Classic FM's Relaxation Favourites
Listening to calm and soothing classical music is a wonderful way to relax and unwind. Here Classic FM's presenters and producers share some of their favourite classical music for relaxation...
Jane Jones
My favourite relaxation track is Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor , it's like a warm hand around your heart. Healing, calming and reassuring all in one go, the moment when the piano finally comes in after the orchestra in the second movement is one of the most moving in all music with it's sensation of utter relief.
Jamie Crick
My first choice would be anything by Beethoven because his paino music speaks differently to the soul everytime you hear it. It is utterly beautiful and has a depth which makes it at once like a still lake, thoughtful and placid but there is terrible undercurrent of torment and anguish too. The next one is Ravel Piano Concerto . It is like a musical Picasso written as it was with it's jazz influence - relaxing but decadent and very 1920's.
Alex James
I find all classical music relaxing to be honest. I always listen to Classic FM when I'm driving and if I had to choose one piece it would be Satie's Gymnopédie No.1 - you can't get more relaxing than that.
Nick Bailey
Le Onde by Ludovico Einaudi transports me to another world, and I can day dream to my heart’s content. And no matter hose stressed I've been, Ravel's Piano Concerto in G always does the trick in putting me back on an even keel.
Natalie Wheen
Schubert - Fantasia in F minor, D940 for piano duet has the most heart-achingly beautiful melody from the man who was the king of song writing: one of the last pieces he wrote, it's autumnal, elegiac - not that it doesn't have its moments of storm and passion (he was after all still in his thirties when he was dying). And best of all for a piece of music to calm the soul after a bad day, there's not a diva in sight - it's music for your sitting room, for you and a friend to play together at one piano. Glass of wine and hanky essential.
Anne-Marie Minhall
If there’s been a stressful journey home (pretty much the norm), I like to travel to a different place and listen to something like Craig Armstrong ’s big screen music from both Romeo & Juliet or Nigel Hess’ Piano Concerto played by Lang Lang . Piano music rules at home; sometimes nothing else will do whilst pondering over a crossword.
Margherita Taylor
It’s so hard to just pick just one piece of relaxing music I love. Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2 , the Second Movement is a great piece to really get that relaxation underway on the way home from a hard day and if it’s been really stressful Jay Ungar’s Ashokan Farewell transports me to a the most beautiful peaceful landscapes. Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” from Suite Bergamasque is a piece my God Children love to hear after bath and story time and the “Balcony Scene” from Romeo and Juliet by Armstrong is just pure slow burning passion, fabulous!
John Brunning
Clair de Lune' from Suite Bergamasque is one of Debussy’s most beautiful tunes, and for me, all the best relaxing music has to be rich in melody. Ideally, I would listen to this in a darkened room using a good pair of headphones. Sheer bliss!
Bob Jones
I live in Wales so it has to be Lovland's You Raise Me Up . I like listening to it in the car when I'm driving around the beautiful valleys of Snowdonia.
Tim Lihoreau
I think the "ONE...two three...ONE...two...three", half waltz, half lullaby nature of Cosma's Sentimental Walk , make this modern classic one of the most chilled tracks ever. I first heard it when i was as a duffel-clad, penniless student, set amongst the Catalani and conspiracy of the moody French film, Diva, and fell in love with it. It's used in the film to illustrate a walk between the young star and opera singer Wilhelmenia Fernandez. I just have to hear it and I'm back in the Hyde Park Picture Palace in Leeds, aged 20. Wonderful.
Laurence Llewllyn-Bowen
Listening to Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 2 the second movement is a wonderful way of taking my ears far far away.
‘Relaxation - The Ultimate Piano Chillout Album', Classic FM's superb collection of the most soothing, chilled out piano pieces, on 3 CDs. Out to buy on 14 September.
