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Friday - Rob Cowan with Tom Phillips

With Rob Cowan. Five Reasons to Love Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words; Arvo Part: Fratres; Artist of the Week: David Willcocks, featured conducting Purcell's My Heart is Inditing.

9am
A selection of music including '5 reasons to love... Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words'. Rob explores the tonal variety, subtle poetry, drama and aria-like expression of Felix Mendelssohn's intimate miniatures, in the hands of pianists including Livia RΓ©v, Vladimir Horowitz and Ignaz Friedman. He also showcases a pair of songs by Felix's sister Fanny, which demonstrate that her compositions matched his in their charm and originality.

9.30am
Take part in today's musical challenge: trace the classical theme behind a well-known song.

10am
Rob's guest this week is the artist Tom Phillips. Tom is renowned for his portraiture, sculpture and collages, including his extraordinary ongoing project A Humument, an altered Victorian novel (the pages of which Tom paints, draws and collages over), 49years in the making. An illustrator, set designer, librettist, composer, curator and collector, Tom is also the author of Music in Art, a survey of art inspired by music. Tom will be sharing a selection of his favourite classical music, every day at 10am.

10.30am
Rob places Music in Time as he experiences the Romantic drama of Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini: a raging tone poem, based on Dante's Inferno, that takes a prompt from Liszt and heads determinedly towards the world of film music.

11am
Rob's Artist of the Week is Sir David Willcocks. Throughout the week Rob pays tribute to Sir David Willcocks: organist, composer, and the most celebrated British choral conductor of his generation, who died in September, aged 95. From 1957 until 1974 he was Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge; under his leadership and training the choir became internationally renowned for its precision, immaculate tuning and pure beauty of tone. Through their annual broadcasts of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, and Sir David's dazzling carol arrangements and descants, his name has become indelibly associated with Advent and Christmas. For 38 years he was also the musical director of the Bach Choir, conducting them in some eighty performances of the St Matthew Passion, as well as championing music by contemporary British composers. Rob surveys Sir David's glittering recorded legacy, showcasing some of his most acclaimed interpretations, and unearthing some rare gems.

Purcell
My Heart is Inditing, Z30
James Bowman (countertenor)
Nigel Rogers (tenor)
Max von Egmond (bass)
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
Gustav Leonhardt (organ)
Sir David Willcocks (conductor).

3 hours

Music Played

  • Benjamin Britten

    Deo Gracias! (A Ceremony of Carols)

    Performer: Osian Ellis. Choir: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.
    • EMI.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Prelude & Fugue in E flat, BWV552 'St Anne'

    Orchestrator: Arnold Schoenberg. Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Seiji Ozawa.
    • PHILIPS.
  • 5 Reasons to Love... Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words

    • Felix Mendelssohn

      Song without words, Op.38 No.6

      Performer: Ignaz Friedman.
      • NAXOS.
    • Felix Mendelssohn

      Song without words, Op.53 No.2

      Performer: Ignaz Friedman.
      • NAXOS.
  • Thomas Tomkins

    Weep no more thou sorry boy

    Choir: The King’s Singers.
    • EMI.
  • Michel Legrand

    One Day

    Music Arranger: Rodney Bennett, Richard. Choir: The King’s Singers.
    • EMI.
  • Luigi Boccherini

    Introduction and Fandango

    Ensemble: Aquarelle Guitar Quartet.
    • CHANDOS.
  • Johann David Heinichen

    Dresden Concerto in F major, S.234

    Orchestra: Musica Antiqua KΓΆln. Conductor: Reinhard Goebel.
    • ARCHIV.
  • FrΓ©dΓ©ric Chopin

    Prelude in E minor, Op.28 no.4

    Performer: Alexandre Tharaud.
    • HARMONIA MUNDI.
  • Tom Phillips' Choice No. 1

    • Harrison Birtwistle

      Harrison's Clocks, No.1

      Performer: Nicolas Hodges.
      • METRONOME.
  • Rob's Choice for Tom Phillips

    • Lou Harrison

      Suite for violin, piano and small orchestra (movements 3-5)

      Performer: Keith Jarrett. Performer: Lucy Stoltzman. Conductor: Robert Hughes.
      • NEW WORLD RECORDS.
  • Trad.

    My Dancing Day

    Music Arranger: Elizabeth Poston. Choir: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Director: Sir David Willcocks.
    • EMI CLASSICS.
  • Music in Time: Romantic

    • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

      Francesca da Rimini

      Orchestra: Russian National Orchestra. Conductor: Mikhail Pletnev.
      • DG.
  • Gioachino Rossini

    La Francesca da Rimini

    Performer: Martin Katz. Singer: Marilyn Horne.
    • RCA.
  • Artist of the Week: Sir David Willcocks

    • Henry Purcell

      My heart is inditing, Z30

      Performer: Gustav Leonhardt. Singer: James Bowman. Singer: Nigel Rogers. Singer: Max van Egmond. Choir: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Ensemble: Leonhardt‐Consort. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.
      • TELDEC.
  • Henry Purcell

    My heart is inditing, Z30

    Performer: Gustav Leonhardt. Singer: James Bowman. Singer: Nigel Rogers. Singer: Max van Egmond. Choir: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Ensemble: Leonhardt‐Consort. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.
    • TELDEC.
  • Franz Schubert

    Symphony No.8 in B minor 'Unfinished'

    Orchestra: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Conductor: Pierre Monteux.
    • DECCA.
  • Artist of the Week: Sir David Willcocks

    • Harold Edwin Darke

      In the bleak midwinter

      Performer: Simon Preston. Choir: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.
      • ARGO.
    • William James Kirkpatrick

      Away in a Manger

      Performer: Simon Preston. Music Arranger: Sir David Willcocks. Choir: Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Director: Sir David Willcocks.
      • ARGO.
    • J. Pierpoint

      Jingle Bells

      Music Arranger: Sir David Willcocks. Choir: Bach Choir.
      • Family Carols.
      • Chandos.
      • 17.
    • Felix Mendelssohn

      Hark! The herald angels sing

      Performer: John Scott. Music Arranger: Sir David Willcocks. Choir: Bach Choir. Ensemble: Graham Ashton Brass Ensemble. Director: Sir David Willcocks.
      • CHANDOS.

Classical Roots

Answer: 'Jane B' by Serge Gainsbourg is based on Chopin's Prelude in E minor, Op.28 No.4

The music played:

Serge Gainsbourg
'Jane B'
Jane Birkin (singer)
FONTANA RECORDS

Broadcast

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