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A compilation of short films specially made for schools from Howard Goodall's Story of Music. It provides a unique resource for secondary school education.

In the first hour of the series that traces the story of music from 32,000 BC to the present day, composer Howard Goodall looks back at the very first faltering steps humankind took towards making music. Today music is available everywhere, at the press of a button. A thousand years ago it was an eerie whisper in a desert of silence. And yet music has always been a crucial part of human existence.

In the Age of Discovery, Howard Goodall charts the development of many of the techniques musicians now take for granted. The arrival of a workable form of musical notation, the introduction of new note combinations and the development of more sophisticated musical instruments all gave music a much needed shot in the arm.

In the Age of Invention, Howard Goodall looks at the extraordinarily fertile musical period between 1650 and 1750. In an age when Newton put in place the basic laws of science, musicians did the same thing in music. Then something arrived that was to change music profoundly, the arrival of the audience.

In the Age of Elegance and Sensibility, Howard Goodall explores an era - from 1750 to 1850 - in which the composers went from being the paid, liveried servants of princes and archbishops to working as freelancers, who, most of all, needed to appeal to a new middle-class audience. In this era, the symphony was born, an abstract art form that became popular more than 120 years before the concept became fashionable in visual art.