We all have a piece of music that works every time. Twelve leading Londoners on the arts scene share their favourites with us, and there's something for every mood, with music to calm you down, pep you up or just take you to bigger horizons
'Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro was the first opera I ever performed in,' says Anna Patalong, who would have sung the important role of Gilda in Opera Holland Park's Rigoletto last summer. 'Those very first quavers still instantly give me the same adrenaline rush of waiting in the wings ready to go on. Very welcome as I haven't been on a proper stage in over a year now!' The curtain goes up on our classical playlist here, with the exhilarating Overture to The Marriage of Figaro.
Music and musicians are often represented in the collection of the National Gallery, where plans for 200-year celebrations have just been announced. Look forward to new-look entrances and other improvements by 2024, but in the meantime, close your eyes and conjure up your favourite picture. Piero della Francesca's Nativity (1470-75) with musical angels (pictured), perhaps. And play gallery director Gabriele Finaldi's choice: the opening Allegro from Vivaldi's effervescent Concerto in C major, played here by Avi Avital.
'Utterly sunny' is how David Benedict describes the opening movement of Franz Schubert's Symphony No 5. Marked Allegro, its optimistic serenity makes those shoulders drop in an instant. Hear the great Karl Böhm conduct the legendary Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra here. And when that sun has done its work, join David for American composer John Adams's giddying Short Ride in a Fast Machine.
'One of my all-time favourite happy pieces is JS Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze,' says the composer Roxanna Panufnik. 'There's such a sense of all being well in the world when I listen to that. I prefer the orchestral version. The best, I think, is arranged by the conductor Leopold Stokowski, who also happened to be my godfather. I'm not remotely biased, of course! The piano solo is nice. It's lifting my soul as I write!' Listen to Stokowski conduct his own Stokowski Symphony Orchestra here.
David Mellor listens round the clock to music from across all genres, preparing for his Saturday evening Classic FM broadcast. But like Roxanna Panufnik, it's JS Bach for him when he wants to relax. He chooses the composer's radiant Italian Concerto: 'exhilarating and designed to lighten any mood'. There are many recordings to choose from, including a smokey version by the Jacques Loussier Trio, or this, played by pianist Alfred Brendel.
London-based composer Elena Langer has been hard at work during lockdown on an opera based on a black comedy by Nikolay Erdman, to be premiered in Moscow. Born in Russia, she turns to the avant-garde music of her own country for our playlist. 'This is the first thing which popped to my mind: Time, Forward by Georgy Sviridov. It's a guaranteed pick-me-up! (You might even want to go and build soviet factories upon hearing this.)' See how far you dare turn up the volume....
With Chineke!, Chi-chi Nwanoku has been rehearsing Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Ballade in A Minor, to be released soon. 'It's absolutely joyous. It's the first piece we opened with when Chineke! gave its inaugural concert. None of us had ever played Coleridge-Taylor before, but he was the leading composer of his lifetime. We all love a good tune, and he writes the most wonderful melodies and harmony, from the heart.' Discover the Ballade for yourself, here
Wasfi Kani and Grange Park Opera have been fantastically resourceful during lockdown, constantly coming up with new ways of sharing music. 'I’d like to recommend the chorus of the Flemish Deputies in Don Carlo,' she says of the Verdi opera staged at Grange Park's new home in 2019. 'Six dark male voices plead with the harsh Philip II for their country's freedom. "An entire people beseeches you to end their tears ...take pity on us and save our land..."' Listen to 'Sire, no, l'ora estremo', Act III scene 2, here.
Alexandra Epps leads guided walks through the hidden masterpieces in the City of London and lectures nationwide, but during lockdown has continued talking about art online. 'I listen to the all sorts of music when researching my talks,' she says. 'And even though I invariably end up with Steve Reich, I came across William Walton’s In Honour of the City of London one day. I found quite uplifting, as I was singing the praises of the City at the time in my talk about the Art of the River.' Listen to In Honour of the City of London here and look forward to being out and about again.
While live performance with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Classical Opera and Mozart Festival Orchestra is mostly on hold, Steven Devine has been in the recording studio, and it's a recording by fellow early music specialist Paul McCreesh that he finds thrilling. 'The reason is the use of the natural horns (straight from the hunting field) playing fast and high – especially at the wonderful exuberant tempo taken here. It’s recorded in the gallery of the church using the big church organ as the foundation of the ensemble and we get a possible glimpse of the thrilling power of Bach’s energy and the power of music to convey emotion.' Listen to the Gloria from JS Bach's Mass in F major here.
While working on his own Sixth Symphony and an Oboe Concerto, Matthew Taylor turns to the finale of Schumann's Rhenish Symphony - 'you can just hear the wine clinking', Dvorak Slavonic Dance No.1 – 'it just fizzes', but if I had to choose just one it would be Carl Nielsen's Maskarade Overture, I think the greatest comic overture ever written and it says all that it needs to in four minutes. Listen to it here.
Stephen Hough was the first to perform when live concerts resumed at Wigmore Hall, opening his recital with JS Bach. 'When I leave the piano (I’ve been working ferociously during the whole lockdown year) I like to leave classical music behind. So can I suggest Gonzalo Rubalcalba? The Cuban jazz pianist whose fingers fizz like no one else’s on the planet and who has a harmonic awareness as sharp as a needle’s point.' Let your hair down at the end of our playlist with Rubalcalba's breathtaking Well You Needn't here.
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