BBC Music Magazine May 2016

ON DISC Scarlatti return Back in 2005, Yevgeny Sudbin’s first solo recording for BIS, of Scarlatti sonatas, brought him to international attention. A decade-or-so later, and with a string of well-reviewed discs now behind him, the Russian pianist has returned to Scarlatti, see review p83. Plus he talks to us about his recording career so far, See Rewind p13 ON AIR Young guns On 15 May, three talented young players will be bidding to inherit pianist Martin James Bartlett’s title of BBC Young Musician. BBC Four and Radio 3 will be broadcasting the performances, as the finalists appear at the Barbican in London alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. See p94 ON STAGE Complex opera Sophocles comes to the Royal Opera House this month, as Enescu’s rarely…

Stephen Johnson Writer and broadcaster ‘Writing my orchestral piece Behemoth Dances has been one of the most exhilarating adventures of my life. Even after recounting it in these pages, it still feels a bit like a dream. I suspect the performance will change that.’ Page 42 Brian Wise Music journalist ‘At first, dropping into strangers’ apartments to cover Groupmuse, which arranges house parties featuring live classical music, was a bit daunting. But that trepidation was unnecessary: music provided the ideal conversation fodder.’ Page 46 Hilary Finch Music critic and broadcaster ‘Mahler’s intense and often anguished love of the life-force itself, as well as of the human love within it, energises his music uniquely. When his inspiration meets that of the poet Friedrich Rückert, something…

Antonio Pappano seemed delighted to have just six days to record Aida If the winners of the BBC Music Magazine Awards spent months, even years, preparing for their recordings, financial pressures have decreased the amount of time musicians spend in the studios to the bare minimum. Not that they’re necessarily complaining. When I spoke to Sir Antonio Pappano about recording Aida in Rome, he seemed almost delighted to have had just six days to put it all together, suggesting that time limitations made his singers and players more alert and gave the sessions a nervous edge. No room these days, he suggested, for the multiple weeks that the major labels used to lavish on their biggest productions. That’s not to say that today’s finished product is inferior. Quite the opposite.…

LISTEN WITH ANTONY Ivan Hewett (The Art of Listening, April) is a little hard on Antony Hopkins and his Talking About Music programmes. He accurately expresses Hopkins’s view that ‘listening is a skill, and without it we miss much that music has to offer’, but then describes this as the ‘determination to prescribe the right way to listen’. Hopkins did not, I would say, prescribe – rather he said things like, ‘Did you hear that bit? It’s going to crop up again a bit later, with a difference.’ He provided a map so that you could find your way through a piece without getting lost; or he took you for a walk, pointing out the scenery. Of course, you can listen to music in many ways, and much depends on…

HISTORIC SCHUMANN In Alex Marshall’s National Deficit article about national anthems (March issue) your side-panel mentions Schumann’s Hermann und Dorothea as one of the two most famous works to quote La Marseillaise. I would say that a better known work by Schumann with a La Marseillaise quote is Die beiden Grenadiere, Op. 47 No. 1 from 1840, one of the composer’s most beloved songs. Set to a poem by Heinrich Heine, it is also more historically accurate than Hermann und Dorothea, as the story occurs during the Napoleonic wars. It has been recorded by several great baritones, but none matches Erich Kunz’s recording from early 1960. Long out of print, this timeless rendition can be found on YouTube.…

Sir Simon Rattle has led tributes paid to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, the composer and former Master of the Queen’s Music, who has died at the age of 81. ‘It is clear to everyone that we have lost a wonderful composer and one of our most important artistic figures,’ wrote the conductor in the Guardian; ‘a man who embodied music, and who wanted it to be part of everybody’s life.’ Exactly how Sir Peter will be remembered is anyone’s guess – the establishment figure of his older years, and composer of accessible and popular works such as Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise and Farewell to Stromness, bears little resemblance to the outspoken, radical firebrand of his youth. But through his career, one thing remained a constant: his inventiveness and enthusiasm. Born…