Platinum Jubilee playlist: classical music to celebrate Her Majesty’s 70-year reign

25 May 2022, 10:44 | Updated: 26 May 2022, 13:45

By Classic FM

@ClassicFM

Our new Global Player playlist celebrates Britain’s beloved composers, alongside anecdotes from Classic FM presenters who have met Her Majesty The Queen.

In celebration of Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, we have launched a brand new, rolling live playlist on Global Player.

Classic FM’s Platinum Jubilee Celebration is a non-stop stream of the greatest celebratory classical music by British composers, from Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Handel to Holst and Benjamin Britten.

Designed to be the sound of your Platinum Jubilee street party, our playlist also features anecdotes from Classic FM presenters, who share their memories of meeting Her Majesty The Queen.

Click here, or anywhere on the image below, to listen.

Alan Titchmarsh, who has met the monarch twice, recalls the time he “was showing her around a garden I’d made at Chelsea Flower Show – for which I’d got a gold medal. But it had a little patch of vegetables in it, and my sovereign’s first words to me were: ‘Your onions are awfully small’.”

Titchmarsh, who presents from 7am to 10am on Saturday mornings on Classic FM, adds: “Fast forward about 30 years to a garden I made at Chelsea Flower Show in 2014, to celebrate my 50th anniversary of being a gardener. I’d done a garden called ‘From the Moors to the Sea’ because I started in Yorkshire and now I’ve got a little place on the Isle of Wight.

“And it had quite large rocky outcrops in it. And her majesty said to me, oh goodness me, your boulders are rather large…”

Aled Jones, who takes the baton at 10am on Saturdays, said: “I had the pleasure of singing for Her Majesty The Queen on Commonwealth Day from Westminster Abbey. Afterwards, I was in the line-up to have the famous handshake and she turned round to me and said, ‘Ah, you’re the boy that my husband listens to on Sunday mornings.’

God Save the Queen in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle

“So, Prince Philip came up afterwards and I said apparently your wife, Her Majesty The Queen, says you listen to me on a Sunday morning, and he said rubbish! I listen to that cheeky Welsh boy…”

John Suchet, presenter of The Classic FM Concert, said: “I met her at ITN when she came to visit us, and I showed her around the studio, and she sat in the control room as I presented the news. No pressure then, at all! She’s small with a tiny little voice, but when you meet her, something happens. You are in the presence of someone truly extraordinary.”

Alexander Armstrong, host of weekday mid-mornings on Classic FM, recalls: “I was invited to go and speak to the Women’s Institute at Sandringham… and there in this tiny village hall, in the middle of mossy Norfolk, was the monarch. Possibly the most famous human being on the planet. She was dazzling – I don’t know if anyone ever really prepares you for that.”

Explore other Classic FM playlists on Global Player here >