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).
Last on
Music Played
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Benjamin Britten
Deo Gracias! (A Ceremony of Carols)
Performer: Osian Ellis. Choir: Choir of Kingβs College, Cambridge. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.- EMI.
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Prelude & Fugue in E flat, BWV552 'St Anne'
Orchestrator: Arnold Schoenberg. Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Seiji Ozawa.- PHILIPS.
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5 Reasons to Love... Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words
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Felix Mendelssohn
Song without words, Op.38 No.6
Performer: Ignaz Friedman.- NAXOS.
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Felix Mendelssohn
Song without words, Op.53 No.2
Performer: Ignaz Friedman.- NAXOS.
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Thomas Tomkins
Weep no more thou sorry boy
Choir: The Kingβs Singers.- EMI.
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Michel Legrand
One Day
Music Arranger: Rodney Bennett, Richard. Choir: The Kingβs Singers.- EMI.
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Luigi Boccherini
Introduction and Fandango
Ensemble: Aquarelle Guitar Quartet.- CHANDOS.
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Johann David Heinichen
Dresden Concerto in F major, S.234
Orchestra: Musica Antiqua KΓΆln. Conductor: Reinhard Goebel.- ARCHIV.
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FrΓ©dΓ©ric Chopin
Prelude in E minor, Op.28 no.4
Performer: Alexandre Tharaud.- HARMONIA MUNDI.
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Tom Phillips' Choice No. 1
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Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison's Clocks, No.1
Performer: Nicolas Hodges.- METRONOME.
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Rob's Choice for Tom Phillips
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Lou Harrison
Suite for violin, piano and small orchestra (movements 3-5)
Performer: Keith Jarrett. Performer: Lucy Stoltzman. Conductor: Robert Hughes.- NEW WORLD RECORDS.
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Trad.
My Dancing Day
Music Arranger: Elizabeth Poston. Choir: Choir of Kingβs College, Cambridge. Director: Sir David Willcocks.- EMI CLASSICS.
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Music in Time: Romantic
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Francesca da Rimini
Orchestra: Russian National Orchestra. Conductor: Mikhail Pletnev.- DG.
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Gioachino Rossini
La Francesca da Rimini
Performer: Martin Katz. Singer: Marilyn Horne.- RCA.
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Artist of the Week: Sir David Willcocks
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Henry Purcell
My heart is inditing, Z30
Performer: Gustav Leonhardt. Singer: James Bowman. Singer: Nigel Rogers. Singer: Max van Egmond. Choir: Choir of Kingβs College, Cambridge. Ensemble: LeonhardtβConsort. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.- TELDEC.
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Henry Purcell
My heart is inditing, Z30
Performer: Gustav Leonhardt. Singer: James Bowman. Singer: Nigel Rogers. Singer: Max van Egmond. Choir: Choir of Kingβs College, Cambridge. Ensemble: LeonhardtβConsort. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.- TELDEC.
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Franz Schubert
Symphony No.8 in B minor 'Unfinished'
Orchestra: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Conductor: Pierre Monteux.- DECCA.
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Artist of the Week: Sir David Willcocks
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Harold Edwin Darke
In the bleak midwinter
Performer: Simon Preston. Choir: Choir of Kingβs College, Cambridge. Conductor: Sir David Willcocks.- ARGO.
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William James Kirkpatrick
Away in a Manger
Performer: Simon Preston. Music Arranger: Sir David Willcocks. Choir: Choir of Kingβs College, Cambridge. Director: Sir David Willcocks.- ARGO.
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J. Pierpoint
Jingle Bells
Music Arranger: Sir David Willcocks. Choir: Bach Choir.- Family Carols.
- Chandos.
- 17.
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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.
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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
- Fri 4 Dec 2015 09:00ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3