In-depth documentaries which explore music, history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature.
All available episodes (478 total)
Upcoming episodes (1 new and 1 repeat)
Georgia Mann tests the claim that hypnotherapy produced Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto.
Seán Williams glides through the centuries to bring us a brief history of lake skating.
How one woman immortalised the Gaelic musical folklore of the Hebridean islands.
Georgia Mann and neurosurgeon Henry Marsh explore the puzzle of Beethoven’s poor health.
Opening the secret FBI files on classical music's golden boy, Leonard Bernstein.
What composer Gabriel Prokofiev and I found in Putin's Moscow...
Six classic works of literature we wouldn't have read if they hadn't been smuggled...
Photographs by the jazz writer, social historian, acclaimed photographer Val Wilmer.
Lindsay Johns on the South African novelist & anti-apartheid freedom fighter Alex La Guma
Introducing Henry David Thoreau...
Marjorie Senechal on life inside America’s first institution for drug rehabilitation.
Seven images inspired by the grid
The field recordings Attenborough of music performances around the world.
Flor Edwards grew up believing the world would end when she was 12. This is her story.
We examine the field recordings he quietly amassed during his journeys across the globe.
Would the Vikings have played their lyres in the style of a Blues guitarist?
A sceptical Georgia Mann submits to a session in Dr Stella Nkenke's "hypnotic chair".
Seán Williams heads for the ice to introduce a short history of social skating.
Fiona J Mackenzie introduces Margaret Fay Shaw and the folksongs she collected.