Tuesday - Rob Cowan with Mike Figgis
With Rob Cowan. Including Musical challenge; Music on Location: New York; Artist of the Week: pianist Solomon Cutner, featured in Liszt's Fantasy on Hungarian Folk Melodies.
9am
Rob sets the tone and mood of the day's programme with a range of music to intrigue, surprise and entertain.
9.30
Take part in today's musical challenge: can you work out which two composers are associated with a particular piece?
10am
Rob's guest this week is the film director, writer, photographer and composer Mike Figgis. Mike is best known as the director of films such as Leaving Las Vegas and Internal Affairs, but he came to film after many years in music and theatre. He plays the piano, guitar and trumpet and has played and recorded with various bands in London and France, including a 'free jazz' group. For a decade Mike was a member of the People Show, a long-running experimental theatre group based in London, and has directed operas for the Manchester International Music Festival and English National Opera. As well as discussing his life and work, Mike shares some of his favourite classical music throughout the week by composers including Ives, Zelenka and Schubert.
10.30
Music on Location: New York
Rob explores music by Copland written as incidental music for a play set in New York. The play was a flop, but Copland reworked his contribution to create the chamber work Quiet City.
Double Take
Rob explores the nature of performance by highlighting the differences in style between two recordings of Chabrier's miniature orchestral masterpiece España, one conducted by John Eliot Gardiner and the other by Neeme Järvi.
11am
Rob's featured artist is one of Britain's greatest pianists, Solomon Cutner - known to audiences simply as Solomon. He rose from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of his profession, and was en route to recording all of Beethoven's piano sonatas when tragedy struck; he suffered a severe stroke, and for the next 32 years Solomon the pianist was forced to become Solomon the concert-goer and listener. Solomon was a prime example of the notion that less is more; his reading of Beethoven's 'Waldstein' Sonata is perfectly proportioned, his Liszt and Chopin compelling but never sentimental, his Schubert abundantly lyrical, while in chamber music - especially with the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky - Solomon was the ideal duo partner. His performances are dignified and musically persuasive making his recordings well worth revisiting.
Liszt
Fantasy on Hungarian Folk Melodies, S.123, for piano and orchestra
Solomon (piano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Walter Susskind (conductor).
Last on
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Music Played
-
Hans Christian Lumbye
Amelie waltz
Orchestra: Odense Symfoniorkester. Conductor: Peter Guth.- ALTO.
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Max Reger
Palmsonntagmorgen, WoO VI/18
Ensemble: The Hilliard Ensemble.- WARNER.
-
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Sonata in C major for piano duet, K 19d
Performer: Christoph Eschenbach. Performer: Justus Frantz.- Mozart: Music for Piano Duet: Justus Frantz, Christoph Eschenbach.
- Deutsche Grammophon.
- 1.
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Hector Berlioz
3 Pieces from The Damnation of Faust, Op.24
Orchestra: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Louis Frémaux.- WARNER.
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Alexander von Zemlinsky
Maiblumen blühten überall
Performer: Jan Erik van Regteren Altena. Performer: Taco Kooistra. Singer: Susan Narucki. Ensemble: Schoenberg String Quartet.- Chandos CHAN 9772.
- Chandos.
- 1.
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Mike Figgis's First Choice
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Two-part Invention in F minor, BWV 780 & Three-part Invention in F minor, BWV 795
Performer: Glenn Gould.- SONY.
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Mike Figgis's Second Choice
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Jan Dismas Zelenka
Miserere in C minor ZWV 57
Ensemble: Balthasar‐Neumann‐Ensemble. Choir: Balthasar Neumann Chorus. Conductor: Thomas Hengelbrock.- DHM.
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Music on Location: New York
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Aaron Copland
Quiet City
Performer: Thomas Stacy. Performer: Philip Smith. Orchestra: New York Philharmonic. Conductor: Leonard Bernstein.- DG.
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Double Take
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Claude Debussy
Preludes Book 2: XII. Feux d'artifices
Performer: John Browning.- SONY.
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Claude Debussy
Preludes Book 2: XII. Feux d'artifices
Performer: Jorge Bolet.- MARSTON.
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William Byrd
Quomodo cantabimus
Choir: Gallicantus. Director: Gabriel Crouch.- SIGNUM.
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Artist of the Week: Solomon
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Franz Liszt
Fantasy on Hungarian folk melodies for piano and orchestra, S 123
Performer: Solomon. Orchestra: Philharmonia. Conductor: Walter Süsskind.- EMI.
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Igor Stravinsky
Petrushka
Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Pierre Monteux.- RCA.
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Joseph Canteloube
La delaissado (Chants d'Auvergne - set 2 no 4)
Singer: Netania Davrath. Conductor: Pierre de la Roche. Orchestra: Uncredited Orchestra.- ALTO.
- ALC 1151.
- 9.
Musical Challenge: By Association
Stravinsky had thought the 'Happy Birthday' tune to be a folk melody whereas it in fact appears to have been composed by Patty and Mildred Hill, though their authorship is not entirely certain.
Broadcast
- Tue 4 Jul 2017 09:00鶹Լ Radio 3