Conductor and broadcaster Charles Hazlewood explores the development of British music through the lives and work of Henry Purcell, George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn and Felix Mendelssohn, in this major series for BBC Two.

In this first programme, Charles discovers how Purcell created music that has set a benchmark for generations of British composers ever since. Charles investigates what life would have been like for a composer in 17th-century London through a wide range of Purcell’s music – from his often-overlooked tavern songs to his glorious sacred music and his pioneering stage works such as Dido and Aeneas.

With historian Leo Hollis, Charles walks the London streets that Purcell would have known and discovers how the composer captured the sounds of the time through a rich mixture of the poetry of the palaces and courts and the vibrant language spoken on the streets.

Saturday 9 May
8.00-9.00pm BBC TWO