Tom Service – författare

How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.This is the first book to go inside the rehearsal rooms of some of the most inspirational orchestral partnerships in the world - how Simon Rattle works at the Berlin Philharmonic, how Mariss Jansons deals with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, and how Claudio Abbado creates the world's most luxurious pick-up band every year with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. From London to Budapest, Bamberg to Vienna, great orchestral concerts are recreated as a collection of countless human and musical stories.

How are conductors' silent gestures magicked into sound by a group of more than a hundred brilliant but belligerent musicians? The mute choreography of great conductors has fascinated and frustrated musicians and music-lovers for centuries. Orchestras can be inspired to the heights of musical and expressive possibility by their maestros, or flabbergasted that someone who doesn't even make a sound should be elevated to demigod-like status by the public.This is the first book to go inside the rehearsal rooms of some of the most inspirational orchestral partnerships in the world - how Simon Rattle works at the Berlin Philharmonic, how Mariss Jansons deals with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, and how Claudio Abbado creates the world's most luxurious pick-up band every year with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. From London to Budapest, Bamberg to Vienna, great orchestral concerts are recreated as a collection of countless human and musical stories.

Thomas Adès is feted from Los Angeles to London, from New York to Berlin, as the musician who has done more than any other living composer to connect contemporary music with wider audiences. But this celebrated composer, conductor and pianist is notoriously secretive about his creative process, about what lies behind his compositional impulse. Here, Adès opens up for the first time, in conversations with Tom Service, about how he creates his music, where it comes from, and what it means. In these provocative and challenging interviews, Adès connects his music with influences from a huge historical and cultural spectrum - from Sephardic Jewish folk music to 80s electronica, from the films of Luis Buñuel and pre-Columbian art to the soundtracks of Al-Qaeda training videos - and offers a unique insight into the crucible of composition.This edition is updated with a foreword on Adès's opera, Exterminating Angel.

Thomas Adès is fêted from Los Angeles to London, from New York to Berlin, as the musician who has done more than any other living composer to connect contemporary music with wider audiences. His operas, orchestral pieces and chamber works have already stood the test of repeated performances, productions and continued critical acclaim.But this celebrated composer, conductor and pianist is notoriously secretive about his creative process, about what lies behind his compositional impulse. The poetry, technique and biography that fuel his most successful and shattering works, such as his operas Powder Her Face and The Tempest, or his orchestral works Asyla and Tevot, have remained hidden and unexplained. Until now.In conversation with Tom Service - the writer with whom he has had the closest relationship in his career - Adès opens up for the first time about how he creates his music, where it comes from, and what it means. In these provocative and challenging interviews, Adès connects his music with influences from a huge historical and cultural spectrum - from Sephardic Jewish folk music to 80s electronica, from the films of Luis Buñuel and pre-Columbian art to the soundtracks of Al-Qaeda training videos - and offers a unique insight into the crucible of his composition.

Based on his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 3 programme The Listening Service, in which Tom Service takes an idea on an ear-opening and mind-expanding walk through the musical landscape every week, this book is a celebration of music's multi-dimensional power in our lives. With 101 short chapters based on the programmes and grouped thematically the book will open ears and imaginations to find answers to the questions we all have about why and how music - from Toots and the Maytals and J S Bach, Gustav Mahler and Miley Cyrus, to Anna Meredith and Mozart - works its magic over us. With direct links to the programmes using a QR code, the chapters draw on powerful and communicative anecdotes and analogies, as well as the latest scientific research, and above all, a spirit of discovery and connection across genres, cultures, and histories. At its heart is the conviction that music changes us.

Based on his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 3 programme The Listening Service, in which Tom Service takes an idea on an ear-opening and mind-expanding walk through the musical landscape every week, this book is a celebration of music's multi-dimensional power in our lives. With 101 short chapters based on the programmes and grouped thematically the book will open ears and imaginations to find answers to the questions we all have about why and how music - from Toots and the Maytals and J S Bach, Gustav Mahler and Miley Cyrus, to Anna Meredith and Mozart - works its magic over us. With direct links to the programmes using a QR code, the chapters draw on powerful and communicative anecdotes and analogies, as well as the latest scientific research, and above all, a spirit of discovery and connection across genres, cultures, and histories. At its heart is the conviction that music changes us.

Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, collating 50 pieces of classical music that reflect our changing politics, social structures and technological development, and how composers, musicians and listeners have shaped those currents of history.From Bach to Beethoven, Songlines to Saariaho, Hildegard of Bingen to the Happy Birthday song, Tom Service offers a fresh take on pieces that many of us think we know, and many more we might not. With each short, sharp analysis, he expands the typical canon and tests the boundaries of what we understand to be ‘classical music’ – or even music at all, such as the sounds of the earth’s rotation, and the songs of humpback whales.An official BBC Radio 3 publication, A History of the World in 50 Pieces is a book for anyone curious about the power of music and how it shapes us and connects us.

Brought to you by Penguin.Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, collating 50 pieces of classical music that reflect our changing politics, social structures and technological development, and how composers, musicians and listeners have shaped those currents of history.From Bach to Beethoven, Songlines to Saariaho, Hildegard of Bingen to the Happy Birthday song, Tom Service offers a fresh take on pieces that many of us think we know, and many more we might not. With each short, sharp analysis, he expands the typical canon and tests the boundaries of what we understand to be 'classical music' - or even music at all, such as the sounds of the earth's rotation, and the songs of humpback whales.An official BBC Radio 3 publication, A History of the World in 50 Pieces is a book for anyone curious about the power of music and how it shapes us and connects us.(c) Tom Service 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Explore how music has changed our world through 50 pieces across classical, folk and world traditions with BBC presenter Tom Service, in this official Radio 3 compendium.Music transports us and defines us. As a form of expression, it has been passed down through oral tradition, musical notation and recordings in a chain of connection that spans the globe, across the millennia. A History of the World in 50 Pieces follows that chain, collating 50 pieces of classical music that reflect our changing politics, social structures and technological development, and how composers, musicians and listeners have shaped those currents of history.From Bach to Beethoven, Songlines to Saariaho, Hildegard of Bingen to the Happy Birthday song, Tom Service offers a fresh take on pieces that many of us think we know, and many more we might not. With each short, sharp analysis, he expands the typical canon and tests the boundaries of what we understand to be ‘classical music’ – or even music at all, such as the sounds of the earth’s rotation, and the songs of humpback whales.An official BBC Radio 3 publication, A History of the World in 50 Pieces is a book for anyone curious about the power of music and how it shapes us and connects us.