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Essential Classics

Music: Classical

Refresh your morning with a great selection of classical music

Refresh your morning with a great selection of classical music, presented by Suzy Klein and Ian Skelly

Essential Classics: Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Tom Conti

Monday - Rob Cowan with Tom Conti

22/06/2016

Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Tom Conti

BBC Radio 3 - Essential Classics, Wednesday - Rob Cowan with Tom Contisearch

With Rob Cowan. Including Kodaly's Psalmus Hungaricus and Brahms's Cello Sonata No 2.

With Rob Cowan. Including My Favourite Tenor Arias; Music in Time: Kodaly: Psalmus Hungaricus; Artist of the Week: Daniil Shafran, featured performing Brahms's Cello Sonata No 2.

9am
My favourite... tenor arias. Throughout the week Rob shares some of his favourite tenor arias, with voices both familiar (Franco Corelli, Richard Tucker and the legendary Carlo Bergonzi) and unfamiliar (Bruno Prevedi and Flaviano Labo). The repertoire ranges from the touching simplicity of Pergolesi's 'Nina' to the searing melodrama of Leoncavallo's 'Vesti la giubba', via Verdi, Giordano and Ponchielli. 

9.30am
Take part in our daily musical challenge: identify a piece of music played backwards.

10am 
Rob's guest this week is the Tony Award-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, writer and director Tom Conti. Famous internationally for his roles in films such as Shirley Valentine, Reuben, Reuben and The Dark Knight Rises, Tom was recently voted the most popular actor in the West End in the last 25 years. Tom talks about his career-defining acting roles and shares a selection of his favourite classical music, including works by Donizetti, Handel and Verdi, every day at 10am. 

10.30am 
Music in Time: Modern
Rob places Music in Time as he explores the Modern era and Zoltán Kodály's passionately nationalistic Psalmus Hungaricus, commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of the union of the cities of Buda, Pest and Óbuda. In the event, it also marked the beginning of his international reputation as a composer.

11am
Rob's artist of the week is Daniil Shafran, the 'other' great Russian cellist, who Rob considers to have a more individual style than the better-known Rostropovich. Shafran is deliciously quick-witted in the Shostakovich Sonata, passionate in Brahms's 2nd, and profoundly responsive to the voices of Beethoven, Chopin and Rachmaninov. His tone, full and sensual, was quite unlike anyone else's. 

Brahms
Cello Sonata No. 2 in F, Op. 99
Daniil Shafran, cello
Felix Gottlieb, piano.

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