Indholdsfortegnelse for April 20231 i BBC Music Magazine

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Singers snubbed The King’s Singers have expressed their sadness at having a concert in Florida called off at the last minute on the grounds of sexuality. Pensacola Christian College, which was due to host the group, said in a statement that it cancelled the event ‘upon learning that one of the artists openly maintained a lifestyle that contradicts Scripture’. In response, the King’s Singers said that ‘This is the first time that anything other than bad weather, the pandemic or war has caused a concert cancellation in our 55-year history.’ Choral diversity Works by Florence Price, Julia Perry and Ken Burton are among those featured in The Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers, a new collection published by Oxford University Press. ‘Through publishing this anthology, we are raising…

I treat playing and composing as different disciplines. I like to think, however, that one fuels the other. We’ve got away from that idea of the performer being a composer, although we have a vast amount of repertoire from composers who were just that. So that’s something I advocate. I always knew I’d be a flautist. I remember picking up branches and pretending they were flutes, but before I could get the instrument in my hands one of the components of playtime for me and my sisters was to improvise. We had a little cheap organ-like instrument and we would hold a note, make a drone and sing a melody on top, or improvise with the other hand. I always knew I’d be a composer too. I would draw out my…

David Skinner Choral director One of my lockdown projects was to learn the Renaissance harp. I’d been so inspired by Andrew Lawrence-King, who has been on a number of Alamire’s records, that I wanted to learn it myself. My favourite piece to play is ‘My Lady Carey’s Dompe’, written for Anne Boleyn’s eldest sister – it has a lovely ground bass and some nice twiddly bits on top – but I don’t play in front of anyone apart from my wife and the cat at present. I also conduct the choir at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. It’s a fantastic choir and particularly adept at early music, because we sing a weekly Latin Vespers in addition to two Evensongs a week. Last year we really got into the composer Jheronimus Vinders;…

The Russian-born pianist tells Michael Church about stretching the bounds of a phenomenal natural talent that happily embraces everything from classical music to jazz When a revolutionary new piano design, the Maene-Viñoly Concert Grand, needed to be test-driven last year, its creators chose Kirill Gerstein. For wherever this inspirational figure leads, people tend to follow, correctly assuming that whatever he does will in some way be original. We saw this in the pandemic. He was not the only musician to invite us into their living room, but no one came near his tally of online guests, because what he offered was much more than a free recital: each week he hosted a musical seminar – all now archived and available to the public – with speakers not only from the…

The pencil-drawn diagrams are meticulous, noting the contents and whereabouts of their author’s discoveries. A map depicts a bird’s eye view of one room, showing a pile of wheels; another shows a series of steps. The documents – recently displayed at Weston Library in Oxford as part of ‘Tutankhamun: Excavating the Archive’ – describe the discovery of the first known intact royal burial from ancient Egypt that became a world-famous archaeological find. But long before Howard Carter and co’s 1922 haul, the land of the pharaohs had proved an irresistible draw, with a fascination for the early dynasties frequently translated into music. Biblical connections were a focus for the likes of Handel (Israel in Egypt), Rossini (Moses in Egypt; Moses and Pharaoh) and Anton Rubinstein (Moses), whose works were based…

For more choral Rachmaninov, try his earlier Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. Although he eventually dismissed it as unworthy of the Russian Orthodox services of his childhood, it is a fine work whose main sin is to sound obviously a work of the late-19th century in its expressive harmonic style. (Flemish Radio Choir/Kaspars Putniņš Glossa GCD 922203). Russian Orthodox music’s turn-of-the-century renaissance would have been impossible without the precedent of Tchaikovsky’s setting of the St John Chrysostom Liturgy. It is often said to be more of historic than of musical importance – his publisher won the court case against the Imperial Chapel who had insisted on its right to oversee and censor all music performed in the church – but one has only to hear the magnificent choral outburst of…

Saint-Georges L’Amant anonyme (The Anonymous Lover) Nicole Cabell, Geoffrey Agpalo, David Govertsen, Erica Schuller, Michael St. Peter, Nathalie Colas; Haymarket Opera Company/Craig Trompeter Çedille CDR 90000 217 170:31 mins (3 discs) Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the bi-racial 18th-century composer, violinist, champion fencer and much else, has finally started to gain due recognition – albeit, almost exclusively through his instrumental works. With this first complete recording of L’Amant anonyme, his only opera to survive largely intact, we get a more rounded sense of this remarkable composer. First heard in 1780, L’Amant anonyme centres around Léontine and Valcour. The latter makes anonymous advances, so a ‘love triangle’ forms between just the two of them. Each has a confidante, Ophémon and Dorothée respectively, while two villagers, Jeannette and Colin, provide an exemplar…

Rachmaninov Études-Tableaux, Opp 33 & 39; Three Pieces (1917) Harmonia Mundi HMM902297 73:34 mins Both sets of Études-Tableaux are consistently enthralling, especially in these performances, but the second sequence, along with the Op. 32 Preludes, includes the most profound music Rachmaninov ever composed for solo piano. When I reviewed all available recordings of Op. 39 for Radio 3’s Building a Library, Nikolai Lugansky had only recorded some of the numbers; the complete set, further enriched by perspectives from Op. 33, establishes a golden mean in Rachmaninov interpretation, somewhere between my top choices back then, the robust and springy Rustem Hayroudinoff and the more mystically inclined Alexander Melnikov. Many have mistaken Lugansky’s meticulous objectivity for coldness, but the classical balance only makes the biggest climaxes hit all the harder. From the…

THIS MONTH: TRUE WIRELESS EARBUDS INTELLIGENT FEATURES GALORE JBL Tour Pro 2 £250 Of its countless features, it’s the mini LED touchscreen on the charging case that will grab the headlines. This 1.4" screen lets you skip tracks, adjust volume and tweak the excellent active noise cancelling, plus change EQ sound profiles – though these are pretty woeful – without needing to take your phone out. Battery life is superb at up to 50 hours, the JBL app has loads of other features including a ‘Find My Buds’ alarm if you misplace them, and thankfully they’ve not neglected audio performance in favour of all these party tricks. uk.jbl.com EXCEPTIONAL BUDGET CHOICE Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+ £50 An antidote to do-it-all designs, this light (4.6g per bud) and comfortable pair does…

‘I like to fancy that on my deathbed my last vision in this life will be the scene from my window…of the still brooding dove grey mystery of the Atlantic at twilight.’ Arnold Bax in 1943, thinking of the village in West Donegal that had become his spiritual home. A Celtic wonderland, bathed in supernatural light, steeped in saga, folk-tale and fairy-lore, as Bax wrote; and we feel its legacy through his symphonies and tone poems from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor David Lloyd-Jones (Naxos 8.507014; seven discs). Begin at the end of the set with Bax’s best-known piece: Tintagel, because the sense of timeless myth and the power of the sea surging below the castle on its rocky outcrop informs so much in the symphonies. A calmer…

Music for Royal Occasions Works by Byrd, Handel, Elgar, Parry, Walton et al The BBC Singers and BBC Concert Orchestra under Barry Wordsworth PLUS! Transgender opera singer Lucia Lucas speaks to George Hall; 1953 coronation choristers reminisce with Andrew Green; Roger Nichols marks ten years since the death of Henri Dutilleux; Michael White explores Thomas Gainsborough’s passion for music; and Ligeti is our Composer of the Month Competition terms and conditions Winners will be the senders of the first correct entries drawn at random. All entrants are deemed to have accepted the rules (see opposite) and agreed to be bound by them. The prizes shall be as stated and no cash alternatives will be offered. Competitions are open to UK residents only, except employees of Our Media Company Limited, the…

Gustavo Dudamel to take over at the New York Phil Venezuelan conductor set to make the switch from Los Angeles in 2026/27 season Gustavo Dudamel has been named as the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, a move the Venezuelan conductor describes as ‘a dream come true’. He will be taking over the post, one of the most prestigious in the business, from Jaap van Zweden at the beginning of the 2026/7 season, at which point he will have completed his final season as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Dudamel’s shift from west to east coast is, by all accounts, the result of a long and determined pursuit by NY Phil CEO Deborah Borda, who also brought him to the LA Phil when she was in…

What to do if your town is short of a doctor? In the case of Lostwithiel, the answer is to appeal for a new GP by recording a specially written song. Containing lines such as ‘You can negotiate your terms, If you keep us free from germs’, the Nina Simone-inspired ‘Need a doctor’ also highlights the Cornish town’s attractions – from the River Fowey to fine eateries – in its bid for a medic. We wish them luck, while wondering if they have thought of targeting James Gilchrist, a top tenor who trained as a doctor before taking his career elsewhere. Might such a musical welcome tempt him to come and multi-task…?…

Charlotte Smith Editor Braving a trip to the Barbican on a cold February evening was well worth the effort, not only to hear Bacewicz’s Fourth Symphony, passionately performed by the BBC Symphony under Sakari Oramo, but also for the chance to see two of the best young string players of the moment – violinist Johan Dalene and violist Timothy Ridout – performing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante. All expectations were realised in a reading of great sensitivity, humour and charisma. Bravo! Jeremy Pound Deputy editor The film itself leaves me unmoved – she’s drippy, he’s a cad – but Brief Encounter does at least have a memorable soundtrack. Hearing Moszkowski’s Bolero played in the tearoom inspired me to explore of all five of his Spanish Dances in the 1957 recording by the…

‘In the darkest days of the pandemic, as I was sitting at home, it occurred to me that 2023 would be a significant year – the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninov’s birth. Would I live to see another anniversary of such importance? Perhaps if I lived to 90! So, I thought to myself, “If we ever get though this, I’m going to celebrate properly.”’ Steven Fox, music director of New York’s Clarion Choir, is speaking to me in a restaurant just a stone’s throw away from 505 West End Avenue, the stately New York apartment where Rachmaninov and his wife Natalia eventually settled after fleeing the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Fox is telling me about his very special project for 2023 – to conduct all of Rachmaninov’s major choral works.…

As the camera pans from orchestra to audience in the final scene of Tár, we learn just how far the mighty conductor has fallen. We first met her many indiscretions earlier, as she was preparing to record a complete cycle of Mahler symphonies with the Berlin Phil. Now she finds herself directing a provincial performance of music from a video game, with a giant projection screen behind the orchestra, players wearing click-track headsets and an audience done up in elaborate fantasy cosplay. In reality, live orchestral performance has found necessary new eyes and ears in recent years thanks to events just like the one we’re invited to scoff at in Tár. But does this offer anything to artists beyond boosted revenues? US composer Mason Bates certainly thinks so. His audiovisual…

1936 LIFE: Steve Reich is born on 3 October in New York. When his parents separate, his life is divided between New York and California, necessitating long train journeys between the two. TIMES: In the US presidential election, Franklin D Roosevelt enjoys a landslide victory over Alf Landon, who wins just eight electoral votes out of 531. 1965 LIFE: Following studies in New York and California, he produces his first major composition, It’s Gonna Rain for magnetic tape, in which he breaks new ground with his ‘phasing’ technique. TIMES: Soon after releasing his Bringing It All Back Home album, Bob Dylan finds himself booed by some of his fans at the Newport Folk Festival, Rhode Island, when he performs with an electric band for the first time. 1970 LIFE: He…

JS Bach The Well-Tempered Consort III – Fantasia in G major ‘Pièce d’orgue’, BWV 572; plus selections from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I & II, Clavier-Übung III and Inventions and Sinfonias (arranged for three, four and five viols by Laurence Dreyfus) Phantasm Linn Records CKD708 65:14 mins The Well-Tempered Consort III marks the completion of Phantasm’s triptych in which selections of keyboard music by Johann Sebastian Bach are recast as chamber music for a consort of viols. Since the ensemble was founded by Laurence Dreyfus in 1994 it has garnered a well deserved international reputation both on the concert platform and in the recording studio. Recent projects include The Art of Being Human, an acclaimed interdisciplinary collaboration combining 16th- and 17th-century music with dance and fine art, conceived for and…

Bach • Arvo Pärt JS Bach: Violin Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Concerto for Two Violins*; Arvo Pärt: Fratres; Spiegel im Spiegel Arabella Steinbacher, *Christoph Koncz (violin); Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra Pentatone PTC 5187 017 68:56 mins Bach’s three surviving violin concertos (two solo, one double) have been recorded by the most illustrious names, but with the exception of Alina Ibragimova (whose sensational Hyperion disc exchanges the Double Concerto for three expert solo reconstructions), I can’t recall them being played so sensitively as here by Arabella Steinbacher. Where Menuhin, Oistrakh and Szeryng (all outstanding exponents of the post-Romantic tradition) view the solo line as being of prime interest throughout, Steinbacher weaves in and out of Bach’s contrapuntal textures, occasionally reducing her tone to a radiant pianissimo to allow the orchestral lines…

Ligeti String Quartet No. 1, ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’; String Quartet No. 2; Andante and Allegretto Quatuor Diotima Pentatone PTC 5187 061 53:54 mins Though not extending to the late style of György Ligeti – a phase that opened with his only opera, Le Grand Macabre, but included no string quartets – this thrilling new release of the Transylvanian composer’s music for string quartet embraces three contrasting periods of his output. The earliest work, sensibly placed here between his String Quartets Nos 1 and 2 as a sort of palette cleanser, is the Andante and Allegretto for string quartet – written in 1950 when he was still under the influence of his teachers Ferenc Farkas and Zoltán Kodály – warmly played by the Quatuor Diotima. But the real achievement lies elsewhere of…

José Iturbi was once the toast of Hollywood and enjoyed a glittering career as a concert pianist, recording artist and conductor when he moved stateside from Spain in the late 1920s. From Hollywood to the World (Sony Classical 19439836502) is a lavish set of 16 discs of remastered recordings from 1933-53, originally made for RCA Victor. The programme is colourful, too, ranging from Mozart concertos to Gershwin, arrangements by André Previn, solo Debussy and Chopin, with Iturbi either at the piano or on the podium. A rather shorter period is taken into account in Joseph Szigeti – The Mercury Masters (Eloquence 484 3756). The six-disc set covers the autumnal years of the Hungarian violinist’s acclaimed career, with London and New York recordings from 1959-61. Szigeti turned his bow to almost…

Passiontide at Merton Merton College, Oxford, 31 March – 2 April Web: ticketsoxford.com Merton’s weekend of solo, chamber and choral performances kicks off at Friday lunchtime with violinist Bojan Čičić and organist François Cloete in Biber’s New Testament-inspired Rosary Sonatas. The King’s Singers drop in later that evening for a Passiontide-themed recital, while Saturday brings organist Matthew Owens in the world premiere of Howard Skempton’s Preludes and Fugues Book II. Easter Festival  St John’s Smith Square, London, 2-7 April Web: sjss.org.uk St John’s seasonal celebration includes JS Bach’s St John and St Matthew passions, the former reuniting Stephen Layton’s choir Polyphony and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. There’s more Bach, too, as the Tenebrae ensemble pairs three of the motets with works by James MacMillan, whose Kiss on…

‘Hringing voice – one of the loveliest I ever heard – was as ‘His fresh as a young man’s… His effortless high notes, sturdy rhythms and clear unmistakable intervals were a sheer delight to hear.’ Writing these words, Percy Grainger was referring not to some eminent opera singer but to Joseph Taylor, an agricultural labourer and bailiff who lived in the tiny village of Saxby, Lincolnshire. Taylor it was who introduced Grainger to the song ‘Brigg Fair’, which both he and his friend Frederick Delius later used to write new compositions. Grainger first heard Taylor sing on 11 April 1905, at a music competition in Brigg, North Lincolnshire. Taylor was 71 at the time, but to the 22-year-old Australian composer he sounded significantly younger. ‘Nothing could be more refreshing…

This month: JOHN NELSON Conductor MY FINEST MOMENT Berlioz Les Troyens Joyce DiDonato et al; Strasbourg Philharmonic/John Nelson Erato 9029576220 (2017) Often when I am conducting a great piece of music with a fine ensemble I feel it is my finest moment. But in 2017 with the superb Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and a fabulous cast headed by Joyce DiDonato, Marie Nicole Lemieux and Michael Spyres we recorded Berlioz’s four-and-a-half-hour Les Troyens for Erato and promptly garnered all the major European prizes. My professional career began in 1972 with a concert performance of the opera at Carnegie Hall which catapulted me on to an international career and a life-long association with this extraordinary work. Fortunately, I waited 40-plus years before recording it for posterity. A second, if I may, would…

Christopher Nupen Born 1934 Filmmaker Nupen was a true pioneer in the field of classical music documentary, taking advantage of the improved (quieter) camera technology of the 1960s and his own ability to put musicians at ease in front of the lens. Born in Johannesburg, Nupen studied law and even flirted with a career as a banker before moving to England to pursue work as a sound engineer for BBC Radio. His next move was television, where he cut his teeth on 1960s shows like Contrasts and Omnibus, including the iconic 1967 episode of the latter, ‘Jacqueline’, about Du Pré and Barenboim’s recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. He co-founded Allegro Films, the UK’s first independent production company, in 1968 and went on to make over 75 films about some of…

Ensemble Manchester Collective In the spring of 2016, in a Shoreditch restaurant, violinist Rakhi Singh and cellist Adam Szabo dreamt up Manchester Collective. ‘It was one of those astonishing right place, right time things,’ says Szabo, now the ensemble’s artistic director and chief executive. ‘We thought it might be fun to put on some chamber music – and, in the way you do when your life responsibilities are not that big, within 90 minutes we agreed we’d do a year of concerts.’ From the start, Manchester Collective had a distinctive ethos and style – surely no small part of why it has won this year’s Royal Philharmomic Society Ensemble Award. The programme for its debut concert was typically eclectic: Biber interwoven with Cage and juxtaposed with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. The…

New Year’s Day 2016. On BBC Four up pops a new Tom Service documentary on the life and works of Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov, featuring a multiplicity of resonant locations in and outside Russia. Slowly a veil is lifted. I’m totting up so many favourite works treasured over the years. The thought stirs that I’ve been slow to accommodate the notion that a composer who wrote so much of such range and such quality surely deserves to be regarded as a true 20th-century great. Many a commentator has held back from that ‘great composer’ verdict. Yes, those distinctive melodies and harmonies may be wistfully winning, but didn’t Rachmaninov betray the ongoing march of compositional progress by trading in a ripe, melancholic Romanticism past its sell-by date? Barbed critical comment pursued him…

The Swiss Alps are home to some of the most dramatic scenery in the world – and taking the three-hour train journey from Geneva to Saanenland does not disappoint. Lakes of the deepest blue; dense forests and lush, green farmland; waterfalls and majestic peaks make the journey a rare screen-free treat: check your phone at your peril, for you may miss a natural marvel. It’s little wonder, then, that Yehudi Menuhin was so enraptured with the region, making the town of Gstaad his family home in 1957. A summer season of concerts, suggested by the region’s head of tourism, was all the incentive the violinist needed to set up a festival here, and what began with two modest performances featuring Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and French cellist Maurice Gendron gradually…

Delius • Elgar • Howells • Vaughan Williams Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; Howells: Concerto for String Orchestra; Delius: Late Swallows; Elgar: Introduction and Allegro Sinfonia of London/John Wilson Chandos CHSA5291 (CD/SACD) 65:33 mins Sixty years ago the Sinfonia of London under John Barbirolli released a recording of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis which rapidly gained classic status. John Wilson’s new version with that revived orchestra sets a stunning benchmark for the digital generation. The sound, engineered by Ralph Couzens, is magnificent. Catching the full resplendency of Vaughan Williams’s multi-part string writing, it also vividly defines the acoustic spaces occupied by the solo quartet and two string orchestra groups. For those listening in stereo or surround-sound to the high definition SACD layers,…

Handel Solomon Ana Maria Labin, Gwendoline Blondeel (soprano), Christopher Lowrey (countertenor); Chœur de Chambre de Namur; Millenium Orchestra/Leonardo García Alarcón Ricercar RIC449 152:08 mins (2 discs) This is the best-ever recording of Solomon, and a highpoint for conductor Leonardo García Alarcón’s career. Organised for the 2022 Namur summer festival, the performance re-assembled artists who had worked together in Handel oratorios at previous festivals. Drama is telescoped into scenes depicting the biblical Judgement of Solomon, with the real mother’s horror at his ruling that the child at issue be cut in two. The text otherwise celebrates God, monarch, nation and (very earthly) love. Action resides in the score, crafted by Handel to match the wordbook’s flowery images and exalted declarations. Alarcón excels in picking out moods implied by the music: regal…

Dvořák Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53; Piano Trio No.3 in F minor, Op.65 Isabelle Faust (violin), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Alexander Melnikov (piano); Prague Philharmonia/Jiří Bĕlohlávek Harmonia Mundi HMM 931833 (2004) Over the years, Dvořák’s Violin Concerto has garnered some truly distinguished recordings from the likes of Josef Suk, Nathan Milstein, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Christian Tetzlaff. Isabelle Faust’s performance, originally released nearly 20 years ago, is definitely on a par with these virtuosos in demonstrating a supremely intelligent, imaginative and wonderfully warm approach to the technically challenging solo part. Jiří Bĕlohlávek and the Prague Philharmonia are highly responsive partners, delivering some particularly exhilarating playing in the Finale, and the sound quality is fresh and immediate. This release would warrant a strong recommendation for the Concerto alone, but the generous…

As part of your concert in Eastbourne, you are paying tribute to John Woolrich. Is he a composer the group knows well? George Strivens (horn player): We first met John when we were all doing a fellowship year at the Royal Academy of Music and were playing his second set of studies for wind ensemble. We had a wonderful time being coached by him and going on to perform his music. That is what sparked the idea for this concert. The title of The Iron Cockerel Sings, the work that we will be performing, comes from the writings of Adolf Wölfli, and John himself describes it as ‘a short, fast, brightly coloured collage of inventions’ – it’s a very exciting multi-movement piece. And you’ll be recruiting an extra member to…

The Alehouse Sessions (23 April, BBC Four) features a group of musicians recreating the music of the English 17th-century tavern. Curated and devised by Norwegian Baroque violinist Bjarte Eike, it is an ever-evolving insight into the music of this tumultuous period, including Purcell overtures, English sea shanties and Scandinavian folk songs. Elsewhere, the award-winning choir Tenebrae performs a special programme for Easter Sunday from St John’s Smith Square, London (9 April, BBC Four). Tenebrae brings its trademark passion and precision to this dramatic programme, contrasting JS Bach’s iconic motets with the sacred music of Sir James MacMillan. The choir will perform three of Bach’s best known motets, culminating in the joyful ‘Singet dem Herrn’. This is followed by MacMillan’s settings of the Tenebrae responsories, which paint a vivid picture of…

1. Against whom, in September 1717, was the eminent composer and keyboard player Louis Marchand due to compete in a harpsichord competition in Dresden, but instead chose to flee town? 2. ‘An die Musik’ and ‘Die Forelle’ are songs written in 1817 by whom? 3. A visit to a Cornish castle with pianist Harriet Cohen in summer 1917 inspired Arnold Bax to compose which symphonic poem? 4. William Byrd wrote the madrigal Ye sacred muses in 1585 to mourn the death of which friend and fellow composer? 5. Which Italian city was the home of violin makers Nicola Amati, Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri? 6. Whose Four Böcklin Tone-Pictures of 1913 includes ‘Isle of the Dead’, a movement based on the same painting as Rachmaninov’s similarly titled tone poem (see…