Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Wagner’s Tainted Legacy with Frank Cottrell Boyce

Richard Wagner was a romantic, a revolutionary and bitter antisemite.

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Debussy The Love Rat with Abi Clarke

Claude Debussy was a love rat who left behind a trail of broken hearts and gunshot wounds.

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Franz Liszt The First Rockstar with Jack Steadman

Liszt was a monk, a sex symbol, and a pianist who made nuns faint and forget their vows.

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Puccini The Mighty Hunter with Bec Hill

Blackmail, affairs and a secret love child. Was Puccini the bad boy of the Opera world?

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Anton Bruckner The Corpse Chaser with Edith Bowman

Anton Bruckner was a composer fascinated with death, religion and teenage girls.

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Fifty Shades of Percy Grainger with Lou Sanders

Percy Grainger had a fetish for whips, blood-stained shirts and folk melodies.

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Dame Ethel Smyth The Wrecker with Laufey

Ethel Smyth was a trailblazing composer, suffragette and no stranger to passionate affairs

• 30 mins

Monsters of Music with Tom Allen

Alma Mahler The Heartbreaker with Arlene Phillips

A composer, heartbreaker, socialite and antisemite. Who was the real Alma Mahler?

• 30 mins

Facing The Music

Ludwig van Beethoven: The Battle for Joy

Dominic West exposes Beethoven’s emotional pain in search of joyful, life-affirming music.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Dmitri Shostakovich: Staring Down the Terror

Michael Sheen uncovers Shostakovich’s fear and defiance in Stalin’s terrifying USSR.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Florence Price: Power and Pride

Nina Sosanya confronts Price’s battle with prejudice to reveal her true musical identity.

• 28 mins

Facing The Music

Antonín Dvořák: Heartache and Hope

Adeel Akhtar unravels Dvořák’s grief and musical rebirth after the deaths of his children.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Sergei Rachmaninov: Fear of Failure

Kit Harington tackles Rachmaninov’s paralysing writer’s block to reveal a masterpiece.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Jean Sibelius: Rage Against the Machine

Toby Jones reveals how Sibelius’s anger and destruction freed him from musical torment.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Ethel Smyth: Resilience and Resistance

Maxine Peake embraces Smyth’s rule-breaking as the composer takes on the patriarchy.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Lust for Life

Andrew Lincoln revels in Mozart’s new-found love as he and his music, break free.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Duke Ellington: In Control

Don Warrington watches Ellington risk it all to save his name and musical legacy.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Joseph Haydn: Letting Go of Loneliness

David Suchet plunges into Haydn’s isolation and how it was shattered in war-torn Vienna.

• 29 mins

Facing The Music

Introducing Facing The Music

Exposing the emotional turmoil behind legendary composers and their captivating music.

• 2 mins