Category Archives: Playlists

Playlist – Christophe Rousset & Les Talens Lyriques

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by Ben Hogwood

Christophe Rousset is a long-admired exponent of music from the Baroque period – but as this playlist shows, he should not be pinned down to that one era!

This year marks 30 years of his pioneering group Les Talens Lyriques, and the playlist below draws on recordings made in that period for the famous Universal imprint L’Oiseau Lyre, Decca and more recently the Bru Zane and Aparté labels. For the former Rousset conducted a landmark recording of Gounod’s Faust, released in 2019, while the latter are releasing three new albums this autumn.

Excerpts from the trio can be heard below, along with a celebration of Rousset’s contribution both as conductor and harpsichordist. There is much to enjoy here!

In Appreciation – Ned Rorem

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by Ben Hogwood

In the last week we have learned of the sad news of the death of Ned Rorem, albeit at the wonderful age of 99. The American composer was much loved for his insistence on sticking to a style of music that he ‘wanted to hear’, as this excellent obituary from Guy Rickards for The Guardian states.

The Indiana-born Rorem leaves us with a good deal of vocal and instrumental music, much of it in a short form and with over 500 songs. Yet he showed himself more than capable of mastering longer forms too, with three symphonies, numerous concertos and a number of stage works. The playlist below draws from all corners of his compositional output, showing his way with a tune, his ability as a fine orchestrator and the way he wrote so winsomely for the human voice. There are two concertos here – for violin and for mallet instruments, a recent concerto recording with Dame Evelyn Glennie as soloist. Hope you enjoy the music!

Playlist – Daniel Barenboim

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Yesterday marked the 80th birthday of the great pianist and conductor, Daniel Barenboim.

In celebration Arcana has compiled a playlist from just a fraction of his many, many recordings. There is so much from which to choose, as Barenboim’s discography runs from early days at EMI, and recordings with his late wife, cellist Jacqueline du Pré, through a substantial body of work for Warner Classics to his current ‘home’, Deutsche Grammophon.

Our small but perfectly formed playlist includes an extract from his most recent release of Schumann symphonies, with the Berlin Staatskapelle, but also some of those early recordings, including a Beethoven piano trio with du Pré and violinist Pinchas Zukerman:

Playlist – Natalia Gutman

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Today marks the 80th birthday of the distinguished Russian cellist Natalia Gutman.

A pupil of Mstislav Rostropovich, Gutman has performed and recorded with legendary conductors Kirill Kondrashin, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky and Yuri Temirkanov among many others. Alfred Schnittke wrote a number of pieces for her, including his first Cello Concerto.

In the biography on her website, Elizabeth Wilson writes that ‘as an enthusiast of chamber music she formed an important musical relationship with the exceptional violinist Oleg Kagan, who became her husband. Together they formed a trio with Sviatoslav Richter, who also frequently acted as Natalia’s duo partner.

You can enjoy her artistry through the Spotify playlist below, including recordings of concertos by Shostakovich and that dedication from Schnittke:

Musical Fireworks for Guy Fawkes Night

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With it being Guy Fawkes Night tonight, Arcana has decided to put on a quick fireworks display – in the form of two pieces from two of the 20th century’s standout composers.

The first is from Claude Debussy’s second book of Préludes for the piano, published in 1913. His firework display is set for the evening of 14 July, Bastille Day, but the depiction of the mini explosives is brilliantly done – as is the interpolation of snippets of the Marseillaise:

The second depiction of fireworks is through the orchestra, by Igor Stravinsky. His work predates Debussy’s by five years, and is for orchestra – described as ‘a short orchestral fantasy’. It was apparently a wedding present to his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov: