1150: Songs of the Troubadours

We're in the 1150s. In the south of France, a young poet-composer named Bernart leaves his home at the Castle of Ventadorn in search of a new patron and finds one in the most powerful woman in Europe: Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Their meeting embodies the age of the troubadours - songs of longing and desire, shaping a new musical language of emotion that will echo down the centuries.

Gillian Moore is joined by a roster of distinguished historians for this major new BBC Radio 3 series, charting a course through 1000 years of classical music history. For the first eight programmes, historian Michael Wood is in the chair, as together they explore the bold new sound worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Producer: Amelia Parker
Academic Consultant: Professor Laura Tunbridge, University of Oxford
Story Consultant: Kate Leys
Series Editor for BBC Audio: Emma Harding

Key Changes theme tune composed by Joseph Howard and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conducted by Kerem Hasan.

Bernart de Ventadorn: Can l’erba fresc
Ensemble Céladon

William of Aquitaine: Farai un vers de dreit rien
Grupo Vocal Nuba

Bernart de Ventadorn: Can vei la lauzeta mover
Paul Hillier, bass baritone
Stephen Stubbs, lute
Lena-Liis Kiesel, organ

Marcabru: L’autrier jost una sebissa
Belladonna

Anonymous: Baron de mon dan covit (extract)
Studio der Frühen Musik
Thomas Binkley, conductor

Anonymous: Saltarello II
Studio der Frühen Musik
Thomas Binkley, conductor

Kaija Saariaho: L’amour de loin – Act I: Première tableau (excerpt)
Daniel Belcher, tenor (Jaufré Rudel)
Rundfunkchor Berlin
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Kent Nagano, conductor

Comtessa de Dia: A chantar m’er de so non volria
Evelyn Tubb, soprano
Michael Fields, harp/lute
David Hatcher, vielle

Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Overture
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ryan Bancroft, conductor

Richard the Lionheart: Ja nus hons pris
James Bowman, countertenor
Early Music Consort of London
David Munrow, conductor