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Available for over a year

The music writer Laura Barton presents a triptych of meditations on the enduring qualities, appeal and intent of pop music. In this second episode, Laura asks why so many of us love listening to sad music. What makes music sound sad? And how does it make us happier? She talks with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, bow in hand, about his instrument’s plaintive tone, consults psychologist William Forde Thompson and music critic of The New Yorker, Alex Ross, and she analyses the descending ostinato bass line that underpins Dido’s Lament, one of the most piercingly mournful pieces of the baroque era, and asks Ane Brun why she reconfigured it as an ascending riff in Laid to Earth. Music: Gorecki - Symphony of Sorrowful Songs Antony and the Johnsons - Another World Ane Brun - Another World Monteverdi - Lamento della Ninfa Dowland - Lachrimae Pavan Muzsikas - Paszdondak Mariza - Gente da Minha Terra Smog - Left Only With Love Bob Marley - Chances Are Elgar - Cello Concerto Bach - Chaconne in D minor (2nd Partita) Purcell - Dido's Lament (Laid in Earth) Ane Brun - Laid in Earth Bob Dylan - Simple Twist of Fate Ane Brun - Last Breath Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4 (Photo: Sheku Kanneh-Mason, credit: Jake Turney)