Indholdsfortegnelse for December 2020 i BBC Music Magazine

Andrew Green Broadcaster and writer ‘Returning in March from lecturing on The Lark Ascending in Australia, I knew there was much more to be uncovered about this remarkable piece. Lockdown gave me the time and space to explore it.’ Page 26 Jeremy Nicholas Writer, critic and actor ‘Cyril Scott’s career as a musician began with a bang and ended with a whimper. I’ve always found the character and ambition of this polymath of equal interest as his fecund and various output as a composer.’ Page 42 Claire Jackson Music journalist and critic ‘Mozart’s First Flute Concerto isn’t exactly a forgotten work, yet I can’t remember the last time I heard a live performance of it. Exploring recordings of this elegant music was a timely and welcome tonic.’ Page 62…

12 …reflections on solitude. Wigmore Hall is commissioning a dozen composers to write pieces that describe their lockdown experience. 63 …per cent growth in recordings and sheet music sales during lockdown, reveals online retailer Presto Music. 2 …millennia of history. A Roman ‘Lar’ figurine is the focus of ten pieces commissioned by museums in Kent. 3 …more years in Massachusetts. Conductor Andris Nelsons (above) has extended his contract as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra until at least 2025.…

Sunday 16 December 1877 was a day Anton Bruckner would never forget. He found himself standing on the podium in Vienna’s glittering Musikverein… with the orchestra having made a swift exit. Behind him in the auditorium just a couple of dozen audience members remained. The cause of this very public abandonment? The premiere of his Third Symphony. The signs weren’t good to be begin with. Bruckner had already wrestled with the work for some four years, obsessively revising it; and then, with a premiere finally in the diary, his friend and chosen conductor Johann Herbeck dropped dead. Though conducting wasn’t Bruckner’s strong point, he decided to direct the performance himself, mainly to avoid losing altogether the opportunity to have it performed by the Vienna Philharmonic. He should have known better.…

With the coronavirus lockdown causing a huge hole in its finances, the Royal Opera House has decided to sell one of its major assets – a portrait of former chief executive Sir David Webster, painted by David Hockney (left) in 1970 and valued at £11-18m. Sad times, though it’s not the first time musicians have had to sell to make ends meet. Paganini’s brilliance on stage was matched by financial ineptitude off it. When his ill-judged investment in a casino in 1837 left him with huge debts to pay, he plugged the gap by pawning his collection of instruments, including a prized Stradivarius. The late 1830s also saw Wagner on the run from his creditors. When his wife Minna, having sold a bracelet to help her husband out, finally lost…

Erin Wall Born 1975 Soprano A versatile and charismatic performer, Erin Wall maintained the career she cherished even after a cancer diagnosis in 2017. That she also found the time, and strength, to train for the New York Marathon goes to show the determination and courage of this much-loved artist. Born in Calgary, she studied piano at Vancouver Music Academy and then singing, down the coast at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. She made her debut in 2001 at Chicago’s Lyric Opera, which remained at the heart of her performing career; she performed with companies across North America, Europe and beyond, and featured on many recordings. Jan Krenz Born 1926 Conductor and composer One of Poland’s most notable conductors, Jan Krenz began his career with the Poznan Philharmonic, moving…

Oliver Condy Editor Salisbury Cathedral’s magnificent four-manual 1860 Willis organ has just been restored, but coronavirus has robbed it of any celebrations. One quiet evening in September, however, thanks to the generosity of assistant director of music John Challenger, I got the chance to play it, bashing my way through Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue while John gamely pulled the stops, taking me through the instrument’s ravishing palette. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Sometimes, a little misery goes a long way. Such as in the recital given by tenor James Gilchrist and members of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales broadcast on Radio 3 on a chilly, damp autumn evening. Alongside Warlock, Judith Bingham and Britten, the deliciously downbeat programme included three songs by the ‘always miserable’ John Dowland ,…

Tasmin Little BBC Philharmonic/ Andrew Davis Chandos CHAN10796 (2013) The second of Little’s recordings captures the wistfully melancholic dimensions to the score in the most natural, unsentimental way. Hugh Bean Philharmonia Orchestra/Adrian Boult Warner 680 5262 (1967) This classic performance remains a perennial favourite. Famously learned by Bean in a matter of hours to fill spare studio time. Immaculately shaped, unforced yet radiant. Iona Brown The Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Neville Marriner Decca 478 5692 (1971) A work Brown adored and spoke about with passion and eloquence. Her performance here, as on this month’s cover disc, fully reflects that affection without ever being over-indulgent. Jennifer Pike Martin Roscoe (piano) Chandos CHAN20156 (2020) In The Lark Ascending’s early days, it was regularly heard in the composer’s violin-and-piano arrangement,…

Piano Concerto Op. 10, Cello Concerto Op. 19, Overture to Pelleas Peter Donohoe (piano), Rafael Wallfisch (cello), BBC Concert Orchestra/Martin Yates Dutton CDLX7309 Three early works, written when Scott was in his 20s, reveal the composer in lushly Romantic form. Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 Symphony No. 3, Piano Concerto No. 2, Neptune Howard Shelley (piano), BBC Philharmonic/Martyn Brabbins Chandos CHAN10211 Subtitled ‘The Muses’, Scott’s Third Symphony is eerily atmospheric in parts; Neptune is big-boned and dramatic The Songs of Cyril Scott Charlotte de Rothschild (soprano), Adrian Farmer (piano) Lyrita SRCD365 Often charmingly simple, many of Scott’s songs were once very popular. This is an excellent introduction. Sonata lirica etc Clare Howick (violin), Sophia Rahman (piano) Dutton CDLX7200 Scott’s works for violin and piano show a range of influences and styles,…

1895 LIFE: Paul Hindemith is born in Hanau, Germany, and is brought up in draconian style by his father, a painter and decorator. His musical talent spotted early, he learns the violin as a child. TIMES: Rudolf Diesel, a Berlin-based engineer, patents his new internal combustion engine, in which elevated air temperature caused by mechanical compression is used to ignite the fuel. 1934 LIFE: Following Joseph Goebbels’s public denunciation of him as an ‘atonal noisemaker’, Hindemith asks to be relieved of his post at the Berlin Academy and accepts a new position in Ankara, Turkey. TIMES: In the ‘Night of the Long Knives’, Ernst Röhm, head of the Nazi party’s paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) organisation, and many of his leading officers are executed on Hitler’s orders. 1953 LIFE: He and his…

Sharon Bezaly (flute) Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra/Juha Kangas BIS Records BISSACD153901 Sharon Bezaly is renowned – and revered by flautists – for her powerful, full-bodied tone and iconic 24-carat gold flute. The Israeli’s technical abilities have inspired reams of major works including those by José Serebrier, Sally Beamish and Christian Lindberg. But in 2005, when this recording was made, her reputation as the ‘Paganini of the flute’ was still in its infancy, and she would go on to be a BBC New Generation Artist the following year. The recording attracted plaudits from across the world, including a five-star review in these pages. It was so successful that BIS reconvened the original lineup – with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and conductor Juha Kangas – to add the Flute and Harp Concerto (with…

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always fancied myself as a conductor – who doesn’t do a good impression of one when listening to favourite works? We’ve more than our fair share of great baton-wavers this month and some of them are legendary. Dudamel conducts Ives, Ozawa conducts Beethoven and Blomstedt conducts Brahms. Joining them are Elder, Jurowski, Ticciati, Roth, Pappano, Rattle, Slatkin, Eschenbach and Myung-whun Chung; kings, all. We’ve plenty of musical queens, too; in fact, Diana Damrau gives us three in this month’s Recording of the Month (see over); violinists Viktoria Mullova and Baiba Skride, composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad and the brilliant mezzo Jamie Barton are just some of the other powerful women featured this issue. Michael Beek Reviews editor This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael…

Beethoven Leonore Overture No. 3; Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92 Saito Kinen Orchestra/Seiji Ozawa Decca 485 0027 52:50 mins Released to mark the veteran conductor’s 85th birthday, these 2016/17 live recordings from Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra bring meticulous attention to detail to Beethoven’s thrilling Symphony No. 7 and the Leonore Overture No. 3. The playing from the Saito Kinen Orchestra, formed every year for the Seiji Ozawa Festival Matsumoto, is lively, clean, full of joy and orchestral breadth, with rapturous applause at the end. Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 is in fact the second version of the overture he wrote for the 1806 revival of his opera Leonore (which later became Fidelio). Dramatically fleshing out the entire opera, including the ending – and here Beethoven…

The Hungarian emigré conductor Fritz Reiner – admired for his musicianship, feared for his exacting temperament – had a formidable reputation for training orchestras. As chief conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and early ’60s, he made a celebrated series of Chicago recordings for RCA’s Living Stereo label, remastered as extraordinary sonic documents. But Reiner’s career on record began much earlier during his decade with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1938, and that’s the musical story that unfolds in this set of his Complete Columbia Album Collection (Sony 19075936772; 14 CDs), at the tail end of the 78 era. The mono recordings lack the astonishing clarity of the Living Stereo tapes, but the remastering is effective, and there are things here Reiner never returned to in the…

Born in Mannheim to a distinguished musical family, Cramer came aged three to London, where he spent most of the rest of his life and career. In April 1781, aged ten, he made his public debut as a pianist, subsequently taking lessons with Clementi (1783-84). Touring Europe, he befriended Haydn and especially Beethoven, and became the English publisher of Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto. Cramer was also a founding member of London’s Philharmonic Society, which famously commissioned Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.…

A remarkably prolific and multi-faceted composer, Henze is perhaps most widely celebrated for his operas, though he also composed several ballets, choral works, chamber music and orchestral works including ten symphonies. His Marxist politics and homosexuality were not well received in his native Germany and in 1953 he was persuaded to settle in Italy, moving to the island of Ischia where he made friends with Walton. His pupils include Mark-Anthony Turnage, and it was at Henze’s prompting that the young English composer wrote his first opera, Greek .…

Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1 In E minor, Op. 38; Cello Sonata No. 2 in F, Op. 99; Violin Sonata No. 1 in D, Op. 78 (arr. Müller-Schott for cello) Daniel Müller-Schott (cello), Francesco Piemontesi (piano) Orfeo C979201 78:15 mins To hear cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and pianist Francesco Piemontesi play these challenging sonatas with such captivating musicality and effortless technical poise, captured in alluringly natural sound, is to be reminded of the astonishingly high standards that nowadays we take almost for granted. If Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim (on EMI/Warner) represent Brahmsian extroversion at its most dynamically compelling, and Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax’s first recording (RCA/Sony) a deeply introspective soundworld in which every phrase carries a special poignancy, Müller-Schott and Piemontesi illuminate the composer’s characteristically full textures with…

James MacMillan Organ Works – Le tombeau de Georges Rouault; St Andrews’ Suite; Offertorium; Toccata, etc Stephen Farr (organ) Resonus RES 10266 55:25 mins Stephen Farr shows off the Rieger organ to thrilling effect Stephen Farr is making quite a speciality of single-composer albums devoted to contemporary UK organ music. Following revelatory accounts of Kenneth Leighton and Judith Bingham comes James MacMillan’s complete organ oeuvre to date – a collection that spans intimate pièces d’occasion to a substantial blockbuster of a Tombeau honouring the painter George Rouault. And Farr has plotted a course through it all that makes for an alluringly cogent recital – shorter pieces acclimatising the ear ahead of the nearly-15-minute Tombeau; the whole bookended by MacMillan’s two most recent works, (the Toccata bringing things full circle by…

December round-up Worlds also collide in the startling new album from newcomer Raphaël Pannier, namely 20th-century classical and modern conceptual jazz. Training at Berklee and then at the Manhattan School of Music bestowed a rarefied aesthetic on Paris-born Pannier not often found in a drummer: Faune, his debut as leader, draws on compositions by Ravel and Messaien, as well as Wayne Shorter and Ornette Coleman. It’s an audacious project that Pannier pulls off magnificently, helped in large part by the mastery of his soloists, especially the protean alto saxist Miguel Zenon. Zenon’s plaintive outline of Messaien’s ‘Le Baiser de L’Enfant Jesus’, set against Pannier’s shimmering cymbals, is exquisite. The drummer also provides painterly settings for outstanding pianists Aaron Goldberg and Giorgi Mikadze. (French Paradox FP004) ★★★★★ Singer Júlia Karosi has…

Julian Anderson – Dialogues on Listening, Composing and Culture Julian Anderson and Christopher Dingle Boydell Press 978-1-783-27498-7 472pp (hb) £45 It’s striking that the ‘Prelude’ of this illuminating book of dialogues with Julian Anderson begins with him contemplating what he doesn’t know about Debussy’s Jeux, and therefore finds most compelling about it. As quickly becomes clear, his knowledge about this and a vast amount of music and more is profound. Yet it’s his intellectual curiosity and subtlety of thought – often at oblique angles to accepted modes – that, allied with his generosity of spirit, most inspire. Over 18 conversations spanning Anderson’s origins as a composer to current and future projects, via his own and a wealth of others’ work, he and Christopher Dingle explore the fabric of music, composing…

South African soprano Golda Schultz lit up the 2020 BBC Last Night of the Proms with a showcase of Mozart, Strauss, songs from musicals and the evening’s traditional anthems. A journalism graduate, she studied voice in Cape Town and at New York’s Juilliard School before moving to Munich to sing with Bayerische Staatsoper. In December she performs with the company as Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz . I have my dad to thank for introducing me to folk rock, rock ’n’ roll and classical music, and my mum for R&B, Motown and wonderful South African vocalists like Brenda Fassie and Yvonne Chaka Chaka. As a seven year-old I remember driving across the country with my parents to visit friends in Windhoek, Namibia. For the entire 24 hours I insisted on…

I used to drive past Shirehampton Public Hall on the way back from Bristol Airport (not much flying happening these days), and never gave it a great deal of thought. But, as you’ll read at the start of Andrew Green’s wonderful feature (see p26), this unassuming building on the outskirts of Bristol turns out to have been the venue for the very first performance, in 1920, of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending – six years after the work’s completion. Its premiere wasn’t a grand affair. Played in a version for violin and piano, the accompaniment was drawn from the orchestral score. Small-scale premieres were often a way of inexpensively testing the water. Most of Holst’s The Planets was originally scored for two pianos and Stravinsky performed a solo piano version…

Honours abound Conductor Donald Runnicles has been awarded a knighthood in the belated Queen’s Birthday Honours. Sir Donald, who is music director of Deutsche Oper Berlin, is a former chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Other honorees include oboist Nicholas Daniel, composer Sally Beamish and tenor John Mark Ainsley (all OBE), and violinist Jennifer Pike and conductor Stephen Layton (MBE). Master of Mozart Michael Collins has been named as the new artistic director of the London Mozart Players. The clarinettist, a familiar friend of tbe LMP over the years, will begin his new post in September 2021. He takes the helm of an ensemble that last year celebrated its 70th anniversary and, over those seven decades, has made its name in repertoire well beyond just Wolfgang Amadeus himself.…

Tenor Carlo Vistoli uncovers three recordings from his own collection Richafort Requiem Huelgas Ensemble/Paul van Nevel Harmonia Mundi HMC901730 I have always been interested in Renaissance vocal music and this is one of my favourites. Richafort is of the post-Josquin generation, and in this mass he uses some quotations from Josquin to form a beautiful work that gives an impression of solidity and magnificence. The music flows fluidly, while there are sometimes these beautiful little dissonances. It’s also strange for a Requiem mass, because it opens in a major key. Perti San Petronio – Quando sì belle ridon le stelle Mirella Freni (soprano); Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna/Tito Gotti Erato WPCS-5881 This has quite a sentimental value for me; I sang in the Basilica di San Petronio, the wonderful…

There’s a lot of talk right now about ‘culture wars’ – the clash between those who see the UK’s future as primarily focused on ‘Britishness’ and those who would prefer the country to be outward-looking and multicultural. Three points occur to me. The first is that such tensions have existed for centuries. The second is that music has always been a prime battleground (and still is; I have the psychological scars to prove it). And the third is that a nation’s cultural life is always more complex and nuanced than the extremists on any side would have one believe. These thoughts are prompted by Andrew Green’s feature on Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending on p26. For decades, Vaughan Williams was reviled for his parochialism and pastoralism by those on the…

When recording at London’s Henry Wood Hall in 1997, Wayne Marshall stayed at the piano afterwards, recording A Gershwin Songbook, a set of improvisations on songs by the US composer (Erato 9995221015). Marshall’s love for Gershwin has endured throughout his career, including a disc with the Chineke! Orchestra and pianist Stewart Goodyear (Orchid Classics ORC100100) – as the finale, Marshall conducts a fiery rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, a piece he plays himself on a 2002 recording with the Aalborg Symphony (Erato 5620562). This year, Marshall rejoined Chineke! on Spark Catchers, a disc celebrating music by living black composers (NMCD250). Try also Blues (ORC100002), a collection from 2006 which sees Marshall join violinist Matthew Trusler in short pieces by jazz-influenced composers plus his own improvisations. More traditional repertoire can…

Jeremy Pound delves into the world of classical poetry to explore how Ovid’s Metamorphoses has inspired a wealth of composers over the centuries In 8 AD, the poet Ovid found himself in a bad place. Quite literally. Exiled by Emperor Augustus, he was destined to live out his final years in the Black Sea port of Tomis where, on the fringes of the Roman world, few people spoke his language. Had Ovid – or, to give him his full name, Publius Ovidius Naso – lived in our social media age, he would have doubtless leapt straight onto Twitter; as it was, he poured out his feelings of woe in two sets of verse, the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. In his own words, it was ‘carmen et error’ – a…

Fin-de-siècle Vienna was a city of powerful contradictions. A reputation for rampant hedonism camouflaged grinding poverty, while a fierce attachment to old ideas and tradition was under siege from an intellectual ferment that embraced the arts and science alike. Klimt started his career painting murals for the national edifices springing up on the Ringstrasse, but a dissatisfaction with the stultifying conservatism of the establishment prompted the founding of the Vienna Secession and, through the brushes of artists such as Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, a bold reimagining of what painting might be. In architecture Adolf Loos took a swipe at the city’s penchant for the grandiose; satirist Karl Kraus and writers as diverse as Schnitzler, Musil and Hofmannsthal enlivened the literary scene; Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis gave everyone plenty to chew…

Hindemith’s musical craft was grounded in the tradition of Bachian counterpoint For over 20 years, Paul Hindemith and his wife Gertrud made a habit of sending self-made greeting cards for Christmas and the New Year. A brilliant cartoonist and graphic artist, the composer designed them all, and the final one, for 1963-64, is especially poignant. It’s a double self-portrait showing Hindemith playing his new Organ Concerto on an instrument whose bellows are being pumped by a benign-looking lion. The lion, a recurring motif throughout his drawings, was a light-hearted hommage to Gertrud, whose sign of the zodiac was Leo. She outlived him by five years, but Hindemith was to die between that Christmas and New Year, on 28 December 1963 in Frankfurt am Main, a city that shaped his life…

Juliette Bausor Mozart’s melodies are given space to breathe in this nicely paced interpretation, which was released in 2016. Juliette Bausor, now principal flautist at the London Philharmonic Orchestra, draws out the Adagio, providing opportunities for the notes to rest, while Jaime Martin and the Royal Northern Sinfonia – Bausor’s alma mater – linger over the gentle accompaniment. The Rondeau is fresh as a daisy. In a programmatic twist, Mozart’s tonal tunes are paired with the drama and mystery of Nielsen’s 1926 Flute Concerto. (Signum SIGCS467) William Bennett Now 84, William Bennett – affectionately known as ‘Wibb’ in fluting circles, including the British Flute Society, of which he is president – has probably made more recordings than any other flautist. His 1979 version of this concerto, performed with long-time collaborators…

Donizetti Tudor Queens – Scenes from Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux Diana Damrau (soprano), Irida Dradoti (mezzo-soprano), Sara Rocchi (mezzo-soprano), Domenico Pellicola (tenor), Saverio Fiore (tenor), Andrii Ganchuk (baritone), Fabrizio Beggi (bass); Chorus & Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano Erato 9029528093 69:28 mins There was an eccentric fashion at the turn of the 20th century for staging the best bits of several operas in a single evening. You might get half of La traviata plus Cavalleria rusticana , or La bohème with the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor thrown in. It was often dramatically nonsensical, but on this disc, three thematically connected Donizettian dénouements ( Anna Bolena , Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux ) make for a compelling combination. Donizetti is a composer about whom…

Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel*; Job** *Neal Davies (bass-baritone), **David Adams (violin), **Darius Battiwalla (organ); Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder Hallé CDHLL 7556 70:16 mins The playing is sharply etched and bristling with confidence First one high-quality Job comes along – Andrew Davis’s with the Bergen Philharmonic (on Chandos) – and now here’s another. The differences between them are quite significant. With Davis, the score sounds firmly central-European in idiom and stylistically quite progressive. Mark Elder’s Hallé, by contrast, are particularly good at catching the strongly English flavour of the work, and its umbilical connections to folk dance. This is immediately evident in Elder’s gently melancholy account of the pastoral ‘Introduction’, and in wind playing full of bucolic character. The Hallé’s experience of recording Vaughan Williams’s symphonies with Elder is evident in…

Cramer Piano Concertos Nos 1, 3 & 6 London Mozart Players/ Howard Shelley (piano) Hyperion CDA68302 78:00 mins Johann Baptist Cramer was highly rated by composer-pianist contemporaries – Beethoven among them – and this second instalment in Howard Shelley’s ongoing concertos cycle offers convincing evidence as to why. All three works have individuality and substance; and it’s hard to imagine they can ever have been much better played. There are just a few moments – for instance the chords of the piano’s first entry in Concerto No. 1, which sound over-full (rather than actually overloud) on Shelley’s modern concert grand – where you miss the feel and articulation of a classical-period piano. In every other respect the immaculate playing here is alert and personable in a way that transcends contentious…

Bononcini Polifemo João Fernandes, Bruno de Sá, Helena Rasker, Liliya Gaysina, Roberta Mameli, Roberta Invernizzi, Maria Ladurner; Ensemble 1700/ Dorothee Oberlinger DHM 19439743802 94:44 mins (2 discs) Giovanni Bononcini’s Polifemo is much more than the ‘bagatelle’ described by one critic. Written for the Prussian court of Queen Sophia Charlotte in 1704, 15 years before the Italian composer was coaxed to London (where for a time he became a serious popular rival to Handel), this first recording in Italian from Dorothee Oberlinger’s admirable Ensemble 1700 reveals a one-act Baroque gem. True, Attilio Ariosti’s libretto is a tad inconsequential, with the Cyclops Polifemo who lends his name to the work less present than the two pairs of lovers, Aci and Galatea and Glauco and Silla; while at the end Venus turns out…

JS Bach Motets, BWV 225-30; plus motets by Bertolusi, Gallus, G Gabrieli and Praetorius Ensemble Pygmalion/ Raphaël Pichon Harmonia Mundi HMM 902657 74:38 mins Following its widely acclaimed recording of Bach’s four Missae, or short masses (BWV 233-236), Pygmalion, under its founder and director Raphaël Pichon, has addressed the motets. With a view to presenting them in an historical context, Pichon has included motets by four 16th-century composers – Vincenzo Bertolusi, Jacob Handl (or Gallus), Hieronimus Praetorius and Giovanni Gabrieli. These are among a collection of motets from Florilegium Portense, first published in Leipzig in 1603 and, in its later expanded edition, ordered by Bach for his singers at the Thomasschule. Pichon’s programme is framed by Bach’s most joyful motets, Lobet den Herrn and Singet dem Herr ein neues Lied.…

Shostakovich Piano Quintet; Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok Ekaterina Semenchuk (mezzo-soprano), Catherine Montier (violin), Christophe Gaugué (viola); Trio Wanderer Harmonia Mundi HMM902289 56:35 mins The Wanderers negotiate the Quintet’s complex narrative with conviction Trio Wanderer have already established outstanding credentials in Shostakovich with their superb recording of the two Piano Trios. This warmly-engineered release, featuring the ensemble enlarged by violinist Catherine Montier and violist Christophe Gaugué in the Piano Quintet of 1940, consolidates this reputation with a performance that is comprehensively responsive to the various different strands in the work. In a relatively unmannered interpretation, the Wanderers negotiate the Quintet’s complex narrative with total conviction as they move almost seamlessly from the austere Bachian neo-Classicism of the opening Prelude and Fugue to the boisterous circus music in the…

Born in Transylvania to a family of Hungarian Jews, Ligeti was pressed into a forced-labour gang on the eastern front in 1944. After several escapes both from Nazis and from Soviet troops, he discovered that he and his mother were the only members of his family to survive the war. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, where in 1948 he composed Dialogo, a solo cello piece for a fellow student he was secretly in love with. She never played it, but when in 1953 another cellist, Vera Dénes, asked for a work, he added a second movement to create his Solo Cello Sonata.…

Victoria Borisova-Ollas Angelus Royal Stockholm Philharmonic/ Oramo, Brabbins, Boreyko BIS BIS-2288  Whether taking us on an evocative tour of Munich in Angelus or putting the strings through their paces in the angular Creation of the Hymn, Borisova-Ollas writes with colour and ingenuity. (JP) ★★★★ Bruckner Symphonies (trans. organ) Hansjorg Albrecht (organ) Oehms OC 476  Bruckner writes in big sound blocks which makes a transcription for the organ possible. The ‘zero’ symphony isn’t the Austrian composer’s greatest moment, but the playing is impressive. (OC) ★★★ Jaap Nico Hamburger Piano Concerto Assaff Weisman (piano) et al Leaf Music LM238  There’s plenty of Shostakovich-style angst and rage here, supplemented by bells and sirens. It’s meaty and dramatic, but not hugely memorable. (JP) ★★★ Redi Hasa Cello Works Redi Hasa (cello) Decca 485 1323…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this December George Benjamin Composer of the Week celebrates the 60th birthday of British composer George Benjamin, who joins Donald Macleod to reflect on his career. The pair discuss Benjamin’s inspirations, collaborations and compositional process, as well as life as a composer, pianist, conductor and teacher. Composer of the Week: 7-11 December, 12 noon Dissecting Beethoven Radio 3’s Georgia Mann and eminent neurosurgeon Henry Marsh explore what Beethoven’s autopsy results reveal about who he was and how he lived. The Brodsky Quartet will play works by Beethoven written during periods of major illness. Sunday Feature: 13 December, 6.45pm Radio 3 in Concert from Glasgow Rising star Chloé van Soeterstède conducts the BBC Scottish…

The wider picture I was left with mixed feelings about BBC Four’s interesting documentary Black Classical Music: the Forgotten History. On one hand, Suzy Klein and Lenny Henry both made valid points about certain works by various black classical composers such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Florence Price deserving more attention in the repertoires and recordings of orchestras and performers – such inclusiveness provides positive role models to encourage a greater number of black people into classical music. However, I think that their notions of deliberate ‘exclusion’ and ‘erasing’ of black history in classical music is overstated. Any of the 29 thick volumes of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians reveals extreme competition, with the relative handful of black classical composers merely struggling to be heard above the cacophony…

Brandon Patrick George Flautist Born: Dayton, Ohio, US Career highlight: Performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic with the formidable Gustavo Dudamel conducting, and playing to a sold-out audience in the Elbphilharmonie’s Grosser Saal in Hamburg with my quintet, Imani Winds. Musical hero: I admire the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli for her virtuosic singing and sensitivity, and also for the way she communicates the music. I’m always thinking about how I can be an advocate for the flute and its repertoire in the way she is for the voice. Dream concert: Performing Schubert’s Trockne Blumen Variations at Wigmore Hall with pianist Stephen Hough or Dalbavie’s Flute Concerto with a great orchestra. Shruthi Rajasekar Composer and vocalist Born: Minneapolis, US Career highlight: Receiving the Global Women in Music Award alongside incredible…

Composer Param Vir was at London’s Henry Wood Hall earlier this month to record his new work Wheeling Past the Stars. Soprano Patricia Auchterlonie and cellist Ulrich Heinen performed the piece, which will join Vir’s works Hayagriva, Before Krishna and Raga Fields on a new album for NMC, to be released early next year. The Sitkovetsky Trio will follow its debut Beethoven recording for BIS Records with a programme of piano trios by Ravel and Saint-Saëns, due to be released on the same label in March. The works were recorded earlier this year at St George’s Bristol. Science- and nature-inspired composer Edward Cowie’s latest batch of chamber works are set to be recorded between now and December at Silverdale Parish Church in Lancashire. The album, entitled Stream and Variations, will…

Months ago, near the start of lockdown, I was listening to Ravel’s Mother Goose. Perhaps it was the uncertainty of the moment, that feeling of bewildered disconnection from the world, but when the music reached the final Apothéose, I found myself in the grip of uncontrollably intense emotion. Ravel’s music was an aching absolute of beauty, a place untrammelled by the pandemic or politics or any of the other maddening temporalities with which the real world was riven. Instead, the slow sarabande of Ravel’s music blossomed into that Jardin féerique, a place which was, for those magical three-and-a-half minutes, a realm more vivid than the brute facts of the latest case numbers or the cancellation of musical life as we knew it. More vivid – but still exquisitely painful. How…

Sylvia Evernden Denbighshire My coronavirus lockdown project to try and de-clutter by reducing the number of CDs on my shelves ended in abject failure as I decided that I didn’t want to get rid of any of them. What it did make me do, though, is have another listen to several that had been gathering dust. These included The Deer’s Cry, a lovely disc of Byrd, Tallis and Pärt, exquisitely sung by The Sixteen. Even the cover is gorgeous. How could I contemplate getting rid of it?…

A phenomenon. Vaughan Williams’s Romance for Violin and Orchestra: The Lark Ascending constantly rides high across the world in polls of music-lovers’ favourite pieces. A majority of listeners to Australia’s ABC Classic radio network recently indicated this was their go-to music during the COVID crisis. Radio presenters everywhere can choose from an ever greater range of recordings featuring violinists of multiple nationalities. Strange to think, then, that the work received the most low-profile of launches. The date: 15 December 1920. Venue: the modest Shirehampton Public Hall in a quiet corner of Bristol. The Avonmouth and Shirehampton Choral Society presented a concert with a seasonal flavour; Vaughan Williams directed a performance of his Fantasia on Christmas Carols. However, no conductor was required when the 36-year-old British violinist Marie Hall came on…

Isabelle van Keulen violinist The Lark Ascending is a piece that grips you, and I’ve just gone deeper and deeper into it over the years. There’s much more to it than just a little bird – although it has to flutter, it has to fly, it has to whistle. You can’t treat it as a showpiece or make it sound virtuosic. But you can’t play it just correctly or beautifully either. You need to give the feeling of the music arriving from nowhere and going nowhere. Andrew Litton conductor It was well into my time as chief conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony before I conducted The Lark, but I quickly fell in love with it, not least because the orchestral accompaniment is so delicious in its subtlety. The piece has…

‘‘Debussy called Cyril Scott ‘one of the rarest artists of the present generation’ ’’ His gravestone in Pevensey churchyard bears the motto: ‘Here lie the ashes of Cyril Scott; Musical composer, poet & author; 27 Sept. 1879 – 31 Dec. 1970; Unity in Diversity’. Fifty years after his death, what are we to make of Cyril Meir Scott? For a succinct introduction to his life and achievements, here is Percy Scholes in the Oxford Companion to Music, writing when Scott was still living: ‘He is a highly capable pianist and writes effectively for his instrument, but his work covers almost all branches, including orchestral, chamber, solo vocal, choral, and operatic.’ So far, so unremarkable, but the following might raise an eyebrow: ‘His father, a business man, was an ardent and…

Not all works called Metamorphoses (or similar) are derived from Ovid. Meaning ‘changes’, the word can suggest various other references. Richard Strauss, for example, was tight-lipped about the meaning of his 1945 Metamorphosen, but the title may point to the times he was living through. In the case of the Symphonic Metamorphoses by Hindemith and Godowsky, it refers to adaptations of music by, respectively, Weber and Strauss. The title of Ligeti’s Metamorphoses nocturnes string quartet is intended to convey the idea of variations on a concept, and George Crumb’s (above) Metamorphoses for piano is a set of musical re-imaginings of works by great painters.…

Neue Sachlichkeit Originally connected with the visual arts, ‘New Objectivity’ was the dominant art movement of 1920s Germany. Aimed at stripping away excesses of expressionism, it attracted Hindemith who embraced Baroque traits and jazz trends to produce eclectic textures, leading to neo-classicism. Gebrauchsmusik A practical musician, Hindemith threw himself into the ‘utility music’ movement that began in Weimar Germany. He believed in community music and wrote pieces that were instructive and practical, even taking the name of a sub-genre, Lehrstück , as the title of a collaborative work with Bertolt Brecht (above). Harmony Hindemith developed harmony that was tonal but not based on the traditional scale. Rather than using strict 12-note rows, he ranked the 12 tones from the most consonant to the most dissonant and sought an organised musical…

Just 22 years old he may have been, but at the time of writing his First Flute Concerto in 1778 Mozart already had a substantial body of work on his CV – as well as early operas including Mitridate, re di Ponto and a significant number of symphonies, he had also completed all five of his violin concertos plus several piano concertos, including his ‘Jeunehomme’ Concerto, K271. A steady income, however, was proving hard to come by and a fraught year was blighted further by the death of his mother, Anna Maria, as she accompanied him on a visit to Paris.…

Flautists relish the relentless final movement of CPE Bach’s Concerto Sharing the lightness and buoyancy of the First Flute Concerto, Mozart’s Second is a natural follow-on, with the two often paired in recordings. It places a greater focus on the solo instrument than the First, particularly in its opening movement in which the flute emerges gently with a rising scale before expanding into a sparkling solo line. (Sharon Bezaly; Ostrobothnian CO BIS BISSACD1539) Just as Mozart’s Second Flute Concerto was originally written for the oboe, there has also been a lot of debate over whether CPE Bach’s Flute Concerto in D minor was ever intended for the instrument. A version for harpsichord and strings has been touted as the original, but flautists have endeavoured to make it their own, relishing…

What drew you to this project? I had my debut as Maria Stuarda two years ago – I’m doing her again at the moment at the Zurich opera house – and next year will be my debut as Anna Bolena. So I had been playing with the idea, and then the possibility came to record in Rome with Antonio Pappano, the chorus, orchestra and the young singers. I think there was no question; it was a wish, a hope and then it was a dream come true. Were you impressed by the young singers of Rome Opera? They performed with all their heart and all their love, and they were completely committed. We need young singers and it’s wonderful for someone at the beginning of their career to see how…

Born in Vergnies, at that time a French enclave in the Netherlands, Gossec was a chorister at Antwerp Cathedral before moving to Paris in 1751. With Rameau’s support, he composed his First Symphony in 1754 and became conductor of a private orchestra. Befriending Mozart and Haydn, his conducting career became illustrious, and in 1795 he was appointed professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire. His grandiose works, such as his Te Deum (1790) requiring 1,200 singers and 300 wind instruments, anticipated Berlioz.…

Hindemith Kammermusik Nos 4-7 Stephen Waarts (violin), Timothy Ridout (viola), Ziyu Shen (viola d’amore), Christian Schmitt (organ); Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra; Kronberg Academy Soloists/Christoph Eschenbach Ondine ODE 1357-2 73:64 mins Christoph Eschenbach has a special feeling for this music In 1920s Germany, even music manuscript paper was in short supply, one reason why Hindemith composed for smaller ensembles during this period. But the ‘new objectivity’ sweeping the arts also called for something detached, a sort of Weimar-era answer to the Brandenburg Concertos, as can be heard especially in the five movements of the Kammermusik No. 4 for solo violin and large chamber orchestra. This vivid work opens with a pungent fanfare, its colours stemming from jazz-band instrumentation and the absence of orchestral violins. Stephen Waarts plays the solo part with brilliant…

Siri, with her rich-hued voice and impeccable sense of line, is outstanding in the role. A superbly naturalistic actor, she is utterly endearing as this naïve innocent whose optimism is constantly crushed. Anna Maria Chiuri is equally convincing as La Zia Principessa: implacable to the last, her voice as dark as her black suit and her ominous mood. Conductor Valerio Galli wrings every drop of emotion from an Puccini Suor Angelica (DVD) María José Siri, Anna Maria Chiuri; Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino/ Valerio Galli; dir. Denis Krief (Florence, 2019) Dynamic DVD: 37873; Blu-ray: 57873 60 mins The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino has cannily released angst-ridden, at times sinister orchestral score that is pure film music avant la lettre. Valerio Galli wrings every drop of emotion from Puccini’s orchestral…

Jake Heggie Unexpected Shadows: The Work at Hand*; Of Gods and Cats; Iconic Legacies; Statuesque etc Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano), *Matt Haimowitz (cello), Jake Heggie (piano) Pentatone PTC 5186 836 65:09 mins Barton and Heggie move seamlessly from dramatic to droll Jamie Barton has won admiration for her operatic roles as well as her advocacy for diversity within classical music (famously flying the Pride flag at the 2019 Last Night of the Proms). In her latest recording, Barton shows that she is also a dab hand at contemporary repertoire and artistry on a more intimate scale. Unexpected Shadows is a greatest hits collection of songs and arias by Jake Heggie. The connection? Each work represents accomplished, intelligent and iconic women – as character, creator and muse. Three song cycles comprise the…

JS Bach Goldberg Variations (arr. harp) Parker Ramsay (harp) King’s College KGS 0049 78:29 mins Conceived as a way of marrying – in harpist Parker Ramsay’s words – the ‘raw pluckiness’ of the harpsichord with the ‘expressive range of the piano’, his new transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for modern pedal harp is the latest in a not inconsiderable line of transcriptions of the piece for that instrument. The venture has its steep technical challenges, both in the working out and the playing, but Bach, who was very catholic in his approach to transcription, would not have batted an eyelid. Ramsay sidesteps these challenges, and the lovely if echoic acoustic of King’s College Chapel – which gives the harp a sometimes overwhelming shimmering acoustic ripple – by playing subtly with…

December round-up It was one of the hottest tickets in town back in January and thankfully DG saw fit to record John Williams in Vienna for those of us who couldn’t make it. The legendary composer described the invitation to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic as one of the great honours of his life, and it seems the honour was very much reciprocated. The fullest and best experience here really is through the Blu-ray release; the warmth and respect for the man and his music in that great golden room is palpable. From the first downbeat, the years appear to fall away as Williams and the Vienna Phil take a trip through some of his most beloved themes. (DG Blu-ray: 483 9045 / CD: 483 6373 ★★★★★ ) Another live recording,…

Naim Uniti Core £1,999 With capacity for over 100,000 CDs, this wonderfully accomplished CD drive and music server makes transferring your collection to digital completely fuss-free, with easy playback in the highest possible quality. naimaudio.com AT-LP120XBT-USB £289 Perfect for vinyl lovers and digital streamers, this direct-drive turntable plays 33 1/3, 45 and 78rpm records, has Bluetooth for streaming to a separate speaker and USB output for digitising your old records to a computer. audio-technica.com TEAC AD850 £399 This innovative hi-fi separate with CD player and cassette deck plugs into your existing set-up – thanks to the USB input you can digitise and transfer your music directly to USB flash drives. teach-audio.eu…

BBC Radio 3 and BBC Archives have launched ‘Experience Classical’, an archive of classical music recordings, programmes and podcasts. The archive includes 600 audio recordings from the BBC’s orchestras and choirs, as well as performers such as pianist and cellist Isata and Sheku Kanneh-Mason. You can choose recordings by mood, such as ‘energise’, ‘focus’ and ‘wind down’, as well as by instrument, composer and period. Alongside core classical repertoire, the archive features performances of new works by composers including Anna Meredith, Hannah Kendall and Anna Clyne. Plus, there’s a collection of works by alumni of the BBC Young Composer competition. The platform also hosts a new 3D sound experience to listen to recordings of BBC Philharmonic concerts in binaural sound, which gives users the feeling of listening in a three-dimensional…