Old school joy

Let’s not beat about the bush: Howard Goodall’s Story of Music (BBC2, Saturday) is landmark television, a documentary series that deserves to rank with such unimpeachable classics as Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation and which, if you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely must for it will answer so many of the questions that have been bugging you all your life. Questions like: ‘Bach — was he really as good as I think he was?’ ‘So what did music sound like in Roman times?’ and ‘Where did Lurpak butter get its name?’

Of course that last one is a fake question. I’d hazard a fortune you’ve never once asked it — but the answer’s interesting all the same. It’s named after a distinctive blowing horn, developed during the Bronze Age but used by Vikings until at least the Middle Ages. In 1797, six pairs of them dating from 800 to 700 BC were found in a peat bog in Denmark, so perfectly preserved that they were still playable. Next time you look at the Lurpak packaging you’ll see something you’ve probably never noticed before: a pair of lurs curling either side of the brand name.

Now if Goodall’s Story of Music were another of those stereotypical TV documentary series of the kind I demolished in my last column, we would have seen the presenter tripping off to Denmark to have a go at playing one himself — with hilariously comical results. Nearby would be standing re-enactors wearing furs and horned helmets (or whatever it was they wore in Scandinavia in 800 BC). Then, of course, there’d be the lur-playing expert on hand to explain why the lur was such a versatile and underrated instrument. He would then go on to demonstrate to a highly impressed Goodall just how marvellous a lur can sound in the hands of a lur master.