Tom Service explores the world of the song cycle - from the tortured passions and existential angst of Beethoven and Schubert's protagonists in 19th-century Vienna, to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole's ebullient takes on the genre with the birth of the concept album, and Kate Bush's groundbreaking experimental pop suite The Ninth Wave.

Our witness today is composer Emily Hall whose work Life Cycle, written with Toby Litt for singer Mara Carlyle, explores the theme of motherhood.

Producer: Ruth Thomson