BBC - Howard Goodall's Story of Music (2013) Part 6 The Popular Age. 30/03/2013 23:15:19

Howard Goodall traces the story of music from the ancient world to the modern day BBC2 has a late Christmas present for Goodall fans: six hours of him, charting the entire history of how the complex beast we now call music came to be. Every other modern presenter would fly around Europe at licence-payers’ expense to do links in lovely places — not Goodall. He stays in a sparse studio explaining why Protin, Guido of Arezzo and Dunstaple were great innovators and demonstrating triads on his keyboard. He thinks subject matter is more important than presentation. He’s right.

Part 6: The Popular Age

The composer examines the history of the past 100 years in music, known as the popular age. During this period, classical music - as it is now termed - seemed to be in decline, but Howard argues that while some cutting-edge works proved too challenging to be appreciated by the mainstream audience, the DNA of the genre is alive and well in musical theatre, cinema and popular music.

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