Breaking Free - the minds that changed music.

In The Essay this week, personal reflections on the revolutionary music and ideas of the Second Viennese School as they searched for an antidote to all the certainties and expectations of the past, and cast music on a new path of dissonance and discovery, shocking audiences then and now.

Musician and broadcaster Tom McKinney recalls his "first contact" with the music of Webern - his Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op.5, and then taking part in a transformative performance of the same work as a professional musician.