Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2016 i BBC Music Magazine

ON STAGE Highly sprung The Ulster Orchestra is celebrating the changing of the seasons with an imaginatively programmed concert at the Belfast Waterfront on 22 April. Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus reminds us briefly of the chilly months just gone before we’re serenaded with Mahler’s loved-up Blumine and thrilled to the joys of Schumann’s Spring Symphony. See p133 ON DISC Harpsichord history The great harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock turns 70 later this year, but he’s already busy celebrating the occasion with a new recital disc. Journey takes a look at 200 years of harpsichord music, with an eclectic programme inspired by the travels of the great Spanish organist Antonio de Cabezón in the 16th century. See p122 ONLINE Totally Bach-ing Since September 2013 the Netherlands Bach Society has been building an online library…

NOTABLE THOUGHTS I read with great interest Simon Heighes’s Brief History of Notes feature (February). I would like to draw attention to a record I bought in 1977 called Sounds from Silence that was released in the US by Bit Enki records. Having deciphered cuneiform texts dated to c1800 BC, they demonstrated that it described a method of tuning a lyre, which is illustrated on Side One of the record together with the text of an accompanying 24-page booklet. Using a replica of an ancient Sumerian lyre, there is presented on the second side of the record a Hurrian Cult Song from ancient Ugarit. Thus musical notation can be pushed back by at least another millennium. Karl Bettelheim, London FIDDLE TWIDDLES Simon Heighes’s very informative article on notation…

BBC Radio 3 is to celebrate 70 years since the launch of the Third Programme by embarking on one of its largest commissioning schemes to date. The station’s ‘70 at 70’ project will call on 70 composers, writers and playwrights to mark the anniversary with new works, and although none of the composers involved has yet been announced, plans include significant works by established names, plus three 45-minute ‘music projects’ exploring the medium of radio. Seven composers will also be given their very first Radio 3 commissions in the form of a ten-minute work each, and winners of the BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers Competition 2016 will be asked to write pieces inspired by musical trends that have appeared during the lifetimes of Radio 3 and the Third Programme, from…

Chart for week ending 11 February 2016 1 Pure Chopin Ji Liu (piano) Classic FM CFMD41 Nothing but Chopin – at least that’s what the title says. Stunning playing from a rising star 2 The Deer’s Cry Music by Pärt, Tallis, Byrd The Sixteen/Harry Christophers Coro COR16140 Consummate skill and blend from the cream of today’s choral crop – and a lovely CD cover, too 3 The Evening Hour Jesus College, Cambridge/Mark Williams Signum Classics SIGCD446 A delicious selection of Evensong anthems – all we need now is the summer and some cricket… 4 Nessun Dorma The Puccini Album Jonas Kaufmann (tenor); Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Sony Classical 88875092492 The tenor’s popular collection of Puccini 5 Scarlatti Sonatas Angela Hewitt…

HÉLÈNE GRIMAUD pianist There is something about pianist Glenn Gould’s playing, such as in Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments, that makes it always sound inhabited – by that I mean that someone is living and breathing this music almost as if their life depended on it. Even with his interpretations that I don’t particularly agree with, I still listen to them as he sounds so convinced that there could be no other way of making that music sound. It’s quite miraculous how it grabs you, and goes way beyond discussions of interpretation. Over the last week or so, I have been listening to the Bagatelles for piano by Valentin Silvestrov, a composer I became more familiar with about ten years ago. Silvestrov creates an atmosphere of stillness that helps…

TRANSATLANTIC HYDE Daniel Hyde has been named as the new director of music at St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue in New York. The British conductor and organist, who is currently informator choristarum (choirmaster) at Magdalen College, Oxford, takes over a role that, one of the most prestigious in the choral business, has been vacant since the sudden death of John Scott last summer. HIGH APPOINTMENT Talking of choral call-ups, the King’s Singers have revealed that Patrick Dunachie is to be their new countertenor. Dunachie, a graduate of the group’s own alma mater of King’s College, Cambridge, will replace David Hurley, who has been handling the illustrious sextet’s top notes with aplomb since 1990. TAKE FIVE Why name just one music director when you can name five? The Ojai Festival in…

STEVEN STUCKY Born 1949 Composer Steven Stucky was one of the most popular contemporary composers in the US. Best known for his orchestral music, he was regularly commissioned by many of America’s major ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland and, above all, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was resident composer from 1988-2009. Born in Kansas, Stucky studied at Baylor and Cornell universities. In 1989, he was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize for his Concerto for Orchestra No. 1. Though he didn’t win on that occasion, success would come in 2005, when he was awarded the prize for his Second Concerto for Orchestra. His success was not just limited to the US, however, and five of his works, including the Second Concerto for Orchestra and his Rhapsodies…

YEHUDI WAS ONLY EIGHT when his father’s teacher colleagues in San Francisco, deeply impressed by the miracle boy’s genius, clubbed together to buy him a 7/8 Grancino costing $800. Two years later his parents bought him a full-size violin by the same maker when they arrived in Paris. Next came his first Stradivarius, the ‘Prince Khevenhüller’: ample, round and varnished in a deep glowing red, its sound, Yehudi wrote, was ‘powerful, mellow and sweet’; it was bought for him by the New York philanthropist (and banker) Henry Goldman for a whopping $60,000 a few months before the Wall Street Crash. However, Menuhin was often seduced by the rival charms of the violins made by Giuseppe Guarneri, del Gesù: he joked he was married to his Strad but enjoyed illicit affairs…

Many boys spent much of each day ‘loitering about the streets’ Say the word ‘chorister’ today, and a fairly clear image comes to mind: cassock and surplice; a well-scrubbed, wholesome countenance from which emanate fluty sounds that billow around some lofty space; the very image of health and good cheer. Time was, though, when the lot of choristers was far from cheery, and the sounds that came from their throats hard to drool over. One of the great 19th-century campaigners to change all that was a pocket battleship by the name of Maria Hackett. A visit to the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral in London reveals the regard in which she was held at her death in 1874, aged 90. On a wall not far from Admiral Nelson’s intimidating sarcophagus…

CREATED BY RESEARCHERS at the Open University and the Royal College of Music, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Listening Experience Database is a publicly accessible, fully searchable historic database containing written records in English of thousands of experiences of listening to music. The focus is on the ‘private, intimate experience’ of every kind of music, from ordinary listeners who had no intention to influence public opinion (as opposed to, say, music critics). The database includes records across a time-span of five centuries, written in every kind of circumstance. There are reports of an 18th-century Englishman hearing Polynesian music, a New Yorker listening to Bernstein on the radio while driving across the city, and a witness to psalm-singing used to pacify a woman supposedly possessed of…

5 ALDEBURGH HIGHLIGHTS 10, 12 & 13 June Britten, Debussy, Adams; Sarah Tynan (soprano), Aurora Orchestra/Nicholas Collon 11 June Rameau Daphnis et Eglé, Ravel Daphnis et Chloé; Les Siècles/ François-Xavier Roth (pictured left) 18 June JS Bach St Matthew Passion; James Gilchrist (Evangelist), Monteverdi Choir etc/Gardiner 19 June Messiaen Catalogue d’oiseaux; Aimard (piano) 22 June Berlioz, Debussy etc; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Wigglesworth music CHOICE ALDEBURGH YOU’LL NEED TO SET THE ALARM to bright and early if you want to catch the start of pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s dawn-to-midnight journey through Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux. And mosquito repellent is recommended for the alfresco early evening instalment at RSPB Minsmere. But the mosquitoes aren’t the only things giving Aimard’s last festival as artistic director something of a buzz. Aldeburgh 2016 contrives an interlocking series…

‘People are astonished to find that we have this jewel of a hall’ Tucked into the northwest corner of Wyoming sits the majestic Teton mountain range, its peaks rising 2,000 metres either side of the vast, flat valley floor, known as Jackson Hole. In winter, the Tetons host world-class skiing, but come summer, the lush grassland, forests, lakes and rivers of Jackson Hole teem with wildlife, including eagle, elk, moose and grizzly bear, along with thousands of tourists who head there for kayaking, walking, rafting, fishing, horse riding… Jackson Hole styles itself as the ‘Last of the Old West’ and there are still ranches where you can see cowboys at work. But if, like me, you don’t catch so much as a whiff of a moose or bear, you can…

His three operas all created a stir on first performance An Argentinian Stravinsky or Bartók? An Argentinian Falla, Debussy or Villa-Lobos? Alberto Ginastera has been called all of these and more, in an attempt – born of unwitting Eurocentricity, perhaps – to pigeonhole his music, and make it comprehensible to an audience raised on old-world classical masterpieces. But Buenos Aires, where Ginastera was born in April 1916, was anything but a musical backwater. It had, for one thing, a distinguished music college, the Williams Conservatory, which the young Ginastera entered for his basic training aged 12. Just two years later, he heard Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring for the first time, and it struck him like a thunderbolt. ‘The Rite was like a shock – something new and unexpected,’ he…

Estancia; Ollantay; Pampeana No. 3 BBC Philharmonic/Mena Chandos CHAN 10884 Gaucho life and the ‘limitless immensity’ of the pampas are vividly evoked in the ballet Estancia . String Quartets Cuarteto Latinoamericano Brilliant Classics 9119 Intensity and rhythmic sinew mark these increasingly edgy, modern-sounding pieces. Vocal works Plácido Domingo; Ana-Maria Martínez; Virginia Tola Warner 0825646868308 From song to opera, populist to progressive, this is an ideal introduction to Ginastera’s vocal output. Popol Vuh; Cantata para América Mágica WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/Stefan Asbury Neos NEOS10918 Ginastera goes primaeval, mining the deep past of the pre-Columbian continent.…

VENICE: The Golden Age Vivaldi, Marcello and Tessarini Xenia Löffler (oboe); Georg Kallweit (violin); Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Harmonia Mundi HMC 902185 68:42 mins ‘Here, in all its radiant apparel, is the splendour of Venice’s golden age. In the elaborately scored Concerto for violin, oboe and strings, Löffler is partnered by Georg Kallweit who also leads the excellent Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.’ December 2014 MOZART Adagios & Fugues Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Harmonia Mundi HMC 902159 51:18 mins ‘In 1782 Mozart made a thorough study of music by JS Bach and Handel … the Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik offers an enterprising insight into Mozart’s fascination with Baroque counterpoint.’ August 2014 JS BACH St Matthew Passion Soloists; RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs Harmonia…

BEETHOVEN DVD Violin Concerto; Symphony No. 6 Isabelle Faust (violin); Berlin Philharmonic/Bernard Haitink EuroArts DVD : 2061298; Blu-ray : 2061294 90 mins (2 discs) This concert, filmed last year in the Festspielhaus of Baden-Baden, finds the Berlin Philharmonic and Bernard Haitink on top form. Isabelle Faust makes light of the technical difficulties of Beethoven’s sometimes awkwardly-written Violin Concerto. The quiet warmth of her playing, particularly in such moments as the mysterious ending to the first stage of the opening movement, and the new theme that so unexpectedly emerges at the mid-point of the slow movement, is a constant pleasure. Haitink gives a finely judged account of the Pastoral Symphony. The slow movement’s brook flows at just the right tempo – this is a piece that can…

ELGAR Enigma Variations; Pomp and Circumstances Marches RPO/Norman Del Mar Eloquence 482 1993 (1976) 57:48 mins Del Mar’s way with Enigma is strong, sensitive, and vividly characterised, and he and the RPO relish all five roistering marches. Resonant recorded sound (Guildford Cathedral), but tidily clear. PERFORMANCE RECORDING MUSORGSKY • SCHULLER R STRAUSS Musorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Ravel); Khovanshchina – extract; Schuller: Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee; R Strauss: Don Juan Minneapolis Symphony/Antal Doráti Minuet 428411 (1959-60) 78:42 mins Vintage Doráti: colourful interpretations, ultra-clear yet not clinical, with a classy orchestral response. Only Gunther Schuller’s brand of clever-clogs stylistic game-playing disappoints. PERFORMANCE RECORDING RIHM Two Other Movements; Abkehr; Schattenstück Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR/Norrington, Arming SWR Music SWR 19001CD (1982-2004) 65:13 mins Rihm’s milder-than-Berg brand of moderate modernism…

The performers have enormous fun with Boismortier’s opera BOISMORTIER DVD Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse Chantal Santon Jeffery, François-Nicolas Geslot, Marc Labonnete; Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet; dir. Corinne and Gilles Benizio (Versailles, 2015) Alpha ALPHA 711 117 mins Once he had settled in Paris in 1723, Boismortier became one of the most prolific and prosperous French composers of the 18th century. Best known for his flute sonatas, Boismortier’s fortune was built on a keen ear for instrumental sonority, a gift for appealing melody and an instinct for the increasingly fashionable Italian style. Composed for the Carnival of 1743, Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse was based on a libretto by Favart, one of the rising stars of comic opera in France. The plot is fair old nonsense comprising a series of…

ARNOLD & HUGO DE LANTINS Secular works Le Miroir de Musique/Baptiste Romain Ricercar RIC 365 62:54 mins This seems to be the first disc devoted to secular works by these two musicians, active in North Italy in the 1420s. (There’s a Ricercar CD of sacred music by Arnold.) The instrumental performances include an energetic basse dance with sparkling vielles (Amor servir), a clamorous ensemble of bagpipes (Chanter ne scay), and a playful display of woodwind embellishments (in Mirar no posso). The vocal pieces are performed equally well with some arresting imitative singing in Celsa sublimatur, calm beauty in Tota pulchra es (though the insistence on B naturals rather than musica ficta B flats adds an unusual quality), and extraordinary fluency in the complex cross-rhythms of Je suy extent. Most enticing…

BRAHMS Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 8 (original version); Piano Quartet No. 3, Op. 60 Trio Wanderer; Christophe Gaugué (viola) Harmonia Mundi HMC 902222 73:54 mins Pros and cons abound in resuscitating ‘original versions’ of well-known pieces. Brahms once unearthed and had published the first version of Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, only to find Clara Schumann so furious that she did not speak to him for several years afterwards. Here the Trio Wanderer gives Brahms a taste of his own medicine, presenting the original version of his Piano Trio No.1, an early work initially composed much under the influence of both Schumanns, but later revised and very considerably strengthened. The flaws stand out loud and clear – including a frightful fugato and a lilting, folksong-like episode that likewise bit the…

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 (transcr. Liszt) Yury Martynov (piano) Alpha ALPHA 227 70:52 mins Before he embarked on the seemingly impossible task of transcribing the Choral Symphony for a single pianist, Liszt made a version using the greater weight of two pianos. That was in the early 1850s, but more than ten years later he decided to round out his already existing solo arrangements of Symphonies Nos 5-7 with the remaining works of the cycle. Listening to No. 9 on the piano is a curious experience, but if the variety of tone-colour of the orchestral (and vocal) original is inevitably diminished, the music’s harmonic boldness and astringency are thrown all the more vividly into relief. Of course, there are moments that can hardly be made to work effectively on the…

BLUETOOTH EARPHONES Gibson Trainer Ti100 £150 Designed for active souls who want to get out and train while they enjoy listening to music, the Trainer earphones (above) are Bluetoothenabled and have a rugged build to ensure they’ll last the distance. Pairing with other devices is a simple process – a long press on the power button sets the Trainer up to pair with your smartphone or other Bluetooth device, and you’ll be up and running (if you’ll pardon the pun) within two minutes. Sonically, the Trainers are excellent, and while they can’t compete with a set of dedicated hi-fi earphones, they’re more than good enough for listening while you pound the Tarmac or trail. The Trainer includes a variety of ear hooks to keep them firmly in place as you…

Jen8fa is an opera in three acts that Czech composer Janácek (left) based on a play by Gabriela Preissová. As well as composing the music he also wrote the libretto. The story revolves around the harsh realities facing a young woman, Jen8fa, who lives in a rural Moravian village in the 1880s. Her stepmother, the Kostelnicka, drowns her newborn baby in secret, to help Jen8fa’s chances of marriage. But when the body is discovered, suspicion falls on Jen8fa. Janácek composed Act I in 1897 but let the project drop for a few years, probably because of teaching commitments. He resumed work in 1901, completing the last two acts. The opera was premiered in 1904 at the National Theatre in Brno and was received well, owing to local patriotism, no doubt…

Humphrey Burton Yehudi Menuhin’s biographer ‘I made my first film with Yehudi Menuhin – about Bartók – in 1959, and writing his biography (having already recorded 20 programmes for Classic FM) was one of the most rewarding periods of my entire working life.’ Page 22 Ivan Hewett Critic, writer and broadcaster ‘For three years I’ve been trawling through diaries, letters and tweets, looking for written accounts of the experience of listening to music. It’s been fascinating to discover the ways music can take on meaning.’ Page 40 Paul Riley BBC Music’s listings editor ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s gazebo-covered opera; Elgar in an engine shed; or musical whitewater rafting (yes really!). When it comes to summer music festivals, surrender and enjoy – just don’t forget the sunblock!’…

A RIO PLEASURE Thank you for making my day when I received your February issue with the cover CD of Villa-Lobos’s Guitar Concerto. My interest in Villa-Lobos started when, at some time around 1962, I bought an LP of his Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 for eight cellos and soprano, a combination I had never encountered before. In 1975, I visited the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro. My wife and I were welcomed by Mindinha, Villa-Lobos’s widow, who had started the museum after his death in 1959 and was running it. We spent the remainder of the day there, drank coffee with her, listened to music and left as long-time friends carrying books, records and papers she wanted us to have. Although Mindinha died in 1985, the museum is still…

‘What Feddeck did with Bruckner’s Eighth was phenomenal’ Facing a conducting crisis? Call James Feddeck. When, last March, the New York-born maestro was asked last minute by the San Francisco Symphony to replace an ailing Semyon Bychkov, the results were triumphant. ‘What Feddeck did with Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony was phenomenal,’ wrote the San Francisco Classical Voice, a reaction that echoed that of the Guardian just two weeks earlier, when Feddeck had stepped in for Thomas Zehetmair at the Hallé: ‘[Feddeck] worked up a real heat, inhabiting every bar of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as if it were a second skin.’ The last-minute call-up is not, it would seem, something that fazes Feddeck. ‘It’s not terribly different from what I normally might do,’ he tells us. ‘Yes, the orchestra and audience has…

THIS MONTH SIR NEVILLE MARRINER The English conductor started musical life as a violinist before becoming a conductor and founding the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. For his 92nd birthday on 15 April he conducts his ensemble in Mozart at Cadogan Hall. Marriner has made over 800 recordings. My finest moment Elgar In the South (Alassio); Symphony No. 1 Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Sir Neville Marriner Collins Classics CC-1269 (1991) This was the first time I realised the enormous potential the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for playing symphonic works rather than just chamber music works. It was important in the development of the Academy and its repertoire. The ensemble burst forth in a way that it hadn’t had an opportunity…

A work by Mozart and Salieri has been performed for the first time in over 200 years after the score was discovered in the archives of the Czech National Music Museum. The four-minute cantata from 1785, which contains sections by both men plus a previously unknown composer called Cornetti, celebrates the recovery to health of Nancy Storace, a star soprano on the Vienna opera scene at the time. Such a collaboration between Mozart and Salieri (above), albeit on a comparatively short piece, would appear to be another nail in the coffin of the dubious theory – discussed in recent letters pages of BBC Music Magazine – that the two had mere hatred for one another, and that the Italian even did away with his younger, more talented rival.…

@AlpeshChauhan26 A3 Landscape score – the first score where I have to wheel my seat along my desk as I move from left of 1st landscape page to end of 2nd! Conductor Alpesh Chauhan (left) takes a broad view of the job in hand @sarahwillis Bumped into #MenahemPressler in a practice room in Hamburg! #starstruck #pianolegend Even Berlin Philharmonic horn players with their own TV show have their idols, reveals Sarah Willis @spconnolly Oh dear, almost undrinkable green sludge describes day 1 Super juice from Jason Vale Juice Master diet. I did not master that. Yeugh. Mezzo Sarah Connolly’s dietary regime starts strangely @KsenijaSidorova Best quote about my accordion at the airport from the lady at the ticket desk: ‘it’s kind of a large small suitcase’ Ksenija Sidorova’s squeezebox is…

Oliver Condy Editor In February, I had the good fortune of hearing the young German Adamas Quartet perform in Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall, a venue that hosted the premiere of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1960. The Adamas performed Zemlinsky’s rarely-played String Quartet No. 4, a beautiful, intriguing work from 1936 that flits between post-Romanticism and modernism, sometimes within the space of just a few bars. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor With storms and perpetual rain lashing the West Country at the moment, my thoughts turn naturally to Elgar’s Sea Pictures and, in particular, mezzo Alice Coote’s new recording of it with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder. Coote rides the various peaks and troughs of this constantly undulating music admirably, and the orchestral playing is simply sumptuous. Rebecca Franks…

What’s most striking about Gražinyte-Tyla’s appointment is her inexperience The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s appointment of conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla as its music director has made headlines all over the musical world. And, it must be said, sent waves of rejoicing and relief cascading through Symphony Hall, Birmingham. The rejoicing is for three reasons: first, because the orchestra has chosen someone young and apparently dynamic; second, because she is female; and third, because although she has conducted the CBSO only twice so far, she has clearly struck up a good rapport with the players. And the relief? That’s for three reasons too. First, because replacing the popular Andris Nelsons must have seemed a daunting task, especially as the orchestra dangerously committed itself to what in effect were a series of…

‘I collect honeycombs the way some people collect stamps’ MENUHIN WAS AT LEAST a generation ahead of the rest of us, an advocate of ‘green’ solutions such as the reduction of pollution in the air long they became fashionable. He discovered yoga in 1952 while touring in India and practised its methods devotedly until the end of his life. He recruited his own guru/teacher, Mr BKS Iyengar from Poona, who thanks largely to Menuhin’s endorsement established flourishing yoga centres in many European and US cities. Yehudi stood on his head for 20 minutes every day and once conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony while in that unconventional position (opening his feet was the equivalent of a downbeat.) He was a lifetime vegetarian, insisting that the kitchen at his…

On Easter weekend, The Sixteen will perform a version of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Manchester with performers from Streetwise Opera, a charity that uses music to try to inspire youngsters who have known homelessness. No performance could catch better the way that the ensemble has preserved an instinct for boldness and innovation in nearly four decades of music-making. They won their first awards for recordings in the 1980s, but Harry Christophers, as founder conductor, has always been able to make it seem as if The Sixteen are fresh for something new. The Matthew Passion will end with a new Resurrection Chorus written for the occasion by James MacMillan (‘I promise you there won’t be a dry eye in the house’, says Christophers). It’s abridged, and given an operatic form…

Frederick Ouseley (1825-89) In 1856, Ouseley, a composer, musicologist and organist of aristocratic stock, used his own wealth to found and run St Michael’s College near Tenbury, Worcestershire, a boys’ school aimed at providing a model for the performance of Anglican choral music. Evensong was performed daily in the school chapel until its closure in 1985 and his own music is still regularly heard today. Richard Terry (1865-1938) It is in great part thanks to Terry that Tudor composers such as Byrd, Tallis and Tye are staples of today’s British choral repertoire. As director of music at Westminster Cathedral, Terry invested substantial time and effort reviving Renaissance polyphony and performing it on a regular basis. His discoveries in turn influenced composers of his own era, not least Vaughan…

Let summer begin… FOR FESTIVAL DIRECTORS, assembling a world-class festival is about creating chemistry, getting musicians to tailor their programmes specifically for their venues and, crucially, for their audiences. But the magic happens when those audiences believe that the artists they’re hearing are performing just for them, and when the artists feel they’re simply playing to their friends. That can take years to pull off, as the musicians return year after year and slowly become acquainted with the building and the local clientele. That’s why small but established festivals have their unique, intimate ambience – impossible to recreate at any other time of the year. I do hope you enjoy our celebration of the finest festivals around the UK and that you find time to visit a few this year.…

5 BRIGHTON HIGHLIGHTS 7 May Mozart Piano Concerto in D minor, K466, Bruckner Symphony No. 3; Leif Ove Andsnes (piano), London Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding 8 May Purcell Dido and Aeneas; Ann Murray (Dido), La Nuova Musica/ David Bates 11 May Ed Hughes Brighton: Symphony of a City; Lizzie Thynne (film), Orchestra of Sound and Light/Ed Hughes 15 May Schubert Rosamunde Quartet, Webern, Dvopák; Takács Quartet 22 May Elgar The Dream of Gerontius; Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano), Robert Murray (tenor), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner music CHOICE BRIGHTON HALF A CENTURY after introducing itself with Laurence Olivier, Yehudi Menuhin and the UK’s first exhibition of Concrete Poetry, Brighton Festival shows no sign of letting maturity interfere with its desire to provoke. Where else would you find the Shakespeare anniversary commemorated with…

5 SALZBURG HIGHLIGHTS 27 July Biber Missa Salisburgensis etc; Collegium 1704 & Vocale/Václav Luks 28 July – 8 August Adès The Exterminating Angel; Amanda Echalaz (Lucia; below), ORF Vienna Radio SO/Adès 31 July Bach solo violin sonatas and partitas; Isabelle Faust (violin) 6 & 7 August Pärt Swansong etc; Matthias Goerne (baritone), Vienna Philharmonic/Zubin Mehta 28 August Mahler Symphony No. 7; Berlin Philharmonic/Simon Rattle music CHOICE SALZBURG FESTIVAL YOU COULDN’T ACCUSE SALZBURG’s festival of being insular. But it does like to look after its own. There’s a complete Mozart/ Da Ponte opera trilogy for example, and the glories of adopted son Heinrich Biber’s 53-voice Missa Salisburgensis brings 17th-century surround-sound to the cathedral where it was first heard. But Salzburg looks outwards too. This year it mourns the loss of Pierre…

Best-known for his 1976 opera The Sweetwater Lynching , composer George Hufsmith was one of the founders of the Grand Teton Music Festival in 1962. Originally from Nebraska, Hufsmith was brought up in Brazil, where he became Villa-Lobos’s only composition student. Returning to the US, Hufsmith studied with Hindemith before returning, in 1951, to his roots in Wyoming, where his ancestors had settled in 1874. In 1991, the GTMF performed the world premiere of his Festival Fanfare , written for the festival’s 30th anniversary. Hufsmith lived his final years in Jackson Hole.…

Gauchismo The nomadic cowboy of the 19th century looms large in Argentinian culture, and in Ginastera’s music. Pampas life provides the subject of his ballet Estancia : the gaucho guitar’s open-tuned chord is a recurring motif, and the competitive malambo dance provides its characteristic pulses. Rhythm The rattle of hoof-beats, the rumble of herded cattle and the hardscrabble lifestyle of rural Argentina are reflected in the driving rhythms that power much of Ginastera’s music. They symbolise the battle to dominate the natural world, and the exuberant spirit of the people who wage it. Serialism In his trips to the US and Europe, Ginastera absorbed the techniques of atonality using it selectively to move away from folk-inspired material, and suggest the deeper, less familiar forces shaping the destiny…

Recording of the Month Handel’s irresistible Water Music is performed with bright colours and lively spirit by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, led by concert master Georg Kallweit, p102 An opera composer to watch There have been some great new operas in recent years. Think of Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest, or George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, for instance – both of which have been brilliantly recorded. And this year’s offerings have begun well with the premiere of Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce, by Welsh National Opera. It completes in stylish fashion the trilogy of Beaumarchais operas that begins with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Russian-born, British-based Langer has a keen dramatic sense and a flair for vivid ideas.…

Why did you decide to record Handel’s Water Music ? We haven’t wanted to touch the really famous works like the Water Music or Vivaldi’s Four Seasons before. It’s like a plate of food where you save the best for last. But after working a lot on Telemann and Bach we decided to tackle Handel. The secret of good, popular music is a mix of simplicity – clear rhythms and simple harmonies without being primitive – with real complexity whenever there’s a danger of just being boring. The result is a subtle beauty. There’s been a lot of new research in the last ten years about how the different Water Music suites belong together and in which order they were played. There’s a manuscript in the…

Charles Ives (1874-1954) The American composer was son of a town bandmaster, who enjoyed the polytonality which resulted when two bands played different pieces at once. As an organist at Danbury Baptist Church, Charles composed his Variations on ‘America’ (1891). After studying at Yale, he moved to New York where he worked in insurance, eventually setting up his own successful business. He composed his increasingly experimental music in his spare time until he became seriously ill from overwork in 1918, writing little afterwards. Nicolas Slonimsky and Bernard Herrmann championed his music.…

BRAHMS Piano Concerto No 1; Handel Variations Claudio Arrau (piano), Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Rafael Kubelík Praga Digitals PRD/DSD 350 068 (CD/ SACD) (1966/67) 79:27 mins A decent live radio recording. The Concerto is given a broadly conceived interpretation, marred by occasional smudges but with some magical moments. The Handel Variations are a good bonus. PERFORMANCE RECORDING ERLING BLÖNDAL BENGTSSON Britten: Cello Symphony; Delius, Lutosvawski: Cello Concertos, etc Erling Blöndal Bengtsson (cello), various orchestras and conductors Danacord DACOCD 770 (1976–91) 125:58 mins (2 CDs) The always reliable and musical ‘EBB’ in good radio recordings of three Danish premieres: rhapsodic in Delius, edgy in Britten, slightly underpowered in Lutos›awski. PERFORMANCE RECORDING GREAT GOOSSENS Concertos by Strauss, E Goossens, Cimarosa (arr Benjamin), etc Léon Goossens (oboe), various orchestras and conductors, etc Oboe Classics…

Johann Simon Mayr (1763-1845) Born in Bavaria, Mayr initially studied theology, continuing his studies in Italy from 1787. Afterwards he started training in music, first under Lenzi at Bergamo, then under Bertini in Venice, in which city his oratorios were performed to acclaim. His first opera, Sasso, ossia i riti d’Apollo Leucadio (1794) was so successful that he embarked on composing several more; by 1814 he had composed over 75, and was the most popular opera composer before the rise of Rossini (who allegedly hijacked Mayr’s use of the crescendo). After 1816 he only composed church music.…

Coote and Blackshaw eloquently search out the cycle’s paradoxes SCHUMANN Dichterliebe; Frauenliebe und -leben; Widmung; Du bist wie eine Blume; Dem roten Röslein gleicht mein Lieb; Die Lotosblume; Meine Rose; Mein Schöner Stern! Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano), Christian Blackshaw (piano) Wigmore Hall Live WHLive 0079 74:06 mins The uniquely thoughtful and penetrating insights offered by Alice Coote’s Winterreise and Christian Blackshaw’s Mozart in their respective earlier Wigmore Hall Live CDs led to high expectations of the collaboration of these two musicians at this recital last summer. And we were not disappointed. As one may hear on this album, from the very start, Schumann’s ‘bouquet’ of lovesongs is lightly held, thanks in no small part to Blackshaw’s influence in lightening and focusing Coote’s mezzo, so that we are not blown away by…

Trevor Pinnock’s programme is rich in expressive contrasts JOURNEY: 200 years of Harpsichord Music Works by De Cabezón, Byrd, Tallis, Bull, Sweelinck, JS Bach, Frescobaldi, Handel & D Scarlatti Trevor Pinnock (harpsichord) Linn CKD 570 68:38 mins Trevor Pinnock celebrates his 70th birthday with a harpsichord recital embracing the mid-16th to mid-18th centuries. The travels of Spanish composer Antonio de Cabezón, Pinnock tells us, provided the source of inspiration for his own ‘Journey’ and it is with his music that he sets out. England and the Netherlands are represented by Tallis, Byrd, Bull, Handel and Sweelinck; Italy by Frescobaldi; Germany by JS Bach; and returning to Spanish soil Pinnock concludes his colourful odyssey with three of Domenico Scarlatti’s finest Sonatas which he first recorded 35 years ago. The programme…

SNARKY PUPPY Family Dinner Vol. 2 Michael League (bass), Justin Stanton, Jay Jennings (trumpet), Bill Laurance, Shaun Martin (keyboards) etc Ground Up B0024506-00CD01 56:58 mins I’m not sure that leader Michael League thinks of Snarky Puppy as a jazz big band, but jazz has taken the group to its heart anyway. Whip smart, unpredictable and open to crazy ideas – the once Texan, now New York-based collective ticks all the boxes: their last album, Sylva, a six movement suite with the Dutch Metropole Orchestra, topped the jazz charts. This latest live recording is a manic ‘after hours’ session, made in New Orleans during Mardi Gras with a huge cast of guest stars from world music, rock, soul and electro-pop. The pairings are inspired: Appalachian singer Becca Stevens with the Swedish…

BACH’S MAJOR VOCAL WORKS: Music, Drama, Liturgy Markus Rathey Yale University Press ISBN 9780300217209 230pp (hb) There’s been a crop of fine writing on Bach’s vocal music in recent years, most notably John Eliot Gardiner’s 2013 Music in the Castle of Heaven and John Butt’s brow-furrowing 2010 Bach’s Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions. Neither, curiously, is cited in the reading list of Markus Rathey’s new book, but then again the associate professor of music history at Yale’s Divinity School is concerned with providing an ‘invitation to the general reader’ – to which end a glossary of technical terms, a compact choral time line and, for the Bach newbie, perhaps gilding the lily, a table of sources for the parody movements, are all provided by way of appendix.…

HIGH - END HEADPHONES Astell & Kern T1p £899 Astell & Kern isn’t known for making products for the lower end of the market – or even for the middle… Appearing from almost nowhere a few years back, A&K went straight to the top with its range of high-definition audio kit. And more recently, it’s turned its hand to headphones. I reviewed A&K’s premium set a few months back and now it’s the turn of their T1p set. The first thing you’ll notice about the T1p is the price tag. At a little under £900 (you can find them for £800 if you shop around), these are up against offerings from the big industry players such as AKG and Grado. That’s not a comfortable place to be if you can’t…

ALAN BENNETT Playwright, screenwriter and author LEHÁR Gold and Silver – Waltz  Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Michael Dittrich This is the type of thing my father would play along to. He was a good amateur violinist and the fiddle was always on the sideboard. It seemed to me the most luxurious item in the house. The wood was so rich, it was like a newly fallen conker. My brother and I weren’t allowed to touch it apart from when my father made an abortive attempt to try and teach us how to play, which we couldn’t. NOVELLO ‘I can give you the starlight’ from Dancing Years Mary Ellis (vocals), Drury Lane Orchestra/Charles Prentice If we weren’t at home on Sundays we’d go over to my grandma’s in Leeds.…

Menuhin ensured his pupils were spiritually and intellectually coached So many of today’s finest violinists owe their careers to Yehudi Menuhin. Nigel Kennedy is one, and I remember chatting to him about his time at the Menuhin School (there’s a sweet picture of the seven-year-old Kennedy on p29). Eating bananas were, Menuhin suggested, one of the secrets to a successful performance. Or should I say, one banana. Two bananas would, Menuhin cautioned, make one a little too jittery. I’d love to have seen him on stage having eaten three. Our feature writer Humphrey Burton’s illuminating biography of Menuhin reveals a man who deeply cared about his pupils, ensuring they were spiritually and intellectually coached as much as they were musically. The violinist actively employed a kindred spirit, Tony Brackenbury, as…

The Menuhin Century Yehudi Menuhin made around 300 recordings with HMV and EMI. So to mark the violinist’s 100th anniversary this year, Warner Classics (which owns EMI Classics) has been through the archives to create the The Menuhin Century. With 80 CDs, 11 DVDs and a book, the set covers recordings from 1929 to 1999, including the first recording Menuhin made in Europe at the age of 13 plus his last recordings as violinist and conductor. There’s plenty new to CD, including a Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with conductor Adrian Boult and Brahms Violin Sonatas with pianist Louis Kentner. The film-maker Bruno Monsaingeon, a close friend of Menuhin, made several documentaries about him which appear here; he also wrote the accompanying book. We’ll be reviewing the set, which is released on…

David Bednall wrote his Marian Suite for violin and organ for violinist Jennifer Pike, and she’s recorded it with the composer. The disc for Regent Records also includes Bednall’s Stabat Mater for upper voices, organ and violin, with the Benenden Chapel Choir and Bednall conducting. René Jacobs has turned his attention to the Bohemian composer Florian Leopold Gassmann and his L’Opera Seria. Filmed live at the Cirque Royal de Bruxelles, the production features soloists Marcos Fink, Sunhae Im, Pietro Spagnoli, Robin Johannsen and B’Rock Orchestra. It’ll be released as a DVD on Harmonia Mundi. ORA has been recording its second album at All Hallows Gospel Oak, London, for Harmonia Mundi. The vocal ensemble, conducted by Suzi Digby, this time explores the world of Thomas Tallis with his own works sitting…

‘Music is an Activity by which Societies define themselves. It can be recognised by the noise it makes’ Sir Thomas Beecham’s famous verdict on the English is variously quoted. They (by which I mean We) ‘do not much care for music’, ‘may not like music’, even ‘may not understand music’. Whatever our precise defect, the second part of the triumphant dictum is always the same: ‘but they absolutely love the noise it makes!’ It seems wiser and wiser every time I think about it. Not specially the bit about the English, which is really just to get our attention, but the deep insight that the sound of music is only a part of the matter, and perhaps not the most important part. I’ve been thinking about it for many years…

Christina Vinson Westcliff-on-Sea  Emerson Whithorne’s New York Days and Nights suite (1922) was the only American music represented at an international contemporary music festival in Salzburg in 1923, where it was programmed with Berg, Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Now forgotten and unperformed, it is a stunning, poignant Impressionist-style suite in five movements, depicting different scenes and capturing the spirit of New York city in the roaring 1920s. The music is just fabulous, and deserves to be heard more often! Richard LeBlond North Carolina, US I have been listening to Baroque composer Francesco Cavalli who, best known for his operas, may be the most underrated composer of spiritual music. The Agnus Dei from his Missa pro defunctis should be enough to whet the ear. The influence of his teacher, Monteverdi, is evident,…

I first met Menuhin in 1959 when I directed a film for the BBC’s arts series Monitor about his memorable meeting with Béla Bartók and the Solo Sonata he commissioned in 1943. He came into the studio trailing clouds of glory but was modesty personified, gentle of voice and of truly noble countenance. Incongruously, what I remember best was Yehudi’s talkative wife Diana (pictured below with Menuhin in 1959) who accompanied him to the filming session and peeled mouth-watering lychees for him whenever there was a break – he was already something of a natural food freak. Over the half century that followed I spent several years of my life making radio and television programmes with him and about him before writing his biography: with hand on heart I can…

Early years: Born Richard Henry Tudor Christophers in Kent in 1953, he was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral and later went to King’s School, Canterbury. Development: He sang under Bernard Rose in the choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, while studying classics. On graduation he became a professional choral tenor as a lay vicar for Westminster Abbey, and with the BBC Singers. Foundation: While still at university, Christophers brought together a group of friends to sing early music. The fledgling choir were initially paid £5 and a pint of beer for each concert. They became The Sixteen in 1979, with a debut performance in St John’s Smith Square, London. Honours: He was made a CBE in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours.…

5 SPITALFIELDS HIGHLIGHTS 6 & 7 June Anna Meredith Anno; Scottish Ensemble/Jonathan Morton 8 June Rossi Oratorio per al Settimana Santa; Early Opera Company/Curnyn 9 June Vivaldi La Senna festeggiante; The English Concert/ Harry Bicket (pictured right) 11 June Iain Bell London’s Fatal Fire (world premiere), Berio Cries of London; New London Chamber Choir/Matthew Hamilton 15 June Gavin Bryars Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet; Multi-Story Orchestra/Christopher Stark music CHOICE SPITALFIELDS FESTIVAL AS SPITALFIELDS TURNS 40, there’s no danger of it slipping into a sedate middle age. Bursting with curiosity, proud of its edginess, it’s a festival that’s long set old and new cheek by jowl. And it’s been shaped by a string of composer-artistic-directors including Jonathan Dove, Judith Weir and Diana Burrell. Indeed ‘festival’ is a misnomer. In reality…

EDINBURGH HIGHLIGHTS 5, 7 & 9 August Bellini Norma ; Cecilia Bartoli (Norma), John Osborn (Pollione), Rebeca Olvera (Adalgisa), Swiss Radio & Television Chorus, Lugano, I Barocchisti/Diego Fasolis (pictured) Date tbc Schoenberg Gurrelieder ; Anja Kampe (Tove), Karen Cargill (Waldtaube), Simon O’Neill (Waldemar), Anthony Dean Griffey (Klaus the Fool), Iain Paterson (Peasant), Thomas Quasthoff (Narrator), Edinburgh Festival Chorus, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Donald Runnicles music CHOICE EDINBURGH EDINBURGH FESTIVAL came into existence in 1947 to provide ‘a platform for the flowering of the human spirit’, and nearly 70 years on, come three weeks in August, spirits flower and soar. Fergus Linehan presented his first festival as artistic director last year, and although he’s currently keeping his cards close to his chest, the erstwhile head of music at Sydney Opera House has…

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 The National Collegiate Chorale of Scotland joins soloists soprano Tamara Wilson, mezzo Elizabeth Bishop, tenor Dimitri Pittas and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen. 8 & 9 July Joshua Bell The virtuoso violinist performs Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3, ‘Summer’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and some Piazzolla, with Runnicles on the podium. 13 July The Naughtons Pianist duo Christina and Michelle Naughton perform two programmes of music, including Rachmaninov’s Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos and Poulenc’s heady Concerto for Two Pianos. 28, 29 & 30 July Jonathan Biss The American pianist presents a series of Beethoven concerts in which he plays a selection of sonatas and the Piano Concerto No. 2 with the festival orchestra under conductor James Conlon. 10-13 Aug Simone Porter The…

THE LIFE 1916 Alberto Ginastera is born on 11 April in BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, to a Catalan father and Italian mother, and starts learning music from a young age. 1937 Two years after graduating from Buenos Aires’s Williams Conservatory with a gold medal in composition, a suite from his ballet Panambí premieres at the Teatro Colón. 1945 Forced by the new Perónist regime to resign his teaching post at the National Maritime Academy, he travels to the US, receiving support from AARON COPLAND. 1954 Though the rule of president Juan Perón continues to make his life difficult, he produces some of his finest work, including the Piano Sonata No. 1 and Pampeana No. 3. 1966 New York City Opera chooses his opera Don Rodrigo to inaugurate its new performing space…

ELGAR PACKS A LOT into half an hour. When Falstaff is not slurring his speech to the amusement of others in the Boar’s Head (a star moment for the bassoon), setting up ambushes or leading his aging warriors into battle at Gaultree Forest, there are also moments of reflection, wistfulness and, after his rejection by Prince Hal, pathos. Add to this the lyricism of the first ‘dream’ interlude and the medieval dance for pipe and tabor in the second, and there is plenty for a conductor to negotiate. Adrian Boult was as closely associated with this work as anyone. Of his three recordings with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, go for that from 1973 ahead of the two from the 1950s, not least because of its superior recorded sound. Not everything…

Christopher Dingle Professor of Music, Birmingham Conservatoire A specialist in French music, Christopher Dingle is the author of several books, notably Messiaen’s Final Works and The Life of Messiaen . He is professor of music at Birmingham Conservatoire and is currently editing The Cambridge History of Music Criticism . John Allison editor, Opera; critic, Sunday Telegraph Nicholas Anderson Baroque specialist Terry Blain writer Kate Bolton-Porciatti lecturer, New York University, Florence Garry Booth jazz writer & critic Geoff Brown critic, The Times Anthony Burton writer, broadcaster Michael Church writer, critic The Independent Christopher Cook broadcaster, critic Martin Cotton radio and recording producer Misha Donat producer, writer Jessica Duchen…

JS BACH Violin and Oboe Concerto in C minor; Violin Concerto in E; Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis; Violin Concerto in A minor; Concerto for two violins in D minor Cecilia Bernardini, Huw Daniel (violin), Alfredo Bernardini (oboe); Dunedin Consort/John Butt Linn CKD 519 (hybrid CD/SACD) 59:53 mins Violinist Cecilia Bernardini takes nothing for granted in this recital of Bach concertos with the Dunedin Consort. Her bowing is both fluid and crisply detailed in the opening and closing movements of the E major Concerto (BWV 1042). The outer movements of the A minor Concerto (BWV 1041) benefit from her precision and clarity, with intelligent use of dynamics and an ear for the expressive potential of repetition and variation. But not until the final movement of the D minor Concerto for two…

BALFE Satanella Sally Silver, Kang Wang, Christine Tocci, Quentin Hayes, Anthony Gregory, Trevor Bowes; John Powell Singers; Victorian Opera Orchestra/Richard Bonynge Naxos 8.660378-79 111:46 mins (2 discs) Michael Balfe’s career explodes the usual view of 19th-century British music as insular and insipid. Irish-born and London-trained, he studied in Italy, sang at La Scala, became Rossini’s protégé and wrote some 29 operas. Satanella, to a lustily melodramatic libretto by impresario Augustus Harris, was a great success at Covent Garden and internationally, from Sydney to Philadelphia. Though less Italianate than Balfe’s Falstaff, using dialogue (not recorded) rather than recitative, Satanella is grand opera nevertheless, complete with thunder-crashing devilry, bland romance, kidnapping pirates and pious uplift. The score is colourful and melodic, notably Satanella’s ‘The Power of Love’, though like Balfe’s better-known Bohemian…

SERENATA TEBALDI Arias by Scarlatti, Handel, Sarti, Bellini, Verdi, Martucci, Masetti, Turina etc Renata Tebaldi (soprano), Giorgio Favaretto, Richard Bonynge (piano) Eloquence 480 5371 (1957-72) 134 mins (2 discs) Fifteen years separate the two tranches of recital material by Tebaldi brought together here, with the later 1972 sequence showing only a slight hardening of tone compromising her artistry. PERFORMANCE RECORDING INGE BORKH • LJUBA WELITSCH The Decca Recitals: works by Dvopák, Gluck, Mascagini, Verdi, Debussy etc With LSO/Fistoulari; VPO/Moralt, Krips Eloquence 482 0280 (1951-60) 128 mins (2 discs) Two great singing actresses of the 1950s and ’60s – the German Inge Borkh and the Bulgarian Ljuba Welitsch – their imagination and individuality shining brightly. PERFORMANCE RECORDING HILDE GUEDEN SINGS OPERETTA Arias by Stolz, Dostal, Grothe, Lehár, Kalman, J Strauss II,…

IN MEMORIAM: Jon Vickers Schubert: Winterreise; plus Jon Vickers in conversation with Jon Tolansky Vickers (tenor), Geoffrey Parsons (piano) Warner 2564603157 (1983/97) 132 mins (2 discs) A characteristically individual account, only for specialists of the singer or the cycle as it’s an operatic, sometimes alarming reading. Interesting interview disc too. PERFORMANCE RECORDING SCHUBERT Der Sänger; Gesänge des Harfners; Schwanengesang Hermann Prey, Gerald Moore (piano) Orfeo C911151B (1964) 79:56 mins I can’t imagine a more fulfilling Schubert Lieder recital than this, by the greatest baritone Lieder singer of his generation, ideally accompanied by Gerald Moore. PERFORMANCE RECORDING ANTHONY ROLFE JOHNSON Recital at La Monnaie: works by Purcell, Britten and Schubert Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano) Cypres Archive CYP 8607 (1996) 72:02 mins A wonderfully varied recital, with Rolfe…

JS BACH Preludes & Fugues – in C, BWV545; in G, BWV541; in C, BWV547; Organ Concerto in A minor (after Vivaldi), etc Skip Sempé, Olivier Fortin (harpsichord) Paradizo PA 0014 (1998) 63:38 mins Ebulliently deployed, and uplifting (if at times intimidating), the sumptuously sonorous two harpsichords contrive an über-rich feast that some may feel requires a dose of liver salts to aid digestion. PERFORMANCE RECORDING MOZART Piano Quartets K478 & 493 The Nash Ensemble Alto ALC 1304 (2005/6) 66:40 mins If only Mozart had written more piano quartets! Brave new worlds unfold in the brooding dramas of K478 and K493’s genial bonhomie – captured here with consummate acuity and effortless poise. PERFORMANCE RECORDING MOZART • RAVEL Ravel: Piano Trio; Mozart: Piano Trio in E, K542; Violin Concerto No. 3…

JS BACH Violin Sonatas Nos 1-3; Violin Partitas Nos 1-3 Johanna Martzy (violin) Profil PH 15036 (1954-55) 139:92 mins (2 discs) Beautifully recorded in the 1950s when Johanna Martzy was at the peak of her powers, for combined tonal purity, shimmering intonation and phrasal intuitiveness Szeryng and Milstein are her only equals. PERFORMANCE RECORDING GRIEG Slåtter (Norwegian Peasant Dances); Stimmungen (Moods) John McCabe (piano) Somm SOMMCD 0154 (1978) 60:15 mins Celebrated both as a composer and gifted Haydn exponent, John McCabe was also a devotee of Nordic music, as witness these devotedly inspired readings of Grieg’s timeless miniatures. PERFORMANCE RECORDING WIDOR Organ Symphonies Nos 5, 6 & 8 (extracts); French Romantic Organ Encores; plus works by Jongen, Mulet, Gigout and Boëllmann David Sanger (organ) Alto ALC1292 (1976/80) 78:07 mins Classic…

The documents include Stalin’s surprisingly astute comments STALIN’S MUSIC PRIZE: Soviet Culture and Politics Marina Frolova-Walker Yale University Press ISBN 9780300208849 378pp (hb) So many myths surround Joseph Stalin’s musical tastes. Some commentators suggest that the Soviet dictator was culturally unsophisticated, demonstrating little appreciation for classical music. Others present a rather different picture, pointing to Stalin’s frequent attendance at the opera and his apparently long-standing and passionate interest in this genre. Sorting out fact from fiction is a particularly difficult process. Yet thanks to an in-depth examination of previously inaccessible archival material, this fascinating study of the Stalin Music Prizes, which existed from 1940 to 1953, comes far closer than any previous work to presenting a much more nuanced interpretation. The surviving documents that form the basis for Marina…

1 BACH WEEKEND Kings Place, London, 1-3 April Tel: +44 (0)20 7520 1490 Web: www.kingsplace.co.uk ‘From Cöthen to Leipzig’ is the remit of Kings Place’s bustling Bach Weekend. Orbiting the B minor Mass and Leipzig cantatas are the viola da gamba sonatas played by Jonathan Manson (accompanied by Steven Devine who also tackles the Goldberg Variations), the complete cello suites played by Richard Tunnicliffe, and Catherine Manson’s account of the solo violin Partita in D minor. 2 IMS PRUSSIA COVE St John’s Church, Truro, 2 April Tel: +44 (0)1872 262466 Web: www.i-m-s.org.uk An offshoot from this spring’s International Musicians Seminar at Cornwall’s Prussia Cove, the last of the ‘Maestri’ concerts includes the composer and pianist Thomas Adès who accompanies artistic director and cellist Steven Isserlis in…