CLASSICAL MUSIC - ALL THE RUSSIAS: 1. THE LITTLE BIRCH TREE

This ambitious series of five hour-long programmes paints a picture in music and imagesof a  thousand-year-old civilisation. It features Russia's most distinguished performing company, The Kirov Orchestra, Chorus, Soloists and Ballet, recognised world-wide as the finest and most authoritative interpreters of Russian music. They were filmed at their St Petersburg base, the Mariinsky Theatre, under the baton of the Kirov's inspired artistic director, Valery Gergiev. Gergiev hosts the programmes and shares his personal vision of the role that music has played in Russia's glittering and troubled history.

The magnificent orchestral and vocal legacy of composers such as Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich are at the heart of All the Russias but the series also reaches back in time to ancient chant and folk music and forward to the radical sounds of contemporary composers such as Schnittke and Gubaidulina.

Gergiev's interpretations of great Russian classics and thrilling new work is juxtaposed with extensive filming in the vast expanse of Russia and its former empire. As well as Moscow and St Petersburg, the series visits the exotic cities of Samarkand, Tbilisi and Bokhara, the ancient sites of Kiev and Bakshserai, rural Volga and Bryansk, and the  frozen Arctic North. Art and architecture, folk customs, traditional rituals and a wealth of archive film and photographs are used to give a fascinating insight into a great and many faceted  culture. Russia past and present is brought into focus and comments are drawn from three generations of creative artists, interpreters, writers, film-makers and politicians who are actively helping shape their c0untry's future today.

Gergiev concludes the series with an impassioned plea to preserve national identity in the face of invasion by Microsoft and Mickey Mouse. The five films focus on the following themes: Russia's rural heart and the folk-song that is at the core of all her music; the preoccupation with things spiritual that permeates all Russian music; how the violence of Russian history is reflected in music that combines beauty and brutality; how one of the archetypal forms of Russian culture, the fairy tale, has inspired many of the great Russian ballets, operas, symphonic poems and piano works; and the cultural and musical impact of Russia's fear and fascination with the cultures that surround it.

Programme 2 Holy Mother Russia is Directed by Peter West

Russia is at once devoutly Christian and deeply pagan. Both faith and magic were stuffed into the deep-freeze by the Soviets. What has emerged since the thaw is inspiring and alarming in equal measure. Programme Two shows how the obsession with things spiritual is in all Russian music.

Music: Arvo Part, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky, Bortnyansky, Rachmaninov,ProkoJev, Knaifel, Gubaidulina, Sviradov, Martynov.