Radio 2’s most emotional performances from the Piano Room

There's something about BBC Radio 2's fabled Piano Room that brings out an emotive intensity in singers. Stripping a song back to its core elements - an instrument and a voice - forces performers to directly address the feeling in a song, as if being hand-delivered to its audience one set of ears at a time.

This week Tony Hadley, former lead singer of Spandau Ballet, graced the Piano Room to perform an acoustic set, including a cover of Dakota by Stereophonics, an intense, wall-shaking blast through Spandau's Through the Barricades and his single Tonight Belongs to Us.

And he is by no means the only star to take full advantage of Ken Bruce's hospitality in order to deliver something truly stirring...

ABBA's immaculate hits were the product of two remarkable voices and two remarkable songwriters. Benny Andersson provided a hefty amount of the melodic sophistication that make songs like SOS and Knowing Me, Knowing You sound desperately sad and utterly uplifting at the same time, so it's wonderful to be able to see him work his magic on Sir Elton John's trusty piano. Anthem is taken from Benny and partner Björn Ulvaeus's musical Chess, but stripped of its West End glitz, it more closely resembles a chamber music recital, created and played with the delicate precision of a master musician.

Gregory Porter's voice could add gravitas to any song, from a deep soul classic to the Teletubbies theme. So it's no surprise to hear him deliver the lyrical concerns of Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars with infinite warmth and tenderness. He takes a song which, from young Bruno, is the sound of someone in the first flush of new love, and makes it about eternal adoration, the kind of glowing affection that the passing years can't diminish.

While many Weller fans pine for the glory days of The Jam, his Style Council hits have also weathered the years exceptionally well, particularly this summery moment of introspection. Here Paul sings of his emotional turmoil in a voice that has taken on the rasp of experience. He's no longer the young pup with a head full of ideas, hankering to play breezy soul like Curtis Mayfield, he's a man who has seen a few things and made a few mistakes, but still wants to look to a brighter future.

Pearl's a Singer was always a song about the bittersweet joys of a life in showbusiness, depicting a nightclub singer who may once have been a big deal, still belting out the hits year after year. Two things make this a singularly emotional performance. The first is that Elkie Brooks can clearly greatly empathise with the woman she is singing about, being a showbiz trouper herself, and the second is the joy that she still has that astonishing honey-and-sand voice, its power undiminished by the passing years.

OneRepublic's Apologize is a ghostly howl of pain from a disappointed lover. What Ryan Tedder (who wrote the song) does is recast the musical arrangement, emphasising his exceptionally nimble fingers - the piano introduction is like something from the Proms - and singing the song with a full-throated soul howl. It's one of the Piano Room's most remarkable song transformations.

Some music attains its power by being instantly familiar, and Benjamin Clementine's songs play with that notion, being at one and the same time like and unlike the great rolling ballads from the golden years of Broadway. This performance of Gone showcases his ability to create his own musical world just using the piano, a set of conversational lyrics and his deep and tremulous voice.

In May 2017, Rick Wakeman - who had played keyboards on several key tracks in the early career of David Bowie, paid a heartfelt tribute to his former boss with a sparkling instrumental arrangement of Bowie's breakthrough hit Space Oddity. It has all of the theatricality and mournfulness of the original, underlining what an arresting songwriter Bowie was.

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