Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i BBC Music Magazine

George Hall Critic and writer ‘As someone who first encountered the legendary Italian tenor Enrico Caruso on buying a 45rpm EP more than 50 years ago, I still register a frisson on experiencing one of the greatest voices ever to record.’ Page 26 Richard Bratby Critic and writer ‘There’s no such thing as a typical orchestra, but when I started researching the history of the CBSO I never expected quite so many surprises – the low points as well as some remarkable success stories.’ Page 38 Jessica Duchen Critic and writer ‘As a biographer of Erich Korngold, I’d waited all my life for John Wilson’s CD of the composer’s Symphony. Wilson totally nails it, and likewise much other music; it was a treat to ask him how he does it.’…

Quite Reicha Thank you for your interesting feature on Beethoven’s life and works (February issue). I would like to bang the drum for an exact contemporary of his who didn’t make either of the lists of ten close acquaintances or five lesser-known contemporaries, but belongs in both: Antoine Reicha, or, as Beethoven called him, ‘a certain French composer who presented fugues according to a new method, which consists of this, that the fugue is no longer a fugue’. Berlioz, who was a harsh critic of the Paris Conservatoire in general, recognised Reicha as a good teacher and unusually open to new ideas. These included minimalism – a piece entirely on the E major triad – and quarter-tones. And, yes, some extraordinary fugues: with a single repeated note as subject, where…

800 …recitals given in Birmingham’s Town Hall and Symphony Hall by Thomas Trotter in his role as City Organist, a post he has held since 1983. 1 …broken foot, suffered by Bryn Terfel in Bilbao, forcing the bass-baritone to pull out of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. 25,100,000 …views of Anna Fedorova’s live performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, making it the most watched concerto on YouTube to date. 9 …Swiss tenors on one stage, keeping delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos entertained while awaiting the late arrival of US President Donald Trump (above).…

On 24 March 1916 at the height of the First World War, the SS Sussex, a passenger ferry travelling from England to France, was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine. The unprovoked attack killed around 50, two of whom were the Spanish pianist and composer Enrique Granados and his wife Amparo Gal. It was a series of ironic twists of fate that led Granados to be on this particular ship. Based on the positive reviews of his earlier piano suite Goyescas, the Paris Opera commissioned Granados to adapt the work into an opera, the premiere of which was scheduled to take place in Paris in 1914. However, because of the outbreak of World War I, its premiere had to be postponed indefinitely, whereupon the New York publisher G…

In the light of disgraced Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn (left) making his escape from home arrest in Japan by hiding in one of its double bass cases (see Feb issue), Yamaha has issued a statement warning others from trying to conceal themselves in a similar way. ‘Playing Ghosn’ could well end in disaster, says the company, clearly aware of the lethal history of musical equipment over the centuries… The demise of Jean-Baptiste Lully is well known to many. Directing his own Te Deum in 1687 – to celebrate the recovery from surgery of Louis XIV, ironically – the French composer impaled his foot with his conducting staff. He then let the wound grow gangrenous, with fatal consequences. Was Marianne Kirchgessner also the victim of her own musical endeavours? When, in…

Oliver Condy Editor Even ten years ago, it would be almost impossible to find a Chinese orchestra at Western standards. Today, there are a handful of fine ensembles all across China, including the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. I was in Guangzhou in January for its concert of Bach transcriptions by Elgar, Stokowski and Respighi – a spectacular feast, brilliantly masterminded by the orchestra’s talented female conductor, Huan Jing. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor ‘I’ve just heard Dobrinka Tabakova’s (right) Cello Concerto on Radio 3,’ enthused my wife, coming home from work; ‘do you know it?’ ‘Of course!’ I replied, lying through my teeth while making a mental note to take a listen. And I’m glad I did. Superbly performed on disc by cellist Kristina Blaumane, it’s a captivating piece in…

In 1951 the American film-star tenor Mario Lanza made a movie called The Great Caruso, a fictional account of his illustrious predecessor. Though the result is wildly inaccurate – Caruso’s family sued for damages and won – the film gave the Neapolitan tenor’s posthumous fame a major boost. Born in 1921 – the year of Caruso’s death – Lanza (real name Alfredo Cocozza) trained as a singer from the age of 16, but his operatic career was tiny: he sang a couple of performances as Fenton in Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and as Pinkerton in Madam Butterfly – and that was it. But he was good-looking and charismatic, and the quality of his voice was superb. His first film, That Midnight Kiss, was released by MGM in 1949,…

In the West, Toru Takemitsu (1930-96) is surely Japan’s best-known composer, and Noriko Ogawa has been one of his leading interpreters. Her 1996 recording Rain Tree ( BISCD805 ) encompasses his complete solo piano works. Ogawa is also the soloist in riverrun, on the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s A String Around Autumn album of Takemitsu’s concertos ( BISCD1300 ). Yoshihiro Kanno, born in 1953, describes his language as being based on three distinct worlds: Western instrumental music, Japanese traditional instruments and computer music. His Particle of Piano series was commissioned by Ogawa and was given its premiere on Light, Water, Rainbow ( BIS2075 ), a disc profiling his music. More widely, Ogawa has made recordings showcasing a whole host of Japanese composers, including Kozaburo Hirai and Makoto Moroi on…

For an orchestra to thrive, it doesn’t hurt to have a decent concert hall to play in, and in Symphony Hall (above), the CBSO has arguably the finest in the UK. When plans were drawn up for the state-of-the-art venue in the 1980s, no expense was spared in ensuring an exceptional listening experience from every one of its 2,262 seats – acoustician Russell Johnson’s design included a surrounding reverberation chamber, acoustic panels and, above the stage, an acoustic panel, all of which can be altered to create the exact sound required for each performance. The hall opened to great acclaim in April 1991.…

Polish folk roots Even before Chopin, Polish composers were drawn to their country’s folk traditions, and over the long decades when Poland was more of an artistic idea than a political reality this was an important way of keeping the country’s spirit alive. The lively oberek was a special favourite of Bacewicz’s. Neo-classicism Few composers emerging in the 1920s and ’30s were immune to the spirit of neoclassicism, especially not those who flocked to Paris. Along with such figures as her compatriot Alexandre Tansman (above) and Bohuslav Martinu, Bacewicz relished the clarity, economy and high spirits that drew a line under the overt emotionalism of the late Romantics. Socialist Realism Under the diktat of Stalin’s musical henchmen in Moscow, Polish composers were forced in the years around 1950 to subscribe…

Debussy was in his late forties when he began Book I of his Préludes. Groundbreaking masterpieces such as Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894), Pelléas et Mélisande (1903) and La mer (1905) had long established him as a composer of extraordinary craft and invention, though his often acerbic criticism of others and reckless love life had tested the patience of friends and colleagues alike, often beyond repair. By the time he had completed Book II, in April 1913, Debussy’s life was heading into its last chapter – he died of cancer in war-torn Paris in March 1918, aged just 55.…

Was the orchestra’s commitment to recording driven by Mariss Jansons? Absolutely. The founding of the BR Klassik label really went back to his initiative. We’ve released all of our recordings with him over the last ten years on BR. It’s not only the label of our orchestra, but it is fair to say that without him it would probably not exist in the same way. Was Shostakovich’s Tenth important to him? As it happens, this piece was in the repertoire on his last tour with the orchestra, which took place back in October/November 2019. Mariss had conducted remarkable concerts with this symphony in Vienna, Hamburg and Paris; these were three of the most incredible and powerful concerts I’d actually heard from him and the orchestra in years. It is a…

Grétry Raoul Barbe-Bleue Chantal Santon-Jeffery, François Rougier, Matthieu Lécroart, Manuel Núñez Camelino, Eugénie Lefebvre, Enguerrand de Hys, Jérôme Boutillier, Martine Lafdal-Franc; Orkester Nord/Martin Wåhlberg Aparté AP214 87:01 mins (2 discs) André Grétry (1741-1813) is one of those creative figures famous in his lifetime but nowadays little more than a name in reference books; yet he was a prolific and admired composer whose career began under the ancien régime and survived the Revolution to end in the Napoleonic era. His comédie en trois actes et en prose (essentially an opéra comique, thus with spoken dialogue) opened in Paris just three months before the storming of the Bastille, and there’s already an implied criticism of the nobility in the subject of the wife-murdering aristocrat – though the tone of the piece is…

Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-96) Enrico Caruso included in his repertoire arias by the Brazilian Antônio Carlos Gomes, who was the first non-European opera composer to gain success in Italy. With support from Emperor Dom Pedro II, Gomes studied at the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory, followed – after his first two operas were successfully staged – by three years on a scholarship to Milan. Determined to write an opera on a Brazilian subject, Gomes adapted a novel by Brazilian writer José de Alencar: the result, Il Guarany, premiered at La Scala, Milan in 1870 to huge success.…

Beethoven Late String Quartets: No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 ‘Serioso’; No. 12 in E flat, Op. 127; No. 13 in B flat, Op. 130; No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131; No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132; No. 16 in F, Op. 135; Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 Brodsky Quartet Chandos CHAN 20114(3) 230:13 mins (3 discs) These are performances on the largest scale. No doubt Chandos’s favouring of an immense acoustic for the recording has a lot to do with it, but although of course only four instruments are playing, you have to remind yourself that you’re not listening to a symphony orchestra. That is very imposing, but there are times when the intimacy of the works is lost, and though the scale of Beethoven’s inspiration…

Alwyn • Carwithen Alwyn: 12 Preludes; Fantasy Waltzes; Carwithen: Sonatina Daniel Grimwood (piano) Edition Peters EPS 007 73:08 mins What was happening in the world’s piano literature during the 1950s? On one planet, Stockhausen pushed serial composition to fiendish extremes in his testing series of Klavierstücke. On another, deep in England, William Alwyn clung to traditional tonalities in two major sets of preludes and waltzes, climaxing a body of piano works modestly begun 30 years earlier with trifles like A Little Gurgling Brook. Yet to pigeonhole Alwyn as an arch traditionalist would be massively unfair: he might not have shaken off tonality, but each of his 12 Preludes is ruthlessly built up from only a handful of pitches, while also featuring the wide-ranging emotional expression and melodic panache to which…

Beethoven Symphonies Nos 1 & 3 Gould Piano Trio et al Naxos 8.574039 While Hummel’s chamber-scale arrangements of Beethoven could never match the originals for oomph, they are deftly crafted. Elegant performances like these help their cause. (JP) ★★★★ Beethoven Symphony No. 9 Vienna Philharmonic et al DG 483 7505 You’re in safe hands with the Vienna Phil here. The final symphony in the orchestra’s complete Beethoven cycle, this recording is beautifully controlled and brings new depths to the score. (FP) ★★★★★ Braga Santos Chamber Works Quarteto Lopes-Graça et al Toccata Classics TOCC 0207 Folky and atmospheric, much of the Portuguese Braga Santos’s chamber music has surprising hints of early 20th-century Englishness about it. A shame about the bathroomy recorded sound. (JP) ★★★ Castelnuovo-Tedesco Piano Works Angelo Arciglione (piano) Digressione…

Speakers Your speakers are designed to sound best when they’re level with your ears, so position them accordingly, leaving space between wall and speaker to improve mid and bass performance. If you don’t have room for stands, put your speakers on a layer of foam to isolate your music from floor vibrations. Turntables It’s worth putting your player away from your speakers, too, and a dedicated wall shelf can help reduce vibrations that spread through wooden floors. Make sure your cartridge is properly aligned and your tone arm is using the recommended tracking force. Cables Thick wire (1.6 – 2.6mm) is recommended if you have to run a long cable as it helps minimise resistance. For shorter lengths you can save money by using thinner cables (1.3mm or less) but…

32. The Guildhall Where: Bath Built: 1775-8 Seats: c300 As they hare around on their tour of other Georgian gems such the Royal Crescent, Assembly Rooms and Pulteney Bridge – not forgetting, of course, the Roman baths themselves – most visitors to Bath probably don’t even notice the Guildhall. Situated on the High Street, just round the corner from the Abbey, this Grade II-listed building does its job both unobtrusively and efficiently. Designed by architect Thomas Baldwin and built out of Bath stone, the Guildhall has served as the Somerset city’s administrative centre since the late 18th century, and is still home to the register office and local archives. Next door, meanwhile, the Guildhall Market holds around 20 stalls. Concerts here are held in the splendour of the Banqueting Room…

Beethoven’s Fidelio The Royal Opera House brings in Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with a sold-out new production of the great composer’s only opera. Its starry cast includes Lise Davidsen and Jonas Kaufmann in the leading roles. Opera on 3: 28 March, 5pm Total Immersion: Anders Hillborg Join the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the climax of its series exploring the unique cinematic soundworlds of Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. His First Violin Concerto and flamboyant new Clarinet Concerto receive UK premieres in a programme of works inspired by Nordic landscapes. Radio 3 in Concert: 2 March, 7.30pm International Women’s Day Radio 3 pays tribute to female composers on 8 March, beginning at 1am with works by women played throughout the night. Highlights on the day include the premiere of a choral work…

If you saw our Christmas issue, you’ll have read Simon Heighes’s excellent piece on the EMI Archives over in Middlesex and perhaps spotted a photo of a wooden recording horn used by Caruso atop a trolley (pushed, incidentally, by none other than archive trustee and former president of EMI Classics, Richard Lyttelton). In fact, it’s possibly this very horn that producer and talented A&R man Fred Gaisberg heaved over to Milan to record – in a single afternoon – Caruso’s performances of ten piano-accompanied operatic arias. Unwieldy and primitive as Gaisberg’s kit was, Caruso’s voice emerges astonishingly well, surface noise and crackles no match for the Italian tenor’s formidable voice, his fine musicality and vocal sensitivity obvious even through the sonic gloom. George Hall’s fascinating profile of Caruso not only…

Michael Papadopoulos Conductor and pianist Born: London, UK Career highlight: Working on Verdi’s La traviata at Opera Holland Park as repetiteur was a huge privilege, not least because it was my first contract with an established company since leaving Guildhall. Musical hero: Antonio Pappano is a constant source of inspiration for me. Whether conducting opera or simply talking about it, he always commands the listener’s attention with his utter commitment to story-telling. Dream concert: Having conducted Bach’s St John Passion last year, it would be a dream to conduct the St Matthew Passion. Ema Nikolovska Mezzo-soprano Born: Skopje, Macedonia Career highlight: My debut recital at Wigmore Hall last year, one of my favourite places in the world, and working with the composers Kaija Saariaho, Anssi Karttunen and Daniel…

3rd At Schiller’s Café in Chicago, Stein’s Dixie Jass Band, a five-piece group assembled from New Orleans musicians, plays its debut gig. The following year, having changed its name to the Original Dixieland Jass Band after the departure of founding drummer Johnny Stein, it issues the first ever jazz recordings, which prove an instant hit. 4th The German painter Franz Marc, a founder member and leading figure of the Blaue Reiter group of artists, is killed by a shell splinter during the Battle of Verdun. During his time in the army, Marc had provided an additional service by painting artillery tarpaulin covers in a way that would make them harder to spot from the air. 10th Composer Hubert Parry begins work on his setting of William Blake’s poem And did…

Bartók Album Muzsikás Muzsikás MU 001 Bartók was the first person who really took the time to go to villages and discover hidden treasures. There were different melodies in practically every village and he filled thousands of phonograph rolls with recordings. On this album there are some of those original recordings, his duo responses to the melodies, and then the same duos played by Muzsikás. So there are three different layers of musical transformation. Giuliani Gran Duo Concertant Noemi Gyori (flute) and Katalin Koltai (guitar) Genuin GEN19640 Mauro Giuliani seems to be a hidden treasure for most of us, but in the flute and guitar repertoire he’s the mainstream. From Italy, he went to Vienna where he met Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven – this disc also features transcriptions for flute…

It’s never easy managing an orchestra in Britain, though it’s probably a more secure job than managing a football club. At last month’s annual conference of the Association of British Orchestras, however, the stress was even more evident than usual. There’s something of a ‘perfect storm’ feeling building up – a collision of uncertainties from many different directions. Brexit, for instance, throws up a ton of unanswered questions or, worse still, questions to which there seems to be only one depressing answer for itinerant musicians. Then there’s the new government’s election promises about ‘ending austerity’. They now appear – at least to the cultural world – to be not worth the paper they weren’t written on, with talk of a new five per cent budget cut being imposed on all…

Caruso has always been with me. When I started learning to sing, my teacher and I had a Sunday afternoon ritual in which we’d spend hours listening to Caruso, analysing every note and phrase. He really is the symbol of the modern tenor. The colour of his voice was very special – he used the low of the bel canto range, as well as something more masculine. His phrasing had real spontaneity with a cello-like tone. In my album Caruso 1873, I tried to interpret the phrases in a similar way, studying the breath and opening the sound like he does. His style was to place the voice at the front of the mouth and open it from there, which is a very different technique to what we use today,…

The trio Astraea (above left) was an important early sounding-board for many of Gubaidulina’s ideas. Set up in the 1970s by Gubaidulina herself alongside fellow composers Viktor Suslin and Vyacheslav Artyomov, Astraea began playing its members’ works before turning its attentions to improvisation. Its sole album, featuring Gubaidulina’s Archipelagos of Sounds in the Ocean of Time, Dolcissimo and Death Valley and performed on non-Western folk and Western instruments, has recently been reissued by the Divine Art label (MSV28595; above). Astraea disbanded but reformed in the 1990s with a different line-up, and last year it performed with Gubaidulina, Suslin’s bass-playing son Alexander, bayan player Geir Draugsvoll and trombonist Heinz-Erich Gödecke.…

There’s been a music venue in Jurmala since 1878, when the Edinburgh Well-House Concert Hall was built to honour the marriage of Tsar Alexander II’s daughter, the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. But why were the hall and the surrounding area named after Edinburgh? The English-speaking Romanov married Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Both Maria and Alfred loved music: he played the violin, she the piano. In 1922 the neighbourhood was renamed Dzintari.…

1909 LIFE: Grazyna Bacewicz is born in Ëódz, Poland. After studies in her home city, she attends the Warsaw Conservatory. TIMES: Impresario Sergei Diaghilev’s first ‘ Saison Russe’ opens in Paris, with ballets chiefly choreographed by Michel Fokine. 1936 LIFE: She is appointed principal violinist of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which performs a number of her own compositions. She also performs regularly as a violin and piano soloist. TIMES: Joseph Stalin begins his Great Purge in the Soviet Union, resulting in the deaths, imprisonment or disappearance of government officials and political opponents. 1949 LIFE: Her Piano Concerto wins her top prize at the International Chopin Competition for Composers in Warsaw. Further prizes follow in prestigious competitions across Europe. TIMES: The politician Stanis¯aw Grabski dies aged 78. Co-founder of the…

Francesco Piemontesi Naïve V902795 Book II of Debussy’s Préludes has often been criticised for raking over old ground, though hints of cross-reference between Books I and II suggest less a case of recycling than a conscious intention to create transformations or paraphrases. Book II is sometimes more radical harmonically, often written on three staves to convey quasi-orchestral textures. A top choice recording has to make an equally eloquent case for both Books. Piemontesi was born to play this music, bringing to it a poetic spontaneity In his 2015 recording, Francesco Piemontesi achieves this perfectly. Totally at home in this mercurially enigmatic music, he is peerless in seeing beyond the misleading visual discontinuities of print to the narrative continuity beneath, knitting even the occasional percussive detonations into a seamlessly organic overarching…

It’s always exciting to discover bright young artists with something to say, and this month our critics have been wowed by some very impressive disc debuts. BBC New Generation Artist Johan Dalene is a violinist to watch and his recording of Barber and Tchaikovsky is our Concerto Choice, while Jordanian-Palestinian pianist Iyad Sughayer gets the five-star treatment in Instrumental. Canada’s Rolston String Quartet take the top spot, with more Tchaikovsky, in Chamber, where composer Zosha di Castri also debuts her first release. There’s new music, too, from Christopher Gunning and Mark Springer, plus an operatic take on Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox – which cunningly just won a Grammy for Best Opera Recording. Enjoy! Michael Beek Reviews Editor This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, Geoff…

Goossens Symphony No. 2; Phantasy Concerto Tasmin Little (violin); Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA 5193 (hybrid CD/SACD) 68:21 mins In 1993 the veteran harpist Sidonie Goossens wrote to Simon Rattle to enquire if he was going to honour the centenary of her distinguished brother Eugene by performing some of his music. Rattle replied that he only knew of Goossens as a conductor, and never realised he also composed. Thanks especially to Chandos’s two earlier recordings, there’s less chance of such ignorance today, though Goossens the composer – eclectic, derivative, a post-Romantic with dissonant knobs on – remains difficult to categorise and, at times, to enjoy. Written for Jascha Heifetz in the mid 1940s, the Phantasy Concerto for violin and orchestra constricts the soloist so much with tortuous melodic lines…

CPE Bach Oboe Concerto in E flat, Wq. 165; Oboe Concerto in B flat, Wq. 164; Symphony in G, Wq. 180; Symphony in F, Wq. 181 Xenia Loeffler (oboe); Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/Georg Kallweit Harmonia Mundi HMM 902601 63:12 mins All the music recorded on this disc was composed in the late 1750s and early 1760s when Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88), fifth child and second surviving son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, was court harpsichordist to the royal household of Frederick the Great. The oboe concertos, both of which exist in probably earlier versions for harpsichord and strings (Wq. 39 & 40), are scored with strings and continuo, while the symphonies further introduce pairs of horns, oboes and, in the case of the G major Symphony, two…

Charpentier La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers Déborah Cachet, Zsuzsi Tóth, Stefanie True, Clara Coutouly, Victoria Cassano, Reinoud van Mechelen, Raphael Höhn, Philippe Froeliger, Lionel Meunier, Geoffrey Buffière; Vox Luminis; A Nocte Temporis/ Lionel Meunier, Reinoud van Mechelen Alpha Classics ALPHA 566 82:22 mins The playing of A Nocte Temporis turns from graceful to furious Charpentier’s two works inspired by Ovid’s retelling of the myth of Orpheus make for a captivating diptych. The three-voice cantata Orphée descendant aux enfers is a masterpiece of poetic concision, painted in soft sfumato shades, while the (probably incomplete) two-act chamber opera La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers captures the intensity and latent tragedy of the myth with slender resources and the subtlest of gestures. In both works, Charpentier’s yearning melodies and wistful harmonies are always tempered…

Beethoven Works for Voice and Orchestra: Primo amore, piacer del ciel; Ah! Perfido; No, non turbati; Die schöne Schusterin – arias; Prüfung des Küssens; Mit Mädeln sich vertragen; Ne’ giorni tuoi felici; Tremate, empi, tremate Reetta Haavisto (soprano), Dan Karlström (tenor), Kevin Greenlaw (baritone); Turku Philharmonic Orchestra/ Leif Segerstam Naxos 8.573882 72:34 mins Here’s another of music history’s what-ifs: had his mother not fallen ill, forcing him to go home to Bonn, the teenage Beethoven would have studied with Mozart in Vienna. By the time he was able to return Mozart was dead, and instead he took lessons from Salieri, as prized a teacher as any. But would Beethoven’s comparatively sparse lyric output have been more expansive had he been schooled early on by someone so effortlessly tuned in to…

Tchaikovsky Souvenirs: String Quartet No. 1; Album for the Young – extracts; Souvenir de Florence* Rolston String Quartet; *Miguel da Silva (viola), *Gary Hoffman (cello) Fuga Libera FUG 757 69:40 mins Founded seven years ago in Canada, the Rolston String Quartet has been making waves for some time throughout North America. The performance of the slow movement is beautifully atmospheric This beautifully recorded debut release confirms not only their superb technical accomplishment and their impeccably blended sound, but also a maturity of interpretative approach that can only be achieved after long and patient engagement with the music. There is much to admire in their performance of Tchaikovsky’s First Quartet, not least their purity of intonation in the opening chordal passage of the first movement which perfectly evokes the reverential sounds…

Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 6 in A, Op. 82; Piano Sonata No. 7 in B flat, Op. 83; Piano Sonata No. 8 in B flat, Op. 84 Steven Osborne (piano) Hyperion CDA68298 74:28 mins From first electrifying note-punch to last, with so much poetry and poignancy in between, this is a tour de force of pianism highlighting what seems more than ever like the great sonata sequence of the 20th century. Osborne’s choice in tempos and tone colour seem infallible There are so many towering performances of these harrowing works, from Sviatoslav Richter to the latest Russian pianist to record a complete Prokofiev sonatas cycle, Alexander Melnikov (on Harmonia Mundi), but I believe Steven Osborne caps them all: the greatness marked out in his Messiaen is absolutely confirmed in a…

March round-up For Ascent Pablo Held augments his regular trio with Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras. Veras was something of a prodigy, winning several awards as a youngster. He is certainly a virtuoso but there is, commendably, no sense of a star soloist being shipped in for effect. The guitarist merges into the group, enriching it in texture and line, and although the compositions and improvisations are often complex, angular and dense, no one steps in the way no matter how busy things get. Vocalist Veronika Morscher and clarinettist Jeremy Viner join in on two tracks each, adding extra atmosphere. ( Edition EDN1148 ★★★★ ) For Is That So?, John McLaughlin, Shankar Mahadevan and legendary tabla-player Zakir Hussain apply Western harmony to Indian classical forms, which traditionally rely on rhythmic and…

Forward – 100 Years of the CBSO Richard Bratby Elliot & Thompson 978-1-783-96453-6; 288pp (hb) £25 Named after the city’s motto, ‘Forward’, this centenary appraisal of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra builds impressively on Crescendo, Beresford King-Smith’s excellent study of the orchestra’s first 75 years. From the heady days of the Triennial Music Festival, when there were more royal patrons than you could shake a stick at, Richard Bratby’s lavishly illustrated study provides an energetic narrative, rich in fact and anecdote, plotting the orchestra’s often-rocky course from its founding concerts in 1920, to the present day. The glory days of Boult, Frémaux and Schwarz are admirably covered. More recently, the 18-year tenure of Simon Rattle, during which the orchestra took up residence in Symphony Hall, with its world-beating acoustic,…

TRANSFORM YOUR TURNTABLE Orea Graphite £45 each Many years ago, I remember my dad placing half a squash ball under each of his turntable’s feet to help improve its sound quality. Fast forward three decades and I’ve just added four Orea Graphite isolator feet – the audiophile’s modern squash ball – to my Rega turntable. The results have been a good deal better than I expected. The Oreas are designed to fit under any audio component, and with a choice of four weight classes from 1.8 to 14.5kg depending on your set-up, they’re designed to eliminate ‘parasitic vibrations’. In other words, the rubber feet help unwanted noise escape and so help your music sound better. But is £180 to upgrade a £300 turntable worth the money? Some people spend astronomical…

As well as new broadcasts, BBC iPlayer has an entire back catalogue of concert recordings featuring some of the last century’s great musical heroes, which you can watch now. In a broadcast from 1964, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears host a recital of English songs for an audience of friends, while Marin Alsop leads a musical tribute to composer Philip Glass in 2001 with three UK premieres. Britten makes appearances elsewhere in the archives too, conducting his iconic War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall. We see another great composer at the podium, as Pierre Boulez leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in his 80th birthday concert at the Barbican in 2005. Also in the archives, composer John Adams discusses his career with conductor Charles Hazlewood ahead of the…

Selina Cadell’s career as an actress spans Chekhov, Shakespeare and TV comedy – she is particularly well known to many viewers as Mrs Tishell in the much-loved series Doc Martin – and she also directs opera and theatre. Along with the composer and dramaturg Eliza Thompson, she co-founded OperaGlass Works with the aim of bringing high-quality opera to smaller spaces and at cheaper ticket prices. The company’s inaugural production, of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, took place at Wilton’s Music Hall, London, in 2017. This month, it stages Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the same venue. My parents, who were both in the theatre world, would listen to things like Noel Coward or Fred Astaire, but there wasn’t a lot of classical music in the house. One day I…

Pastoral pleasure In your February issue (Editor’s letter), you ask us to say when ‘the Ludwig light switch was first turned on for you’. My Beethoven moment came very early on, when I was about six or seven, and I heard the radio broadcasting the Shepherd’s Hymn from the Pastoral Symphony. It was so beautiful, I cried. A year or so later, Father Christmas brought me my first ever record, the Ace of Clubs LP of Erich Kleiber conducting the London Philharmonic in the Pastoral, and that was it. Christopher Morley, Halesowen Play it yourself Edwin Baker’s account (Letters, February) of how he got to know Mozart’s sublime Piano Concerto in A, K488 from the 78s recorded by Denis Matthews prompts me to share my (loosely) parallel encounter. As a…

Original Sergei South Korean scientists who have computer-analysed major works by great composers have concluded that Rachmaninov was more innovative than the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. The research, which was published in EPJ Data Science, explored over 900 works written by 19 different composers between 1700 and 1910, judging their originality on the basis of their chord sequences. The findings have not met with universal agreement among experts. Aiming high Sheku Kanneh-Mason has made history by becoming the first cellist to make it into the Top 10 of the UK pop album charts. Kanneh-Mason’s new album of works by Elgar entered at No. 8 in the charts, where he kept close company with the likes of Stormzy and Lewis Capaldi. In doing so, it also made him the…

Cellist Raphael Wallfisch teams up with the London Mozart Players this year to record two concertos by Bernhard Romberg, a contemporary of Beethoven. The recording, for CPO, will follow their live performances of his Cello Concertos Nos 4 and 6 at Cellofest in London at the beginning of March. The San Francisco Symphony’s label, SFS Media, has launched a new ‘Digital Concert Series’ on Apple Music and all major streaming/download platforms. Marking music director Michael Tilson Thomas’s 25th and final season with the orchestra, the service will quickly expand to give listeners access to new live recordings just a month after the performances. New music is very much at the heart of what PARMA Recordings is all about, and with their ‘Call for Scores’ initiative the US-based label group (which…

Are we going to run out of tunes? After all, the melodic universe seems to be contained within such narrow parameters. There are only 12 notes within the Western scale (seven if you limit yourself to a mode, or only five if you’re writing a pentatonic crowd-pleaser) so it stands to reason that if you’re limited by these brutalities of musical fact, there can only be so many ways of combining them. That must be why so many popstars find themselves in court having to defend themselves against charges of pilfering, especially if you throw in the added boundary of having to compose within the compass of the human voice. Among others, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams and Radiohead have been accused of melodic plagiarism. It’s just as well copyright law…

Malcolm Hayes I’ve been listening again to EMI’s 1971 recording of Delius’s A Mass of Life with the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, plus four stellar soloists including baritone Benjamin Luxon. Charles Groves’s conducting wonderfully brings out the music’s atmosphere, poetry and world-roaming scale. And seeing Harrison Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus so impressively performed by English National Opera last year has had me revisiting Andrew Davis’s NMC recording (above). It’s an opera like no other: a musical lava-flow of multi-dimensional imagination and huge dramatic power.…

Nearly 100 years ago, the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso died in Naples. Unquestionably the star tenor of his age, he rose from humble beginnings through provincial theatres and on to the world’s leading opera houses – La Scala, Covent Garden and the Met – becoming an irreplaceable fixture at the latter for nearly two decades. ‘He was a unique artist, with whom none other compared,’ said the Met’s manager, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, on his passing. ‘I do not see how we can ever have such another.’ But unlike his great predecessors, Caruso became a much wider phenomenon – an artist known by name and reputation to the general public at large who never entered an opera house. Few singers were ever so loved, and even fewer can be said to have…

“At every competition stage, after we vote and before the result comes out, the jury members are so nervous” The common complaint among musicians are that competitions have a tendency to limit a young artist’s range. So it’s cheering to talk to a pianist who enthuses about them without any hint of embarrassment. Noriko Ogawa was a prizewinner at the 1987 Leeds International Competition. ‘I have never forgotten the amazing feeling in Leeds,’ she says of her time in the city that propelled her to an international career. Since then her performances and recordings – especially the complete Debussy solo piano works for the BIS label – have proved the insight of those judges who heard her playing Prokofiev’s Third Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Sir…

Centenary celebrations The CBSO is spreading its centenary celebrations over two seasons: 2019-20 and 2020-21. The current season is full of references to the orchestra’s first 100 years, and Britten’s War Requiem – still probably the single most famous work premiered by the CBSO – features prominently, conducted by Mirga Gražinyte -Tyla at Symphony Hall in June. Edward Gardner, a former CBSO principal guest conductor, returns in April to conduct Elgar’s (above) The Dream of Gerontius, the work whose premiere at the 1900 Birmingham Triennial Festival set the ball rolling towards the founding of the orchestra itself. Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony (Feb), Holst’s The Planets (May) and light music by Sullivan, Ethel Smyth and Birmingham’s own Albert W Ketèlbey (May) will all hark back to the orchestra’s first decade.…

A versatile ensemble In its three incarnations over the decades, the Sinfonia of London has covered a lot of ground with its recordings. Widely regarded in its day as one of the finest orchestras for recording film scores, the SoL blended efficiency with top-class talent. You’ll find its name on all sorts of films, from Josephine and Men (1955) to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). The original SoL features in Hitchcock’s famous Vertigo (1958), while the second iteration of the group had a starring role when it recorded Howard Blake’s The Snowman (1982). The ensemble has also made an impact on the classical discography: John Barbirolli’s 1960s recording of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro and Serenade for Strings alongside Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis remains a classic…

Five essential recordings String Quartets; Piano Quintet (1957) Quatuor Molinari; Louise Bessette (piano) Atma ACD 22689 A very fine introduction to Gubaidulina from such early works as the Shostakovich-like Piano Quintet to her experimental string quartets. Garden of Joy and Sorrow (1980) Marina Piccinini (flute), Kim Kashkashian (viola), Sivan Magen (harp) ECM 4810880 Composed as a companion piece to Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, Gubaidulina creates her own haunting landscape. Offertorium (1980-86); Hommage à TS Eliot (1987) Gidon Kremer (violin); Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit DG 479 1518 Gidon Kremer (above) playing the concerto which established Gubaidulina’s international reputation, coupled with a homage to a poet close to the composer’s heart. Canticle of the Sun (1997) David Geringas (cello); Danish National Choir & Orchestra Chandos CHAN 10106 An…

‘One of the foremost women composers of all time’ was how Witold Lutoslawski remembered Grazyna Bacewicz. As a great moral conscience of modern music, Lutoslawski was never given to exaggeration, and this view of his colleague had little to do with the fact that they were fellow Poles. Yet Lutoslawski, who was four years younger and who outlived Bacewicz by a quarter of a century, recalled her with a certain amount of awe, his memories going back to student days when he had page-turned for a pianist accompanying her. ‘From her very first independent steps one could see she was a natural-born, true musician, combining – like the great masters of the Baroque – the talent of a creator and a performer into one harmonious whole.’ These days, Bacewicz can…

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet This 2007 recording is slightly more resonant and less intimate than Piemontesi’s. Bavouzet matches him in many respects, but sometimes pushes harder with tempos than one can easily accept – in ‘Le vent dans la plaine’ the chordal punctuations seem brusque rather than capricious. ‘Les collines d’Anacapri’ is magnificently agile, but ‘Des pas sur la neige’ elicits a more prosaic response. Bavouzet makes a compelling case for Book II: the circus puppet ‘General Lavine’ is wonderfully varied in touch and timing, as are the ‘Feux d’artifice’. ( Chandos CHAN 10421 ) Krystian Zimerman Zimerman is poetically refined and sensitive, if a shade earnest. His Hispanic side is a less languorously sultry than Piemontesi’s, as in ‘La puerta del Vino’, yet this remains cultured, urbane and aristocratic playing of…

Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 in E minor Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons BR Klassik 900185 53.48 mins If you want a testimony to what it was we lost when Mariss Jansons died, listen to this disc. In big symphonic works Jansons always had a flair for bringing out both the long singing line and the key details, but this is exceptional. Talk of ‘going on a journey’ with a piece of music can sound like a horrendous zeitgeist cliché, yet that’s exactly how a good performance of Shostakovich’s Tenth should make you feel. And this one certainly does – so much so that I’m finding it difficult even to pretend to be objective. I should stress that I heard it first before I learned of Jansons’s death, so there was…

Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 3 ‘Pastoral’; Symphony No. 4 in F minor; Saraband ‘Helen’ Elizabeth Watts (soprano), David Philip Butt (tenor); BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins Hyperion CDA68280 80:57 mins Brabbins is superbly alert to the intricacies of the musical texture Is Vaughan Williams’s Third simply an English Pastoral Symphony or a veiled requiem for the dead of Flanders Fields? A good performance can remind us that musical truth is rarely so categorical. And this is a really good performance. On one level Martyn Brabbins is superbly alert to the intricacies of the musical texture. After one hearing I got the score and listened again – so many details I’d hardly noticed before, but there they were. On another level I’ve rarely, if ever, been so aware of this…

Barber • Tchaikovsky Barber: Violin Concerto; Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto Johan Dalene (violin); Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Blendulf BIS BIS-2440 (hybrid CD/SACD) 58:47 mins Dalene plays with an engaging flair and emotional range Johan Dalene has been making waves over the last couple of years as both a BBC New Generation Artist and as winner of the prestigious Carl Nielsen Competition. Still only 19, this is his debut recording, and yet he would already seem to possess the same instinct for long-range emotional structures as two of his very own violinist heroes – Maxim Vengerov and Janine Jansen. The last few years have witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented number of young virtuosos who can seemingly play anything at the drop of a hat. Yet Dalene goes further, illuminating the twilight areas…

Berlioz Les Troyens Alto ALC 4006 (2001) 240:00 mins (4 discs) In this live account Colin Davis, as ever, proves a potent interpreter of Berlioz’s masterpiece, his cast including such fine exponents as Ben Heppner, Michelle DeYoung and Petra Lang. ★★★★ Ponchielli La Gioconda Eloquence 482 8597 (1958) 150:16 mins (2 discs) Idiomatic conducting from Gianandrea Gavazzeni is a plus, alongside Ettore Bastianini’s cogent Barnaba. Anita Cerquetti is a solid Gioconda, Mario Del Monaco a bold Enzo; but the sound is rough. ★★★ Sullivan Princess Ida Eloquence 482 5349 (1955/66) 130:20 mins (2 discs) A lesser-known G&S opera with an impressive score, but with a distinctly mixed D’Oyly Carte cast, dull conducting and poor sound. No dialogue. Some worthwhile fillers conducted by Sargent. ★★ Verdi Aida Alto ALC 2031 (1962)…

Clytemnestra Berg: Altenberg Lieder; Mahler: Rückert-Lieder; Rhian Samuel: Clytemnestra Ruby Hughes (soprano); BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Jac van Steen Ruby Hughes rises to the challenge with bombproof strength BIS BIS-2408 (hybrid CD/SACD) 54:46 mins Clytemnestra gives this release its collective title, although Rhian Samuel’s solo cantata is placed last in the sequence. Musically, this makes intelligent sense: as Ruby Hughes points out in her cover note, Samuel’s idiom relates back to both Mahler’s style and to Alban Berg’s striking radicalisation of this. Samuel’s text for Clytemnestra, composed in 1994, comes from Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon – about the Greek commander, back from the Trojan war, who is killed by his wife in revenge for his sacrifice of their daughter on the way to Troy ten years earlier. Samuel’s musical response is…

Couperin Les Nations; Pièces de violes Eloquence 482 8544 (1958/62) 137:27 mins (2 discs) Thurston Dart was behind these recordings, yet the performance style, with violin vibrato in Les Nations, now appears dated. The Pièces de violes fare better, but the sound is restricted. ★★ Prokofiev • Rachmaninov Cello Sonatas Danacord DACOCD 843 (1982) 57:17 mins Gert von Bülow gives solid performances, but his style is better suited to the more acerbic Prokofiev. The Rachmaninov, especially the elegiac Andante, doesn’t fully capture the fluid Romantic idiom. ★★★ Rubinstein Cello Sonatas Nos 1 & 2; Piano Trio No. 5 in C minor Danacord DACOCD 858 (1984) 101:32 mins (2 discs) Gert von Bülow sounds far more comfortable in these less overtly-Romantic sonatas, and has a more sympathetic pianist. The later trio…

Aram Khachaturian (1903-78) Though Khachaturian showed an early talent for music, he initially studied biology before he enrolled at the Gnessin School of Music in Moscow. His composition teacher, Mikhail Gnessin, encouraged him to draw on his firsthand experiences of Caucasian folk music. At the Moscow Conservatory he studied under Myaskovsky. Khachaturian’s precipitous rise followed the premiere of his Piano Concerto in 1937. As deputy president of the Union of Soviet Composers’ Organising Committee, he established rural retreats for composers to work in peace even during World War II.…

March round-up When Ligeti fell in love with the rhythms of the Aka Pygmies and proved by juxtaposing his piano studies with their music that their rhythms were every bit as complex as his own, he opened a door through which other European musicians have gratefully passed. He may not have heard the music of the Gbaya in the Central African Republic, but he would have loved that too: for proof, listen to Gbaya Music – Thinking Songs, an Ocora LP title which has now been re-released. It all focuses on a thumb-piano called a sanza , whose gentle sound is amplified by its being set inside a resonating gourd, and the sophistication of its music is based on the mechanics of its small keyboard. Its ten tongues are divided…

GREAT VALUE SPEAKER STANDS Soundstyle Z2 £80 Ironically, if you’re serious about sound quality, the last place you should ever put bookshelf speakers is on a bookshelf. To get the best from them a solid stand is a must, and despite being around for over 10 years, the Soundstyle Z2 (H568mm, top plate W125 x D166mm) remains one of the best options, boasting top and base spikes that highlight detail, and a rigid, dampened open design that will instantly improve your hi-fi. richersounds.com EASY PORTABLE UPGRADE Ztella MQA £95 Portable DACs (Digital Audio Converter) like the Chord Mojo do wonderful things to digital music quality, but they’re not pocket friendly. For hi-res excellence on the go this tiny USB DAC will breathe new life into your old wired headphones, adding…

Tchaikovsky Marche slave, Op. 31 Berlin Phil/Claudio Abbado DG E453 4962 Puccini La bohème Callas, Di Stefano; Orchestra & Chorus of La Scala/Antonino Votto Warner 2564634107 Handel Arianna in Creta Katsuli, Nesi; Orchestra of Patras/ George Petrou Scene MDG603 1375-2 Poston Jesus Christ the Apple Tree Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/ Stephen Cleobury Kings College KGS0036 Canteloube Chants d’Auvergne Victoria de los Ángeles (soprano); Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux/ Jean-Pierre Jacquillat Warner 566 9782…