letter written for his friends back home, from Dvořák, far away, with love from the new world. Have you been on a journey, what would your musical letter home sound like?

Naomi Wilkinson:
[GUITAR PLAYS] Think about one of your friends or someone in your family… if you created a picture of them using music what would it sound like? [MUSIC]

First girl:
This is her because like she's got brown hair and a little bit of blondie and she's sun burnt [LAUGHTER]

First boy:
It reflects his personality

Second boy:
I recognize, um… my hair because it's quite straight…

First boy:
Sometimes he can be… like one thing and then he can change

Second girl:
This is Emily because she likes smiling and she always wears shorts and she has blonde hair…

Naomi Wilkinson:
We're all used to making drawings and taking photos of each other, but could you turn those pictures of people you know into music? [MUSIC CONTINUES] In 1898 English composer Edward Elgar decided to do just that… [MUSIC CONTINUES] He chose 14 friends and picked out a part of their personality, the way they walked, talked or even a memory he had ofthem and he turned it into a musical picture… he wanted each picture to be completely different, but he also wanted them to have a tune or theme in common, so he started with a melody that he really liked… [MUSIC]. … Elgar then created 14 variations of this melody, one for each of his friends, Beverly in the double basses can tell us more.

Beverly:
The theme starts with these four notes [PLAYS DOUBLE BASS] And you can hear them being used in a lot of the other variations, so perhaps in slower ones [PLAYS SLOWER] Or in faster variations [PLAYS NOTES FASTER]. So that it's all still bases around the same music [MUSIC CONTINUES]

Naomi Wilkinson:
Elgar's musical portraits start with his wife and finish with himself, kind of musical selfie… along the way we meet one of his friends who was a viola player, so it's no surprise that the violas take centre stage for this variation [MUSIC CONTINUES] Another of the portraits isn't about a friend but about their bulldog Dan… playing by the river, can you hear Dan? Rolling down thehill into the water? And quickly paddling off to the side? A bark, or is that a wet shake? [LAUGHS] And off he goes again [BARKING] One of the most exciting variations for the [MUSIC CONTINUES] double basses and the whole orchestra is about a very lively friend of Elgar's who said the music reminded him of a time they both caught in a fierce thunderstorm…[MUSIC CONTINUES] The tympany sound like rolling thunder to me… and the violins and trombones seem to be howling like the wind… [MUSIC CONTINUES] But Elgar's musical portraits might make you think of many different people or stories…

Third girl:
It kind of sounds like… um superhero music because it's so fast and vivid

Fourth girl:
It's like a true love story sort of

Fifth girl:
Yeah

Sixth girl:
Like a nice person [LAUGHS]

Seventh girl:
I think it's a nice person too and I think he's… rich [MUSIC CONTINUES]

Naomi Wilkinson:
Elgar loved playing games so he put the people's initials or secret nickname at the top of each variation and left all his friends puzzling about who was who… he'd created an enigma, that's a mystery that's really tough to crack, and that gave Elgar an idea for the perfect title for his piece… the Enigma Variations… I'm trying to imagine what a musical portrait of me would soundlike, Beverly is puzzling over the same thing

Beverly:
I think people would say… I'm always busy, I'm always doing a lot of things and seem to find it very easy and be very comfortable but I think actually I'm more like a swan so they might see me gliding along but underneath my feet might be going a bit crazy just to… keep afloat so if I used the four notes that Elgar bases the theme upon at the beginning I might do something like this[PLAYS DOUBLE BASS]

Naomi Wilkinson:
[ENIGMA VARIATIONS CONTINUE] Why not create your own musical portrait of yourself or someone you know? Will anyone be able to crack your enigma? [MUSIC ENDS]. …

Joel:
What did you dream about last night? Some people believe that when you dream of a night sky it represents your mind, and all the possibilities open to it, and that a starry night shows your hopes, dreams and aspirations. Like reaching for the stars!

What do you think your dreams are telling you?

This music, called Sun Sundar Sargam by Reena Esmail is inspired by dreams and the idea that sending your dreams out into the world might make them come true. You can imagine the stars link together, taking your dreams with them across the sky.

The lyrics to the music are in Hindi, one of the main languages of India, and translate as,

Listen to the beautiful melody

Weave the dream of achieving your dream

The world will sing your song

Listen to the beautiful melody

If you are quiet, then the echoes will arise.

Do you recognize the instrument that you can hear playing with the choir? It's a string instrument called the sitar, and you'll hear it a lot in Indian music.

Although this piece of music doesn't sound exactly like traditional Indian music, it is based on a traditional Indian Raga called Raag Yaman that came from North India. It's one of the first that people are introduced to when they start to learn Hindustani classical music.

Raga means something that colours your mind with feeling and emotion and can help you feel that the music is happy or sad, or many more emotions. Raag Yaman that this piece is based on, is performed in the evening and can help create a romantic feeling of calm at the end of a busy day.

Reena, tell me about the inspiration for this piece of music.

Reena:
So, when I was a kid, I knew that there was music inside of me and I didn't necessarily know how I would make that music come out into the world, but I just knew it was there.

And so, I think sometimes you look out into the world, and you see something, and you think, wow, I want to be like that. I'm going to follow that direction. I'm going to do that thing. I'm going to follow that path. And then other times you don't see what you want to be in the world, and that means that it's up to you to create it.

And that's what this piece is about, creating what you want to see in the world.

Joel:
Once you decided on the theme of the music, how did you get started?

Reena:
So sometimes I come up with a melody first. Sometimes I come up with some chords first. Sometimes I just ruminate on the words and what they mean to me, and somehow the music starts to flow.

Joel:
Can you tell us a bit more about the sitar and why you chose it for the piece?

Reena:
Oh, I love the sound of the sitar. To me, it sounds like the way I imagine the universe sounds. The sitar has 21 strings sometimes, but you only play on a couple of them and yet all of them vibrate with one another and create this beautiful thing that feels to me almost like the Milky Way.

Here you'll find that the singers and the sitar are in dialogue with one another, and they speak to one another, and they take turns leading and following one another.

When you're listening to this piece, I want you to feel that you can almost reach out and just touch the edge of the universe. I want you to feel that there are really no boundaries, and that, as far as you can see and beyond, is what's possible. When you listen to this piece, I want you to think about that furthest possibility and dream your way into it.

Joel:
What do you think your dreams sound like? Would they be peaceful and quiet, or would they be bold and loud? Would they sound like Reena Esmail’s piece? Have a think. What dream would you send out through the sky and into the world? Maybe it will come true!

Dan Starkey:
Psshhh. [WHISPERS] I have got to be going. That's why I'm tippy toeing.

Dan Starkey:
Draws and beasties all about, time for me to get out. [GASPS]

Dan Starkey:
If they catch me I will be, in the pot for their tea.

Dan Starkey:
[WHISPERS] Every sound that I hear makes me think something's near.

Dan Starkey:
This music by Edvard Grieg is about escaping from a mountain king. But it is no ordinary king. He's revolting King Troll. Music brings the tale of love but do you think I'll survive? Is this just a little dream or is it time for me to scream?

NarratorClassical music can be mischievous, mysterious and magical. And it can also be magnificent, mighty and majestic.

Laura Mvula:
I don't know where I am but I have a feeling something really important is about to happen, because this is the music that George Frideric Handel wrote for a very special occasion, the day that George II was crowned King. Which means something really important is about to happen. Crowds line the street outside Westminister Abbey that day. Inside the Abbey people would've heard the violins playing, listen to them, one musical step at a time, leading us towards the big moment. So it's not surprising is it that the version of this piece is used as a theme for all the Champions League football matches.

Laura Mvula:
This is music to get you ready, to cheer on your team, as they run onto the pitch. And for the Coronation in 1727, Handel created the same atmosphere. As the orchestra began to play in Westminister Abbey, everyone held their breath, waiting for one man, the new King.

Dion Dublin:
Some songwriters or composers just know how to produce a hit.

Dion Dublin:
Those composers are just like superstar strikers shooting for goal. They just know how to write a piece of music that's going to hit the back of the net every time.

Dion Dublin:
Joseph Haydn, 18th century Austrian composer who used to have to write melodies for the orchestra he managed that were memorable and bang on target, otherwise he'd get the boot from the prince who employed him… Luckily Haydn had an ear for a catchy tune, the kind that his boss could hum to for weeks and weeks while wallowing in his posh bath. His record speaks for itself.

Dion Dublin:
Take this concerto where the trumpeter takes the role of superstar striker and plays a real crowd-pleaser of a melody all of their own.

Dion Dublin:
Haydn knows that's not enough, so he opts for a rondo formation for this piece. That's a musical structure where the main melody keeps returning, like a chorus but alternates with different musical interludes, so the rest of the players aren't sitting about doing nothing. They are providing the interludes, picking up the tempo and creating variety. But in the end, always passing the ball back to the star striker who only has eyes for goal.

Linton:
This music was written by Hildegard of Bingen, who lived nearly 1000 years ago in Germany.
Inspiration came to her as visions that only she could see, and she believed they were from God.

The inspiration for everything that Hildegard created came from her visions, or ideas that she experienced in her mind.She described them as a flame that filled her mind and her body.

Hildegard said that her words and poetry came from these ideas and that the music she composed perfected them.

And this has given me some inspiration!

So, in this, I want to try and capture Hildegard of Bingen and some of her visions, and I want to take the eye across the page and in to the visions.Hildegard was the 10th child of an aristocratic family and when she was eight years old, she was sent to live in a convent - a place where nuns live and pray together, devoting their life to working for their church.

Hildegard became a nun, and later the Abbess of the convent in charge of the whole community of nuns. But she had a big impact outside the convent too.
Hildegard wrote about religion, medicine, and the natural world of plants and animals. She also wrote poetry, and her music is still performed today.

So, one of the things she did say was that her visions were like fire that filled her mind and her body, so I want to start with those flames, coming out the back of her head.That fire. That spark of inspiration.So, drawing for me is a lot like composing music; it’s about the composition.Music is about where the sounds take your ears, and ultimately your imagination, and drawing is about where the images take your eye.

The music Hildegard wrote is often described as plainsong which is sacred, or religious music sung in Latin.
There’s usually a single melody with no harmony or accompaniment, or even rhythms. And we call this monophonic music, which means one sound - voices singing together in unison.

Hildegard’s plainsong melody uses melisma and that’s when lots of notes are sung on just one syllable. Melisma is often used in pop songs too.

Hildegard wrote beautiful soaring melodies, and this piece of music was written in honour of St Eucharius and the work that he did for the church.It’s performed a cappella so there are no instruments accompanying the singers.

Hildegard of Bingen’s music is still performed, nearly 1000 years after she lived.
What musical ideas could you come up with to last 1000 years?

Dom:
Destination site, input hyper speed system quarters. Engage rear rockets. And activate thrusters. Activating…

Dick:
Ever wanted to travel through time and space? Well, you don't need a lovely spaceship like mine. All you need is some fantastic classical music. And you're imagination. See? Classical music is a little bit like having a spaceship. It can take you anywhere you want. So when a man called Gustav Holst wanted to explore the planet…

Dom:
Destination up head.

Dick:
…he went into space, using his imagination. Destination right there! And he dreamt up music about Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and Mars. [SCREAMS]

Dom:
Oh, this music, it's beautiful. It's big and it's making my bones rattle. Ah, um, I forgot to mention that Holst actually called this piece of music Mars, bringer of war. Why didn't you tell me that before? And it sounds like a battle's about to begin. Has this thing got… reverse buttons. I'm afraid not. Holst is taking us to Mars whether we like it or not.

Cassie:My name is Cassie Kinoshi. So, I am a composer and saxophonist and that means that I spend a lot of my time practising my instrument and a lot of my time writing for various ensembles.

When I was eleven, I had the chance to perform at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Hertfordshire Schools' Gala which was lots of different children's choirs combined into one, performing with orchestra.And for me being in the centre of the sound, in the middle of the music, with all of these other childrensinging in this massive orchestra, performing epic music, was life changing.That moment was one moment that I think really cemented wanting to be a composer and a performer, because it really allowed me to understand what it was like to be part of something big.

Belinda Zhawi is a poet who writes beautiful evocative words that I’m really drawn to, to be read or to be set to music. And for this particular piece I thought she’d be a wonderful fit because she already has a background of writing lyrics and writing words that fit with music.

The name of the piece is, ‘the colour of all things constant’, which is a phrase which came fromBelinda's poem originally. And while she has created really beautifully colourful lyrics for, for this composition, I'm also exploring the colour and texture through music.

The next step in the process once establishing the subject is to just sit down and write it, which is often quite a scheduled thing once the inspiration is there for what you want to write about.

So, that means either sitting at the piano and improvising until I’ve found a particular melody, or for this piece it was singing melodies and developing the piece from what I heard in my head.And most of this was written actually at the computer after I had sort of moved away from the piano, and moved away from singing it into my phone. I would just sit at the computer and write every day and develop the ideas that I came up with, in a more organic setting.

Just trying to figure out if the phrase that Belinda has written here which is, ‘All things good: trees, rain and ocean.’ actually works with how I’ve set it.

All things good.[Sings melody]

Because I think sometimes the way I'm setting it is a little clumsy here, so I'm just trying to work outif I need to change some of this.The word good going on, [sings] good.I don't know if that works. I might change that.

I think the thing I am most looking forward to in hearing this piece performed is the scale ofthe sound. I’ve really written moments that are hugely dynamic, and you’ve got a lot of things going on so I can’t wait to hear that, moving away from computer sound and fake instruments and hearing that in real life, with the real richness of a real life orchestra and real life voices.

So, it’s been five months since I last spoke about my new piece, and we are here in Salford to see them rehearse in preparation for a live broadcast this afternoon.

Ellie:Welcome back.I'm really, really delighted to welcome Cassie Kinoshi to the rehearsal today.

Really, really good, well done.So, when we get to kindness, kindness, kindness, there, those three big statements of the word.It's the K at the front that's going to get a little bit lost, okay.If the K is full of energy and articulated, then the sound that follows will be amazing anyway.

Cassie, anything from you for that section?

Cassie:How would you feel if it’s a touch faster?

Ellie:Oh yeah, okay.

Cassie:Is that…yeah?

Ellie:That’s fine.

Cassie:Yeah, that'd be great.

I'm really looking forward to sharing this piece with everyone. Like, I put a lot of work in. Belinda also put a lot of work in, and the musicians and choir have done such a great job in rehearsal that I'm really sure that the live performance on BBC Radio 3 is going to be brilliant.

Yeah, there was a huge difference between hearing it on a computer and hearing it live.I think one of the things I love the most about composing is the life that players and performers give the music, and how everyone brings their own voice to the sound of it.

Always look forward to hearing your music have life breathed into it, and the experience of getting it out of your head and the collaboration of working with other people in making music.

I think that's one of the most important parts of music is the collaboration and the community around bringing a piece to life.

Kindness

that silent friend who listensbefore pulling you away.

A portal the colour of all things constant -grass, sky, sunshine.

All things good: trees, rain, ocean.That act of magic, holds us togetherwith nothing but fingertips.

Ask the cracked land how kindness soundsin these times of rains that have not come.

In this drought of empathy,kindness emerges, crystal clear.

In the solidarity of a protest march,the gentle touch in a strangers' eyes.

Kindness - a bridge across chasms,for the land that holds you each day.

Thread of light, winking through chaos.

Shini:What comes to mind when you think about your community? Your neighbours? Your friends? Your school? It might be your street.Sometimes, a whole community lives in one building.

Composer Marianna Martines lived with her family in an apartment block in Vienna, Austria, over two hundred and fifty years ago.

The community living around Marianna Martines turned out to be the perfect people to help her unlock and develop her extraordinary talent for music.
This particular community of neighbours included composers and a famous singing teacher.
Imagine being interested in music and your building just happens to be full of other talented musicians who love music as much as you do - fantastic!

At the age of seven, Marianna Martines was having keyboard lessons with Haydn… that’s Joseph Haydn who later became one of the most famous composers. He was living in the attic flat!She was also having singing lessons from the teacher who lived upstairs, and composition lessons from musicians living nearby.

You’ve probably got the idea by now that Vienna was a very special place for music around the 18th Century. You couldn’t walk down the street without bumping into a musician!

Marianna Martines was very lucky when it came to the like-minded people living alongside her, but she was less lucky when it came to the time in which she was living.
Even though she was an incredibly talented composer and performer, back in those days, women were not allowed to work professionally as musicians.
It must have been frustrating being told you can’t do the job that you love.

Despite not being allowed to compose for a living, her talent was impossible to ignore. She was often asked to perform at public events as a singer and keyboard player, including for the royal court of Empress Maria Theresa.

Marianna Martines also hosted concerts. Ever heard of Mozart?Well, he used to come to her parties, and composed pieces for them both to play together. This is some super A list stuff!

Marianna Martines wrote over two hundred pieces of music including religious pieces, works for the keyboard, voice and orchestra. But this piece, Symphony in C is special. It is special because it is thought to be the first symphony composed by a woman.
A symphony is a big piece of music for orchestra, usually with 4 sections, or movements, each with a different feel.

The first movement of Marianna Martines symphony is marked by the composer as Allegro con spirito in Italian which means it should be played fast, lively and with lots of spirit!

The lively melody and rhythms at the start of her symphony, played by the strings gives the music a really celebratory feeling.

The melody is repeated throughout the piece with different harmonies underneath. This changes the music from a happy sounding major key to a muddier sounding minor key.

Marianna Martines has written lots of different dynamics in her symphony to guide the musicians on how loud or quiet the notes should be played. Composers usually write markings like dynamics in Italian.
Marianna Martines often marks the music as piano or quiet and then follows this with a musical reply that is forte which means loud or even fortissimo which is very loud!
It’s like a musical conversation of whispering and shouting!

Marianna Martines was a remarkable woman. An incredible composer and performer, respected and celebrated by the key figures of the time, and yet, have you ever heard of her?
You’ve probably heard of Mozart, maybe even of Haydn, but the likelihood is that you’ve never heard of Marianna Martines. But she paved the way for many women composers who followed her and it’s about time people learned her name and how extraordinarily talented she was.

Narrator:
Classical music and composing isn't something that only happened in history, new music is being created in our time, today. In fact, one of our ten pieces has been written especially for you. [SKAT NOISES]

Dev:
This is Anna Meredith. Hey Anna, how are you doing?

Anna Meredith:
Hey Dev, just trying out some musical ideas.

Dev:
Where are the instruments?

Anna Meredith:
You're looking at them. My piece is made up only using sounds from our bodies and our voices.

Dev:
Ah, so, we are the instruments.

Anna Meredith:
Exactly. I've worked with a dancer called David to create musical patterns, and the piece starts with a big push like this. Shhh.

Dev:
Can I have a go?

Anna Meredith:
Sure.

Dev:
Shh.

Dev:
And that's just one movement. When you build it all up together you get a pattern like this. Shh ka ss, shh ka ss.

Dev:
Oh wow, and suddenly I can hear a rhythm, it's like energy being passed on from one person to another.

Anna Meredith:
And when you gets lots of people performing the movements and patterns you can create all sorts of shapes and musical rhythms, rippling waves, cogs and spokes. Handel and Mozart and Beethoven are all incredible composers, but music is a living art form, and I've discovered it's something that we can all be part of.

Dev:
Yeah.

Anna Meredith:
And that's how my piece ends, with a sound like this, yeah!

Dev:
Yeah!

Choir/Dance Troop:
[MUSICAL NOISES] Yeah! [CLAPPING] [MUSICAL NOISES] yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah. [MUSICAL NOISES] Yeah [CHANTING YEAH]

NarratorMost of the time all of the orchestra perform very happily together. But sometimes one instrument gets to have a little more fun.

Katy B:
You haven't seen a French horn have you? It's the start of this great piece by Mozart. He composed it for his friend, Joseph… who was a brilliant horn player.

Katy B:
This piece, to me, sounds like a musical chase, as if the orchestra is running after Joseph and his French horn.

Katy B:
But the horn is always one step ahead and just replies, "Catch me if you can."

Katy B:
I love a good pop song, one where you can't get the tune out of your head, and Mozart knew how to write music like that too. I just can't stop singing this tune. Good job, 'cause this chase isn't over yet. Got to run.

Dan Starkey:
[BREATHES HEAVILY] Escaping from a mountain, packed full of trolls. I don't recommend it. Especially if… wait a minute. What's that strange music heading this way? It's midnight. And all things evil are coming out to play. This music is by a man called Modest Mussorgsky. He composed a piece about a mysterious mountain too. My Mussorgsky's mountain isn't full of terrible trolls. His is the meeting place for a wild and wicked party. This is a party that takes place just one night a year. That night is tonight. And the guests are arriving. Hundreds of them. Witches. It's midnight now but in Mussorgsky's story when the sun comes up in the morning party time is over. The bell in the village church rings and every witch and creepy creature must vanish as fast as they can. So listen out for that bell and wish me luck.

Naomi Wilkinson:
[BIRD CROWING] Are you sitting comfortably? [O FORTUNA] Any butterflies in your stomach… tingles up your neck?.. Shudders down your spine?.. Because you're listening to a warning from nearly 800 years ago… [MUSIC CONTINUES]

First boy:
Oh it's giving me shivers [LAUGHS]

Naomi Wilkinson:
The words are medieval Latin, not words we know today, but words we can still feel…

First girl:
There's a storm happening and it's about to crash down the house…

Second girl:
Sounds like something really horrible is gonna happen

Third girl:
Makes me feel like threatened and stuff

Fourth girl:
It sounds like some someone's… just died right now…

Fifth girl:
Kind of makes me feel like kind of just… eaten my lunch

Sixth girl:
It kind of reminds me of the devil…

Naomi Wilkinson:
What will your life be like? What does fate have in store for you? None of us can control everything that happens to us. Medieval people thought one person did have that power, Fortuna the Roman Godess of Fortune [MUSIC CONTINUES]. … All of us are at her mercy and depending on Fortuna… our good luck and bad keeps changing like the moon… [MUSIC CONTINUES]Because Fortuna has a wheel she's forever spinning and your life depends on where you are on the wheel, sometimes you're up and life is good and sometimes you're down, down, down… [MUSIC CONTINUES] So pound the tympany, summon the Goddess, praise her, sing to her with all your strength, very loudly or Fortissimo… Is this the sound of worship… or terror? Or both?

Interviewer:
[O FORTUNA]

Naomi Wilkinson:
Suddenly the choir is singing softly or Pianissimo, what does it sound like? A frightened whisper? A terrible secret?.. The pizzicato or plucked violins echo the voices keeping the rhythm going… time ticking, like the world turning fortune's wheel spinning…

Seventh girl:
It's stormy outside

Eight girl:
Sounds like it's angry

Second boy:
It's a bit of sadness and yeah…

Third boy:
And and some happiness as well

Ninth girl:
Oh what's gonna happen next?

Naomi Wilkinson:
It was a German composer Carl Orff who set this medieval poem to music as part of his musical extravaganza called Carmina Burana[MUSIC CONTINUES] First sung in 1937 it's now one of the most performed choral pieces in the world… and of course it's great music for competitions when we get to be Fortuna and decide who will win and who will lose

Interviewer:
[O FORTUNA]

Naomi Wilkinson:
Towards the end and choir and orchestra begin their crescendo… all the voices and instruments sending up their message to Fortuna in the sky… O Fortuna we know we're small… we know the universe is huge… take care of us… [MUSIC CONTINUES] Still sitting comfortably? Fortuna's wheel is turning again, where do you think it will stop? [MUSIC ENDS]. …

Christoper Eccleston:
Music's always changing, evolving. You can't stop it. And why would you want to? Orchestral music's always on the move. That's thanks to lots of great new composers.

Christoper Eccleston:
By the look of this, Clara: is out with one of those composers right now.

Satellite Navigation:
Continue straight ahead.

Clara:
Gabriel, you wrote this music. It's like we're actually inside of your head.

Gabriel:
Yeah, I guess so. It's like we're inside my head, inside your car.

Clara:
I know I can definitely hear an orchestra, but there's something else going on, right?

Gabriel:
Yeah. I'm really into orchestral music and composing classical music, but I'm a fan of hip-hop, dance music, electro, reggaeton, grime - you name it - and also I'm really into scratching and turntablism, so I thought why can't we bring these styles together?

Gabriel:
Whoa.

Clara:
Turntables are an instrument but they don't have any sound of their own until a DJ gives them one, and in Gabriel's piece every single sound is sampled from the orchestra. It's like the orchestra creates the road ahead.

Clara:
The DJ, using the same sounds, fires back out new melodies making different routes and crazy detours on the journey.

Satellite Navigation:
We have deviated from you route, please turn around. Please turn around.

Clara:
Ooph. I have to say, Gabriel, being inside of your head is a very fun place to be.

Clara:
That's how the story of music goes really, isn't it? You know, music's always reinventing itself, travelling in loads of different directions.

Satellite Navigation:
Continue straight ahead.

Clara:
The opposite of that.

Gabriel:
Exactly.

Clara:
So all we need now is a DJ.

Gabriel:
Hey, wake up man.

Lemn Sissay:
Music is story telling in sound… so what kind of story are you listening to now? [MUSIC] What about a grizzly tale of betrayal, poison and murder? The play Abdelazer or The Moor's Revenge is full of it. And if in the year 1695 you were at a performance of the play… you'd have heard this music by English composer Henry Purcell [CROWD TALKING] It's played early in the storywhen life is happy at the Royal Court before all the evil skulduggery kicks in. [MUSIC] These evenings at the theatre called masks were full of poetry, drama and music… they were films of the seventeenth century and Purcell like film composers today wrote brilliant, atmospheric [THUNDER] music to draw the audience into the story they were watching. [MUSIC] Purcell createsa story in his music too. His main melodies like a character in a movie and so once we've got to know the melody, Purcell sends it off on an adventure. [MUSIC] And you need an engine to drive that adventure forward that's why for Purcell and seventeenth century composers it is all about the base…

Cellist:
The cellos and bases have this great descending base line that starts low… climbs up and then climbs straight back down again to the note we started on [PLAYS CELLO]. [MUSIC] You can hear the kind of strength in that, the regular rhythm and we're the thing that keeps the music driving forward.

Lemn Sissay:
That regular rhythm and the base line climbing and falling like steps drives the story of the music, but what route will the story take? Because there are loads of different directions the melody and base line could go in… [MUSIC] And that's why Purcell can surprise us suddenly changing the key from minor to major. How does the melody sound to you now? [MUSIC] Now Purcellchanges the dynamics, time for a second quieter strain and also to meet another character in the story, the harpsichord. [MUSIC] It was a big star in seventeenth century baroque music, before the piano was invented, what other stories can you hear in the music?

Boy:
I don't know why but it makes me think of flowers…

Girl:
Um… trees [LAUGHS]

Second Boy:
Makes me think of a a war or a fight or something

Third Boy:
Like tense music in a film…

Second Girl:
I would thought it's kind of alien because… it makes you think of something strange

Lemn Sissay:
[MUSIC] But how does Purcell's musical story finish? [OWL] Well Purcell was using a pattern or plot called a French Rondeau to create his piece [MUSIC]. But that Rondeau structure is only revealed when we finish listening and get to the end an end, we then discover, is the same as the beginning… [MUSIC]. So like lots of great characters from the theatre and movies, Purcell's melodyhas set off an adventure had some exciting experiences and ends up back home where they started! [MUSIC] Why not write a simple tune yourself… and then take it for an adventure, wonder where you'll end up…

Mwaksy:
How do you play a video game using only the power of plants?In the game, Plants vs. Zombies, plants are the heroes. The player has to defend their house by using different plants. Some plants can throw things at zombies to stop them from coming, and other flowers and fruit and veg are planted for the zombies to eat.

Composer Laura Shigihara created the music for the game. There are almost 30 different pieces of music that make up the soundtrack. All that for just one game! Some composers don't compose that many pieces in their whole lifetime.
Laura Shigihara uses lots of different styles to reflect different stages of the game.

This piece is called Grasswalk and it's used at the start of the game. Laura Shigihara uses short melodies repeated by different instruments. They are catchy and make you want to hum along, but don't distract you from playing the game.

What a fun game and a brilliant soundtrack. What sort of things did you have to think about when you were writing the music?

Laura:Well, I knew from the beginning it was going to be a really fun and crazy game, and I was actually really excited to get to compose music in my own style. You see, normally you have a producer or a director that's telling you what instruments you can use, and they're sending you examples of music they want you to make your music sound like. But with this project, I actually had a lot of flexibility.

Mwaksy:Are there any special techniques you have to use to compose for video games?

Laura:
Because I was making video game music, I really had to make sure that the music could be listened to on repeat for long periods of time because unlike with a regular song where you can, you know, listen to it once or twice and be finished, with video game music, a lot of times the player may hear this track over and over and over again.

So, you want to be really careful that you don't make something that would be kind of annoying to the player. I also really like to think about the style of the game when composing music. So, in this case it was really interesting, right? Because we have zombies that are a little bit creepy, we have plants that were kind of cute, and there's also a lot of parts in the game that I think are really funny. So, I had to ask myself, okay, how do I make music that is creepy and cute and funny at the same time? So, for the kind of creepy part, I used a lot of instruments and music styles and stuff like that that are kind of associated with, like, more dark things. For the cute part, I made sure to have a lot of kind of simple but catchy melodies. And for the funny aspect, I changed things up by mixing in beats from different genres.

Mwaksy:
Do you think that video game music is something that anybody could try?

Laura:
Sure, basically you just have to find a game that you like, maybe one of your favourite ones, and you play it with the audio muted. That way you can kind of imagine what music might fit. You can ask yourself, what's the feel of the game and how do you want players to react when they listen to your composition?

Mwaksy:The music you compose is usually electronic. How does it feel to have an orchestra perform and play your music?

Laura:
Ah, It's such an honour and really exciting for me to get to hear my music played by an orchestra. I feel like it really brings new life to it. I just love it, it's so cool.

NARRATOR:
[WIND NOISE] Can music change the way you feel? [MUSIC CONTINUOUS] Well, how are you feeling right now? In Finland in 1899 people were feeling threatened. Their beautiful land of lakes, forests and mountains was being ruled over by another country, Russia. Those deep growling notes on the trombones and the rumbling timpani must have sounded like an angry

NARRATOR:
Russian storm brewing.

Girl in blue t shirt:
I can hear the storm [INTERRUPTION] and the wind.

Boy in white t shirt:
It might be building to lightning or something.

Fair boy in white:
Oh it's getting, [INTERRUPTION] it's getting darker.

NARRATOR:
But listen. A more gentle sound. A sound of hope. Those flutes seem to be opening a little window don't they, to a different place, a happier place. The composer of this music, Jean Sibelius, was from Finland. He loved its beautiful landscape and he didn't want to be ruled by Russia. He wanted to be free. He wanted Finnish people to be brave and believe in Finland.But could he inspire them using just music? Can you hear that fanfare in the distance? It's being played by Nick, our French horn player. And there's a reason this strange shaped instrument is perfect for an inspiring rallying cry.

Nick:
The reason it's shaped like this is for riding a horse. You'd be riding a horse and you'd put your horn on your shoulder and you'd play some kind of signal. Quite rough really, very much an outdoor instrument.

NARRATOR:
What do you think the horns are saying? Have courage? Stand up for yourselves?

Nick:
Maybe similar to actually being in a battle, that feeling of naked aggression and you have to keep that in check so that the sound [STUTTERS] there's still a good quality to the sound, but it is very exciting to play.

NARRATOR:
Sibelius loved the countryside. When he was a boy he would spend days walking in the forests, fishing by the lake and skiing in the mountains. That's what he loved about Finland and he wanted to share that with everyone. So he turned that landscape into music. What music would you write to describe where you live?

Boy in red t shirt:
Happy [INTERRUPTION] and quite colourful.

Girl in white t shirt:
Somewhere nice and peaceful.

NARRATOR:
Sibelius's music is majestic and strong like the giant mountains, the never ending forests and the proud people who live among them. So how are you feeling now?

Girl in orange t shirt:
I think the thunder's probably finished now and the sun is coming out a bit but it's still cloudy.

Fair girl in blue t shirt:
It's like really peaceful, it's like if you're sitting on top of a hill and then you're watching the sun rise.

NARRATOR:
Finland did become independent, in 1917. Sibelius had played his part and helped to make people feel strong and feel free. And by the end of the piece the whole orchestra seems to be fighting back and looking to the future.

Girl in white t shirt:
Sounds like everyone's excited.

Boy in white t shirt:
It sounds quite grand when the sun finally bursts through the cloud.

NARRATOR:
I feel ready to climb a mountain. Has this music changed you? How did you feel at the start and how does Sibelius make you feel now?

Narrator:
Music connects all of us together because every single one of us can make music and the moment you start making music, is the moment a new adventure begins.

Claudia Winkleman:
Music is a magic ingredient because when you add a little music… a poem, a picture, a dance, a story, even a creature can come to life in a whole new way. [GASPS]

Claudia Winkleman:
Like this fire bird, she's flown out of a very old Russian folk tale. What a dancer, we don't need any judge's scores for her. I say she's brilliant. She's fabulous. Is it a happy dance? An angry dance? What do you think? And what comes first, does this wild tune make the fire bird whirl and spin? Or does the dazzling dance create this fiery music?

Claudia Winkleman:
For me, it's a mixture of both, a magical music potion. A potion stirred up by Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky, he wrote a ballet about the story of the fire bird and like in all ballets, there are no words, the story is told through music and movement.

Claudia Winkleman:
So, in the story it's the fire birds dancing that lifts the curse from the magical garden, saving the prince and many princesses from the horrible clutches of a hideous demon, it's impressive stuff.

Claudia Winkleman:
But listen, can you hear the music changing? It sounds to me like a blazing golden sunrise, the fire bird is being set free. That magic ingredient again, music, when you crank up the volume on the radio, when you pick up an instrument or a paintbrush, when you step out onto that dance floor, it's music that can send our imagination flying.

Lemn Sissay:
This is music to dance to. But what kind of dance would you do? How about marching like a soldier? Spinning like a snowflake, or flying like a sugar plum fairy?

Lemn Sissay:
A little girl called Clara discovers all these dances when she goes on a magical adventure one cold and frosty Christmas Eve. Russian composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky tells Clara's story in his dance fantasy ballet that's stuffed full of musical treats and it all begins with a little wooden solider called the nutcracker.

Lemn Sissay:
A mouse king and his army, snow maidens, Arabian princesses, fairies and the nutcracker that turns into a handsome prince. Clara's Christmas Eve is soon full of surprises. Off she flies away to the Kingdom of Sweets, where sugary goodies from all over the world come to life and dance. The Russian sweets can't wait to perform a dance called a Trepak for Clara. So, bring onthe cossacks. The timpani and tambourine are working their socks off to create that energetic two-beat rhythm. The strings are leaping and jumping through their lively melody. Phew, but after all that, Clara is ready for a gentler dance. So was Tchaikovsky, so am I. How about a waltz, danced by flowers.

Lemn Sissay:
The waltz is a dance with three beats, created by the double bases and the violins working together, one-two-three. And the strings are in a very different mood now, elegant, graceful, flowing like a sparkling river. What do you imagine when you hear this music?

GirlI imagine like girls with really long dresses that like spin, when they, like, turn.

Girl 2Joyful.

Girl 3Yeah, happy.

Girl 4It sounds quite peaceful.

Girl 5It sounds nice and calm.

BoyIt sounds like the kind of music you'd put on when you're having like a Christmas lunch.

Girl 6Um, maybe when everyone's doing their Christmas shopping.

Girl 7It kind of has, like, some twinkles, it's a bit like, maybe there's a fairy there.

Lemn Sissay:
Fairies, that might be because Tchaikovsky has got another musical trick up his sleeve. He sprinkles a bit of stardust on his waltz by using the instrument that always makes me think of fairytale castles, mysteries and magic spells. The harp.

HarpistFor the ballet, the harp is actually accompanying the dancer on stage and it's very important that you play at the same speed as the dancer is dancing. It's important to match her steps. I think Tchaikovsky thought that the harp was a lovely instrument to use, because it's a very young sound and it fits very well with movement that the flowers create in the waltz.

Lemn Sissay:
Clara wakes up later that night under the family Christmas tree, the nutcracker still in her hand. Did Clara really see snowflakes dancing? Did she see flowers waltzing? She can still hear the music, but was it a dream? What do you think? Can music and dance make you feel like you're dreaming?

Narrator:
Do you have those days that have gone wrong? When you lie back in your bed, put some music on, any music, and imagine you're strutting away from it all?

Molly Rainford:
On those days, I want to be that lark up there, belting out a beautiful song high up in the sky. And up there, just like when you look down from a plane, or tall building, the world seems different. We become smaller. Maybe our worries do too.

Molly Rainford:
An english composer called Ralph Vaughan Williams was walking along the coast near Margate when he imagined a violin melody that would capture this feeling of a bird singing as it makes a steep vertical flight. And he called it The Lark Ascending.

Molly Rainford:
It was September 1914. Britain had just entered the First World War and soon Vaughan Williams joined the army and left for France. In the trenches during that war, some of the few birds the soldiers ever saw or heard were starlings, flying high over their heads. That bird song must have sounded like an escape, freedom, like a different world they had left behind. When he came back from the war, Vaughan Williams returned to his violin piece with its melody, fragile, peaceful, out of reach. Like the bird. And he created this music, music that, for me, really can take you to another place, wherever you want that to be.

Narrator:
Today, film and games are jam packed with orchestral music. You know why? Because you name any emotion, any feeling and the orchestra can create it. In music. From heartache and pain, to fear and dread.

Vikki Stone:
Welcome to the end of the world. This is what it sounds like. The sky seems to be ripping open with the sound of those drums and those voices. I can't seem to get 'em out of my head. Oh. They're singing dies irae, that's Latin for day of judgment and they sing it over and over and over again. It isn't a question, it's a statement. Life is over. It's like disaster movie music. An orchestral storm. Destroying everything in its path. Including me. [GASPS] That's because the day of judgment, according to some people, is the time when everyone that's ever lived will be brought before the throne of God. They're summoned by a fanfare, a fanfare loud enough to wake the dead and then, each person's soul either rises up to heaven, or descends into the fiery pits of hell. [GASPS] There's the trumpets, it's starting. [PANTS] This dies irae is by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who knew that, for believers listening to his music in 1874, the day of judgment was no story, it was real. So Verdi brings that terrible day to life for his audience. It's his warning, in music, of an incredible power far greater than us. And right now it still makes me feel small. [PANTS] Fragile. Scarce. Or maybe, because there's another vast power that we're all at the mercy of. Nature. [GASPS] And this music sounds to me like a warning, if we don't respect nature, of our own possible dies irae.

Choir[SINGS] [INAUDIBLE]

Christopher Eccleston:
This is music from some of the biggest battles of all.

Christopher Eccleston:
Battles like hope versus despair. Good versus evil. Life versus death.

Christopher Eccleston:
And when death's around, his calvary are never far behind.

Christopher Eccleston:
Norse legend tells of warrior women, who searched the battleground for heroic soldiers.

Christopher Eccleston:
The souls they want, they take away to guard Valhalla, home of the Gods.

Christopher Eccleston:
These are grim reapers on horseback. They have a name… Valkyries!

Christopher Eccleston:
This is the sound of the Valkyrie. A musical stampede full of flying, galloping rhythms, and a run for your life fanfare. And the Valkyries main theme, or light motif, is just one of the ingredients in a musical blockbuster by German composer, Richard Wagner.

Christopher Eccleston:
For a story, Wagner raided all his favourite folklore and assembled a cast of gods, goddesses, dwarfs, and dragon slayers. All of them caught up in a battle to possess a ring. A ring that has power over all mankind.

Christopher Eccleston:
I think it might be time to pass this on.

YolanDa:
Just a few hundred years ago, people from Africa were captured, sold and taken in ships to the Caribbean and different parts of America. They were enslaved - kept as prisoners and forced to work incredibly hard without being paid.
Now we can all find things unfair sometimes; if we're not allowed to hang out with our friends all the time or have to do homework that we don't enjoy. But just think, if your entire life was controlled by someone else and all choice was taken away. It's almost impossible to imagine, isn't it?

The slave trade was abolished through an Act of Parliament in 1807. 200 years later, the composer Errollyn Wallen wrote her piece, Mighty River, to mark this significant moment in history.

Enslaved people were forcibly moved around the world on ships sailing over the water. Errollyn Wallen’s piece contrasts the free-flowing movement of the water with the people sailing on it who were not free at all.

The piece begins with a solo horn playing Amazing Grace. A piccolo and then clarinet join the horn to play the melody.Soon we hear the theme of constantly moving water, flowing and bubbling through the different instruments of the orchestra, with a background of a repeated rhythm, or ostinato, played by the strings. Through the flowing water we can hear bursts of the Amazing Grace melody.But there is a hint of something else going on underneath. Do you hear it? Do you think it sounds friendly? Hopeful? Or do you think it seems a bit sinister?Well, the lower instruments in the orchestra - bass trombone, cello and double bass, along with the timpani, play threatening sounding notes underneath the hopeful, constant moving river above. It's a real clash of feelings.
But could hope and freedom be in sight? The Amazing Grace melody is played again by a solo horn at the end of Mighty River, but this time it sounds slightly different.The composer has suggested that this time it's played freely. The melody now also features an African talking drum, which is an instrument used by the enslaved people to communicate with each other.The whole orchestra close the piece by playing a chord all together. Do you think it sounds like something's changed?

Now, as a composer, you've chosen a beautiful place to live and write your music. Where are we?

Errollyn:
Living by water is what I seem to have done for most of my life. And I, when I moved to Strathy Point, it really revolutionised how I worked - to be on top of the Atlantic. Being in this particular place has really, really, I don't know, changed my whole sense of being in the world.

Being such a vast landscape makes me feel small and makes composing somehow even an increased pleasure. And it's so quiet here, but at the same time majestic. And I would say also water, from the beginning of composing, it's something I think a lot about.

YolanDa:
Tell me a bit about Mighty River and the inspiration behind this extraordinary piece.

Errollyn:
I wanted to write a work that celebrates the human spirit through suffering and endurance.The piece is about the journey to freedom.

YolanDa:
And how did your musical ideas grow from what you knew about the transatlantic slave trade?

Errollyn:
How do I represent freedom in music? I thought of water. The way water - a river, a stream will always want to run towards the sea. And I suppose human beings, we have this innate instinct to be free.It's about freedom and I use water to sort of, sort of almost pictorially represent that.

When you listen to the work, you will hear all these flourishes in the wind, harp solos. And there's a lot of, sort of quite virtuosic stuff, but to me the background movement of how the rhythm works and is relentless, I worked possibly hardest on that.

It's got lightness in it, but it's also got this darkness.There's one moment where the djembe, which is an African drum, talks to the horn. I always think of it as if, you know, a European talking to an African. And there's this, there's this talking and trying to understand and communicate.

YolanDa:
How does freedom factor into this piece?

Errollyn:
Why I like being a composer is that I feel very free. But freedom takes so many different forms. And in the case of Mighty River, there's this journey, which is a difficult journey, but you do feel the sense of moving through different stages. And then at the end, I hope you feel the sense – ah, we are now out into calm sea.

Kiell:It sounds like it’s almost time for me to go onstage.
You’d better go and take your seat!

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets thatBy moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew… I have bedimmedThe noontide sun… graves at my commandHave waked their sleepers, opened, and let them forth.

Those poetic words were written by William Shakespeare hundreds of years ago for his play, The Tempest. His plays were, and still are, performed here at The Globe in London, and all over the world.
The Tempest inspired composer Judith Weir to write this music, called Storm.

A tempest is a fierce storm, and the play begins with one created by a powerful wizard.
The main characters are shipwrecked on a mysterious island full of magical spirits and monsters. On the island the characters find love, meet long lost family and, as Judith Weir says, “through the exercise of mercy, their quarrels are healed”.

Judith, what was it about The Tempest that inspired you to write Storm?

Judith:The Tempest is a play by Shakespeare, and it has so many words in it about music. It seems like Shakespeare really wanted to hear music all through the play.I don’t have any actors, but I could get some singers and some instruments so I thought that I could make own little version of The Tempest.

Kiell:So, talk to me about the instruments that you use for this piece.

Judith:One day I was walking around, I just saw outside a couple of old oil drums somebody had left in the street. Needless to say, being a composer, I went up and hit them to see what kind of sound they made, and they were great, they were very echoey. So, that made me start thinking what kind of instruments, what kind of stuff would be washed up on a beach like we have got in The Tempest, which is set on an island.And we’ve got instruments like, it’s called a guiro - it’s in fact a South American instrument – but it’s like a dried-up husk of a, say a coco pod, or something like that – makes great sounds.

Kiell:This movement is called Magic. Magic is an important theme for The Tempest, isn’t it?

Judith:Magic is a huge theme in The Tempest because the main character, thjs man called Prospero, he was a Duke, he was the Duke of Milan but he also, his biggest interest was magic, and he spent apparently years and years studying it. Now he lives on the island, he uses magic to his advantage.

Prospero’s words say a lot about the strange creatures that live on the island. For instance, he says something about at midnight all sorts of mushrooms appear, he says there are elves, kind of fairies and goblins. We don’t know exactly what they’re like, but I imagine them being sometimes quite terrifying, scary creatures. So, I give a lot of work to the high piccolos because I think that gives some description of what the kind of sounds these strange creatures would make.

But also, I think magic is maybe something very beautiful. At times, he casts these magic spells and maybe the island is bathed in a special light. As if you were a painter, you could use every single colour in the world.

Kiell:Judith Weir creates a magical world through music and brings every element of a play to life - without actors.What kind of world would you create? And how would you make it sound magical?