Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i BBC Music Magazine

Malcolm Hayes Critic, writer and composer ‘Judith Weir’s success as one of our leading composers goes back 40 years now. It’s been a pleasure recalling the impact that her rare talent made then, and surveying the range of her achievements ever since.’ Daniel Jaffé Writer and critic ‘It has been wonderful to rediscover Britten’s Young Person’s Guide and the sheer fun that lies beyond its grandiose opening – like cracking the surface of a crème brûlée to get to its delicious heart.’ Page 64 Amanda Holloway Music journalist ‘Tenor Allan Clayton’s schedule came to a halt in March so we had a relaxed hour on the phone, punctuated by the thud of a football (he’s a Liverpool supporter) and snatches of his favourite Schumann songs.’ Page 106…

Further explorations  Like many of your readers, I’ve had the time in these COVID-19 days to dig into my CD collection and find a number of jewels I had forgotten about. While walking my dog this afternoon I was listening to Stephen Hough’s recording of Hummel’s Piano Concertos in B minor and A minor. These are true virtuoso pieces which I would have thought would appeal to many of today’s brilliant pianists. Hummel is, of course, one of the myriad under-estimated composers from every century. Your cover CDs do a grand job of revisiting and promoting underestimated composers from recent times, such as Villa-Lobos or Ivor Gurney, so could I make a plea that you do the same for some of those from previous centuries? In this Beethoven year you…

Joseph Havlat Pianist and composer Born: Hobart, Australia Career highlight: I gave a performance of Michael Finnissy’s Piano Concerto No. 2 a few years ago, which has stayed with me and has since spawned plans for a complete cycle. Musical hero: Prokofiev found the perfect balance between seriousness and silliness in his works. His music makes sense to me in a way that no other composer does. Dream concert: At risk of repeating myself, I couldn’t beat a concert where I got to play all five of Prokofiev’s piano concertos. I can’t imagine anyone actually letting me do it, but I’d be up for it! Alexandra Lowe Soprano Born: Palma, Mallorca Career highlight: Winning second prize at the Glyndebourne Opera Cup this year was incredibly special. It was…

Conductor John Andrews is in high demand in the recording studio. The coming months see recordings of Arthur Sullivan’s The Martyr of Antioch with the BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Symphony Chorus, a set of works by Christopher Wright with the RSNO and the release of Malcolm Arnold’s The Dancing Master. The latter is coming to us from Resonus Classics. The Cleveland Orchestra launches its own label in June, marking 18 years (and counting) with its music director Franz Welser-Möst. The first release is a deluxe three-disc set titled ‘A New Century’ and sees works by Beethoven, Richard Strauss and Prokofiev paired with world premiere recordings of pieces by the orchestra’s composers in residence, Johannes Maria Staud and Bernd Richard Deutsch. Royal Shakespeare Company composer Chris Warner looks to…

It’s a shock to realise how profoundly we’ve taken Franz Liszt for granted – and how much he was taken for a ride in his lifetime by those closest to him. Well, one person in particular: his son-in-law, Richard Wagner. By stealing Liszt’s ideas and inflating them on compositional steroids, Wagner conjured everything from Tristan und Isolde to the Ring cycle to Parsifal. The harmonic language, the musical adventure, the sheer ambition of Wagner’s operas would be impossible without Liszt. But I’m at it too, seeing Liszt through his effect on other musicians rather than on his own terms. The most familiar image of Liszt is the floppy-haired virtuoso, the 19th century’s most famous pianist, who could reduce audiences to hysteria through his mere presence, yet alone his flamboyant improvisation…

Oliver Condy Editor  Despite being this magazine’s editor, I don’t normally get the chance to listen to Radio 3 during the day. For the recent mornings, however, Essential Classics has provided a perfect balance of convivial chat and fine music to see me – so far – through the lockdown. The programme’s ‘Slow Moment’ slot at 11.30 has been particularly beautiful and a moment to put down my proverbial pen and take stock. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor  My Barcelona-based brother has been asking me to help relieve boredom by sending daily classical music listening recommendations. Often it’s served to remind me just how much I myself love a particular recording, such as Trio Wanderer’s disc of Schubert’s Piano Trios Nos 1 & 2. Though written late in the composer’s life,…

Janácek The Diary of One Who Disappeared; Ríkadla; Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs Nicky Spence (tenor), Julius Drake (piano), Václava Housková (mezzo-soprano), Victoria Samek (clarinet) Hyperion CDA 68282 ‘Janá ÿ ek wrote his Diary of One Who Disappeared in a creative Indian summer,’ says tenor Nicky Spence (below), ‘when he was obsessed with the much younger Kamila Stösslová – she gave him the impetus to write.’ The 64-year-old composer’s passion manifested itself in the 22-section Diary, which sets poems from a local paper describing a boy’s infatuation with a gypsy girl. The cycle’s biting drama, culminating in the boy’s estrangement from his family and village, is heightened by how Janá ÿ ek’s folksong-drenched melodies follow the poems’ natural speech rhythms. ‘It really sits between opera and song recital,’ says Spence,…

Gabriel Jackson The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ Emma Tring (soprano), Guy Cutting (tenor); Choir of Merton College, Oxford; Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia/Benjamin Nicholas Delphian DCD34222 When you reach your 750th birthday, you’re entitled to push the boat out. Merton College, Oxford did just that in 2014 by commissioning Gabriel Jackson to compose a 70-minute setting of the Passion story for its chapel choir. The work proved a hit at its premiere at that year’s Merton College Passiontide Festival and so, four years later, the choir and the Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia reconvened for the recording – a rare instance of a new large-scale sacred choral work appearing in the catalogue. ‘We’re thrilled that the work has since been taken up by other choirs,’ conductor Benjamin Nicholas tells us. ‘Gabriel is…

The Dreams and Fables I Fashion Works by Bach, Berio, Biber, Pandolfi and Sciarrino Elicia Silverstein (violin), Michele Pasotti (lute), Mauro Valli (cello) Rubicon RCD1031 JURY AWARD As if Elicia Silverstein’s choice of fiendishly testing Baroque and modern-era repertoire hadn’t already made recording her first disc challenging enough, life then threw in an added complication. ‘In the month before I recorded Bach’s Chaconne and Biber’s Passacaglia, I got hit by a car,’ says the US violinist. ‘I had concussion and people said I’d have to postpone it, but I didn’t want to. Recording them took a 13-hour day and it was exhausting, but it turned out OK.’ The disc’s programme, which Silverstein says she’d been conjuring up for around five years, is for either solo violin or violin with continuo.…

A guide to Ravel’s orchestration Musorgsky’s 1874 musical stroll through a gallery of pictures by Viktor Hartmann was originally scored for solo piano, although its vivid characterisations and motivic detail make it ideal for orchestrating. It’s thought that Maurice Ravel (above) attended the French premiere of Pictures , performed by Ricardo Viñes at Paris’s Société Nationale de Musique in February 1906. Inspired too, perhaps, by the possibilities thrown up by an early but incomplete 1886 orchestration by Mikhail Tushmalov, Ravel eagerly accepted an invitation in 1922 from conductor Serge Koussevitsky to produce his own. Ravel’s interpretation hinges on imaginative instrumentation, including an otherwordly blend of celeste and portamento strings bowed over the fingerboard; the use of an alto saxophone in ‘The Old Castle’; scampering woodwind in the ‘Tuilieries Gardens’; and…

‘Who are you wearing?’ is a question usually reserved for Hollywood red-carpet premieres, but thanks to developing collaborations between musicians and fashion designers, it might soon move to the concert hall. There have always been ties between popstars and fashion labels (Madonna and Jean-Paul Gaultier; Björk and Alexander McQueen; Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols, among others) and now the classical world is catching up: violinist Charlie Siem has fronted campaigns for Chanel, Armani and Hugo Boss, Westwood has designed the costumes for a Sydney production of Handel’s Semele and pianist Lang Lang has teamed up with Hublot. Clothes and accessories help mould an identity. Composer Steve Reich has made wearing a baseball cap part of his signature style, while pianist Yuja Wang favours bodycon mini-dresses, skyscraper stilettos and, as…

While the Edington Festival, like everyone else in the music world, waits on tenterhooks, it has assumed things will have eased enough by late-summer and is putting its exciting plans in place for the week of 23-30 August. Of course, these plans are by no means guaranteed. Jeremy Summerly and Peter Stevens (Westminster Cathedral’s assistant master of music) are set to run the Consort and Schola Cantorum respectively, while the Nave Choir will be directed by Paul Brough, currently director of music at Keble College, Oxford and another Edington regular. The music will include a new commission by Anna Semple, Elgar’s ‘The Spirit of the Lord’ from his 1903 oratorio The Apostles, Lassus’s Vinum bonum mass and Howells’s ‘Collegium Regale’ Te Deum, part of a set of services written for…

It was clear from Judith Weir’s early rise to visibility, four decades ago now, that here was a strikingly individual composing talent – with an idiom blending incisive technique, rich inventiveness, off-the-beaten-track imagination and a streak of wry humour. Since then, her music has graced Europe’s opera houses, concert houses and churches, not to mention a wealth of fine recordings. Her current role as Master of the Queen’s Music confirms her standing as one of Britain’s best-loved and most influential composers – as if such confirmation were needed. For her first full-length opera, Judith Weir’s musical and dramatic skills were remarkable Born to Scottish parents and brought up near London, Weir’s musicianship surfaced early. In her teenage years she took lessons from John Tavener, another convention-upending composer who evidently encouraged…

Benjamin Britten (conductor) London Symphony Orchestra Decca 483 0392 (1963) Since its first release, Britten’s recording has held a firm place in the affections of both critics and aficionados, and with good reason. Britten and the London Symphony Orchestra had recently made their landmark and highly successful premiere recording of the War Requiem, released to superlative reviews and with phenomenal sales just as they reunited at London’s Kingsway Hall on 27 May 1963 to make this recording of Young Person’s Guide. The camaraderie of these sessions is infectious: the LSO players are not only on top of their game, but they also communicate a sense of unbuttoned exuberance and joy in their playing, no doubt inspired both by Britten’s tactful yet clear direction and by performing such a light-spirited work…

Debussy • Rameau Debussy: La damoiselle élue – Prélude; Estampes – Jardins sous la pluie; Children’s Corner – extracts; Préludes I – Des pas sur la neige; La fille aux cheveux de lin; Preludes II – Ondine; Images I – Hommage à Rameau; Rameau: Pièces de clavecin; The Arts and the Hours Víkingur Ólafsson (piano) DG 483 7701 79:08 mins He’s done it again. Víkingur Ólafsson’s Bach album was justly showered in plaudits (not least Recording of the Year at the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Awards) for its exceptional pianism allied to engaging, thought-provoking programming. Now he juxtaposes the two titans of French keyboard music, Rameau and Debussy, in a new recording packed full of delights. Debussy’s music may be the more familiar on piano, possibly in general, but it…

Bizet • Gounod Bizet: Symphony in C; Carmen Suite No. 1; Gounod: Petite Symphonie Scottish Chamber Orchestra/ François Leleux (oboe) The orchestra’s interpretation of the Bizet is thrilling Linn Records CKD 624 63:30 mins Conductor and oboist François Leleux is a frequent figure on the concert platform with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and here makes his first recording with the orchestra in this fizzing programme of Bizet and Gounod. The SCO have a thrilling way with Bizet, opening Ernest Guiraud’s Carmen Suite No. 1, put together by Bizet’s friend as a concert piece after the composer’s death, with foreboding knife-edge thrill and panache. Guiraud wasn’t concerned with a chronological run-through, so in this ‘no particular order’ Carmen, the orchestra hop from an Intermezzo that is truly the woodwind calm before…

Born in Borup, the Danish composer studied with Ib Nørdholm in Copenhagen (1983-87), and also had lessons with Per Nørgård. He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1996 for his violin concerto, Sterbende Gärten (1993), a work which inspired Danish playwright Peter Asmussen to collaborate with Sørensen on an opera: commissioned by the Danish Royal Opera, they completed Under The Sky five years later in 2003. Sørensen’s other concertos include La Notte for piano and orchestra (1998), and Birds and Bells for trombone and 14 instruments (1995) composed for the Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg.…

6WDQLVîDZ›0RQLXV]NR (1819 -72) Born in Ubiel, in the Minsk Governorate (Belarus today) under Russian rule, Moniuszko showed an early talent for music. He studied in Berlin under Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen, and had his earliest success as a song composer, setting lyrics by the Polish national poet Adam Mickiewicz. From 1858 until his death, he lived in Warsaw, where he was conductor at the Opera and a professor at the Conservatory. The premiere of his opera Halka in 1858 marks the beginning of Polish national opera. Of his 15 operas, several including Flis are still performed in his homeland.…

Beethoven • Bridge • Chin Beethoven: String Quartet in F, Op. 18 No. 1; Bridge: Novelletten; Unsuk Chin: ParaMetaString for String Quartet and Tape Esmé Quartet Alpha Classics ALPHA 590 62:50 mins Since winning the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition in 2018, the Esmé Quartet have fast established an enviable reputation. This accomplished debut album matches the ensemble’s youth and vigour with three composers’ earliest works for string quartet in an imaginative programme rich in contrasts. While not strictly Beethoven’s first quartet (Op. 18 No. 3 was likely written first), Op. 18 No. 1 is one of the composer’s earliest adventures in the form and the Esmé Quartet bring a compelling performance of confidence and clarity. Their account of the first movement is well-paced with a strong sense of…

Fauré In paradisum: Requiem – Pie Jesu; In Paradisum; Ballade; Thème et Variations, Op. 73; Barcarolles Nos 1, 10 & 12; Nocturnes Nos 7, 10, 11 & 13 Louis Lortie (piano) Chandos CHAN 20149 75:54 mins Louis Lortie’s previous Fauré recital Louis Lortie’s playing matches Fauré’s refinement Après un rêve interleaved original piano works with arrangements of his well-known pieces. This new collection is framed by Lortie’s tasteful transcriptions of the ‘Pie Jesu’ and ‘In Paradisum’ from the Requiem. The focus though, is more firmly on Fauré’s solo piano writing, with three Barcarolles, four Nocturnes and the uncharacteristically forthright Theme and Variations. Only the remarkable Ballade Op. 19 has a dual existence in solo and concertante forms. As Roger Nichols notes, it builds on the inheritance of Chopin and Liszt,…

June round-up The compositions on Affinity, the third album by Followed By Thirteen, are largely inspired by people and places that have special meaning for Henrik Jensen, the quartet’s leader. Bassist Jensen is flanked by Rory Simmons (trumpet, flugelhorn), Esben Tjalve (piano) and Pete Ibbetson (drums). Affecting ballads and stimulating up-tempo pieces contribute to a well-balanced set full of evocative compositions and superb solos by each member of the quartet. Much as I approve of the cutting-edge sub-genres of jazz, it would be a shame if we neglected the more classic approaches evinced in this beautiful album. ( Babel Records BDV 19157 ) ★★★★★ Keyboards whizz Ivo Neame and virtuoso percussionist Jim Hart have worked together in a number of contexts, including as a duo, but Multiverse is their debut…

The Beethoven Syndrome – Hearing Music as Autobiography Mark Evan Bonds Oxford University Press 978-0-190-06847-9; 344pp (hb) £22.99 The chief thesis of this book is that around 1830, shortly after Beethoven’s death, the predominant way of listening to music changed. Previously it had been heard objectively, as agreeable, energetic sounds; now it began to be heard as personal expression (largely thanks to Beethoven’s music), as melodious and more or less structured tonal autobiography. Or as Mark Evan Bonds puts it, ‘the framework of rhetoric yielded to a framework of hermeneutics.’ His scholarly book consists of 200 pages of text, 75 pages of notes – mainly passages in German or French or Italian that are translated in the body of the text – and 30 pages of bibliography. It has the…

It’s that time of year when we should have been at Kings Place in London, announcing the winners of this year’s BBC Music Magazine Awards. But ceremony or not, there’s still much to enjoy and relish in this year’s superb recordings from the Gabrieli Consort’s life-affirming Purcell to pianist Andrey Gugnin’s gripping Shostakovich. Our awards have come at a time when celebrating our wonderful musicians feels more important than ever. My feature on the Edington Festival (p54), for instance, was originally intended to coincide with the run-up to its 65th edition this August. Like most summer events, plans have been tentatively made, although we simply have no idea when concert-going will return to anything approaching normality. But it’s a day we’re looking forward to so much. In the meantime, for…

On 9 June 1840, a year or so into his European tour, Liszt hosted the first of two London concerts – advertised as ‘Liszt’s Pianoforte Recitals’ – at the Hanover Square Rooms in Mayfair. Until then, the word ‘recital’ had only been used to describe dramatic readings, which is perhaps why Liszt was drawn to the word: in the past, his solo concerts bore the curious name ‘musical soliloquies’. Liszt was back on the touring circuit as a pianist in 1839 to help fundraise for a statue of Beethoven in Bonn. He had just emerged from an intense period of composition and was alarmed to hear that plans for the statue were under threat through lack of financial support. For his London appearance, he put together a programme that combined…

Grange Park Opera has announced that it is to stage the world premiere of Krishna by John Tavener. Though Tavener died in 2013, the opera was brought to the attention of the company by Prince Charles, no less, a close acquaintance of his. In doing so, the Prince of Wales (left) joins a notable list of royals who have demonstrated their personal friendships with composers in the most practical of manners… Many composers have had royal patrons, but Ludwig II of Bavaria took his support of Wagner to another level, paying off his huge debts, enabling the premieres of operas including Tristan and Isolde and providing a loan for the building of the Bayreuth theatre. When scandal forced Wagner to leave Munich, Ludwig is said to have considered abdicating so…

Gill Aldridge Warwick  Though, like everyone else, I’ve been stuck at home in recent weeks, I have at least enjoyed spending time in the garden, which is now looking lovelier than ever! There’s nothing better in an evening than to admire it while sitting on the patio with a glass of wine and listening to my favourite music. I’m currently going through a bit of a Delius phase anyway, and his gorgeous In a Summer Garden, conducted by the much-missed Richard Hickox, matches the scene perfectly.…

Writing last month about the changes we could expect when we emerge from this nightmare, I suggested that ‘the balance between streamed music and live performance may be permanently altered’. Now that concert and operatic life is a fast-receding memory – like a carefree childhood that one truly appreciated only when plunged into the bruising adult world – I want to expand on that conjecture. Has this enforced lockdown permanently shifted our preferences for going out to a live music event, as opposed to staying in and expecting the music to come to us? Of course that choice has been there ever since the arrival of the gramophone in the 1890s and broadcasting in the 1920s. Until this year most ardent music lovers, I guess, mixed hearing live and recorded…

Korngold Symphony in F sharp; Theme and Variations; Straussiana Sinfonia of London/John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5220 When conductor John Wilson reformed the Sinfonia of London last year, there was only one composer in the running for the debut recording: Korngold. ‘His Symphony has always been at the top of my wish list,’ Wilson tells us. ‘But it wasn’t going to be a piece I would have done unless the circumstances were exactly right. Admittedly I had high expectations for this recording, but they were wildly exceeded in the final product.’ ‘I admittedly had high expectations, but they were wildly exceeded’ Until now, Wilson had been best known for his work with the John Wilson Orchestra, conjuring scintillating performances of MGM musicals and scores from the golden age of Hollywood. Korngold,…

Bartók • Veress Veress: String Trio; Bartók: Piano Quintet in C Barnabás Kelemen, Vilde Frang (violin), Katalin Kokas, Lawrence Power (viola), Nicolas Altstaedt (cello), Alexander Lonquich (piano) Alpha Classics ALPHA 458 Since taking over the artistic reins of the Lockenhaus International Chamber Music Festival in 2012, Nicolas Altstaedt has continued a tradition begun by its founder, Gidon Kremer. Drawing attention to lesser-known repertoire is a passionate pursuit for the cellist, which led to the recording of this disc, a spellbinding pairing of Hungarian chamber works by Bartók and Sándor Veress. ‘It is important to record pieces that are close to my heart and pieces that don’t yet enjoy the limelight they deserve,’ says Altstaedt. The latter is true of both works. Bartók may be a familiar name, but his large-scale…

On 25 April, over 40 of the world’s biggest opera stars gathered together online to perform a variety of arias, as part of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s At-Home Gala. Presented from home by the Met’s general manager Peter Gelb and director of music Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the evening was a smorgasbord of talent from baritone Bryn Terfel’s splendid performance from Wales, accompanied by his wife, harpist Hannah Stone, to soprano Erin Morley, who bravely played the piano for her own rendition of an aria from Donizetti’s La fille du régiment. While some chose a theatrical route, such as tenor Roberto Alagna and soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, utterly entertaining in their excerpt from the Paris suburbs of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, others chose a more intimate mood – tenor Matthew Polenzani’s self-accompanied performance…

“To flee from Bolshevism only to die from the Spanish flu in New York! What a morbid joke!’’ It was October 1918 and Stravinsky was lying under a heap of blankets, his teeth chattering and beret pulled down over his face. As his wife Katya staggered about their house dispensing medications to the composer and his two sick children, he bemoaned the cancellation of his concert tour. In New York City, Rachmaninov had barely unpacked his luggage from a transatlantic voyage when he and his daughters became sick. With debts to pay, the Russian composer left his sickbed against doctors’ orders in order to prepare for a 36-city recital tour and to finish an arrangement of The Star-Spangled Banner. Bartók, meanwhile, was bedridden for 23 days in the Hungarian countryside,…

One of the most notorious connections between fashion and music was the relationship between Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel, as depicted in Chris Greenhalgh’s 2002 novel. Coco and Igor is a fictionalised account of the couple’s affair in 1920, when the designer loaned her Parisian apartment to the composer and his family who had recently fled Russia in the wake of the Revolution. Greenhalgh’s book was the basis of the 2009 film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which sees the young couturière attend the 1913 Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring. Impressed by its artistic risks and unperturbed by the audience riots, Chanel bankrolls the Ballets Russes production. While Stravinsky’s estate denies the romance, Chanel gave details to her biographer and the label supported the making of the film…

Words and music Weir’s own librettos and vocal texts draw on Scottish folklore, Chinese literature, medieval Spanish verse (Missa del Cid, 1988), early Italian opera (Scipio’s Dream, 1991), a Sicilian folk tale (Miss Fortune, 2011) and poetry by African women (Nuits d’Afrique, 2015). Tonal renewal Weir came to prominence during a modernism-dominated period, but her own idiom was not about ‘rediscovering tonality’, since it had never left it. Nor does her way of renewing tonality pander to ‘accessibility’: her technical skills reach far deeper. Melody and accompaniment Weir often presents a passage of text in the same rhythm as the music that accompanies it, so that they seem to mirror each other. The opening words of The Consolations of Scholarship – ‘Look! There in the distance’ – are set like…

In the spring of 1942, Britten and his partner Peter Pears headed across the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool, a perilous boat journey that marked the end of the composer’s three-year stay in the US. Now in his early thirties, he settled with Pears in Suffolk, living in the Old Mill in Snape, the house he had bought in 1937. Exempted as a conscientious objector from military service, much of his attention was focused on his opera Peter Grimes, though this period also saw him compose works including the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the String Quartet No. 2.…

Was it difficult to decide how to follow your Bach album? There are so many things that come into play when you decide what to record, especially when you are relatively early in your recording career; the danger for any young artist is that they’ll be categorised. Once you do something that works out quite well, there’s immediately a request for you to try to repeat that success. I don’t think it can be repeated, I think you can only create new success. So I decided I had to do something completely different. Why did you want to record Debussy and Rameau? I think with all the pieces that I have selected it’s very much piano music as theatre. I’m trying to show Rameau as the futurist that I think…

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique etc. Alto ALC 1370 (2000/06) 69:20 mins Colin Davis encapsulates all the romantic ardour and demonic energy of Berlioz’s astonishing masterpiece in this gripping live recording with the LSO playing at the top of its game. ★★★★★ Dvorák Symphonies Nos 7 & 8 Alto ALC 1406 (1999/2001) 79:08 mins Impressive accounts from Colin Davis and the LSO highlighting tremendous drive and energy in the passionate Seventh and probing darker recesses of emotion beneath the Eighth’s more easy-going demeanour. ★★★★ Consort Music Eloquence 482 8574 (1956/58) 147:07 mins (2 discs) A fascinating historical snapshot into the performing styles of early music during the mid 1950s. Thurston Dart secures neat playing but constant vibrato from the violins jars after a while. ★★ Royal Brass Music Eloquence 482 8527 (1957/60)…

Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 1-5 Stewart Goodyear (piano); BBC National Orchestra of Wales/ Andrew Constantine Orchid Classics ORC 100127 172:24 mins (3 discs) Beethoven’s piano concertos are so different from each other that only the rarest of artists is likely to do full justice to all of them at any one time. Stewart Goodyear, Canadian-born and American-trained, presents his cycle in chronological sequence. The First Concerto gives a fair perspective on what’s to come. Goodyear’s playing style is a masterclass in American-style confidence at its most likeable – free of any trace of brashness, with the quick outer movements full of engaging verve and articulated with immaculate clarity at every point. The downside shows in the central Largo: while there’s evident awareness of the music’s early-Romantic expressive depths, an over-insistence…

Gershwin Porgy and Bess Eric Owens, Angel Blue, Frederick Ballentine, Alfred Walker, Latonia Moore, Golda Schultz, Ryan Speedo Green, Denyce Graves; Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orchestra/David Robertson Met Opera 1000420118 163:00 mins (3 discs) Gershwin’s only full-length opera is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century and, given the plethora of exceptional black singers available these days, it is rightfully gaining an ever more central position in the repertoire. This is a live recording, taped over two performances at the New York Met in autumn 2019; though neither lavish nor offering a particularly wide range, the sound is sharply defined. There’s some audience applause at curtain rise and occasionally following individual arias, but the spontaneity of a live event is a clear plus: the chorus supplies precision and refulgent…

JS Bach St Matthew Passion Sophie Bevan (soprano), David Allsopp (countertenor), James Gilchrist, Mark Le Brocq (tenor), Matthew Rose, William Gaunt (bass); Choir of King’s College, Cambridge; Academy of Ancient Music/ Stephen Cleobury King’s College KGS0037 163:36 mins (3 discs) This recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion was made in the chapel of King’s College Cambridge in April 2019, just a few months before the untimely death of its conductor and long-time director of music at King’s, Stephen Cleobury. The performance is very much a King’s affair in other respects, too, featuring the College’s celebrated choir as well as the Choir of King’s College School which provides the ripieno voices in the opening and closing pieces of Part I of the Passion. Furthermore, four of the soloists are former Cambridge…

R Strauss Cello Sonata (original & revised versions); Lieder (arr. cello) – Zueignung; Die Nacht; Du meines Herzens Kronelein; Morgen; Der Rosenkavalier – Concert Waltz etc Raphaela Gromes (cello); Julian Riem (piano) Sony Classical 19439718832 71:14 mins With Strauss coming out of copyright, it is only now that the first version of the 17-year-old composer’s Op. 6 Cello Sonata (1881-2) is available, a work he substantially revised to achieve the work we know today. Gromes and Riem give beautifully detailed performances Listening to both versions, one has to wonder why the Sonata has been such a Cinderella work, never reaching the canonic status of Brahms, Mendelssohn or Schumann’s works for the instrument. With its finely-wrought Romantic elegance, lavishly lyric slow movement and effervescent Allegro, it delivers everything one could ask…

Braunfels Piano Works Tatjana Blome, Holger Groschopp (piano) Capriccio C5361 Capriccio’s ongoing Braunfels revival is most welcome. The two-piano variations on ‘Au clair de la lune’ are full of delicious moments, while the Little Pieces are utterly charming. (OC) ★★★★ Bruch 8 Pieces, Op. 83 Philon Trio Analekta AN 2 89323 There’s more than a whiff of Brahms in Bruch’s wistful, Romantic pieces for clarinet trio, also written late in the composer’s life. His lyricism is gracefully expressed by the Philon Trio. (JP) ★★★★ Chopin Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Yundi (piano); Warsaw Philharmonic Warner Classics 9029532018 A typical pairing of the Concertos played by Yundi, known for his Chopin interpretations. Reliable, technically precise, these are careful, considered accounts with virtuosic flair. (FP) ★★★★ Gustavo Díaz-Jerez Maghek RSNO/Eduardo Portal…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this June Radio 3 in Concert from Berlin We’re off to the German capital for an evening of orchestral works from the 1940s and ’50s by Stravinsky, Zimmermann and Rachmaninov. The Berlin Philharmonic performs under the baton of chief conductor Kirill Petrenko. Radio 3 in Concert: 22 June, 7.30pm Composer of the Week: Beethoven Musicologist Laura Tunbridge and Takács Quartet violinist Edward Dusinberre join Donald Macleod to discuss the originality and enduring power of Beethoven’s late string quartets, and share their experiences of studying and playing them. Composer of the Week: 1-5 June, 12 noon Folk Roots, Urban Roots This superb 2018 concert celebrates the patchwork of influences that make up classical music.…

Calming Bach  In a recent BBC Music Magazine newsletter, you asked for recommendations of music to help people through difficult times. I find JS Bach always helps calm me down in situations such as this pandemic. I have long felt that I would like to own a complete recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier, so a few days ago I decided that now would be a good time to buy a set – I find there is something timeless and ethereal about these pieces that transcends current fears and concerns. After a little research and listening to sample tracks, I fixed on Angela Hewitt’s earlier recordings, and eagerly await the arrival of the four-CD set. Interestingly, there is an excellent article on Hewitt in the April issue of the magazine. I…

Oven excellent idea… With so many musicians out of work due to the coronavirus outbreak, never has the Help Musicians UK charity been so vital. To raise funds for it, mezzo Jennifer Johnston has invited friends from the music world to help her compile an online cookbook. Recipes in Notes From Musicians’ Kitchens range from conductor Nathalie Stutzmann’s quiche Lorraine and percussionist Colin Currie’s Stornoway black pudding risotto to pianist Stephen Hough’s porridge (with Smarties!), all for a subscription of just £10. See www.notesfrommusicianskitchens.com Thank-you notes Looking further forward, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (cbso.co.uk) has announced that once life returns to normal, it will be making 5,000 concert tickets free for NHS workers by way of a thank you. Similarly, St John’s Smith Square has launched a ‘Pay…

Novák Slovácko Suite, Op. 32 – At Night Prague Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra/Jiří Bělohlávek Supraphon SU 3372-2 931 I’m often looking for unusual repertoire, and that led me to Vítezslav Novák’s orchestral pieces. I find his music to be very Romantic and at times almost cinematic. There are some jazz influences to it, too. I think that this particular recording paints a really beautiful, atmospheric picture of all that night can entail – peace, pensiveness and a sort of fear, too, in a way. Mark-Anthony Turnage Misere’ nobis Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/ Stephen Cleobury King’s College KGS0001 I thought this was most unlike Turnage’s other works. He’s not your typical choral composer; in fact the way he textures the vocal lines for the chorus is really clever. He’s obviously had…

Elizabeth de la Porte (born 1941) was a South African harpsichordist who settled in the UK, establishing herself as one of the instrument’s foremost artists in the 1970s with a reputation for playing of rhythmic drive. She taught for 55 years in the junior department at the Royal College of Music, where she was made a Fellow in 2016. Her recordings include an acclaimed performance of Bach’s Clavierübung I & II. Composer Gerard Schurmann’s (born 1924) initial career as a cultural attaché and pianist led to full-time life as a composer and arranger. Alongside his concert works, Schurmann’s film work is also notable; he arranged the Oscar-winning scores for Lawrence of Arabia and Exodus.…

Michael Smith Sacramento, CA, US I can’t believe that it’s now 14 years ago that the world said goodbye to the incomparable mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, a fellow Californian. I was lucky to see her live on a couple of occasions, and few singers could ever match her for getting into the very heart of a role while singing with such effortless grace and finesse. She was at her very best in Baroque repertoire, in my opinion, which is why her performance in Handel’s Theodora at Glyndebourne is ever-present in my DVD player.…

Recording of the Year and Opera Award Paul McCreesh Purcell King Arthur Anna Dennis, Mhairi Lawson, Rowan Pierce, Carolyn Sampson (sopranos), Jeremy Budd, James Way (tenors), Roderick Williams (baritone), Ashley Riches (bass-baritone); Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh Signum Classics SIGCD589 97.38 mins (2 discs) ‘I must have been about 18. I’d been given record tokens and came out of WHSmith’s clutching some Tchaikovsky and an LP of Purcell’s Birthday Odes. The Purcell had a nice cover I remember, but when I played it, David Munrow and his Early Music Consort just grabbed me. The beauty of style, the interesting singing… They opened up a whole new world to me.’ Paul McCreesh is recalling a decisive encounter with the music of a composer who, personally and professionally, remains close to…

Dvorák • Martinu Dvorák: Piano Concerto in G minor; Martinu: Piano Concerto No. 4, ‘Incantation’ Ivo Kahánek (piano); Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Jakub Hruša Supraphon SU 4236-2 These contrasting piano concertos by Dvorÿák and Martinu ů, composed some 80 years apart, represent two peaks of the form in Czech music. And this recording by Ivo Kahánek and the Bamberg Symphony sets a modern benchmark. For the Dvorÿák, Kahánek used the original piano part as opposed to one of the later revisions, which enabled him to to honour the composer’s original vision. ‘It is, artistically, a very ambitious work; the piano part is very virtuosic, more like a virtuoso chamber work,’ says Kahánek. ‘Dvorÿák was not as bad a pianist as he is said to have been, but he was not experienced in…

The Air, Turning Eloisa-Fleur Thorn (violin), Mark Simpson (clarinet), Víkingur Ólafsson (piano), Benjamin Bellman (violin); BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Contemporary Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia/Ilan Volkov, Richard Baker, Andrew Gourlay NMC NMCD249 JURY AWARD ‘The music of Edmund Finnis invites rather than demands attention,’ wrote Steph Power in her appraisal of this premiere recording of the British composer’s solo, duo and orchestral works. With music written from 2012-18, and expertly performed by clarinettist Mark Simpson (below), pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and others, Finnis sees the album as a ‘chapter of his life’, with different soundworlds created in each piece, but with a consistent motivating principle: to explore the space and scale of music. ‘The space of music fascinates me,’ he says. ‘What’s it made up of? It’s vibrating…

The Black Death first appeared in 1347, cutting down almost half of Europe’s population in its wake. One of the earliest responses to it was the Stella celi extirpavit, a hymn begging for God’s mercy in the face of pestilence and subsequently set to plainsong melodies and early polyphony. In 1517, as plague approached, Henry VIII dismissed his court and quarantined himself at Windsor along with a doctor, three friends and Italian organist Dionisio Memo. His wife, Catherine of Aragon, wasn’t invited. The mid-16th-century Gyfford partbooks contain English composer Richard Bramston’s ‘Recordare, Domine, testamenti tui’, a votive antiphon sung as a prayer against plague. The anthem’s text appears in the ‘Missa pro mortalitate evitanda’ (Mass to avoid death) written in the 14th century by Pope Clement VI in Avignon. French…

Tito Schipa was born in Lecce in 1888. As a young man, his talent as a singer was recognised by Bishop Gennaro Trama, who funded his studies at the local seminary before he headed off to continue them in Milan. A career as one of the great tenors of his generation followed, both in Italy and across the Atlantic, not least when performing alongside soprano Amelita Galli-Curci. Among his many recordings can be found a performance of the song ‘Lecce Mia’, paying homage to his home city.…

1954 LIFE: Judith Weir is born in Cambridge. Her father is a psychiatrist and her mother a teacher. At school, she plays oboe in the National Youth Orchestra and studies with composer John Tavener. TIMES: More than 14 years after it was imposed during WWII, food rationing in the UK is ended, as restrictions on the sale and purchase of meat are lifted. 1995 LIFE: She is appointed composer in association of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. There, she works closely with Simon Rattle, who conducts several premieres of her work. TIMES: As a result of losses of £827m run up through fraudulent trading by its employee Nick Leeson, Barings Bank, the second oldest merchant bank in the world, collapses. 2012 LIFE: Critics round on her opera Miss Fortune…

Malcolm Sargent (conductor/narrator) Once attuned to Sargent’s condescending manner and his musicians’ generally dour expressions, the 1946 film’s masterful symbiosis between music, visuals and spoken word is compelling. Sargent’s commentary is mostly to the point, informative (for instance, about the differences between oboes and clarinets), and knows when to allow the visuals and the music to tell their own story. The slightly unconventional orchestral layout allows helpful closeups, and the viewer is guided through the orchestra sections by well-planned camera work. (Tony Palmer TPCD-DVD 196) John Lanchbery (conductor) Dame Edna Everage – ever so slightly mischievous yet fully engaged and enthusiastic – is an effortlessly entertaining and informative compère in this 1997 recording. She uses Crozier’s script with some judicious editing (‘sad’ instead of ‘plaintive’), occasionally throws in a ‘gorgeous’…

Music continues to be a blessed distraction and food for the soul right now. So whether you’re looking to add to your CD collection via home delivery or scouring a streaming site for things to put in your digital library, we’ve lots to recommend. You might be dreaming of places beyond home, so why not go to Rome with The Sixteen? Or you might need some sunshine, so perhaps let pianist Tom Poster and violinist Elena Urioste share the joys of spring with some Grieg? If you’re sitting down at the piano and looking for inspiration, you’d do worse than to follow the lead of pianists Louis Lortie and Víkingur Ólafsson, who both bring us delightful French programmes, the latter taking this issue’s top spot. However you’re turning to music…

Bruckner Symphony No. 6 in A Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/ Thomas Dausgaard BIS BIS-2404 (hybrid CD/SACD) 53:21 mins A few months ago I reviewed Andris Nelsons conducting Bruckner’s Sixth, and found it heavy-going to the point of tedium, indeed to the point of wondering about the stature of the work. Now, with Thomas Dausgaard conducting the admirable Bergen Philharmonic, I am more impressed by it than I have ever been except by Celibidache’s highly individual reading. Dausgaard, taking fairly swift tempos, and conducting with a strong rhythmic sense, has this enigmatic work bounding along and at last made me understand why Bruckner called it ‘the cheekiest.’ Dausgaard has his wind players, especially his oboes and clarinets, getting up to mischief whenever possible; and the places where the oboe moves into lament…

Erkki-Sven Tüür (b1959) Born on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa, Erkki-Sven Tüür’s musical studies in Talinn saw him take up percussion and the flute before setting his sights on composing. All of his skills were put to good use when he founded the prog rock band In Spe, for which he composed, played the flute, keyboards and sang. During the 1980s composing took over and he would go on to win Estonia’s Cultural Prize in both 1991 and 1996, plus commissions from the likes of the CBSO, Hilliard Ensemble and the Helsinki Philharmonic. He has written some nine symphones, ten concertos and an opera.…

Vivaldi Violin Concertos, Vol. 8 – ‘Il teatro’: RV 187, 217, 235, 321, 366 & 387 (Per Signora Anna Maria) Julien Chauvin (violin); Le Concert de la Loge The musicians invest the music with infectious vitality Naïve OP 30585 62:11 mins Hard on the heels of the seventh volume of Naïve’s survey of Vivaldi’s violin concertos comes Il teatro, the eighth in a so far exhilarating series. As Naïve has demonstrated over the past two decades with its exploration of Vivaldi’s operas, the composer was very much a man of the theatre. The subtitle of this release seeks to remind us of the close relationship that exists between his instrumental music, above all perhaps his violin concertos, and his music for the stage. That reminder is unequivocally stated in the…

Wagner Die Walküre (DVD) Nina Stemme, John Lundgren, Stuart Skelton, Emily Magee, Sarah Connolly, Ain Ainger, Lise Davidsen; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/ Antonio Pappano; dir. Keith Warner (London, 2018) Opus Arte DVD: OA1308D; Blu-ray: OABD7270D 240 mins Pappano has a special relationship with Die Walküre’s lyricism Antonio Pappano has always had a special relationship with the Ring’s second part. The burgeoning lyricism of the Walküre score and the complex interrelations between all too human Gods and Men seem to tug at a very particular musical nerve for this conductor, and the Royal Opera House Orchestra rewards him with some of its most sumptuous playing. The cast in this 2018 staging would have been the envy of every world class opera company. The result is just short…

Leo • Pergolesi • Porpora Leo: Beatus Vir Qui Timet; Pergolesi: Stabat Mater; Porpora: Salve Regina in G Sandrine Piau (soprano), Christopher Lowrey (countertenor); Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset Alpha Classics ALPHA 449 66:11 mins Piau and Lowrey respond to each other with sensitivity The 26-year-old Pergolesi’s death-bed masterpiece is an emotive setting of the Stabat Mater – a medieval Latin poem narrating the Virgin’s sufferings at the foot of the Cross. French director Christophe Rousset first recorded the work back in 1999 with starry soloists Barbara Bonney and Andreas Scholl; the version remains a benchmark. Over 20 years on, he dwells more on the text’s anguished imagery, setting the tone from the outset with a ponderous tread, lingering on suspensions, and highlighting dissonances. Yet ultimately his vision responds more to…

JS Bach Cello Suites Nos 1-6 (arr. violin) Johnny Gandelsman (violin) In a Circle Records ICR 013 107:62 mins (2 discs) As anyone who has heard his 2018 recording of Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas – or seen his live 2015 performances on YouTube – will testify, Johnny Gandelsman is no ordinary violinist. Playing on a modern setup at contemporary pitch-levels (a blessed relief for those with perfect pitch), he exchanges the post-Romantic rhetoric of Arthur Grumiaux (Philips/Decca) and Henryk Szeryng (DG) for a beguiling range of expressive responses that create the impression of him improvising the music as he goes along. In the introduction to his latest recording of the Cello Suites, Gandelsman talks of achieving a zen-like ‘Inner Peace’ when playing, and that is precisely the impression…

June round-up Kathleen Ferrier and Bruno Walter collaborated for five happy years after he discovered her by chance; in a charming interview at the end of Kathleen Ferrier in New York, the conductor pays tribute to her ‘grave beauty of voice and purity of personality’, and in a separate interview talks about his mentor Gustav Mahler. This disc is a musical time capsule in many ways, above all for Ferrier’s divine singing under Walter’s baton of Das Lied von der Erde, with tenor Set Svanholm and the New York Philharmonic at the Carnegie Hall in 1948. ‘My soft notes came as I’ve never known them,’ she said afterwards, and ‘Der Abschied’ is magical: her voice is so fresh, gloriously at ease with its power and delicate vibrato. (SOMM Recordings ARIADNE…

We recommend… Technics SL-G700 £2,350 This classily designed player can get the best from your CDs and SACDs (Super Audio CDs), but it also streams music via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay and MQA, so it’s future proof and sounds exceptional. The price is steep, but it’s worth every penny. technics.com Marantz CD6006 £329 The matching CD player to one of my favourite amplifiers – the Marantz PM6006 – is superb value and sounds more like a £500 player. And USB gives you digital convenience. marantz.co.uk Music Fidelity M2sCD £799 This excellent CD player has a 24-bit Delta-Sigma DAC and reads your CDs multiple times so you get more detail from the music, while the weighty metal enclosures and aluminium front panels reduce vibrations. henleyaudio.co.uk…

BBC Young Musician Organist and conductor Anna Lapwood presents the category finals of this year’s BBC Young Musician from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. The full programmes will be shown on BBC iPlayer presented by Josie d’Arby, with highlights on BBC Four and additional coverage on Radio 3. Judges include violinist Fenella Humphreys, double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku and pianists Katya Apekisheva and Peter Donohoe. BBC Four, date and time TBC The Classical Companion Collection BBC Radio 3 has released a series of themed collections from its classical music archives, including quizzes, podcasts, playlists and articles, all focused on music and escapism. Tune into Essential Classics every morning to hear a movement from the daily ‘Essential Symphony’, with a complete recording by the BBC orchestras and choirs available…

Leading British tenor Allan Clayton is known for fearless performances in operas such as George Benjamin’s Written on Skin and the iconic role of Hamlet in Brett Dean’s opera for Glyndebourne. This spring should have seen him appear in a Britten series at Wigmore Hall, a residency at the Aldeburgh Festival and as Laca in the Royal Opera’s Jenufa. All have been cancelled, but his recording of Ian Venables’s song cycle Love Lives Beyond the Tomb is out on Signum Records. My uncles brought a Liverpool FC shirt to the hospital when I was born, and I’ve been a supporter ever since. When I first went to Anfield, on New Year’s Day in 1996, I heard ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ sung live, and it was the most emotional thing I’d…