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Well, some listeners really hate the music, Paul:

/dna/mbradio4/F2766772?thread=7322118

Perhaps you could ask Steven to jazz it up a bit?

The curtal is quite a distance from the alto sax, if not a million miles!
Its essential difference is its double reed, whereas the sax has a single reed. The saxophone is more akin to a clarinet and its ancestor the chalumeau. In this respect a curtal is as you suggest, a bassoon-in-waiting.
Apart from that, It is suggested that the earliest form of music was composed of drone sounds, created by mouth or using a tube. This was possibly used in rhythmic tribal dances and spirit-summoning rituals. Percussion was also used to stimulate and drive rhythms.
Thus the instrument I would nominate for 'telling us about the history of music', would be the didgeridoo. It encompasses the entire history of music and is still played with gusto and enthusiasm to this day.
Although 'early man' probably did not realise it, the didgeridoo is quite a sophisticated music-machine, exploits the potential for circular-breathing (like sax-players do, I think) and plays a rather ethereal set of harmonics. Early 'trumpets' found in north Europe are now considered to be more versatile when played as didgeridoos, and thus possibly were. So they are quite likely not confined to the Australian continent.
Moreover, before man had the tools and technology to fabricate them, he turned to a rather neat form of animal exploitation; put your tree-branch on an ant-hill, and the inhabitants therein will happily eat the inside out, leaving the potential musician with a near-perfect hollow tube.
Technology might nowadays be more sophisticated, but the didgeridoo remains much about the same.

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I am one of the listeners referred to above who finds the music extremely irritating. It slows the whole thing down and distracts from what is being said. There is a fad currently on both radio and TV for music or a simalcrum thereof in documentaries. I dislike this music so much that I have to steel myself to listen to each episode, even though I really do want to find out about the objects and love the whole idea of the series and its spin offs.

I very much like the musical introduction, strangely haunting. I did not realise why [poor memory and 24 hours part], until reading about the instruments - made so delightfully obvious by the short recording of six such daily variations. When programmes restart on May 17th, the producer [and Roger Boulton on Feedback] should explain, or better still play the brief comparison: curiosity may then help overcome any aversion, though negative reaction might be physical, like inability to like strawberries, or to stomach peanut butter - a personal misfortune for a tiny minority.

I find that the music and intro only work if you are looking at the website while listening to the program - they are televisual and consequently make lousy radio. Just give me Neil MacGregor and whatever he wants to talk about without the interruptions, please.

Im sorry but I absolutely loathe the music. It is loud intrusive irrelevant and just profoundly irritating. Please please please remove it. It ruins the programme.

Watch the below clip on Youtube from 5:05-5:40, particularly around 5:29. It sounds eerily reminiscent of one of the riffs in the theme tune...

I adore the theme music and think the composer has achieved exactly what he set out to do. It evokes a sense of timlessness, of pre-history, that stops me in my tracks whenever I hear it.

@ Lemonsparkle

You have expressed exactly what I think. In addition, the combination of notes (I don't think it's a tune) in neither Eastern nor Western, and lends itself to modification for the different places or eras of a programme.

I am amazed at the ease with which some comments strip the writer naked. A comment in 26 words can have eight propositions – all of them betraying a lack of relevant knowledge and experience. This is the danger when you expose yourself verbally. You tell the reader a lot about your perceptive ability, or lack of it. Why should a writer be ‘sorry’ to ‘loathe the music’? If it is ‘loud, intrusive and irritating’, turn down the volume. Why would a reiterated ‘please’ persuade anyone to ‘remove’ the music? And why should the comments of a few disgruntled listeners, be a reason for ‘removal’? But crucially does the music ‘ruin the programme’?
The word ‘music’ needs some refinement. This ‘music’ comprises 4 notes – a theme, or better a motif, which is not developed, but appears in various timbre guises to create an haunting effect (see comment 5). Beethoven in Symphony 5 uses a 4-note motif developed to tremendous dramatic effect, but here the motif goes nowhere. It depends entirely for its effect on two things – the quality of the instruments playing it, and its evasion of a clear tonality which leaves it hanging in musical space. The notes appear to be Db, Eb, Ab, G (or a semitone higher). The ‘key’ or mode centres on Ab, yet the first and last notes are left unresolved. This generates tension, which together with the timbre, provides the haunting effect. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant – it’s very effective. If you happen to be otherwise engaged during the previous programme – it’s a distinctive call to listen. It’s a rare example of compression designed to enhance what follows.

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Love the theme music. When the series is complete, will it be available on CD?

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