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(…meditate…)

Twenty pieces for the times when words are the problem. Classical repertoire, film themes and a little modern minimalism, sequenced purely for stillness.

...meditate...

A classical playlist assembled by someone whose main territory is soul and jazz is usually worth more than one assembled by a specialist, because the selections are made by ear rather than by catalogue. That is exactly what this is: twenty pieces chosen for how they feel rather than for their place in the repertoire.

The result cuts across four centuries without apology, and it works because the organising principle is consistent — slow tempo, small forces, no drama.

What to listen for

Satie's Gymnopédie No. 3 in the Branford Marsalis arrangement is the perfect opening. Satie wrote these pieces in 1888 as deliberately furniture-like music, decades before anyone used that phrase, and the saxophone reading honours that intention rather than decorating it.

Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" is the modern centrepiece and probably the most emotionally efficient piece of string writing of the last thirty years — six minutes built almost entirely from a rising figure repeated at different pitches.

Tchaikovsky's Andante cantabile with Bobby McFerrin is the surprise: a voice taking the cello line, which sounds like it should not work and is remarkable.

Debussy's Clair de Lune and The Girl With The Flaxen Hair are here in piano readings, and the latter is the one fewer people know and the better piece.

Bach's Air on the G String and the Goldberg Variations aria with Murray Perahia are the classical anchors, and the Well-Tempered Clavier C major prelude is where Bach's entire architecture is visible in ninety seconds.

Albinoni's Adagio should carry an asterisk: it was largely composed in the twentieth century by Remo Giazotto, who presented it as a reconstruction. It remains gorgeous.

Holst's Venus, Handel's Ombra mai fu and Janáček's Idyll fill out the orchestral selections, and Tim Wheater and Nitin Sawhney bring it back towards the contemporary.

Go deeper

Max Richter's The Blue Notebooks and his recomposition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons are the obvious next steps.

Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel and Górecki's Third Symphony belong in the same emotional register, and Erik Satie's complete piano works are worth owning outright.

How to use it: the set is built for stillness rather than for study, and it rewards being played at a genuinely low volume. Most of these pieces were written for rooms without amplification, and pushed loud they acquire a drama none of them was designed to carry.

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