0:00:16 > 0:00:18MUSIC: "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga
0:00:18 > 0:00:21Whatever music you're into - Monteverdi or Mantovani,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24Mozart or Motown, Machaut or mash-up -
0:00:24 > 0:00:28the techniques it relies on didn't happen by accident.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30Someone, somewhere, thought of them first.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47In the Late Medieval and Renaissance periods,
0:00:47 > 0:00:50music, as often as not, was controlled and paid for
0:00:50 > 0:00:55by the church, monarchs or aristocrats of one sort or another.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58The exception was folk music, but don't think there were
0:00:58 > 0:01:02musicians on every street corner, even in the cities.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05For ordinary folk, it was still relatively rare to hear music
0:01:05 > 0:01:08outside of church, as far as we can tell.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12The arrival of opera in the 1600s began to change that,
0:01:12 > 0:01:14and from the arrival of the first purpose-built opera house
0:01:14 > 0:01:19in Venice in 1637, where music was performed
0:01:19 > 0:01:23and who it was performed for began to change.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26The paying public, initially the better off, admittedly,
0:01:26 > 0:01:30began slowly to dictate musical taste.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32The result was that more music was written and performed
0:01:32 > 0:01:35than ever before, including pieces that
0:01:35 > 0:01:40are still alive and well and amongst many people's favourites today.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43The later half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th
0:01:43 > 0:01:48saw the lives and careers of some of the giants of European music.
0:01:50 > 0:01:55Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,
0:01:55 > 0:02:00Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06They lived through a time of tremendous social upheaval -
0:02:06 > 0:02:09the American and French revolutions, the Napoleonic Wars
0:02:09 > 0:02:11and yet more revolutions.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19The turmoil of the times eventually saw music transformed.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22It became bigger, louder and more ferocious.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27And yet, before around 1800, the remarkable fact is that the music
0:02:27 > 0:02:31doesn't reflect the mayhem that surrounded it.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34The period from around 1750 to 1850
0:02:34 > 0:02:40brought with it seismic social, political and artistic change.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44In music, faith and morality, the watchwords of Bach and Handel
0:02:44 > 0:02:47gave way to the pleasure principle.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49Rather than trying to improve their listeners,
0:02:49 > 0:02:54composers like Haydn and Mozart started pampering them instead.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57And the rewards from their pampering completely transformed
0:02:57 > 0:02:59the social status of the composer.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04The process started with the dapper gentleman servant Haydn
0:03:04 > 0:03:08soon morphed into the freelance star turn Mozart
0:03:08 > 0:03:11and led to the tormented diva Beethoven.
0:03:11 > 0:03:16In just his lifetime, composers went from below stairs to high table.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21The whole function of music and the audience it was aimed at evolved,
0:03:21 > 0:03:22and evolved dramatically.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43The music of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and their contemporaries
0:03:43 > 0:03:48is many things, but it is very rarely genuinely disturbing or unnerving.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53In their search for elegance,
0:03:53 > 0:03:56they produced a ton of music of great beauty,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59and in their search for sensuality, they made what might have been
0:03:59 > 0:04:02a grubby existence into something attractive,
0:04:02 > 0:04:04sensitive and often very touching.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13What happened to musical style, then,
0:04:13 > 0:04:16to reflect this change of attitude and mood?
0:04:16 > 0:04:19The most noticeable difference was a new approach to chords,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21the harmony that lay beneath every melody.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Complication was replaced with simplicity.
0:04:25 > 0:04:29Unlike their predecessors, composers of the late 18th century
0:04:29 > 0:04:31decided there were really far too many chords available
0:04:31 > 0:04:34and that they needed far fewer for their purposes.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37They preferred a language that was much simpler.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40They were interested in great blocks of one chord
0:04:40 > 0:04:42followed by great blocks of another.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44Not only did they restrict themselves
0:04:44 > 0:04:46to a menu of half a dozen chords,
0:04:46 > 0:04:49there were three chords they used obsessively.
0:04:49 > 0:04:50I...
0:04:50 > 0:04:52IV...
0:04:52 > 0:04:53V.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57'In the days when red, white and blue flags
0:04:57 > 0:04:59'were being hoisted all over Europe,
0:04:59 > 0:05:02'those colours are as good a metaphor as anything
0:05:02 > 0:05:04'for these three chords.'
0:05:04 > 0:05:07Let's look at an excerpt from an opera of 1762,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Gluck.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13It's a dance interlude that later came to be famous,
0:05:13 > 0:05:15called The Dance Of The Blessed Spirits.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26'Chord one, the home chord, usually starts and ends a piece.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31'Here's a score of that dance with all the Chord Ones marked in red.'
0:05:31 > 0:05:34You may be thinking that red is pretty powerful.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37But there are still some areas of the map
0:05:37 > 0:05:39not yet conquered by the red empire.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43OK, so let's show the same map with the blue chords added,
0:05:43 > 0:05:46eating up a bit more of the spaces that are left.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50'The blue sections represent Chord Four.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54'Now you can see there's not very much unoccupied territory left.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57'I'll mark in the Chord Fives in white.'
0:05:58 > 0:06:03So between them, our red, white and blue chords are all-conquering.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07Nearly all of this music is either chord I, IV or V.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10If I colour the final bits left in green,
0:06:10 > 0:06:12that's for all other chords,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15you'll see how tiny the remaining area now is,
0:06:15 > 0:06:17roughly a quarter of the music only.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22So the empires of red, white and blue
0:06:22 > 0:06:24had the world of music at their feet.
0:06:24 > 0:06:28This was still the case nearly 50 years later.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30Here's a piece from 1808 by Beethoven.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46'In this stirring section,
0:06:46 > 0:06:48'Beethoven harmonises the whole thing
0:06:48 > 0:06:50'with just our three main chords.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55'It's as if Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were reading
0:06:55 > 0:07:00'from the same very small book of chords as a no-frills rock group.'
0:07:00 > 0:07:02VIOLINS PLAY "ROCKING ALL OVER THE WORLD"
0:07:07 > 0:07:09# Well, here we are And here we are
0:07:09 > 0:07:11# And here we go
0:07:11 > 0:07:14# All aboard and we're ready to go
0:07:14 > 0:07:16# Here we go
0:07:16 > 0:07:19# Rocking all over the world... #
0:07:20 > 0:07:25'In rock and roll, those three chords are still the Status Quo.'
0:07:25 > 0:07:28# We're going crazy and we're going there today
0:07:28 > 0:07:30# Here we go
0:07:30 > 0:07:33# Rocking all over the world
0:07:35 > 0:07:39# And I like it, I like it I like it, I like it
0:07:39 > 0:07:42# I la-la-la-like it La-la-la-la
0:07:42 > 0:07:44# Here we go
0:07:44 > 0:07:47# Rocking all over the world
0:07:49 > 0:07:51# Over the world. #
0:07:56 > 0:07:59'But having a simplified palette of chords
0:07:59 > 0:08:03'didn't mean composers were unimaginative or bland.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06'It's simply that their concerns were different.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10'Composers of this period, like its architects,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13'were obsessed with clear form and structure.'
0:08:24 > 0:08:28For both Haydn and Mozart, symbolism and symmetry play an important part
0:08:28 > 0:08:31in how they constructed their compositions.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34You couldn't just have random nice tunes with accompaniment -
0:08:34 > 0:08:37you had to have an underlying logic, like a map.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41Whereas in a previous era, Bach's satnav was calibrated mainly
0:08:41 > 0:08:44to seek out the meaning of the words,
0:08:44 > 0:08:46for Haydn and Mozart who followed him,
0:08:46 > 0:08:50finding the perfectly laid-out route was just as essential.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55The building of their musical maps had its most sophisticated
0:08:55 > 0:08:59manifestation in the growth and popularity of the symphony.
0:08:59 > 0:09:04The man who shaped and developed the symphony more than any other was Joseph Haydn.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11'Haydn's long career as a successful musician and composer
0:09:11 > 0:09:14'spanned the entire second half of the 18th century.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19'He was notably generous in his support of younger composers
0:09:19 > 0:09:23'like Mozart, a close friend who predeceased him,
0:09:23 > 0:09:27'and Beethoven, who was for a time his pupil.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29'The torch Haydn passed on to them
0:09:29 > 0:09:33'was his crucial refining of the form of the symphony.'
0:09:36 > 0:09:39Haydn took the idea of proportion and balance
0:09:39 > 0:09:41and went one crucial step further.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44His typical balancing phrase wasn't identical
0:09:44 > 0:09:46but slightly different in character.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50It created a sense of symmetry without simply repeating itself.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54So in the exquisite slow movement of his 88th Symphony,
0:09:54 > 0:09:58Haydn's first little phrase of six notes goes like this.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05It's balancing second half takes the same shape
0:10:05 > 0:10:06but changes the notes,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09so it feels like it's on a continuing journey.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Then a final part equalling in length the first two bits together,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20rounds off the phrase in a satisfying and ornamented way.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56This process of taking a little cell of a tune,
0:10:56 > 0:10:58then building on it to create longer units
0:10:58 > 0:11:00with more interesting features to them,
0:11:00 > 0:11:05is what Haydn taught the world to do, apparently effortlessly.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07SYMPHONY CONTINUES
0:11:35 > 0:11:38Beginning around the end of the 18th century, a significant
0:11:38 > 0:11:43change in the way music was paid for and listened to began to emerge.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48Joseph Haydn had spent most of his life employed by just one aristocratic family,
0:11:48 > 0:11:53whilst Mozart began work as the musical servant of an archbishop.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56But both went freelance in the Vienna of the 1780s
0:11:56 > 0:11:59and began to write music for subscription concerts,
0:11:59 > 0:12:04dance halls and opera houses, which were kept afloat by a paying public.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08Failing to please this paying public could mean you would starve.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11The next great composer based in Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13was also freelance,
0:12:13 > 0:12:17although he was also helped out by his aristocratic friends.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21But while Haydn and Mozart had by and large aimed to please
0:12:21 > 0:12:26and delight their public, Beethoven wanted to challenge and confront it.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29Beethoven felt music might be capable of addressing
0:12:29 > 0:12:32the poverty, despair and misery that surrounded the glittering
0:12:32 > 0:12:37salons of Vienna and elsewhere, not brush it under the carpet.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40This was new, and it was to have far-reaching effects for music.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48'To many people, Beethoven is the very model
0:12:48 > 0:12:51'of the tormented, misunderstood genius,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54'a caricature of the classical composer,
0:12:54 > 0:12:58'complete with demonic stare and perpetual bad hair day.
0:13:00 > 0:13:04'A moody, mixed-up chap, he found himself in possession
0:13:04 > 0:13:07'of musical talents even he couldn't quite come to terms with.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14'The reputation and the man, though, don't always tally up.'
0:13:14 > 0:13:17For a start, Beethoven wasn't one composer but three.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21He starts off as a Mozart clone with a flair for playing the piano,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23turns into "Haydn: The Sequel"
0:13:23 > 0:13:26and ends up isolated from the world by deafness,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30composing music that was to baffle, bewitch and amaze
0:13:30 > 0:13:34every European musician of the next 100 years.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37'While Beethoven devotees like to see him
0:13:37 > 0:13:40'as a man who reinvented music from a standing start,
0:13:40 > 0:13:43'the reality is that, like most composers,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46'his early career finds him tuning him to the musical currents
0:13:46 > 0:13:49'of the day and adapting them.
0:13:49 > 0:13:50'Listen to this piece.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02'This piano sonata is by a little-known Czech composer
0:14:02 > 0:14:05'called Jan Dussek.
0:14:05 > 0:14:06'Though he was based in London,
0:14:06 > 0:14:09'Dussek's music was known to Beethoven.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13'Now listen to this, a piano sonata
0:14:13 > 0:14:16'written by Beethoven a year later, in 1798.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39'Beethoven's 8th Piano Sonata, his Pathetique,
0:14:39 > 0:14:41'was written when he was just 28
0:14:41 > 0:14:44'and still making a name for himself in Vienna.
0:14:44 > 0:14:45'It's not difficult to hear
0:14:45 > 0:14:48'the distinctive traces of Dussek's piano style.'
0:14:52 > 0:14:56Seven years after composing his Pathetique Sonata,
0:14:56 > 0:14:59Beethoven has stopped sounding like Mozart or Dussek or Haydn
0:14:59 > 0:15:04and started creating music beyond anything they'd imagined.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08The first major sign he was breaking away from established formulas
0:15:08 > 0:15:10was his Eroica Symphony of 1804.
0:15:20 > 0:15:25'This was a considerable challenge for Viennese audiences of the time.
0:15:25 > 0:15:29'If you were used to the regular, predictable patterns of Haydn,
0:15:29 > 0:15:34'the Eroica's many noisy surprises and unexpected changes of key
0:15:34 > 0:15:38'were an uncomfortable mix of titillating and alarming.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45'Most of all, the Eroica was long.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47'Its opening movement alone is the same length
0:15:47 > 0:15:50'as an average symphony by Haydn or Mozart.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00'Beethoven's ambition was growing, along with his music.'
0:16:00 > 0:16:03Traditional histories like to equate Beethoven,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05the colossus of music in the early 1800s,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08with his contemporary, Napoleon Bonaparte,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12revolutionary-turned-emperor and serial military adventurer.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18'The Eroica Symphony was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte.
0:16:18 > 0:16:23'Legend has it that Beethoven angrily scratched Bonaparte's name
0:16:23 > 0:16:28'from the score when Napoleon declared himself emperor in 1804.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31'It's a good yarn, but recent research suggests
0:16:31 > 0:16:34'it might instead be, alas, a myth.'
0:16:35 > 0:16:38Perhaps what Beethoven was really appalled by
0:16:38 > 0:16:41wasn't so much Napoleon's imperial pretensions
0:16:41 > 0:16:44but the unravelling of the high-minded aspirations
0:16:44 > 0:16:46of the French Revolution itself,
0:16:46 > 0:16:49the descent into cruelty and unfairness,
0:16:49 > 0:16:51merely dressed in new colours.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56'This despair is reflected in the music,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58'but it's not to be found in the opening movement.'
0:17:00 > 0:17:04Musicologists love to wax on about the ambitious first movement
0:17:04 > 0:17:07of the Eroica Symphony, mainly because it's unusually long,
0:17:07 > 0:17:10complex and unpredictable, and provides fuel
0:17:10 > 0:17:14for seemingly endless analysis and scholarly scrutiny.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Beethoven takes a relatively simple tune
0:17:16 > 0:17:21and builds from it a giant tapestry of ideas and musical meanderings.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24But, to me, it's not the clever-clogs first movement
0:17:24 > 0:17:28that carries the killer punch but the funeral march that follows it.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01What's different and new about this movement is not its structure,
0:18:01 > 0:18:05orchestration or technical bravado but its attitude.
0:18:05 > 0:18:09Whereas both Haydn and Mozart aimed to reveal human emotions
0:18:09 > 0:18:14through the filter of a gentlemanly, well-bred composure,
0:18:14 > 0:18:19the Funeral March in Eroica is remarkable for its unflinching seriousness.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23Grief is grief, pain is pain, and music,
0:18:23 > 0:18:25Beethoven seemed to be proclaiming,
0:18:25 > 0:18:29was the art best placed to confront such darkness.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Within the next two decades or so, most of his educated
0:18:32 > 0:18:34contemporaries gradually came to the same conclusion.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43'For the first time since the death of Bach,
0:18:43 > 0:18:46'the music of the moment seemed more accurately
0:18:46 > 0:18:49'to be attempting to portray the sadness and fear
0:18:49 > 0:18:52'that people might actually be experiencing.'
0:18:56 > 0:18:59And there were horrors aplenty to keep a sensitive person
0:18:59 > 0:19:02awake at night at the start of the 19th century.
0:19:09 > 0:19:11'From the Eroica Symphony onwards,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14'Beethoven's music became serious-minded and earnest,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18'since it was his unabashed aim to change the world through his art.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23'It's debatable whether he did change the world,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26'but he certainly changed the whole perception of music.'
0:19:28 > 0:19:31This was Beethoven's real significance,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34not how he changed musical form or language,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38but how he recalibrated what music was for.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42Single-handedly, he turned it from genteel after-dinner entertainment
0:19:42 > 0:19:46into a state of mind that no civilised person could be without.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51'Beethoven subsumed his own personality into his music.
0:19:51 > 0:19:56'Whereas once music was driven by faith, beauty or elegance,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59'now it was fuelled by a composer's own psychology.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05'By making the music about him and his feelings,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08'Beethoven was taking music in a new direction.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13'Not only was music co-opted into the personality of the composer,
0:20:13 > 0:20:16'so was the nature all around him.
0:20:18 > 0:20:21'Nature was ascribed human emotions,
0:20:21 > 0:20:26'it became a metaphor for the feelings of the artist.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29'In music, once again, this movement starts with Beethoven
0:20:29 > 0:20:34'and his 6th Symphony, the Pastoral, written in 1808.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59'For the next 100 years, this symphony would act as a template
0:20:59 > 0:21:02'for how one might portray a state of mind
0:21:02 > 0:21:04'in musical pictures of nature.'
0:21:16 > 0:21:19It's a curious fact about the history of music that
0:21:19 > 0:21:22it's not always the most innovative composers of any particular era
0:21:22 > 0:21:27that necessarily come to be the most admired by future generations.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31A case in point is the last half of the 19th century, a period
0:21:31 > 0:21:35when composers seemed to be obsessed with writing music
0:21:35 > 0:21:38that dealt with death, doomed love and/or destiny.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42One composer above all fashioned the musical tools to create
0:21:42 > 0:21:44this dark and disturbing music,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and yet it's the composers who followed him
0:21:47 > 0:21:50who tended to get the credit for the innovations actually
0:21:50 > 0:21:54set in train by one of the most influential figures in music,
0:21:54 > 0:21:58a French-speaking Hungarian, born in what is now Austria.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02I'm talking about Franz Liszt - yes, Liszt.
0:22:02 > 0:22:04His music may not be as well-known these days
0:22:04 > 0:22:07as Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Wagner, but he was the guy
0:22:07 > 0:22:11all other composers, including those three, looked up to.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15He was the trail-blazer, the experimenter, the pace-setter.
0:22:33 > 0:22:38To do full justice to the death-and-destiny obsession,
0:22:38 > 0:22:40music needed to be turbo-charged,
0:22:40 > 0:22:44and Liszt was the man who provided the rocket fuel.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Disturbing emotions were conjured up in his harmonies.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50Flashy set-pieces thrilled and terrified
0:22:50 > 0:22:53a sensation-seeking public.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57Liszt was the composer who, more than anyone else
0:22:57 > 0:23:00in the 19th century, recalibrated music's forces.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03So it's worth looking in detail at some of the many innovations
0:23:03 > 0:23:05he brought to fruition.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09Liszt innovation, number one -
0:23:09 > 0:23:11"The Devil has all the best tunes."
0:23:23 > 0:23:25Liszt's Totentanz, "Death Dance",
0:23:25 > 0:23:30triggered a craze for extravagantly ghoulish, Halloween-style music,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33full of dark, deep, crashing chords and abrasive strings.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42It's a craze that has yet to abate.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45The legacy of this kind of up-tempo theatre of the macabre
0:23:45 > 0:23:47didn't just inspire composers of the period,
0:23:47 > 0:23:50like Saint-Saens with his Danse Macabre...
0:24:02 > 0:24:03..or Grieg's March Of The Trolls...
0:24:10 > 0:24:13..but also film composers of our own time,
0:24:13 > 0:24:16like the spookily brilliant Danny Elfman.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22In Batman, edge-of-the-seat action sequences are given
0:24:22 > 0:24:27an undercurrent of avenging menace by Elfman's Lisztian score.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33But Liszt's creepy death dance wasn't the only musical trick
0:24:33 > 0:24:35up his sleeve.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38Liszt innovation number two - "All the fun of the Fair."
0:24:40 > 0:24:44Liszt was a spectacular pianist who more or less single-handedly -
0:24:44 > 0:24:45or should that be two-handedly? -
0:24:45 > 0:24:49forced piano builders to adopt iron frames to replace wood frames,
0:24:49 > 0:24:53because they simply broke under the hammering he gave them on stage.
0:25:12 > 0:25:15Liszt dazzled audiences with his use of the piano as a kind
0:25:15 > 0:25:17of fairground of effects.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28This is Liszt in lighter, crowd-pleasing mode.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34His Grand Galop provided the template for Offenbach's
0:25:34 > 0:25:37hallmark Can-Cans of 20 years later.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14In his 30s, Liszt became music's first international star.
0:26:23 > 0:26:25Some female fans became hysterical
0:26:25 > 0:26:29at the mere sight of him on the stage.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33But showy turns were only a fraction of what Liszt could do at the piano.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37Liszt Innovation number three - "First Impressions."
0:26:37 > 0:26:40He created a style that shimmered and gleamed,
0:26:40 > 0:26:45an aural equivalent of the blurred vibrancy of a painting by Monet,
0:26:45 > 0:26:50where sounds, like colours, melted and smudged into each other.
0:27:00 > 0:27:04This sparkling piece was written just three years after the first
0:27:04 > 0:27:09Impressionist exhibition had taken place in Paris, in 1874.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51Liszt's incandescent paintings in sound were to be hugely
0:27:51 > 0:27:54influential on a younger generation of French composers,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56particularly Claude Debussy.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03Debussy's glimmering piano pictures owe a huge debt to Liszt,
0:28:03 > 0:28:05whom he revered like a disciple.
0:28:29 > 0:28:33Liszt's contribution to orchestral music was equally immense.
0:28:34 > 0:28:38Liszt innovation number four - "Symphonic Poems."
0:28:38 > 0:28:41He invented what he called the symphonic poem
0:28:41 > 0:28:45and wrote 13 of them to get the new form off to a cracking start.
0:29:06 > 0:29:09This is Liszt's symphonic poem, Prometheus,
0:29:09 > 0:29:14inspired by the Greek myth in which the Titan, Prometheus, steals
0:29:14 > 0:29:17fire from Zeus to give to mankind.
0:29:17 > 0:29:20He's punished by being bound to a rock,
0:29:20 > 0:29:26while a great eagle snacks on his liver, every dawn for eternity.
0:29:26 > 0:29:28Pain and anguish saturate the music.
0:29:33 > 0:29:37The idea behind Liszt's symphonic poems was to reduce
0:29:37 > 0:29:42the traditional four-movement symphony, as perfected by Beethoven,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45into one concentrated shorter piece that would be a musical
0:29:45 > 0:29:48response to a non-musical artwork.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54By doing this, Liszt was moving away from the idea of music
0:29:54 > 0:29:58as an abstract entity of its own, where audiences listened attentively
0:29:58 > 0:30:02to 40 minutes of pure music, like doing a crossword or a brain-teaser.
0:30:02 > 0:30:06His symphonic poems took just one scene,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09a character or a snapshot, and wove the music around that.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19It was Liszt more than anyone who shifted the emphasis
0:30:19 > 0:30:22away from orchestral music as pure music,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25to music that tried to illustrate something else.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29This, for example, is the opening of his symphonic poem,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33Hunnenschlacht, the one inspired by a then-famous mural
0:30:33 > 0:30:35of Attila the Hun's many battles.
0:30:37 > 0:30:42Fought in 451 AD, against the now-Christian Roman Empire
0:30:42 > 0:30:46and their allies, this was a rare example in which Attila
0:30:46 > 0:30:49and his heathen Huns got a sound thrashing.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00Liszt's musical response to the painting attempts to depict
0:31:00 > 0:31:03the ghostly armies of the battle mustering for the fight.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10Interspersed amongst the whispery strings are military
0:31:10 > 0:31:12outbursts from the horns.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21You'll notice in the painting that there are relatively few
0:31:21 > 0:31:24actual soldiers depicted - it's more ordinary men
0:31:24 > 0:31:27and women who've been engulfed unwittingly in the conflict.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31So Liszt is careful not to make his orchestra sound too percussive
0:31:31 > 0:31:33and martial, at least to start off with.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36Eventually, the battle proper kicks off, and if you look closely,
0:31:36 > 0:31:41you'll see the Romans carrying a gleaming golden cross.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43In the midst of the battle's tumult and chaos,
0:31:43 > 0:31:47Liszt introduces on the trombones an old, plain song chant,
0:31:47 > 0:31:52Crux Fidelis, "Faithful Cross", to represent this image in the scene.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03The final three minutes or so of the piece has the plain song theme
0:32:03 > 0:32:07interwoven into increasingly excited strings.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15Liszt rounds off his musical account of the painting
0:32:15 > 0:32:18with storming victory music,
0:32:18 > 0:32:21complete with extra brass reinforcements and a pipe organ...
0:32:25 > 0:32:27..with the instruction, "If it can't be louder
0:32:27 > 0:32:30"than the whole orchestra, don't bother!"
0:32:38 > 0:32:40In the last half of the 19th century, the underlying form
0:32:40 > 0:32:45of music began to strike out in radical new directions.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48The colossus of the period, Richard Wagner,
0:32:48 > 0:32:52began deliberately to destabilise the old-fashioned key systems
0:32:52 > 0:32:55that had held sway for three centuries or so.
0:32:55 > 0:32:59This produced music of great power, but also, on occasion,
0:32:59 > 0:33:03music of enormous length and of richly layered complexity.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05As the great Italian composer Rossini put it,
0:33:05 > 0:33:11"Wagner's music had many fine moments, but many bad quarters of an hour."
0:33:11 > 0:33:13But after Wagner's death in 1883,
0:33:13 > 0:33:17a refreshening wind of change began to blow through the musical cobwebs.
0:33:17 > 0:33:22It came from France, spearheaded by Camille Saint-Saens,
0:33:22 > 0:33:24composer of The Carnival Of The Animals,
0:33:24 > 0:33:29Cesar Franck, Charles-Marie Widor and Gabriel Faure.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32MUSIC: "Gymnopedie Number 1" by Erik Satie
0:33:33 > 0:33:38The movement was set in train by one of the most remarkable figures in music, Erik Satie.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56Erik Satie's first Gymnopedie of 1888,
0:33:56 > 0:34:00as well as sounding like a long, hot afternoon after a boozy lunch,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03can be seen as the first shot in a war
0:34:03 > 0:34:07to debunk pomposity and declutter French music.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11Satie, described by his tutors at the Paris conservatoire
0:34:11 > 0:34:15as "the laziest student ever", was an eccentric intellectual
0:34:15 > 0:34:19who hung out with other arty dreamers in Montmartre.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Satie's music could hardly sound less like Wagner
0:34:44 > 0:34:47and what the Germans were up to.
0:34:47 > 0:34:49The irony is that there was a German influence
0:34:49 > 0:34:53on the work of Satie's Parisian contemporaries.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57Here's a clue. Composers like Cesar Franck, Charles-Marie Widor,
0:34:57 > 0:35:02Camille Saint-Saens and Gabriel Faure were all trained organists,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05and playing the organ means above all
0:35:05 > 0:35:10knowing one particular composer's work inside out - JS Bach.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14MUSIC: "Toccata" by Charles-Marie Widor
0:35:15 > 0:35:17More than a hundred years after his death,
0:35:17 > 0:35:19these organist-composers in France
0:35:19 > 0:35:23were invigorated and inspired by Bach's clarity and economy.
0:35:25 > 0:35:28Even the master himself might have admired
0:35:28 > 0:35:31Charles-Marie Widor's famous Toccata.
0:35:31 > 0:35:33It was first performed by Widor himself
0:35:33 > 0:35:37at the Trocadero Palace in Paris in 1889
0:35:37 > 0:35:39and it's given a rousing send-off
0:35:39 > 0:35:42to many a newly hitched bride and groom ever since.
0:36:00 > 0:36:04The dignity and dexterity of Bach can also be heard
0:36:04 > 0:36:06in the music of Gabriel Faure,
0:36:06 > 0:36:10perhaps the most talented of these French organist-composers.
0:36:24 > 0:36:29Listening to Faure after Brahms, Liszt, Wagner or Tchaikovsky,
0:36:29 > 0:36:32it's as if someone has spring-cleaned and redecorated
0:36:32 > 0:36:34a teenage boy's bedroom.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37Gone are the posters of death, psychological torment,
0:36:37 > 0:36:40superheroes and tragedy.
0:36:40 > 0:36:42The augmented piles of clothes have been put away,
0:36:42 > 0:36:44and the windows have been opened
0:36:44 > 0:36:47to dispel the diminished sneaker-smelling air.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Faure's exquisite music simply says, "Chill,"
0:36:50 > 0:36:52or, perhaps, refrigerez-vous.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11World music is a term that's been in vogue only in the last few
0:37:11 > 0:37:15decades, referring to that exhilarating influx
0:37:15 > 0:37:18and cross-fertilisation that has taken place between Western music
0:37:18 > 0:37:21and the music of many different cultures.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25CDs, radio and most recently the internet have accelerated
0:37:25 > 0:37:28this development, enriching music for us all.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31But what about the days before recorded sound?
0:37:31 > 0:37:34The answer is that with a few rather half-hearted attempts
0:37:34 > 0:37:38to adapt the folk music of their traditions, composers tended
0:37:38 > 0:37:41to stay within the musical traditions they had grown up with.
0:37:41 > 0:37:45But in the final decades of the 19th century, that began to change.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48One crucial catalyst was an event that brought
0:37:48 > 0:37:51the music of other cultures to Western Europe,
0:37:51 > 0:37:55and in doing so enriched its musical palette.
0:37:55 > 0:38:00It took place in Paris in 1889, the centenary of the French Revolution.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02It was the World's Fair.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12Here in the Trocadero, which overlooked the newly built Eiffel Tower,
0:38:12 > 0:38:15Widor first played his famous organ Toccata,
0:38:15 > 0:38:19and here also non-Russian composers heard
0:38:19 > 0:38:22the music of Mussorgsky for the first time.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26One such composer, then aged 27, was Claude Debussy.
0:38:26 > 0:38:31His visit to the World's Fair was a life- and music-changing experience.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35What Debussy learnt from Mussorgsky
0:38:35 > 0:38:38was that there was a way of building up the architecture of a piece of music
0:38:38 > 0:38:41that was an alternative to the developmental method
0:38:41 > 0:38:44that was bread and butter to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
0:38:44 > 0:38:49The development approach was to take small cells of melody or rhythm,
0:38:49 > 0:38:52or both, and make up a whole discourse from them
0:38:52 > 0:38:54over a 15- or 20-minute period.
0:38:54 > 0:38:59So Beethoven is able to construct a whole symphony movement from this tiny idea.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01MOTIF FROM BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH
0:39:01 > 0:39:05Count how many times he uses it in just the first 40 bars of the symphony.
0:39:06 > 0:39:08HE MOUTHS
0:39:21 > 0:39:22That's 13.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41That's already 33 and counting.
0:39:44 > 0:39:46Debussy, inspired by Mussorgsky,
0:39:46 > 0:39:50ditched 100 years of studious development technique
0:39:50 > 0:39:52and started over -
0:39:52 > 0:39:54Mussorgsky, because he knew no better,
0:39:54 > 0:39:57and Debussy, because it suited his taste for experiment.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01GAMELAN PLAYS
0:40:04 > 0:40:08What revolutionised Debussy's music more than anything, though,
0:40:08 > 0:40:13was a wind of change blown into the Paris World's Fair from very far afield.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20The World's Fair showcased exhibits and cultural tableaux
0:40:20 > 0:40:22from all over the planet.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25Thanks to increased communications,
0:40:25 > 0:40:29the global village was starting to become a reality.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35What especially mesmerised Debussy was a Javanese village,
0:40:35 > 0:40:37complete with a gamelan orchestra,
0:40:37 > 0:40:41with its gongs, bells, bowls and xylophone-like chimes.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46The particular sonorities and scales of the gamelan orchestra
0:40:46 > 0:40:49intrigued Debussy so much, he was inspired to attempt
0:40:49 > 0:40:53an evocation of its Eastern sounds on a Western piano.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57Although he couldn't replicate the unfamiliar tuning of the bells,
0:40:57 > 0:40:59gongs and other metal bars of the gamelan,
0:40:59 > 0:41:02or the exact division of the Asian musical scale,
0:41:02 > 0:41:05he could approximate it in two ways.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08One was to make use of the so-called pentatonic scale,
0:41:08 > 0:41:12the five notes that are common to all the world's musical systems
0:41:12 > 0:41:15and which are especially prevalent in Eastern music.
0:41:15 > 0:41:19On a piano, the pentatonic notes can be found by playing just the black notes.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28There's a whole section of his prelude Voiles, "Sails",
0:41:28 > 0:41:30which is all pentatonic.
0:42:01 > 0:42:05The other trick Debussy deployed was to allow his chords to hang over each other,
0:42:05 > 0:42:08overlapping and ricocheting from one to the next.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10This technique - on a piano, at any rate -
0:42:10 > 0:42:12has the effect of eking out
0:42:12 > 0:42:15the sympathetic resonances, or harmonics,
0:42:15 > 0:42:18latent in the reverberating strings.
0:42:21 > 0:42:26Natural harmonics are hidden extra notes, usually quite high in pitch,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29that are found within any given sound,
0:42:29 > 0:42:30like the additional colours of the spectrum
0:42:30 > 0:42:32contained within white light.
0:42:32 > 0:42:37Every time you allow the felt dampers on a piano to clamp down on the strings,
0:42:37 > 0:42:40you shut off the natural harmonics from resonating.
0:42:42 > 0:42:43CHORD STOPS
0:42:46 > 0:42:48But Debussy wanted to do the opposite,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51to allow the strings to ring like they would on a harp.
0:42:51 > 0:42:55His hanging chords with the dampers kept away from the strings
0:42:55 > 0:42:58were a kind of return to nature.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01"CLAIRE DE LUNE" BY CLAUDE DEBUSSY
0:43:12 > 0:43:14Putting these ideas into action,
0:43:14 > 0:43:16Debussy created a new soundscape for the piano.
0:43:16 > 0:43:20The reformation of scales and harmonies that he introduced
0:43:20 > 0:43:23offered a whole new palette of aural possibilities.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27The piano had never sounded so exotic and so rich.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01By recalibrating the traditional Western scale on Eastern lines,
0:44:01 > 0:44:04Debussy's music was a radical departure
0:44:04 > 0:44:07from the classical style he'd grown up with,
0:44:07 > 0:44:11and his harmonic experiments based on Asian sound combinations
0:44:11 > 0:44:16were still influencing musicians, especially in jazz, half a century later.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40In the first three decades of the 20th century,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45wave after wave of often startling, even alarming modern music
0:44:45 > 0:44:46made its presence felt.
0:44:46 > 0:44:50Starting with Strauss's electrifying and dissonant Salome,
0:44:50 > 0:44:54Stravinsky's riotous and rhythmically driving Rite Of Spring,
0:44:54 > 0:44:58everywhere, musical revolution was in the air.
0:44:58 > 0:45:00But in the mid 1930s, Hitler and the Nazis
0:45:00 > 0:45:04and Stalin and the Soviets determined to put a stop
0:45:04 > 0:45:08to what they saw as excessive modernism, in favour of music
0:45:08 > 0:45:11that the mass of people could understand and appreciate.
0:45:11 > 0:45:14The Nazis went further, shamefully banning any music
0:45:14 > 0:45:18by those they considered their racial and political enemies.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933,
0:45:24 > 0:45:28musical works written by communists, like Bertolt Brecht,
0:45:28 > 0:45:31Jews, like Kurt Weill and many Broadway composers,
0:45:31 > 0:45:35and African-Americans, the creators of blues and jazz,
0:45:35 > 0:45:37were banned in the Third Reich,
0:45:37 > 0:45:39labelled as "degenerate music".
0:45:41 > 0:45:46So how did classical composers respond to the Nazis' cultural policies?
0:45:46 > 0:45:47Some were lucky enough to escape.
0:45:47 > 0:45:50The few who stayed put challenged the regime.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11The nearest thing classical music had to a true dissident
0:46:11 > 0:46:15in the 1930s was the Hungarian modernist Bela Bartok,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19who forbade all performances or broadcast of his music
0:46:19 > 0:46:22in the Third Reich and fascist Italy,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24a gesture which impoverished him,
0:46:24 > 0:46:27and who actually asked for his name to be added
0:46:27 > 0:46:31to a Nazi list of so-called "degenerate musicians",
0:46:31 > 0:46:34intended for public ridicule and ignominy.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37To continue having their music performed,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40composers who remained in Germany had to stay on the right side
0:46:40 > 0:46:44of the regime, even if they didn't always actively support it.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47For the now-elderly composer Richard Strauss,
0:46:47 > 0:46:50the most prestigious cultural figure in the Third Reich,
0:46:50 > 0:46:55his struggle seems to be confined to how to handle the Nazi bigwigs
0:46:55 > 0:46:57so that they would leave him alone.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00This was clearly more important to him than tackling them,
0:47:00 > 0:47:03for example, on the disgusting racial policies.
0:47:03 > 0:47:06In his own field alone, Jewish musicians had been
0:47:06 > 0:47:09ejected from orchestras, universities and conservatoires,
0:47:09 > 0:47:13and the music of Jewish composers, alive or dead, had been prohibited.
0:47:13 > 0:47:17One composer who had no qualms about working uncritically
0:47:17 > 0:47:20with the Nazi regime wrote what has become a much-loved staple
0:47:20 > 0:47:23of the classical repertoire.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37Carmina Burana had its tumultuously successful premiere
0:47:37 > 0:47:40in the Third Reich in 1937.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47Orff accepted the Nazi government's request
0:47:47 > 0:47:51to replace the Jewish Mendelssohn's incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream.
0:47:51 > 0:47:55He appeared powerless to intervene on behalf of a close friend who was
0:47:55 > 0:47:59tortured and executed by the regime, and he lied to the Americans after
0:47:59 > 0:48:03the war about having been involved in the resistance, which he was not.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18The reverse side of totalitarian coin,
0:48:18 > 0:48:22the Soviet Union, was just as eager to control the arts.
0:48:22 > 0:48:27From 1936, Stalin's cultural henchmen rigorously prohibited
0:48:27 > 0:48:30any sign of modernism in music.
0:48:44 > 0:48:47This hardening of official attitudes caused huge difficulty
0:48:47 > 0:48:52for Russia's leading composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.
0:48:52 > 0:48:53A modernist at heart,
0:48:53 > 0:48:57after one of his works was officially labelled "chaos not music",
0:48:57 > 0:49:01he had little choice but to write in the approved Soviet manner
0:49:01 > 0:49:05or run the risk that he and his family might end up in a prison camp.
0:49:06 > 0:49:11But then, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941,
0:49:11 > 0:49:15the agendas of Stalin and his composers were, all of a sudden, newly aligned.
0:49:15 > 0:49:20Composers' purpose and cause became patriotism.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29After several decades of dislocation from the mainstream audience,
0:49:29 > 0:49:34leading composers once again began to write music that engaged
0:49:34 > 0:49:37with the musical tastes and hopes and fears of ordinary people,
0:49:37 > 0:49:39living through the agony of war.
0:49:41 > 0:49:45Perhaps the most dramatic example of a large-scale work of patriotic
0:49:45 > 0:49:51intent was Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, premiered in March 1942,
0:49:51 > 0:49:53dedicated to the people of his home city,
0:49:53 > 0:49:57at that time enduring an apocalyptic siege.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05The siege of Leningrad, modern-day St Petersburg,
0:50:05 > 0:50:09cost more lives than any other battle of the war. So desperate were
0:50:09 > 0:50:13the conditions, that in the winter of 1941, there were outbreaks of cannibalism.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24A score of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony was dropped
0:50:24 > 0:50:29by plane into the city, and a scratch orchestra was assembled
0:50:29 > 0:50:32to broadcast its message of patriotic defiance.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35It was played on loudspeakers throughout the devastated city,
0:50:35 > 0:50:39as well as outwards to the enemy lines, and performed
0:50:39 > 0:50:41and broadcast all over the Soviet Union.
0:50:59 > 0:51:04Before retreating from Leningrad in January 1944, German troops
0:51:04 > 0:51:08were ordered to loot and destroy its historic galleries, mansions and
0:51:08 > 0:51:13palaces, and a huge haul of treasure was taken back to Nazi Germany.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18One cultural item they couldn't pillage was Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, Leningrad.
0:52:04 > 0:52:09The 20th century began with the many explosions set off by modernism.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13But then, modernism, to a large extent, went underground,
0:52:13 > 0:52:16as Hitler and Stalin wanted music for the masses.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19After the war, modernism returned with a vengeance.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24A new generation of composers, usually labelled as the avant-garde,
0:52:24 > 0:52:27wanted to deconstruct music and start again.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30The results were, to say the least, controversial.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33One thing you can say for sure, though,
0:52:33 > 0:52:37is that the mainstream audience was left largely baffled by this new music.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41As if to fill this vacuum, popular music began to blossom,
0:52:41 > 0:52:45becoming evermore sophisticated, both musically and emotionally.
0:52:45 > 0:52:50By the mid 1960s, the damaging split between art music and pop music
0:52:50 > 0:52:54had become a seemingly unbridgeable chasm.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57But then a strange thing happened.
0:52:57 > 0:53:01In America, the two zones - contemporary pop and contemporary classical -
0:53:01 > 0:53:05gave birth to a child that was half one, half the other.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09The child's name was minimalism, and the arrival of minimalism
0:53:09 > 0:53:14provoked a sea-change in the relationship between musical genres.
0:53:14 > 0:53:17It ushered in an age of musical convergence.
0:53:17 > 0:53:19Our age.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44Minimalism emerged quietly in the 1960s,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48and loudly in the 1970s, spearheaded by American composers
0:53:48 > 0:53:53Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Adams and Steve Reich.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56Steve Reich has been described as the single most influential
0:53:56 > 0:54:00composer of the late 20th century, bringing fresh ideas
0:54:00 > 0:54:03and impetus to both popular and classical music.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06It's a big claim but correct.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10Reich derived his inspirations from African drumming
0:54:10 > 0:54:12and Balinese gamelan music.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15He found that the apparently repetitive,
0:54:15 > 0:54:20hypnotic patterns of these drum- and mallet-based musics were,
0:54:20 > 0:54:23in fact, subtly changing all the time.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26He applied this approach to Western music.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33Reich is also the godfather of sampling,
0:54:33 > 0:54:36whereby a fragment of recorded sound is chopped up
0:54:36 > 0:54:39and recycled back into a musical pattern.
0:54:39 > 0:54:41# It ain't going to rain!
0:54:41 > 0:54:44# It's gonna rain, it's gonna rain It's gonna rain... #
0:54:44 > 0:54:47Sampling is the bedrock of practically every hip-hop track
0:54:47 > 0:54:48you've ever heard.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54Sampling is even more ubiquitous in dance music
0:54:54 > 0:54:58than the electric guitar was in the rock music of the 1960s.
0:54:58 > 0:55:00Its genesis can be traced to a single work
0:55:00 > 0:55:05by Steve Reich in 1965, It's Gonna Rain.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08In It's Gonna Rain, Reich takes the recorded sermon
0:55:08 > 0:55:12of a Pentecostal street preacher and chops up segments of it
0:55:12 > 0:55:16to make rhythmic cells that are repeated again and again.
0:55:32 > 0:55:36These techniques were then adopted in popular music,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39but now the exchange of ideas was a two-way street, between cutting-edge
0:55:39 > 0:55:45popular musicians and their classical, minimalist counterparts.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49David Bowie integrated minimalist styles from Reich
0:55:49 > 0:55:52and his fellow New Yorker Philip Glass into his 1977 album
0:55:52 > 0:55:56recorded in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, Low.
0:55:56 > 0:56:00Then, 15 years later, Philip Glass composed a Low Symphony,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03based on material from the Bowie album.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06With exchanges like this between what used to be seen as
0:56:06 > 0:56:10polar opposites, classical and pop, becoming more commonplace,
0:56:10 > 0:56:13the split between the two wings of music is,
0:56:13 > 0:56:16after a century, finally beginning to close.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26More than anything, it's advances in music technology
0:56:26 > 0:56:29that have helped draw the two sides closer together.
0:56:31 > 0:56:35Music technology, whether for recording, amplification or editing,
0:56:35 > 0:56:38has developed at an amazingly accelerated pace, right up until
0:56:38 > 0:56:42our own time, and continues to propel music in different directions.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46From synthesisers and drum machines, to sampling, club-style mash-ups,
0:56:46 > 0:56:50and the unstoppable spread of Auto-Tune software.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55Or, for that matter, playing the human voice on a keyboard.
0:56:55 > 0:57:01# Drink to me only with thine eyes
0:57:01 > 0:57:06# And I will pledge with mine
0:57:06 > 0:57:12# Or leave a kiss but in the cup
0:57:12 > 0:57:16# And I'll not ask for wine
0:57:16 > 0:57:19# Or leave a kiss... #
0:57:19 > 0:57:23But is the age of the machine beginning to get out of control?
0:57:23 > 0:57:26Is the servant becoming the master?
0:57:30 > 0:57:34The cutting edge of both fields has become unapologetically
0:57:34 > 0:57:37mechanised and electronic in its character,
0:57:37 > 0:57:41which alarms all those who cherish the spontaneity and humanity of
0:57:41 > 0:57:45unplugged music, whether classical, folk or from other cultures.
0:57:45 > 0:57:50The danger of technological overload is articulated even by those
0:57:50 > 0:57:52who are most at ease with it.
0:57:52 > 0:57:54Radiohead's melancholic song Kid A,
0:57:54 > 0:57:58the product of a thoroughly convergent set of electronic
0:57:58 > 0:58:02and minimalist musical ingredients, uses a voice processor
0:58:02 > 0:58:06to evoke what might be the distressed cry of a human clone.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12# We've got heads on sticks
0:58:17 > 0:58:21# You've got ventriloquists... #
0:58:46 > 0:58:49Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd