Symphony, BBC Four

Having blazed a trail through choral music, Simon Russell Beale now focuses his attentions on the symphony in this new four-part series. At last able to put aside the mind-games and chicanery of his role as Home Secretary William Towers in Spooks (RIP), Beale emerged as an engaging and enthusiastic host in this opening episode.

Nor was Beale averse to the occasional grand orchestral flourish of his own. In this series, we would learn - he declared, somewhat resembling a one-man horn section accompanied by kettledrums and gongs - how the symphony emerged from the world of aristocratic privilege, how it "accompanied the rise of nations and the fall of empires", how it "taught the orchestra how to speak", how it soundtracked both liberty and totalitarianism... Blimey. All of human, and superhuman, life will be here. (Conductor Sir Mark Elder on the podium, pictured above.)

But it all began most agreeably with Joseph Haydn, the so-called "father of the symphony", who was what the poet John Dryden might have described as "a perpetual fountain of good sense". Wise, witty and humane, Haydn had taken full advantage of the private orchestra and splendid music room supplied by his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, to experiment freely with orchestral effects and musical structures. When he came to London after Nikolaus's death, he was hailed as "the first ever bona-fide musical superstar", according to our presenter, and his string of London symphonies are counted among his finest, as well as being considered the vital platform for future symphonic developments.

But you don't have to take my word for it, or even Russell Beale's, because also on hand was conductor Sir Mark Elder, propelling the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (pictured left) through brisk and vivid excerpts from some carefully selected works. Not least among these was Symphony No 98, in which Haydn rang some ingenious musical changes on the British national anthem, which could hardly help but be improved as a result.

Elder also supplied some informative commentary of his own. He was especially compelling when he explained how Haydn had developed the coherent four-movement symphony from the instrumental preludes that used to be played before opera performances in the 18th century. But though Haydn wrote 106 symphonies, the modest maestro was happy to admit that his young friend Mozart was "always my superior". He also taught the 22-year-old Beethoven, but would doubtless have concurred with Elder's observation that Beethoven's stunning Eroica Symphony, first performed in 1804, brought classical music to "the threshold of another age".

This was all wonderfully enjoyable stuff, taking a discursive voyage through a tumultuous period in European history to a soundtrack of glittering symphonic highlights. The clubbable Beale (pictured right in his Spooks heyday) even found time for a trip to Haydn's private herb garden, followed by a sybaritic sampling of Baroque cuisine (platter du jour was braised rabbit with dumplings and cherries).

The Symphony series is part of a month-long campaign across BBC Four and Radio 3 to explore the symphony in all its aspects, and it would have been difficult to make a friendlier or more welcoming film than this one, but it's still unlikely to convert hordes of unbelievers to the classical path. A question that continues to hang in the air is why was it natural for 18th or 19th-century audiences to apply themselves to a complex piece of music lasting 20, 30 or 40 minutes, while today many of us can barely concentrate for the duration of a three-minute pop song? Perhaps Elder will get stuck into that one later on.