Main content

How do you describe a teaspoon in music?

Tom Service explores how music is able to tell stories and create pictures in sound, from everyday actions to the most heartfelt emotions. With musicologist Kenneth Hamilton.

Can you describe a teaspoon in music? Why would you even want to? Tom Service explores how music is able to tell stories in sound

Tom is joined by musicologist Ken Hamilton for a journey through musical history to reveal music's ability to describe the most everyday actions and the most heartfelt emotions.

From Vivaldi and Beethoven, to the epic tone poems of Richard Strauss (which may or may not contain teaspoons), to Hollywood blockbusters - how does music paint those pictures in our mind, and do those pictures always look the same?

Rethink Music, with The Listening Service.

Each week, Tom aims to open our ears to different ways of imagining a musical idea, a work, or a musical conundrum, on the premise that "to listen" is a decidedly active verb.

How does music connect with us, make us feel that gamut of sensations from the fiercely passionate to the rationally intellectual, from the expressively poetic to the overwhelmingly visceral? What's happening in the pieces we love that takes us on that emotional rollercoaster? And what's going on in our brains when we hear them?

When we listen - really listen - we're not just attending to the way that songs, symphonies, and string quartets work as collections of notes and melodies. We're also creating meanings and connections that reverberate powerfully with other worlds of ideas, of history and culture, as well as the widest range of musical genres. We're engaging the world with our ears.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Sun 18 Jun 2017 17:00

Music Played

  • Camille Saint鈥怱a毛ns

    Danse Macabre Op.40

    Performer: Andr茅s C谩rdenes. Orchestra: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Lorin Maazel.
    • Saint-Saens: Organ Symphony/Tone Poems: Pittsburgh Symphony/Maazel.
    • Sony Classical.
    • 6.
  • Paul Dukas

    The Sorcerer's apprentice

    Performer: Simon Preston. Conductor: James Levine. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker.
    • Saint-Saens/Dukas: Symphony no.3 etc.: Berliner Philharmoniker/Levine.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • 5.
  • Antonio Vivaldi

    Violin Concerto in G minor, RV 315, 'Summer' (3rd mvt)

    Performer: Nigel Kennedy. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker.
    • Vivaldi: Nigel Kennedy, Berliner Philharmoniker.
    • EMI.
    • 9.
  • Felix Mendelssohn

    The Hebrides, Op 26

    Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Claudio Abbado.
    • Mendelssohn: Overtures: LSO/Abbado.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • 7.
  • Joseph Haydn

    String Quartet in D, Op. 64 No. 5 'The Lark' (1st mvt)

    Ensemble: Amadeus Quartet.
    • Haydn: String Quartets: Amadeus Quartet.
    • Deutsche Grammophon.
    • 1.
  • Richard Strauss

    Don Quixote

    Performer: Los Angeles Philharmonic. Performer: Zubin Mehta.
    • Decca.
  • Richard Strauss

    An Alpine Symphony

    Performer: Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. Performer: Franz Welser鈥怣枚st.
    • EMI.
  • Richard Strauss

    Sinfonia Domestica, op.53

    Performer: Los Angeles Philharmonic. Performer: Zubin Mehta.
    • Decca.
  • Claude Debussy

    De l'aube 脿 midi sur la mer (La mer)

    Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker. Conductor: Sir Simon Rattle.
    • Debussy: La Mer etc.: Rattle.
    • EMI.
  • John Williams

    Theme From Jaws

    Performer: The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
    • 100 Greatest Film Themes.
    • Silva America.
  • John Williams

    ET theme

    Performer: The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
    • 100 Greatest Film Themes.
    • Silva America.
  • John Williams

    Raiders of the Lost Ark March

    Performer: The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
    • 100 Greatest Film Themes.
    • Silva America.
  • Arnold Bax

    Elegiac trio for viola, flute and harp

    Ensemble: Nash Ensemble.
    • Bax: Nonet/Elegiac Trio etc: The Nash Ensemble.
    • Hyperion.
    • 6.
  • Annie Lennox

    No More I Love Yous

    • Medusa.
    • BMG.
    • 1.
  • Denis King

    Galloping Home (Black Beauty)

    Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Stanley Black.
    • ITV Themes.
    • Pickwick.
    • 6.
  • Franz Liszt

    Mazeppa

    Performer: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Performer: Kurt Masur.
    • EMI.
  • Jean Sibelius

    Pohjola鈥檚 Daughter

    Performer: Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Performer: Osmo V盲nsk盲.
    • BIS.
  • Richard Strauss

    Also sprach Zarathustra (Fanfare)

    Performer: Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Fran莽ois鈥怷avier Roth.
    • H盲nssler Classic.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    Symphony no. 6 (Op. 68) in F major "Pastoral" 1st mvt, Erwachen heiterer Gefuhle

    Orchestra: Orchestre R茅volutionnaire et Romantique. Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
    • Beethoven: The Symphonies, John Eliot Gardiner.
    • Archiv Produktion.
    • 5.
  • Harrison Birtwistle

    Earth Dances

    Performer: Ensemble Modern Orchestra. Performer: Pierre Boulez.
    • Harrison Birtwistle - Theseus Game / Earth Dances.
    • DG.
  • Napalm Death

    Private Death

    • From Enslavement to Obliteration.
    • Relativity.
  • Iannis Xenakis

    Jonchaies

    Performer: Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra. Performer: Arturo Tamayo.
    • Timpani.
  • Francisco T谩rrega

    Capricho arabe

    Performer: Carlos Bonell.
    • The Private Collection: Carlos Bonell.
    • Upbeat Classics.
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams

    March Past of the Kitchen Utensils (The Wasps)

    Orchestra: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: James Judd.
    • Vaughan Williams: Piano Concerto.
    • Naxos.
    • 3.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 12 Jun 2016 17:00
  • Sun 18 Jun 2017 17:00

Why do we call it 'classical' music?

Tom Service poses a very simple question (with a not-so-simple answer).

Six of the world's most extreme voices

From babies to Mongolian throat singers: whose voice is the most extreme of all?

How did the number 12 revolutionise music?

How did the number 12 revolutionise music?

How Schoenberg opened a new cosmos for composers and listeners to explore.

Why are we all addicted to bass?

Why are we all addicted to bass?

Bass is everywhere, but why do we enjoy it? Join Tom Service on a journey of discovery.

Watch the animations

Join Tom Service on a musical journey through beginnings, repetition and bass lines.

When does noise become music?

We like to think we can separate 鈥渘oise鈥 from 鈥渕usic鈥, but is it that simple?

Podcast