Tom Service's Audio Guide

Tom Service leads the way through the techniques and methods that composers have used to represent and portray people in music. From the piquant representations for harpsichord by Francois Couperin to the evocative orchestral pictures of Elgar; the codified musical world of Alban Berg or the flash sketches of Virgil Thomson, composers over many centuries have devised cunning ways to shape musical abstractions to convey something of the essence of an individual. Tom investigates how, with the help of the harpsichordist Sophie Yates and the composer Robin Holloway, who is no stranger to the art of musical portraiture himself.