Category Archives: Playlists

Playlist – Late Elgar

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by Ben Hogwood

If you’re reading this in the UK you will have noticed the sharpness in the air, an unmistakeable sign that summer is giving way to autumn.

At this time of year my musical thoughts often turn to late Elgar (above), and four works in particular that unwittingly depict the changing of the seasons with a striking clarity. Those four pieces are, in order of publication, the Violin Sonata in E minor Op.82, the String Quartet in E minor Op.83, the Piano Quintet in A minor Op.84 and the Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85.

Each piece – in a minor key – was written at Brinkwells (above), a thatched cottage in Sussex where Elgar had spent the previous summer with wife Alice and daughter Carice. The Violin Sonata was completed in summer 1918:

Immediately after the composer began the String Quartet, finished just before Christmas 1918:

Spring 1919 saw the completion of the Piano Quintet…

…before the Cello Concerto, one of his crowning glories, was completed in time for an October 1919 premiere:

They are the last four major compositions completed by Elgar – and you can listen to complete recordings of each one on this Spotify playlist:

Playlist – Daniel Patrick Cohen

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Daniel Patrick Cohen. Picture credit Alexandra Făgărășan

Arcana is delighted to hand our playlist baton over to Daniel Patrick Cohen, whose fascinating new album We Deliver is on our own playlist for review shortly.

Cohen, a Londoner living in Romania, has a particular love for film music and hip hop, and wrote a substantial score for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Pleasure Garden, as part of the British Film Institute’s Rescue The Hitchcock 9 enterprise, where composers were invited to score the director’s silent films.

With We Deliver, Cohen writes a love letter to hip hop in the form of a 32-track album featuring 67 musicians, described as a lo-fi work entirely made up of throwaway-type tracks that a hip hop producer might have written.

His playlist, then, contains 15 such ‘throwaway’ tracks, including inspired examples from the likes of Daft Punk, J Dilla, Radiohead, Björk and even Mozart alongside five of his own compositions blended in to reveal the loose connections. He elaborated for us:

“The idea is that these tracks were moments of magic which I imagine captured the mood on a day so perfectly that they resisted being developed and expanded. I think it’s worth elaborating that there’s nothing “lazy” about them; on the contrary, one could spend a lifetime waiting for these moments!”

In Appreciation – Lars Vogt

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by Ben Hogwood

Yesterday we learned of the incredibly sad news that the pianist Lars Vogt had died, at the age of 51.

The warmth and appreciation of tributes paid to him from fellow artists yesterday evening testify to his warm personality, strength of character and great musicianship. Lars was diagnosed with cancer early in 2021, but even in his chemotherapy found that playing the piano channelled the most positive energy and feeling. Here, for instance, is a wonderful performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.24 given as part of the Parnu Festival with the Estonian Festival Orchestra and Paavo Järvi.

Lars was an extremely versatile artist, either as a soloist, chamber musician or conductor. Regular partners included violinist Christian Tetzlaff and cellist Truls Mørk, while he took part in a formidable piano trio with Christian and cellist Tanja Tetzlaff. He also proved himself a conductor of some note from the keyboard, directing the Royal Northern Sinfonia from the piano in recordings of the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris in the concertos of Mendelssohn.

His orchestral partners spoke of him with great warmth, and certainly his time in Newcastle with the Royal Northern Sinfonia was characterised by energetic, creative music making and seasonal planning. My own memories of solo performance run back to a spellbinding account of the Goldberg Variations at Wigmore Hall:

Wigmore Mondays – Lars Vogt plays the Bach Goldberg Variations

As a concerto soloist I also recall a memorable account of Brahms’ Piano Concerto no.2 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Jiří Bělohlávek at the Proms:

https://www.classicalsource.com/prom/a-prom-from-1958/

At the same festival, I also recall a full-blooded account of the Bartók Violin Sonata no.1 with Christian Tetzlaff:

https://www.classicalsource.com/prom/proms-2011-christian-tetzlaff-lars-vogt/

As a recording artist, Vogt enjoyed many peaks, mostly in the company of the Ondine label. The playlist below brings together just a section of these recordings, in the knowledge that a couple more are yet to be released.

He will be greatly missed, and we send condolences to all his family and friends. His lasting gift to us is in the form of recordings we will treasure greatly:

Playlist: Herbert Blomstedt at 95

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by Ben Hogwood

To mark the 95th birthday of the great Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt on Monday just gone, Arcana has put together a playlist including a snapshot of some of his greatest and most enduring recordings.

They include the Fifth Symphony of Nielsen, part of a landmark cycle of the composer’s symphonies with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for Decca. Blomstedt’s recordings with that orchestra in the 1990s were notable for their sonic prowess but left some critics cold; however on revisiting his Sibelius cycle, for instance, they stand up very well. The Third Symphony is included here, as is the first Peer Gynt Suite of Grieg.

Also in the 1990s came a trio of fascinating discs lending weight to the cause of Paul Hindemith. A disc of the Mathis der Maler Symphony, the Symphonic Metamorphoses and Trauermusik was to be expected, perhaps, but the follow-ups were even more valuable – a disc of the music for Nobilissima Visione, the Konzertmusik for Brass and Strings and Der Schwanendreher, and a pairing of the Symphonia Serena and symphony from the opera Die Harmonie der Welt, included here.

Blomstedt has more recently recorded a well-received Brahms cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, though prior to that recorded a fine disc of the composer’s choral works in San Francisco. With the Gewandhaus, however, he has completed his most recent release, that of Schubert’s Unfinished and Great symphonies. The former is included here. Enjoy this selection of wonderful recordings!

In Appreciation – David Lloyd-Jones

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by Ben Hogwood

This week we have learned the sad news of the death of conductor David Lloyd-Jones, at the age of 87. David was instrumental in founding Opera North in 1978, and there is a heartfelt tribute on their website in his honour.

While Lloyd-Jones was a highly respected opera conductor, I have chosen to focus on his many and pioneering recordings of English music by way of a tribute. These include extensive surveys of the orchestral music of Stanford (including a symphony cycle), Alwyn, Bliss, Rawsthorne and Arnold Bax, including another survey of his symphonies, and Holst – with an important disc of his orchestral music released in 1998. Here is just a hint of his discography for Naxos, with highlights from some very impressive recordings:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22SawZKt5VWg73i46KyERL?si=98fc7c8e59984232