Howard Goodall's Big Bangs

Howard Goodall’s Big Bangs was originally transmitted on Channel 4 in the UK in the Autumn of 2000. It has since been seen all over the world and repeated countless times on terrestrial, satellite and cable TV. Five 50-minute programmes cover what Howard feels are the five most important, transforming, moments in Western music history. Rather than cataloguing every event in over a thousand years of music history, Big Bangs looks in detail at particular moments in time where one person’s ideas and actions have changed the course of Western music forever.

The series picked up many awards around the world:

In May 2001 it won a coveted BAFTA award.The series won the Huw Weldon Award for Specialised Series, fighting off stiff competition from Simon Schama's landmark 'History of Britain' and David Starkey's 'Elizabeth I'. The BAFTA awards are the most prestigious and highly-prized in British TV. Howard was joined by Jan Younghusband, Channel 4 music commissioning editor, and Paul Sommers, the series' producer from Tiger Aspect Productions on the stage to collect the heavy bronze statuette. It also won a prestigious PEABODY Award for Journalism & Mass Communication in the USA, the IMZ Vienna TV Award for Best Documentary (Program 2 'Opera'), was nominated for an International Emmy (Best Arts Documentary), a Royal Television Society Award (Best Arts Documentary), a Montreux International TV Festival 'Rose d'Or' (Best Arts Documentary) and a Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award (TV & Radio category).

To go to the Channel 4 Learning Big Bangs home page click here.

Information about the availability of this series on DVD may be found by emailing here

1.The Thin Red Line: Guido of Arezzo & the Invention of Notation
Howard’s first programme traces early forms of musical notation, where simple accents were placed above words to show whether the tune went up or down. This leads him on to investigate the work of Guido, whose idea to draw a fixed-pitch line around which to organise these accents led to the musical stave as we know it today.

2. The Inventing of Opera
In this programme Howard travels to Florence to explain the events of around 1600, where the operatic form was taking shape. He notices that opera might never have got off the ground at all, as the first couple of attempts were very unpopular. But when Claudio Monteverdi arrived in Mantua to work for the Gonzaga family, he put this new form to spectacular use, writing Orfeo, the masterpiece to which we owe the existence of opera today.

3. Accidentals will happen: The Invention of Equal Temperament
This was easily the most challenging subject for Howard to explain to his viewers… a subject of which even the more musical amongst them may not be aware. And yet he could not possibly have omitted it from the series, as Equal Temperament, the tuning system by which notes are organised in Western Music, has shaped its history in such a way that enormous amounts of the world’s most beautiful music would not have been written without it. This is, perhaps, the Biggest of the Bangs.

4. Bartolomeo Cristofori and his Amazing Loud and Soft Machine
Back to Florence, this time to look at the emergence of an instrument which quickly became the most popular, versatile, prevalent instrument the world has ever seen: the piano. But unlike the gradual way in which most other instruments came into being, one man in particular can be credited with giving us the piano as we know it today, with catapulting it forward from the also-rans: Bartolomeo Cristofori.

5. Mary and her Little Lamb: The Invention of Recorded Sound
In the final programme in the series, Howard examines the invention of recorded sound, and the impact this has had upon music as we know it. He explains the way in which Edison first happened upon a way of recording sound whilst working on a method to improve the speed of telegraphy, looks at the recording machines to which this discovery led, and the effect which the consequential easy availability of music has had on the history and development of Western classical music.

What the critics said...

Howard Goodall's Big Bangs: Book & CD

Howard has written a book, also entitled Big Bangs, which focuses on the five key turning-points in musical history examined in the TV series. In the book Howard also elaborates upon the events featured in the series, adding his own experiences and describing details discovered during his year-long filming schedule which could not be included in the final edit of the programmes.

Howard explains: "The book gave me the opportunity to cover aspects of music's journey that I could not in the series: to consider the immense contribution of Jews in the twentieth century, for example - not a 'Big Bang' as such, but a significant phenomenon nonetheless. But I also wanted to pull all these facts into context, to make this a personal statement. So between the pillars of the big events I have reflected on some of the issues raised. Why does music have an effect on us? Where does it come from? Does it have a meaning?"

Big Bangs is published by Chatto & Windus (ISBN 0-7011-6932x) and is available in bookshops now, as is the Vintage Paperback (ISBN 0-099-28354-9). Alternatively, you can order directly, online at www.amazon.co.uk

This is part of Emma Hornby's detailed review of the book for the British Journal of Music Education Volume 19/3 - 2002: Big Bangs: The Story of Five Discoveries that Changed Musical History by Howard Goodall, London: Vintage

"This is a stimulating and engaging book aimed at a non-specialist audience in which Howard Goodall encourages his readers to reconsider some of the unique features of Western music - pop and classical - that make it what it is. The first three discoveries (our system of notation, the universality of the piano, and the tuning system which in fact makes everything just a tiny bit out of tune) are fundamental to what we hear in concerts, on CDs and coming out of the walls of High Street chain stores. Goodall describes the invention and the influence of these musical milestones in clear, understandable and anecdote-laden style, making the least preposessing of subjects (tuning systems??!) compelling reading. The other two discoveries are opera and recorded sound. Even the most hardened opera-haters will be persuaded by Goodall that opera is indeed one of the central forces that changed music history. Its continuing wide appeal - despite constant media baying of 'elitist' - and its power as a tool for political and social commentary are contrasted with its beginnings as the attempt of a group of Florentine intellectuals to recreate ancient Greek drama. Recorded sound is equally fundamental to modern understanding of music. Goodall's description of the technology and its development is interwoven with a consideration of its enormous effect on musical culture. The role of recording in the burgeoning popularity of early music is made clear, as is the growing ossification of a museum of Great Works, spliced to perfection and revisited at whim.

The other chapters in the book are reflective interludes. As Plato mused on the power of music to move and inspire, so Goodall, with vivid anecdotes, illustrates that same power. In an era when accounts of Mozart's or Beethoven's reception of their compositions from their inspiring muses are treated with scepticism, Goodall's account of just such an experience is worthy of thoughtful consideration. At a time when inter-faith conflict destablises the globe, his acknowledgement of the Jewish contribution to the histroy of Western music is a timely reminder of the important role played by cultural outsiders, and of the hatred with which their efforts are too often rewarded.

The epilogue considers the role of music in the future - including the imminent demise of the classical concert in an age of three-minute attention spans. These are big issues, and these readable, gripping and above all non-intimidating accounts will encourage non-specialists to consider aspects of music-making that are perhaps usually taken for granted. Why does music move us to tears or laughter? Why do creative artists sometimes find staring out of the window for three weeks an integral part of the creative process? What is the nature of the music that we love so much? We are invited to consider the perfection of the CD and the subsequent dulling of the concert hall experience; the excitement of a trip to the opera; the aural inaccessibility during much of the twentieth century of 'art' music' and the creation of a canon of musical works that we love to hear time and time again....."

*

The Big Bangs CD Soundtrack, featuring music from the series (catalogue number MET CD 1043) is available in record shops now, on the Metronome label. Again, you can order directly at www.amazon.co.uk

What the critics said....(click here)

HG 'OPINION' article for ClassicFM Magazine:

Travelling the world making a documentary about classical music over the past 14 months has been an amazing and fascinating privelege. But it has also been a sobering experience. Wherever we went, in the UK as well as anywhere else, people would express anything from astonishment to hilarity at the thought of 5 one-hour films (for Channel 4) on key moments in Western music history. What, you're making a programme about the invention of musical notation? Are you serious?

It was a lonely trek- hardly anyone is making this sort of documentary for network TV these days- and it brought home to me the inescapable fact that European classical music, despite its staggering gift to the world, is becoming a marginal part of the music world, not its mainstream or core. This isn't necessarily a catastrophe, I know, since it's still a pretty influential and richly-endowed sector, and much of the music being made in the popular, jazz and ethnic fields is brilliant and beautiful too, infused by ideas, techniques and source material as it is from the classical past. But the thousand year wonder that is western classical music is nevertheless seen as a one-off, a never-to-be-repeated and colourful sideshow.

The BBC's recent landmark 'Renaissance' series decided that music was not really part of the overall picture- a bit-part in the central drama starring the visual arts and architecture. Monteverdi, Gabrieli or Byrd might never have existed. This is an assesment very much in keeping with our time: a new Tracy Emin installation attracts media attention like flies to dung: a new piece by John Adams, the world's greatest living composer, comes and goes in the press like an item about a lost puppy with three legs. It isn't anyone's fault but our own: we musicians have in the last 40 years of television and film failed to excite, stimulate and entertain on our subject. With some notable exceptions (on The South Bank Show and Arena) we have let modern TV techniques- particularly its wonderful, visual, story-telling energy- pass us by, as if a slow shot of some geezers in DJs ploughing through a 30-minute romantic workhorse of a piece or an egghead lecturing in a dusty concert hall foyer (and I am as guilty as anyone of this!) was enough to bring the viewers closer.

We have been guilty of making the music seem like it belonged in a private club whose passwords were "acciaccatura", "hemiola" and "polytonality". And yet the world is full of music lovers who with a little help and encouragement, are dying to be let in on the secret and told that this music is theirs as much as it is Herbert von Karajan's. At every dinner-party I've ever been to I have been interrogated by such untrained music-lovers, eager to glimpse beneath the surface of the music they adore, or to be told where to look for more hidden gems.

My new series, 'Howard Goodall's Big Bangs' will be judged by others, of course, but what we intended was this: to tell it like it is, to say 'this musical heritage is fantastic and it belongs to everyone, it's fun, special and entertaining, it's full of quirky stories and humour and delight and we will never, ever apologise for it. It has been central to our cultural growth as a civilisation even if nowadays it sometimes feels merely like a pleasant bonus. Classical music is one of our greatest treasures and there's no-one on earth who couldn't be interested in it, especially given the magic toybox of TV to bring it to life.' Well, that was the idea at least. You never know, it might start a trend.....

[filming 'Equal Temperament' in Italy. The cameraman is Colin Case, the soundman - and photographer - is Doug Dreger]

Further editorial comments by HG on the experience of making BIG BANGS:

"Most educated adults will expect to know who Einstein, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci or Galileo are and roughly what they were responsible for in our culture. when it comes to music though, the same educated adults draw huge blanks. the recent BBC series called 'Renaissance' carried with it the clear implication that the Renaissance art discussed was visual and architectural, not musical- this is fairly typical of general attitudes to music. The layperson clearly knows that Mozart and Bach wrote nice music in the way that Dickens or Tolstoy wrote nice books, but even musically-switched-on people don't know who invented musical notation, or when or why or how or where.

Musical notation was the first major step that separated Western music from ALL the other musical systems on earth. later harmony and 'equal temperament' (the western tuning system) were to make the uniqueness of the western musical language complete and irreversible. given the enormous contribution music makes in all our lives, it is almost embarrassing how little we know about its birth and construction.

The Western musical system is now becoming the shared, basic language of all the musical cultures in the world (for better or worse), faster even than English is becoming an 'international' communications tool. Isn't it timely, then, to look at its key components and understand why they are what they are? Why isn't European music like Indian music?

Big Bangs is not really about famous composers and performers, i.e. the subjects of practically all musical documentaries on TV ever made. Nor is it a series of concerts on telly with dinner-suited musos glaring intently at music stands, the other type of music programmes of the last 40 years. It is about musical concepts. The kind of things that affect ALL music of all types. It is about ideas and inventions, about the moments when music might have veered off into other directions. Whatever its overall strengths and weaknesses (which other people will have to decide) it is in this respect almost unprecedented outside the Open University.

Classical music has been around for roughly 1000 years and popular music has grown out of it. Modern Western pop music is as indebted to classical music (uncool though it may be) as it is to African and Afro-American music of the 20th century. In spite of this, classical musicians feel without doubt that they are on the defensive, they are being pushed to the sidelines of a prevailing youth & popular culture. I personally feel music should be without frontiers because that is my background, but it is hard to see the average classical symphony concert fitting into anyone's idea of an enjoyable modern experience, devoid as it is of visual interest or relaxed, accessible communication with its audience. the gulf between the modern classical concert experience and the popular gig is abosolutely enormous.

People feel classical music is some kind of private club- you either have the knowledge and know all the passwords or you don't, and if you don't, you're somehow inadequate. my series/book attempts- passionately- to end this musical apartheid. anyone can watch/read this and grasp the concepts without specialist knowledge. But either am I going to patronise and start explaining what a violin is or what the French Revolution was about.

I am completely unapologetic about the importance and value of classical music. There is no reason why everyone should not feel proud of its tradition and the amazing repertoire it represents, but i am also bored with the old-fashioned image it has cultivated for itself and keen to present it as freshly as possible, and understand why people may feel intimidated by it. For me, the gap between the two positions is perfectly bridgeable!

What the critics said...

This is Oxfordshire article, March 2000, about the Big Bangs series.

MUSIC USED IN THE BIG BANGS SERIES

NOTATION

Big Bangs Titles Music (HG)

Monks of Sant' Antimo monastery singing Gregorian chant Courtney Pine "Underground"

Tallis "Spem in Alium" 40-part motet (final 2 minute excerpt: Christ Church Choir) NOT USED IN FINAL CUT OF PROG.

Fragment of medieval 2-part organum for voices (Christ Church Choir)

Fragment of medieval 3-part polyphony for voices ( Ch Ch Choir)

Fragment of Thomas Ashwell 4-part mass for voices (Ch Ch Choir)

Allegri 'Miserere', (Ch Ch Choir)

OPERA

Opening of Monteverdi 1610 Vespers: Deus in adjutorium (Ch Ch Choir) 'L'Orfeo' by Monteverdi: Opening/Tenor duet (David Loveday & Adam Tunnicliffe)"Orfeo & Euridice" + chorus/"Io la musica son" solo treble (Andrew Blythman) + string ritornello/Orfeo in Hades solo tenor (John Mark Ainsley)+ orhestra. Christ Church Choir & Chamber Orchestra of London.

'The Marriage of Figaro' (Mozart): duet "Oh, Crudele!" & Act 2 Finale (section)- students of the Royal College of Music London (Soloists Grant Doyle, Camilla Tilling, Inga Kalina) + piano.

John Adams 'Nixon in China' excerpt

Daniel Auber 'La Muette de Portici', duet "L'Amour sacre de la patrie"

'Fidelio' (Beethoven) prisoners' chorus

EQUAL TEMPERAMENT

Dunstaple 'Veni Sancte Spiritus' (3 Ch Ch Choristers: Andrew Olleson, Paul Miles-Kingston, David Loveday)

Gabrieli 'Oedipus Tirannus' excerpts: "Misera humana prole" & "O a visitar gl'eccelsi d'Abi e d'Olimpia Tempij?" (Cantica Symphonia vocal quartet + HG at harpsichord)

Tarif di Mirsa (Romanian gypsy band filmed on location)

Agincourt Song (HG singing & playing)

Chinese Bamboo Flute, played by Rui jun Hu

Bach 'The Well-Tempered Clavier' prelude no 1

R Strauss "Im Abendrot" from Four Last Songs

PIANO

Geoff Smith playing own composition on hammer dulcimer

HG playing clavicytherium in RCM

Schubert 'Gute Nacht' song in HG's modern English version, 2 verses only, sung by David Loveday accompanied by HG

Francois Couperin 'Les Baricades Misterieuse' played by HG on harpsichord

Mozart Piano Conc no 1 first movt, played on period instruments

Beethoven 'Moonlight' Sonata in C#minor first and last movements

Handel 'Music for the Royal Fireworks', "La Rejouissance"

Mahler Symphony no 5, Adagietto

Schubert 'Gute Nacht' from "Die Winterreise", full German version

Prokofiev Piano Concerto no3 first movt

Debussy 'Nuages' for piano

Scott Joplin 'Maple Leaf Rag'

RECORDED SOUND

Leoncavallo 'I Pagliacci': "Vesti la giubba" sung by Enrico Caruso

"Moreschi: The Last Castrato", Vatican sessions (recently rereleased on remastered CD)

David Fanshawe 'African Sanctus', "Sanctus"

Mozart Piano Concerto no 23 K488,Adagio

Steve Reich 'Different Trains'

MUSIC RELEVANT TO BOOK CHAPTERS:

Goodall Missa Aedis Christi "Sanctus" (on ASV CD "HG's Choral Works")

Mahler 'Kindertotenlieder', "Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen!"

Trad. arr Goodall 'O Waly Waly' (on forthcoming METRONOME CD "We Are The Burning Fire" sung by Christ Church Choir)

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