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Episode details

Radio 3,03 Apr 2026,30 mins

Switch up your listening with classical music

Classical Mixtape

Available for 29 days

Good Friday reflection is woven into half an hour of back to back classical music to help you move gently into the Bank Holiday weekend. The sequence opens with a heart-wrenching setting of "Drop slow tears" by a 15-year-old William Walton, and a melancholy "Song for the lonely" by William Grant Still. Max Richter's score for the film Hamnet has won much praise, and the extract "Look at me" it sits alongside some reassuringly familiar and uplifting Bach, followed by a prelude based on a Welsh hymn tune by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Gavin Bryars' touching orchestral treatment of a recording made of a homeless person singing about his trust in Jesus was made famous by the singer Tom Waits, and sits movingly in between a poignant study of Christ's hands by Buxtehude, and Ola Gjeilo's depiction of Winter Light, performed by the saxophonist and Radio 3 presenter Jess Gillam. The mix comes to a close with a Medieval Italian song by St Lorenzo Giustiniani, performed by Joglaresa and Belinda Sykes, praising the loving devotion of Mary Magdalene, who was tasked with telling the other disciples that Jesus had risen from the tomb. Producer: Helen Garrison

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Tracklist

  1. Track
    Artist
  2. 1.
    A Litany: Drop, drop slow tears
    A Litany: Drop, drop slow tears
    William Walton
  3. 2.
    Song For The Lonely
    Song For The Lonely
    William Grant Still
  4. 3.
    Hamnet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack); Look at me
    Hamnet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack); Look at me
    Max Richter