Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2016 i BBC Music Magazine

ON DISC Perfectly executed Remember the name Dinara Klinton. She’s a young Ukrainian pianist who has just released her debut disc, featuring fearless performances of Liszt’s Etudes d’exécution transcendante. With her supporters including Stephen Kovacevich and Sir András Schiff, it’s perhaps no surprise that it’s a fantastic recording – and it’s this month’s Instrumental Choice, p80. ON STAGE In memory of Max Always one of the more inspiring events on the calendar, Orkney’s St Magnus Festival will be a place of both celebration and a little wistfulness this year. Corks will doubtless be popped for the festival’s 40th anniversary, but done so with a respectful nod to its founder, the late Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (pictured), whose Wendy’s Wedding Music enjoys its premiere. See p91 ONLINE Strictly Come Promming The…

MAGNIFICENT MAX While, at 81, the death of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies may not be entirely untimely, it has still robbed us of much fine music which we can be sure was still to come. I first encountered Max’s music half a century ago when, at university in England, a friend introduced me to such compositions as Eight Songs for a Mad King and Revelation and Fall. Having had little exposure to contemporary ‘classical’ music at school and in my native Rhodesia, I was astonished and thrilled to hear these pieces – sounds I could never have imagined possible – and those are sensations which have remained with me, as I listen to enchanting compositions by the likes of Kancheli, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Birtwistle and many others. I thus owe a…

‘I’ve learnt that it’s my job to bring something new to the stage’ Rowan Pierce never had any doubt that she wanted to sing. ‘There was no other option for me,’ she says. ‘I knew I needed to have a career in something I was passionate about.’ And so, at just seven years old, she set about getting experience, becoming a regular star of everything from local music festivals to pantomimes and singing competitions. ‘My parents would sit through 54 versions of “Little silver fishes”,’ she remembers. ‘They had the patience of saints. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to get used to performing, and I did a lot of treading the boards in an amateur sense.’ And it is those same saintly parents that Pierce credits for…

THIS MONTH GABOR TAKÁCS-NAGY violin The Hungarian violinist and conductor was a founding member of the Takács Quartet and is now the music director of the Manchester Camerata. The Camerata’s all-Mozart season finale takes place on Friday 3 June at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, with violinist Nicola Benedetti. My finest moment Brahms String Quartets, Opp. 51 & 67; Piano Quintet, Op. 34 Takács Quartet; András Schiff (piano) Decca 475 6525 (1988) I am proud of and happy with this recording. I don’t often listen to my old recordings, but I do sometimes listen to this one and I wouldn’t do it differently now. What is very special is that this was a very long project: we played this unbelievable music for six or seven years, or even…

After 53 years of bringing music and other performing arts to the Square Mile, the City of London Festival has announced it is to discontinue with immediate effect. Though plans were well under way for this summer’s event, it will now not happen – visitors to the festival’s website are, instead, greeted by a farewell note explaining that ‘it has become increasingly difficult to attract the level of funding necessary’ to stage it. Over its half-century, the City of London Festival won a reputation for imaginative programming that made use of many of the financial district’s more interesting buildings, from St Paul’s Cathedral to Liverpool Street station. See Richard Morrison, p25…

@Sviceridor Aargh! Brutal haircut just ahead of Leeds Lieder weekend. Bzzzz... Too Late! Cold head now. Chilly baritone Roderick Williams (left) takes the shaven-headed approach to singing Schumann @Flutelicious Top tips 4 flautists #37 Don’t suck on an anaesthetising throat sweet just before rehearsal. Turns out your tongue goes a bit numb too... Flautitht Gareth Davies chootheth jutht the wrong time for a little medithinal help @AlpeshChauhan26 3 days in to rehearsals… curry levels disastrously low… takeaway ordered. Urgent times call for urgent measures, says conductor Alpesh Chauhan @RBPviolinist Totally craving a tri colore salad. Is there anywhere besides NYC where this is a thing? Violinist Rachel Barton Pine also finds herself with a severe attack of the munchies @kathystott The real tweets are happening outside! Firstly the dawn chorus…

Oliver Condy Editor The 19th century may have produced some of music’s most forward-thinking works, but it also fostered some of its finest tunes. Enter French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, whose music glistens with melodic inspiration – surely a sign of greatness in itself. This month’s earworm comes courtesy of his Piano Concerto No. 2, a work with one of the most charming scherzos ever conceived for piano and orchestra. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor I don’t suppose that Weber’s Bassoon Concerto will ever make it into any lists of the great masterpieces of the 19th century but I find Karen Geoghegan’s recording of it rather charming. Whenever I hear its opening tune, I find myself wondering if Nielsen might have had it in mind when, 100 years later, he wrote that…

In 2009, BBC Music Magazine asked a group of distinguished music critics to nominate their choice for the ten greatest musical prodigies of all time. Compiling such lists often sparks a good deal of controversy. But in this particular case, there was absolute unanimity when it came to deciding who should occupy first place, everyone agreeing wholeheartedly that Felix Mendelssohn must win the contest by a country mile. Whether those expressing such support for the youthful Mendelssohn would also have argued for his inclusion in a putative premier league table of composers is another matter, however… ON THE FACE OF IT, DECLARING unbounded admiration for Mendelssohn as a composer-prodigy yet appearing reluctant to acknowledge his overall greatness seems contradictory. But this apparent dichotomy becomes far more understandable when considering the…

DEAR, SWEET MENDELSSOHN. So earnest, so sincere, so good at charming Queen Victoria. He could have terrible temper-tantrums, apparently, but his family forgave him, because he was generally so good-natured. And, like everyone else, they were awe-struck at his talent. There has never been a prodigy like him. If only the man had lived up to the boy. Of course there are the immortal masterpieces. But so often Mendelssohn nips his own good ideas in the bud. Take the C minor Piano Trio. It starts off in splendidly stormy fashion, like Bach reimagined for the age of Delacroix. But then Mendelssohn rounds off this surging opening with a neat little cadence. It feels absurd, like pinning a gift-tag on an avalanche. Time and again, the second half of his good…

BRITAIN IN THE 19TH CENTURY was not exactly awash with great composers – the famous German jibe about England being ‘the land without music’ was not said purely out of spite – so any list of Sterndale Bennett’s contemporaries has an esoteric feel about it. Perhaps the best known of them was his own teacher, Cipriani Potter (1792-1871, above) who, as a young man, was commended by Beethoven as being ‘a good fellow and talent for composition’. Sadly, we will have to take Beethoven’s word for it, as much of Potter’s early music has been lost. He did go on to write a number of well-crafted symphonies, nine of which survive, and was later highly regarded by Wagner. Whereas Potter wrote little for the voice, Henry Bishop (1786-1855) specialised in…

Early life: From the age of 10, Finley was a chorister (later becoming head choirboy) at St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Ottawa. Development: After a stint at the University of Ottawa, he moved to Britain where he continued his studies at King’s College, Cambridge, the Royal College of Music, and London’s National Opera Studio. Early life: Finley made his debut at Covent Garden in 1989 in Don Carlo, and in 1994 his was the first voice heard in Glyndebourne’s new theatre, singing Figaro’s opening bars in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Accolades: He has won numerous awards, including a Grammy for Best Opera Recording. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in June 2014, and is a Visiting Professor and Fellow of the Royal College of Music.…

Few singers continue to enchant the public beyond the age of 70. Fewer still make recordings in their eighth decade. Only one has made their Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 76. That singer – I use the term loosely – was the legendary Florence Foster Jenkins. It was not the beauty of her voice that sold out Carnegie Hall weeks in advance, for Jenkins was no Pons or Ponselle gracing the great opera stages of the world. Her repertoire encompassed Mozart, Delibes, Johann Strauss II, Brahms and lighter fare, but she sang it with an insurmountable handicap: she was tone deaf. The unique allure of her voice made Florence the Queen of the Quarter Tone, the Diva of Din. As the title of one compilation of her recordings…

The legendary Soviet violinist used to spend his summers in Pärnu – the city had a relaxing ‘western’ feel to it while still maintaining its Russian flavour. In fact, he liked it so much, he rented a charming holiday home on Toominga St (five minutes from the sea and just around the corner from the city’s famous Tervis Spa), to which he would invite fellow musicians and students for informal evenings of chamber music. The house is easy to find, and bears a wooden plaque celebrating Oistrakh’s connection with Pärnu. But it’s still used as a holiday home, so entrance may be trickier to negotiate……

Folk music As a boy, Haydn, whose father was a folk harpist, played the music of the local villagers. His popularity as a composer rests on this element. Gypsy music (pictured left) abounds, as in the finales of Symphony No. 44 and the fourth Op. 20 Quartet. The finale of the ‘London’ Symphony is probably a Croatian tune. Humour Haydn’s music is full of rhythmic tricks, irregular phrase lengths, syncopations, fake endings, unexpected endings, pauses, mischievous repeats and surprises. Some of the humour is very learned as, for example, when he writes a complete instrumental part with the same series of four notes, but in different clefs. Opera Haydn’s operas are almost as many and varied as Mozart’s, but he was the first to admit that the younger man’s far…

Andrew McGregor Presenter, BBC Radio 3’s Record Review Brought up in a home wallpapered with Radio 3, Andrew was a violinist and countertenor, before working in the classical record industry, training as a sound engineer, and broadcasting on radio. For the last decade or so he has presented Radio 3’s Record Review . 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 Christopher Cook broadcaster, critic Martin Cotton radio and recording producer Christopher Dingle Professor of music, Birmingham Conservatoire Misha Donat producer,…

TCHAIKOVSKY Nutcracker Suite; Capriccio Italien; Eugene Onegin – Polonaise and Waltz London Philhamonic/Stokowski Pentatone PTC 5186229 (hybrid CD/ SACD) (1973) 47:18 mins Notwithstanding some Stokowskian eccentricities, notably a ridiculously fast Nutcracker March, there’s bucket-loads of charisma in his fresh and dynamic approach to such over-familiar repertory in this spectacularly engineered disc. PERFORMANCE RECORDING GLINKA Ruslan and Lyudmila – Overture, Chernomor’s March; Ivan Susanin (A Life for the Tsar) – Overture; Spanish Overtures Nos 1 & 2; Waltz-Fantasia, etc USSR Symphony/Evgeny Svetlanov Alto ALC 1312 (1963-84) 75:20 mins Somewhat crude Soviet-era sound, particularly exposed in the hard-driven yet irresistibly exciting Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture, doesn’t detract from the wonderful range of colours Svetlanov brings to this delightful programme. PERFORMANCE RECORDING PROKOFIEV Symphonies Nos 5 & 6 Leningrad Philharmonic/Mravinsky Praga Digitals PRD/DSD…

The essential qualities of the music shine through, unimpeded BEETHOVEN DVD Violin Concerto MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor Nikolaj Znaider (violin); Gewandhausorchester/Riccardo Chailly Accentus ACC 20345 84:49 mins Focused, serious and gimmick-free, this DVD does what it says on the tin: it offers two superb performances by Nikolaj Znaider and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, beautifully filmed, with sound quality to match. There’s an extra frisson for violinophiles: Znaider is playing a Guarneri del Gesù that once belonged to Fritz Kreisler. It looks almost as gorgeous as it sounds and this is the closest we can see its burnished tawny stripes without handling the fiddle itself. Produced by Paul Smaczny, the film brings together concertos recorded on separate occasions. The Mendelssohn is from 2012, directed by Ute…

George Pratt is haunted by the beguiling 16th-century work of Durón Eva Juárez’s crystalline voice floats gently down over strings DURÓN Lagrimas, Amor… – soprano arias Eva Juárez (soprano); A Corte Musical/ Rogério Goncalves Pan Classics PC 10320 59:14 mins Sebastián Durón enjoyed a brief period of fame in Madrid from around 1696. It ended abruptly when he backed the wrong party in the War of Spanish Succession, was caught stealing scores from the Royal Chapel, and found himself stylistically outdated by imported Italian and French music. His recent rediscovery has revealed some exquisite music, particularly among his Zarzuelas or semi-operas. A special characteristic is a solo line falling slowly and chromatically, often above quite abrupt and inventive harmonic twists from string and continuo accompaniment. The aria, ‘Ondas, riscos,…

The wistful intermezzo recalls the glow of an era all but extinguished VIOLIN SONATAS Sonatas by Elgar, Debussy & Respighi; plus Sibelius: Pensées lyriques – Berceuse James Ehnes (violin), Andrew Armstrong (piano) Onyx ONYX 4159 68:56 mins This is a radiantly engineered album of music composed around the time of the Great War, played with beguiling eloquence by James Ehnes and regular playing partner Andrew Armstrong. Their previous Onyx disc was an outstanding coupling of the Strauss and Franck Sonatas. Debussy wrote his Violin Sonata while he was undergoing treatment for cancer; he described himself as a ‘walking corpse’. The neo-classical score, signed ‘musicien français’, that emerged possesses a stream-of-consciousness otherworldliness made possible (at least in part) by the generous doses of morphine he was receiving at the time. Ehnes…

NORTHERN EDITION Marius Neset (sax), Jasper Høiby (bass) etc Edition Records EDN 1069 78:26mins Towards the end of the last century a new school of cool jazz emerged from the Nordic countries that was characterised by its sharpness and clarity. This smashing compilation from Scandinavian specialist label Edition, curated by Radio 3’s Late Junction presenter Fiona Talkington, doesn’t feature established stars like Norwegians Jan Garbarek or Tord Gustavsen, however. Rather, it is a snapshot of an evolving Nordic jazz scene and it reveals how a new generation of young players is taking the music in starkly different directions. The lyrical Finnish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola has a moody, simmering intensity about him while the Norwegian saxist Marius Neset belts it out with a playfulness that belies his superb quick-fire technique. Drifter,…

ERIK SATIE: A Parisian Composer and his World Caroline Potter Boydell Press 9781783270835 303pp (hb) Virgil Thomson, as so often, hit the nail on the head when, in a pre-echo of another Eric, he said that ‘Satie used very few notes but they were all in the right place’. Not the least virtue of Caroline Potter’s book is that she makes us question the meaning in this context of the word ‘right’, as it applies not only to the music itself but to the world in which Satie lived – one even stranger and more various than has generally been supposed. The hitherto mysterious ‘Obstacles vénimeux’ in the set of Heures séculaires et instantanées for piano are now outed as being snakes supposedly found only on Martinique which ‘can…

1 STILE ANTICO St Mary’s Church, Richmond, 1 June Tel: +44 (0)1748 880019 Web: www.swaledale-festival.org.uk The Hallé, pianist Richard Uttley and the Heath and Fitzwilliam Quartets are among the highlights of the last week of this year’s Swaledale Festival. And the Bard’s quatercentenary doesn’t go unremarked as Stile Antico delves into Shakespeare settings invoking the likes of Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes and Orlando Gibbons, plus recent ones by Nico Muhly and Huw Watkins. 2 CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA & CHORUS Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 1 June Tel: +44 (0)121 345 0600 Web: www.thsh.co.uk Birmingham has been taking a proprietorial interest in the Shakespeare anniversary. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Nicholas McGegan embark on a four-century survey of the Bard’s legacy that is…

MELLY STILL Theatre and opera director DVORÁK ‘Rusalka, znas mne, znas?’ from Act II of Rusalka Ana María Martínez (soprano), Mischa Schelomianski (bass) etc, London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Jipí Belohlávek ‘The first opera I directed was Rusalka (in 2009). David Pickard, then general manager of Glyndebourne, asked me if I would be interested in doing it and it really appealed. There’s something about its sense of wonder, and the tension between humanity and nature was very much on people’s minds at the time. Rusalka is based on the little mermaid. She is desperate to become human so she can be with the handsome prince and the witch Jeÿibaba agrees on condition that she trades in her voice. Everything is going well until she realises that the prince is tired of…

Erik Levi Critic, writer and academic ‘Mendelssohn’s brilliance in many areas generated jealousy, which was exploited by the Nazis to tarnish his reputation. German musicologists fuelled the notion he was lightweight. So it’s good to be able to counter such prejudice.’ Page 26 Nicholas McCarthy Pianist ‘I love delving into the history of left-hand repertoire and the stories of the inspirational pianists who championed this unique medium through the years. It makes me thankful, as without them, I wouldn’t have a career today.’ Page 44 Chris de Souza Composer and author ‘Ever since I first played the “London” Symphony in my school orchestra, Haydn has fascinated me. Such a normal bloke worked miracles. Prodigiously industrious, wittily original, his life is a fanfare to the common man.’ Page…

Monumental return Kyung Wha Chung has returned to the studio after a 15-year break. The South Korean violinist has recorded JS Bach’s complete solo violin works, a project she describes as ‘a monumental task’. The album, recorded at St George’s in Bristol for Warner Classics, will be released in September – 46 years after her acclaimed debut recording of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Violin Concertos was released. Chung gave up public performance in 2005 after an injury but returned to the stage five years later. She has signed to Warner Classics, and plans include a recital disc with pianist Kevin Kenner plus a concerto recording. Signing up There’s a clutch of new signings this month: Ivana Gavric, former BBC Music Magazine Awards Newcomer of the Year, has signed to Edition Classics.…

The Bavarian Radio Choir has celebrated its 70th anniversary in April, with a concert of opera choruses conducted by Mariss Jansons, recorded in Munich by BR Klassik. The choir has also joined forces with Concerto Köln and Peter Dijkstra to record JS Bach’s B Minor Mass for the same label. Classical Opera has recorded Mozart’s Zaide , the latest instalment in its Mozart opera cycle for the Signum label. The cast includes tenors Allan Clayton and Stuart Jackson, plus soprano Sophie Bevan – who has also just recorded a recital disc with the opera company. Both discs were recorded in Kilburn. Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have recorded Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 and his concert overture In the South for Onyx Classics, a follow-up to…

ABRSM Speedshifter Lite: Free/Full: £3.99 Instrumental students are often advised, when learning a new piece, to start slowly and gradually build up to full speed. This app from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music helps students do just that, while allowing them to play along to recordings of accompaniments and performances. With the use of this app, the speed of any audio track on iTunes can be changed without altering its pitch, a major advantage over other similar apps. And a pitch-adjusting feature is also available which will doubtless prove useful for those who, for instance, wish to match Baroque pitched recordings to their modern instrument’s tuning. A loop function allows the user to select a particular section of the track to practise on repeat, and a…

‘Without a piano,’ Ravel asked Vaughan Williams, ‘how can you find new harmonies?’ The frozen hail twinkled like snow in the fading light as it lay on the twisting lanes across Leith Hill. It had seemed a very good idea to find Leith Hill Place the night before the BBC arrived to film me early in the morning, and even as my car slid gracefully downhill towards blind corners it still seemed a fairly good idea. Next day I knew where to go, so I had a chance to get privately acquainted with the object of attention: Vaughan Williams’s composing piano, a Broadwood upright of 1903 (the Honeysuckle model). He bought it second-hand after it had done two years hard labour at the Royal College of Music, and he composed…

This month, we asked readers at the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2016 to tell us about their current favourite listening. Here’s what they had to say… James Pringle Broadstairs, Kent My first item on Desert Island Discs would be Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 performed by Emil Gilels. I absolutely love this work. It’s a very long concerto and it covers so many different moods. It’s got everything you need, including drama, poetry and an optimistic, bright, jaunty end. I first discovered it when the second movement was used by the Independent Broadcasting Authority for test transmissions before Capital Radio opened, so that puts it back to about 1973. I found out what it was and bought it on vinyl. Eric Corlett London I’ve been listening to Vaughan Williams’s The…

POTTERY I did a little bit of pottery when I was at school, as my dad is a potter and had his own wheel in the garage. However, since then I hadn’t done any until I attended a course last summer. I was the worst at the course by a mile, but I loved spending a week learning from others. I enjoy the fact that it takes the whole of my concentration just to get a piece of clay in the middle of a spinning wheel, and so there’s no time to think of anything else. I also enjoy working with my hands, doing something that isn’t musical for a change but that still uses both sides of the brain in the same way that playing the piano does –…

AUDIENCE AND ENGAGEMENT Multi-Story Peckham car park’s resident orchestra picks up the award for its ingenuity and simplicity in creating and engaging new audiences, and its impact on the local community. CHAMBER MUSIC AND SONG The Carducci Quartet The British quartet has won for its heroic performances of all 15 Shostakovich quartets in over 60 concerts around the UK. CHAMBER-SCALE COMPOSITION Julian Anderson: Van Gogh Blue Anderson has demonstrated ‘new flexibility in this radiantly clear and perfectly heard piece’, said the RPS jury. CONCERT SERIES AND FESTIVALS Minimalism Unwrapped at Kings Place London’s Kings Place concert hall was praised for the wide-ranging and imaginative series Minimalism Unwrapped, which encouraged discovery and engaged audiences. CREATIVE COMMUNICATION Michael Church: The Other Classical Musics Intelligently and beautifully presented, this meticulously researched study by…

Andrew Litton Conductor My favourite Mendelssohn work is the Italian Symphony, because it is such a joy – it has all the Mendelssohnian colours and all those upbeat tempos. It’s fun and feels so great to conduct. But the work that really inspires me would have to be the A Midsummer Night’s Dream incidental music. I can’t believe somebody could write an overture like that at just 17; and then he came back to it in his maturity and wrote such colourful, descriptive music. The overture itself is sheer inventiveness, and overall the effervescent nature of the string writing and the unbridled energy is irresistible. And there’s an honesty and integrity that’s impossible not to warm to. The way he composes for the voice is also so beautiful and heartfelt.…

Sinfonietta Riga Flautist Vincent Lucas and harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet join the Latvian orchestra under Paavo Järvi for Pärt, Haydn and Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp. 11 July Järvi Academy Paavo’s young students conduct Mozart, Haydn and Schubert at the Pärnu Concert Hall. 11 July Viktoria Mullova The Russian violinist performs Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the specially assembled Estonian Festival Orchestra under Paavo Järvi. Also on the programme is a work by one of Estonia’s great composing talents, Erkki-Sven Tüür. 14 July Arvo Pärt A charming concert in the grounds of the splendid art-nouveau hotel, Ammende Villa (pictured below), will showcase the Estonian composer’s music for kids, his Songs from Childhood performed by local children’s choirs. 17 July Estonian Festival Orchestra This super-charged ensemble’s adrenaline-fuelled final…

THE LIFE 1732 THE TIMES 1732 Joseph Haydn is born on 31 March in ROHRAU, Austria, to a wheelwright father and mother, a former cook at the palace of Count Harrach. 1733 Following the death of AUGUSTUS II, France and Austria become embroiled in the War of Polish Succession. It is eventually ended with the Treaty of Vienna in 1738. 1748 The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle brings the War of Austrian Succession to an end. In terms dictated by France and Britain, Austria is forced to cede Silesia to Prussia. 1749 He is expelled from the Kapellhaus, where he is a chorister, following a prank on another boy. He begins work as a freelance musician by means of teaching, street performing and accompaniment. 1755 Sent by Francis I of Austria to…

SHOSTAKOVICH • RAVEL Piano Trios Nos 1 & 2 • Piano Trio Smetana Trio Supraphon SU 4135-2 68:11 mins ‘In No. 1, a youthful work inspired by love, the Smetanas bring out its playful self-awareness yet give the central episode’s guileless, almost Arensky-style sweetness its due. The wry and brittle character of No. 2 is compellingly realised.’ July 2014 BRAHMS The complete trios Ppemysl Vojta (french horn), Ludmila Peterková (clarinet); Smetana Trio Supraphon SU 4072-2 136:55 mins ‘Here’s an effective antidote to the notion of Brahms as ‘all beer and beard’. It isn’t often you hear this music played with such delicacy and atmospheric refinement. The Clarinet Trio is a revelation … deeply poetic and full of late autumnal colours.’ April 2013 DVORÁK Piano Trios Nos 3 & 4 Smetana…

BRUCKNER Symphony No. 9 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ Mariss Jansons RCO Live RCO 16001 (hybrid CD/SACD) 54:44 mins DVD Symphony No. 9 Staatskapelle Dresden/ Christian Thielemann C Major DVD: 733308; Blu-ray: 733404 66 mins Here are two magnificent accounts of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, one of the most difficult works in the repertoire to bring off in all its terrifying power. They are both led by high-profile conductors, but very different ones, and performed by great but very different orchestras, so the comparisons and contrasts might have been endless. Much to my surprise, the performances are remarkably similar for the first two movements; only in the third are there decisive differences, as flagged by the Royal Concertgebouw taking 20 minutes over it and the Staatskapelle Dresden…

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Gustav Mahler was a renowned conductor before he became widely celebrated as a composer. Although at times he felt that his day job was ‘crushing his soul’, he recognised that conducting kept him in touch with the practicalities of writing effectively for the orchestra, and was an important counterbalance to ‘the enormous creative activity that goes on within’. It was while he was chief conductor of the Budapest Opera that he completed what is now known as his First Symphony, but known then as a Symphonic Poem in five movements, conducting its premiere on 20 November 1889.…

JS BACH • VIVALDI JS Bach: Double Concerto; Vivaldi: Double Concertos, etc D & I Oistrakh, Stern (violin); RPO/ Goossens; Philadelphia/Ormandy Alto ALC1299 (1961) 68:04 mins A more Romantic approach to Baroque music than we now expect, especially in the heartfelt slow movements, not always mirrored in the dry recordings. PERFORMANCE RECORDING LEONID KOGAN Brahms: Violin Concerto; Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Méditation Kogan (violin); Boston Symphony/ Monteux; Paris Conservatoire/Silvestri Melodiya MELCD 1002328 (1958/59) 78:20 mins An exciting live performance of the Brahms is marred by thin sound; the studio recording of the Tchaikovsky is warmer, and shows Kogan at the height of his powers. PERFORMANCE RECORDING SIBELIUS • TCHAIKOVSKY Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Sibelius: Violin Concerto; Humoresques David Oistrakh (violin); USSR Radio SO, Moscow Philharmonic/Rozhdestvensky Praga Digitals PRD 250325 (1965/68) 71:48 mins…

PUCCINI BLU-RAY La Bohème Freni, Pavarotti, Pacetti, Ghiaurov; San Francisco Opera/Severini; dir. Zambello Arthaus Musik 109184 (1988) 116 mins The performers in this San Francisco Bohème (1988) are past their best. Francesca Zambello’s stagy production offers no new insights, though Tiziano Severini’s conducting is worthwhile. PERFORMANCE PICTURE & SOUND MEYERBEER BLU-RAY L’Africaine Domingo, Verett, Swenson; San Francisco Opera/Arena; dir. Mansouri Arthaus Musik 109181 (1988) 194 mins This revival of Meyerbeer’s posthumously edited final opera offers old-fashioned visuals in Mansouri’s staging, but a superior musical performance conducted by Maurizio Arena. PERFORMANCE PICTURE & SOUND TIPPETT BLU-RAY King Priam Macann, Walker, Haskin, Mason; Kent Opera/Norrington; dir. Hytner Arthaus Musik 109179 (1985) 138 mins Nicholas Hytner’s admired Kent Opera staging of Tippett’s King Priam is musically excellent under Roger Norrington’s baton, but picture…

John Cage described Erik Satie as ‘indispensable’ According to John Cage: ‘It’s not a question of Satie’s relevance. He’s indispensable’, and here are two anniversary boxes to prove it. Tout Satie! (Erato) sets out to give us the complete works. A short trumpet Fanfare to Wake the King of the Monkeys introduces Debussy’s orchestrations of the Gymnopédies, before we get the cabaret chic of La belle excentrique from Michel Plasson in Toulouse, and the ballets Relâche and Mercure. Louis Auriacombe captures the swaggering brilliance of Parade, Pierre Dervaux’s cast in Socrate is idiomatic, but we need the texts to fully appreciate Satie’s surrealist play Le piège de Méduse. Aldo Ciccolini and Anne Queffélec’s fine recordings are the backbone of the six piano discs; gaps are newly filled by Alexandre Tharaud…

MENDELSSOHN String Quartets: Nos 2 & 6; Four Pieces, Op. 81 Elias Quartet Alto ALC 1303 (2006) 77:07 mins Excellent, expressive playing. The A minor Quartet, written in Beethoven’s memory, is powerful enough, even before the anguish of the F minor, written after the death of Mendelssohn’s sister. PERFORMANCE RECORDING SCHUMANN Piano Quintet; Piano Quartet The Schubert Ensemble Alto ALC 1307 (2005) 60 mins Gentle rather than exciting or highly polished performances, which express respectively the underlying melancholy of the Quintet – most affectingly in the slow second movement – and the nobility of the Quartet. PERFORMANCE RECORDING SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9; Piano Trio No. 2; String Quartet No. 3 Oistrakh Trio; Smetana Quartet; Czech Philharmonic/Zden›k Kosler Praga Digitals PRD 250 319 (1961/67) 78:09 mins Perky and razor-sharp interpretations, full…

JS BACH Complete Sonatas & Partitas, BWV 1001-1006 Isabelle Faust (violin) Harmonia Mundi HMX 2908474-75 (2010/12) 129:19 mins (2 discs) Combining the cantabile elegance of the old style and the rhetorically uncluttered insights of the new in a glowing acoustic, Isabelle Faust is radiantly inspired from first note to last. PERFORMANCE RECORDING ELGAR Organ Sonata No. 1 in G; 11 Vesper Voluntaries; Organ Sonata No. 2 in B flat; Enigma Variations – Nimrod (Transcr.)*; Imperial March^ Donald Hunt (organ), *Hugh Davies, ^Simon Lindley (organ) Alto ALC 1313 (1984) 68:27 mins Although the glorious ambience of Elgar’s beloved Worcester Cathedral tends to gently blur the music’s rhythmic profiles, organist Donald Hunt’s commanding yet sensitive readings prove thoroughly engaging. PERFORMANCE RECORDING D SCARLATTI 14 Sonatas Peter Katin (piano) Claudio CR3502-2 (1985) 61:59…

Dido and Aeneas is a tragic opera in three acts with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The circumstances of its composition and performance are subject to speculation but it is often cited that the first performance took place around 1689 at Josias Priest’s boarding school for girls in Chelsea. The only surviving copy of the libretto says it was performed ‘by young gentlewomen’. It was influenced by Blow’s opera Venus and Adonis, which had also been performed at Priest’s school in 1684. (There are also theories that Purcell’s work may have been performed as a court masque on an earlier date.) Tate based his libretto on his own play Brutus of Alba and Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. The story is unusual for Baroque opera, as it ends tragically. Dido,…

What did you set out to achieve in filming this series? It was quite a tall order to cover the whole of the 19th century in three hours of TV, so we decided to take a view of the people who changed not only music but had a wider impact outside the concert hall. The first programme looks at the transition from very anonymous musicians who worked at courts, like Haydn and Mozart, to the idea of the invention of the composer as a recognisable superstar and how and why that happened, through Romanticism and other factors. That's partly due to the French Revolution and to economics, politics and massive social change. What else does the season cover? The second part is about political revolution and how composers discovered that…

Was the 19th century classical music’s most important era? Post French Revolution ripples were still being felt throughout the first half of the 1800s, while new directions in philosophy and art fired the remainder of these extraordinary times. The 20th century might have seen more global upheaval and witnessed the proliferation of musical genres, but it was the century that began with the extraordinary, bemusing sounds of Charles Ives, forcing music to develop sideways rather than forwards – after all, who could take on Ives’s perplexing originality? And whereas the 19th century saw a clear path to the 20th, via Debussy and Schoenberg, it’s hard to see a focused musical drive from 20th to 21st… On p38, we’ve selected the ten great masterpieces that defined the 19th century – works…

Whoever might be willing to succeed Wigglesworth is anyone’s guess Where next for English National Opera? Once again, the woe-begotten company has found itself the subject of criticism, speculation and newspaper column inches galore as yet another fall-out casts a cloud over its future. Following the sudden resignation of Mark Wigglesworth as music director at the end of the March – less than a year after taking up the post – ENO’s artistic direction is looking decidedly uncertain, given that its artistic director, John Berry, also resigned last year and has yet to be replaced. Now the weight rests firmly on the shoulders of ENO chief executive Cressida Pollock, who recently set out her vision for the company. Though full of good intentions, Pollock’s ‘manifesto’ was met with more than…

Chart for week ending 15 April 2016 1 Scarlatti Sonatas Yevgeny Sudbin (piano) BIS BIS-2138 Sudbin celebrates 10 years on BIS Records with this brilliant display of articulation and phrasing 2 The Deer’s Cry Pärt, Tallis and Byrd The Sixteen/Harry Christophers Coro COR16140 The Sixteen’s seductive collection brings Tudor music together with contemporary works 3 Dvoÿák & Schumann Piano Concertos Stephen Hough (piano); CBSO/Andris Nelsons Hyperion CDA 68099 Thrilling virtuosity from Hough with unwaveringly excellent orchestral support 4 Ola Gjeilo Voices pianos strings Tenebrae, Voces8; LCO/Gjeilo Sony Classical 88875092492 The first recording of Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo’s ambient choral music 5 Portraits of Earth Alexander Chapman Campbell (piano) Alexander Chapman Campbell Improvisations by a young Scottish pianist inspired by his country’s dramatic…

SAKARI STAYS Smiles all round in the Swedish capital, where Sakari Oramo has extended his contract as chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra until 2020. Good times indeed for the Finn who, as well as recently winning the BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Award, is now also the proud recipient of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award (see interview, p22). BLOCH BOOKING Alexandre Bloch has been named as the new music director of Orchestre National de Lille. The French conductor, 30, who came to public attention when he won the prestigious Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in 2012 and is also principal guest conductor of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, begins his new role in September. DOUBLE GLOUCESTER Gloucester is to become the latest English cathedral to recruit girl choristers. Following auditions…

The City of London Festival died because it had no compelling artistic identity Back in the 1990s, during a lecture marking the 50th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival, that crusty cultural guru George Steiner made a mischievous suggestion. The best thing the festival could do to celebrate its half-century, he said, would be to abolish itself. That wasn’t quite what his hosts wanted to hear, but nor was it as perverse as it sounds. Steiner’s point was that all institutions are prone to fall into routine after a while – and routine is fatal to great art. Especially at an annual festival intended to light up a city with extraordinary cultural happenings for a few weeks each year. Well, someone has taken Steiner’s words to heart. Last month it emerged…

Violin Concerto in D minor Such is the popularity of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor that people tend to overlook that, as a 13 year-old, he also wrote one in D minor – in fact, the music world was almost entirely unaware of it until Yehudi Menuhin reintroduced it to the concert hall in 1951. Scored for violin solo and strings and generally genial throughout, it’s rounded off by a cheekily charming Allegro finale. Recommended recording: Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin); Orchestra of the Swan/David Curtis Signum SIGCD342 Organ Sonatas The Six Organ Sonatas were published in England in 1845, over 20 years before César Franck’s Six Pièces, works that many assume kick-started the modern organ revolution. In fact, it was Mendelssohn who first gave the organ a 19th-century lease…

Bennett was the most discordant composer of the 19th century Do Bennett’s Ivesian procedures have their origins at King’s? Perhaps the most striking fact about Sir William Sterndale Bennett, the bicentenary of whose birth fell on 13 April this year, is that he was easily the most discordant composer of the 19th century. But there’s much more than that to command our interest. In a 1975 radio lecture on Queen Victoria’s Musical Knights – who ranged from Sir Henry Bishop, the composer of Home, Sweet Home (see box, p36), to Sir Arthur Sullivan – the poet Sir John Betjeman put Sir Sterndale Bennett, as he was known, in undisputed first place as ‘Queen Victoria’s Top Musical Knight’. Bennett sprang from the heart of the English choral tradition – he was…

Meeting Gerald Finley at Glyndebourne is entirely appropriate. He started in the chorus there, and had one of his greatest early successes in the production of The Marriage of Figaro that opened the new opera house in 1994. It’s home. That’s why this year’s production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which opens the Glyndebourne season, is a happy reunion – the revival of David McVicar’s 2011 production of five years ago that allowed Finley to sing his first Hans Sachs, the character who’s the marathon man of opera. Like everyone who takes on that Alpine peak, he knows the cost. ‘It’s like singing two full recital programmes back to back, without a break.’ We talk about the experience that he’s accumulated since he joined the chorus here in 1996…

Franz Joseph Haydn has always seemed a very human figure. At once familiar and remote, he seems to straddle the almost feudal world of JS Bach and the modern age, dying the same year that the first steamship sailed on the Clyde. There’s nothing particularly exciting about his life: he was neither a tragic figure like Mozart, nor a titan like Beethoven, but a simple craftsman, a pious Christian who worked hard in the service of those he regarded as his betters. And he is as essential to the history of music as both of them. Although dubbed ‘the father of the symphony’, Haydn did not actually invent the form. But he was, undoubtedly, the most consistent and prolific early master of it, constantly reinventing as he went. And he…

‘Paris’ Symphonies Nos 82-87 Zurich Chamber Orchestra/ Roger Norrington Sony 88875021332 Highly colourful interpretations of these inventive mastepieces. Symphonies Nos 6-8 La Petite Bande/ Sigiswald Kuijken Accent ACC24272 The composer’s early mastery of the symphony is clear to see here. The Creation Christina Landshamer (soprano) etc; Collegium Vocale Gent, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées/Philippe Herreweghe PHI LPH018 Brilliantly dramatic reading of Haydn’s great oratorio. Quartets Op. 33 Cuarteto Casals Harmonia Mundi HMG502022/23 Haydn invokes so much passion and drama from just four string instruments.…

Recording of the Month It would be hard to find more ardent champions of Martin›’s complete piano trios than the Smetana Trio, alive to every mercurial mood and nuance of this still underrated music, p62 Celebrating the great pianists Garrick Ohlsson reveals Smetana’s virtuosic piano works, Dinara Klinton makes a stunning debut with Liszt, Cédric Tiberghien is on superb form for Bartók: this month’s Instrumental section is packed with recordings attesting to the imagination, abundance and brilliance of today’s pianists. So I’m very sad to report that one of the magazine’s finest writers on pianists and the piano, Jeremy Siepmann, has died. His love and knowledge of music – especially 19th-century repertoire – shone through in everything he wrote, whether he was introducing young artists like Benjamin Grosvenor or…

Smetana is your trio’s namesake; here you are playing Martin8. So it’s fair to say you have a strong affinity for Czech music? I hope so! It’s a natural thing. And of course the public wants to hear Czech music from us. The father of our cellist, Jan PáleniOek, was the great Czech pianist Josef PáleniOek, who founded the Smetana Trio. He studied in Paris under Roussel, who also taught Martin8, and they met there many times. Josef promoted Martin8’s music around the world. He also handed over to his son all his ideas and experiences about the interpretation of Martin8’s music. This is an important connection. Martin8 is still not as well known as, say, Dvopák: where does his music stand in the repertoire for you? I think Martin8…

BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1; Ballades, Op. 10 Paul Lewis (piano); Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding Harmonia Mundi HMC 902191 71:59 mins Soloist and orchestra dialogue as equals in Brahms’s defiantly symphonic First Piano Concerto, and so for a performance to succeed they need to operate on the same musical wavelength. Fortunately, Paul Lewis and Daniel Harding share a similar conception, striving for an ideal balance between the work’s Romantic and Classical aspects. In the first movement, they both encapsulate the contrasting moods of defiance and lyricism without indulging in unwarranted touches of rubato or having to negotiate awkward gear changes. Indeed, even in the opening tutti, Harding pulls out all the stops with a thunderously powerful account of the main thematic material, yet ensures that tension does not sag…

BIZET DVD Carmen Christine Rice, Bryan Hymel, Aris Argiris, Maija Kovalevska; Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Constantinos Carydis; dir. Francesca Zambello (London, 2011) Opus Arte DVD: OA1197D; Blu-ray: OABD7188D 155 mins (2 discs) The label quotes a review asserting that Francesca Zambello’s production ‘lends itself especially well to film’. I can’t altogether agree. The production’s first DVD recording was shadowy, atmospheric, turbulent and galvanised by Antonio Pappano’s conducting but still ultimately somewhat stagy. This second version, filmed in 3D and now re-released in 2D, seems much less lively and yet more contrived. Some of this listless air stems from Constantinos Carydis’s uninspiring conducting, still more from the substantial and overdone restaging for 3D. The high-resolution image is amazing, but its harsher lighting,…

LISZT Complete Songs, Vol. 4: Des Tages laute Stimmen schweigen; Lasst mich ruhen; Was Liebe sei (three settings); Verlassen; Einst; Ich scheide; Die Loreley; Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass; Mignons Lied; Sei still; Wieder möcht’ ich dir begegnen; Blume und Duft; Die tote Nachtigall; Il m’aimait tant!; Gebet Sasha Cooke (mezzo), Julius Drake (piano) Hyperion CDA 68117 60:32 mins Franz Liszt’s greatness as a song composer is still insufficiently recognised, though Hyperion’s ongoing complete edition certainly allows us to explore his output in full. The 17 items in volume four range in date from the early 1840s, during his period as a travelling virtuoso pianist, to a couple dating from 1880, six years before his death at the age of 74. The selection includes a number of alternative…

BARTÓK 44 Duos for Two Violins Sarah & Deborah Nemtanu (violin) Decca 478 8959 48:11 mins When a German violin pedagogue asked to transcribe some piano pieces from For Children , Bartók opted instead to start afresh with original pieces for two violins. The result is a series of miniature masterpieces – the inner gateway to his string quartets. With two exceptions, the Duos are all based on folk melodies from Serbia, Romania, Slovakia and other regions, but their harmonic language is quite advanced, and a couple of them are even bitonal – that’s to say with the violins playing in different keys simultaneously. Bartók arranged his pieces in approximate order of technical difficulty, but for concert performance suggested they should be grouped differently to provide greater variety. Unlike András…

JS BACH Partita No. 4; Toccata in C minor, BWV 911; English Suite No. 3; Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor; Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639; Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist, BWV 667; Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659; Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (arr. Hess), etc Nelson Freire (piano) Decca 478 8449 81:44 mins Nelson Freire hasn’t exactly been in a hurry to record this first disc devoted entirely to JS Bach. Perhaps he was saving it up as a 70th birthday present. Whatever, a pianist half his age could feel elated with the pin-sharp, dancing articulation that so often trips from Freire’s fingers. Not consistently, however. Liberally applied pedal and a certain garbled excitement conspire at times to work against optimal clarity.…

DIRECTOR’S CHOICE Alan Davey , the controller of Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into in June BBC MUSIC DAY As BBC Music Day returns for its second year, Radio 3 will be celebrating live music-making from around the country. Presenter Petroc Trelawny starts and ends the day deep in the West Country, taking Breakfast at Devon’s Commando Training Centre with the Royal Marines Band, and heading to Truro Cathedral for the evening’s Live in Concert, where Ben Gernon conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra alongside musicians who have recently been inspired to take up playing instruments. Other highlights include the BBC Singers performing a Somme-related work by Melanie Pappenheim, and 50 teenage musicians tackling a new work – inspired by Louis Andriessen’s rowdy composition Workers Union –…

My parents are both folk musicians. My mother did study classical violin but then fell in love with my father, who plays the cimbalom, the instrument at the centre of Moldovan folk music ensembles. They played together in concerts and went on tours, both around the Soviet Union and to countries such as Cuba. They took me to rehearsals as a small child, and I was fascinated by things like vibrato – which I found so beautiful – and how they worked together with other musicians. When I moved to Vienna at 13, I decided that I wanted to study composing. I happened to play the violin as well, but to develop as a musician I wanted to create things myself. Above all, the pieces that have always caught my…