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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 Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 4

(Photo: Sheku Kanneh-Mason, credit: Jake Turney)