1816, the Year Without a Summer

Corin Throsby explores the cultural and social impact of 1816's extreme weather.

• 45 mins

Menuhin at 100

The story of the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin, using BBC archive material.

• 45 mins

First Folio Road Trip

How Shakespeare's First Folio helped make a national poet and an international star.

• 45 mins

Still Will

Laura Barton explores the silences and intimacies of Shakespeare's plays.

• 45 mins

God Intoxicated Man - The Life and Times of Benedict Spinoza

Michael Goldfarb tells the story of Dutch philosopher Benedict Spinoza.

• 45 mins

Antonio Carlos Gomes, the Brazilian Who Conquered La Scala

Fabio Zanon on how Brazilian composer Carlos Gomes conquered La Scala in the 19th century.

• 45 mins

An Explosion of Geraniums - The International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936

Ian McMillan tells the story of the International Surrealist Exhibition in 1936.

• 45 mins

Sherlock, Sigmund and Signor Morelli

Exploring the little-known story of Giovanni Morelli, who influenced Conan Doyle and Freud

• 45 mins

Dawn on the Somme

Kate Kennedy explores the Somme through the lives of musicians who took part in the battle

• 45 mins

Not Suitable for Children

Dr Sophie Coulombeau explores the limits of children's literature.

• 45 mins

Vladimir Ashkenazy on Ansel Adams: The Print and the Performance

Vladimir Ashkenazy reveals how classical music influenced the photography of Ansel Adams.

• 45 mins

Philip French and the Critical Ear

Laurence Scott pays tribute to radio producer and esteemed film critic Philip French.

• 45 mins

The Secrets of the Music Reading Panel

Who were the BBC's gatekeepers for new scores for broadcast? Charlotte Higgins finds out.

• 44 mins

In Search of Yves Klein

Leap into the Void! Liliane Lijn explores the work of French postwar artist Yves Klein.

• 45 mins

The Other Third

Exploring the ways the Third Programme reflected the lives of so-called ordinary people.

• 45 mins

Let Her Speak

Emily Maitlis considers the history of women and public speaking.

• 45 mins

New Generation Thinkers

Euphemism and eroticism in Gaelic songs and reappraising sculptor Joseph Nollekens.

• 45 mins

New Generation Thinkers

Features about lost modernist poet Hope Mirlees and North Africa's Jews during WWII.

• 45 mins

Langston Hughes at the Third

How an unlikely friendship led to Harlem poet Langston Hughes' epic 1964 BBC radio series.

• 45 mins

Whatever Happened to the Avant-Garde?

Is the avant-garde dead? Paul Morley conducts an autopsy, but detects signs of life...

• 45 mins

David Attenborough - World Music Collector

David Attenborough recalls collecting music from around the world, and listens once again.

• 45 mins

Kandinsky - A Story of Revolution

How Moscow's architecture and aesthetics influenced Wassily Kandinsky's artistic vision.

• 45 mins

Breaking Free: Freud versus Music

Stephen Johnson explores Sigmund Freud's enigmatic relationship with music.

• 45 mins

Apocalypse How

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores how different cultures have viewed the apocalypse.

• 44 mins

Music on the Brink of Destruction

Shirli Gilbert reveals the complex history of music composed in the Nazi camps and ghettos

• 45 mins

Boulez and His Rumble in the Jungle

The story of how three trips to South America in the 1950s changed Pierre Boulez's life.

• 45 mins

Savage Pilgrims

Sara Mohr-Pietsch investigates the artistic community of New Mexico.

• 45 mins

The Experimenters

Kwame Kwei-Armah explores how Black Mountain College launched many American artists.

• 45 mins

King Kong - the Township Jazz Musical

Soweto Kinch discovers the remarkable story behind the apartheid-era musical, King Kong.

• 45 mins

John Ruskin's Eurhythmic Girls

Samira Ahmed explores how Victorian art critic John Ruskin revolutionised girls' education

• 44 mins