Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i BBC Music Magazine

ON STAGE Beethoven day An 1808 concert packed with Beethoven premieres certainly gave its audience value for money. Not only did punters get to hear the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, they were also treated to the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Choral Fantasy and bits of the C major Mass. And this October, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is recreating the event, along with soloists including pianist Jan Lisiecki. See p96 ONLINE On the Night Shift You can now join the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Night Shift from the comfort of your own home (though you’ll have to provide the drinks) as they begin a regular live-stream of their pub-based concerts, performing anything from Baroque repertoire to folk music. The streams take place on the last Tuesday of every…

UPLIFTING BRUCKNER I want to say thank you to Michael Tanner for his Bruckner survey (July). There are many things in his life and music that are awkward and hard to understand, but Tanner put the emphasis on Bruckner’s nine symphonies, a musical gift to mankind. To listen to these under the beat of the ‘two Herberts’ – Karajan and Blomstedt – is to be lifted into a divine sphere. Rev. Knut Henry Torjuul, Oslo, Norway QUIZZICAL My finger was ‘on the buzzer’ when I took part in the second Counterpoint quiz in 1987 (September). A letter inviting me to attend the first round at the Paris Studios in Regent St said that tea would be provided. It consisted of one cup only served at a basic hatch.…

Great Dame launches label Dame Ethel Smyth’s opera The Boatswain’s Mate, which includes ‘The March of the Women’, has received its first complete recording. Conducted by Odaline de la Martinez, this is the first release by the new record label, Retrospect Opera, devoted to ‘pre-Britten British opera’. The Boatswain’s Mate, composed immediately before World War I, was first staged in 1916, conducted by Smyth herself. An early instance of a British opera using folk music to depict rural life, it was much admired by Thomas Beecham. The release includes recordings of Smyth herself conducting excerpts from Boatswain, and also the overture to her opera The Wreckers. The full monty for Mozart Decca and Deutsche Grammophon are jointly issuing a 200-CD set, the most comprehensive yet of Mozart’s music, to mark…

Baritone Roderick Williams returns to Champs Hill with pianist Roger Vignoles to record Brahms’s 15 Romanzen aus Die Schöne Magelone. The cycle will be performed straight on CD 1, while on CD 2 Williams sings the songs and narrates in English the story they’re intended to illustrate. Mezzo Alice Coote is also recording Lieder. ‘Schubert’s greatest songs’ is the working title for her latest Hyperion project, being recorded at Potton Hall with pianist Julius Drake. Following their critically acclaimed album of choral works by Jonathan Harvey, Deo, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge has recorded a new album for Signum of masses by Kodály, Poulenc, Langlais (Missa in simplicitate) and JanáOek’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer, Otcenás. Early music specialists Barnaby Brown, Bill Taylor and John Kenny join the…

Perhaps Battison Haynes welcomed Miss Roberts into his music shop for her first lesson with Mr Elgar I love unexpected links. When I took my spinet along to play some Farnaby for the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House, they’d just discovered a piece of music copied into the Minute Book back in the 1720s. A psalm tune by John Milton, father of the poet. Unexpected, because the Minutes are mostly about archaeological curiosities. Possibly some new light on things there, if only on what Antiquaries did after reading their learned papers. Or take Battison Haynes. My recording of his songs (with Belinda Williams and Mark Wilde) will be in shops soon, and you’ll be able to sample something new and unusual – unless perhaps you already know his Canonic…

The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov strolls around the wings of Munich’s Gasteig concert hall. As he walks, he seems relaxed but steady, his head bowed in deep thought. On stage, the Munich Philharmonic reaches the climax of Ravel’s Boléro . There is a break in the music. We enter; stage-door left. Trifonov takes his place at the piano. I sit as close to the stage as I dare. It may be a rehearsal, but it is a rehearsal with Valery Gergiev no less, and I’m not sure how the maestro feels about journalists sitting in on his pow wows. The members of the Munich Philharmonic sit attentively, but the atmosphere is relaxed. Latecomers arrive, although there’s no remonstration. Trifonov finishes warming up, and Gergiev raises his hand. The inimitable chords…

Liszt was 11 years old when his teacher, Carl Czerny, took him to meet Beethoven. The atmosphere was gloomy. Beethoven only cheered up, according to Liszt, when he asked the youngster to play a Bach fugue and, immediately he’d finished, suggested he transpose it and play it again. Liszt followed all that with a performance of the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, whereupon the master kissed him on the head. Those musical associations are the theme of Melvyn Tan’s 60th birthday concert at Wigmore Hall in October, when he explores the links between pupil and teacher, Czerny being the link between Beethoven and Liszt – the pupil of one and teacher of the other. It’s also his way of coming to Liszt. ‘I’ve always wanted to play…

Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 4 & 5 Emil Gilels (piano); Philharmonia Orchestra/ Leopold Ludwig Warner Classics 993 7212 Gilels is at his lyrical and poetic best in the Fourth Concerto, and revels in the majestic Emperor Concerto. Grieg Lyric Pieces Emil Gilels (piano) DG 449 7212 A classic recording of the Norwegian composer’s exquisite piano miniatures, in which Gilels said he found ‘a whole world of intimate feeling’. Brahms Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Fantasien, Op. 116 Emil Gilels (piano); Berlin Phil/ Eugen Jochum DG 439 4662 Rich, warm, lyrical and grand Brahms, with the beautiful Op. 116 Fantasies a welcome addition to the two piano concertos. Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27; Concerto for two pianos in E flat, K365; Schubert Fantasia Emil Gilels, Elena Gilels (piano); Vienna Phil/Karl…

Frédéric Chopin died young, in Paris on 17 October 1849, a few months short of his 40th birthday, but at least he lived just long enough to become one of the first composers whose image is preserved in photographic form. The French capital was home of the daguerreotype, and thanks to this we have an extraordinarily truthful portrait of the composer in his final year. Louis Auguste Bisson’s famous image portrays a world-weary composer with sunken eyes, still exhausted from his tour the previous autumn to London and Scotland and susceptible to illness – tuberculosis is thought to have killed him. Though Chopin had begun composing his Etudes in Warsaw in 1829, a year before leaving his Polish homeland for what turned out to be forever, the set that would…

Etudes, Op. 25 Alfred Cortot (piano) Naxos 8.111052 Cortot studied with Emile Decombes, a student of Chopin, and his innate understanding radiates. Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Martha Argerich (piano); Montreal SO/Charles Dutoit EMI 556 7982 Fiery, poetic, virtuosic, lyrical – Martha Argerich’s playing has it all. Polonaises Arthur Rubinstein (piano) Naxos 8.110661 A great Chopin interpreter, Rubinstein recorded the seven polonaises three times. This is the first. Piano Trio; Introduction & Polonaise etc Jukub Jakowicz (violin), Jan Broja (piano) etc Fryderyk Chopin Institute NIFCCD013 An 1849 Erard piano and period string instruments evoke Chopin’s soundworld.…

JS BACH Brandenburg Concertos Channel Classics CCSSA 35914 ‘Playing one-to-a-part “period” instruments at “Baroque” pitch, Florilegium are superb: there’s immaculate intonation in pairs of unison strings… They’re characterful too: natural horns (No. 1) retain their outdoor personality; violas languish in reflective suspensions.’ April 2015 JS BACH TELEMANN Bach: Cantata BWV209; Concerto for Flute, Violin & Harpsichord in A minor; Telemann: Concerto in A, TWV 53:A2 Lucy Crowe (soprano) Channel Classics CCSSA 27208 ‘Lucy Crowe… conveys the intimate chart of her two recitative and arias with clarity of diction and graceful articulation. The Telemann [Concerto] is given a beguiling, playfully alluring account.’ January 2009 BOLIVIAN BAROQUE Vol. 3: Music for the Mission and La Plata with Arakaendar Bolivia Choir Channel Classics CCSSA 28009 ‘While the Arakaendar Bolivia Choir was recorded in…

ADLER Symphony No. 6; Cello Concerto; Drifting on Winds and Currents Maximilian Hornung (cello); Royal Scottish National Orchestra/ José Serebrier Linn CKD 545 59 mins The American scholar Howard Pollack once wrote that an archaeological dig of Samuel Adler’s music would find Piston and Hindemith, two of the composer’s Harvard teachers in the early 1950s, close to the lowest strata. He’s right, too, though many additional layers become audible in the bustling works featured on this unexpected disc from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Adler’s synagogue heritage is never very far away. Other trademarks include atmospheric cloud textures, brazen brass, shuddering wood blocks, and the urban dazzle of a Bernstein. The impressive Symphony No. 6, composed in the mid 1980s but receiving its premiere with this recording, is a well-chiselled…

BARTÓK Violin Concerto No. 2; Concerto for Orchestra Augustin Dumay (violin); Montréal Symphony Orchestra/Kent Nagano Onyx ONYX 4138 81:35 mins (2 discs) A few repressed coughs give away the origin of these recordings in live concerts, and that’s very much borne out in the feeling that French violinist Augustin Dumay is taking more risks than he would in a studio recording. His first entry is very upfront and decisive, and this is a performance on the wing, as is evident in his use of rubato, and his willingness to modify dynamics to maximise projection. There’s plenty of detail in the sound, which allows Kent Nagano’s control of the Montréal Symphony Orchestra to come through. Both he and Dumay capture the tranquil mood of the central Andante, although I could have…

Menuhin’s first recordings of encore pieces still astonish Born a generation apart, Yehudi Menuhin and Itzhak Perlman both inspired young violinists through their recordings and careers. Menuhin first recorded in 1928, aged 11, for the Victor Talking Machine Company in Oakland, California. The Complete American Victor Recordings (RCA) could be a revelation for those only familiar with his later recordings: try the Ries showpiece Capricciosa and you’ll be astonished by the potency of the sound, the musical maturity and the easy virtuosity on display. Those first recordings of recital and encore pieces still inspire delight and astonishment. By the mid-1940s, Menuhin was one of the world’s best-known musicians, and early evidence from those years of his life-long love affair with Bartók’s music include the Concerto No. 2 with Doráti in…

Vinyl is the slow food of the recording industry, a reproach to all the high-tech, on-the-spot, on-the-go ways of consuming music which make listening marginal, a mere accessory to a busy life. Music demands its own space and savour, which may be why the leisurely format of the LP has made such a surprising comeback, particularly in jazz, where the history of the music is embodied in the ritual of those hypnotically revolving black discs. The latest example of vinyl’s allure is a handsome box set from Atlantic, John Coltrane: The Atlantic Years – In Mono, comprising six albums tenor giant John Coltrane made for the label between 1959 and ’61. Not only does it present the original 12-inch records, complete with notes, but in mono, reflecting a time when…

Richter senior was executed as a spy by the Bolsheviks SVETIK: A family memoir of Sviatoslav Richter Walter Moskalew, Anna Moskaleva-Richter and Dagmar von Reincke; edited and translated by Anthony Phillips Toccata Press ISBN 9-780907-689935 462pp (hb) £30.00 rrp ‘I will never forget Sviatoslav Richter’s total dedication to what he understood as the meaning of the great music he played’, writes Vladimir Ashkenazy in the preface to this book. That’s followed by a quote from Richter himself which goes some way to explaining Ashkenazy’s cautious precision: ‘I have no talent for thinking. I know only how to reflect. I am a mirror. Logic does not exist for me.’ Reflective instinct versus logic. It’s an opposition that crops up in all walks of life, and the great fascination…

Claire Jackson Music journalist and editor ‘It was a treat to meet Daniil Trifonov, erstwhile winner of the prestigious Tchaikovsky and Chopin Competitons, and hear him perform with the Munich Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev on the orchestra’s home turf.’ Page 22 Maria Razumovskaya Writer, academic and pianist ‘It’s the centenary of Emil Gilels – one of the 20th century’s greatest but also most softly spoken pianists. And I’ve had the privilege of looking into his archive to uncover some of his unexpected interests, escapades and sharp humour.’ Page 32 Andrew Green Writer and broadcaster ‘Anyone who researches British musical life between the wars regularly bumps into the important role played by the BBC. It’s been fascinating to make that role the focus of a feature to celebrate the…

BBC Radio 3 has announced the latest group of young musicians to join its New Generation Artists (NGA) scheme. The six artists and ensembles, who come from the USA, Norway, Egypt, Romania, the Netherlands and the UK, take up their places on the scheme this September. This year’s recruits are the Amatis Piano Trio, the Calidore Quartet, cellist Andrei Ionita, viola player Eivind Holtsmark Ringstad, soprano Fatma Said and bass-baritone Ashley Riches. ‘We’re very excited about working with the class of 2016,’ says Radio 3 producer Emma Bloxham. ‘Radio 3 listeners are in for a treat!’ All the musicians are recognised to be at the start of glittering international careers. Their collective CVs include wins at the Tchaikovsky Competition, debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, La Scala in Milan and a…

Chart for week ending 4 August 2016 1 Sibelius Symphonies Nos 3, 6 & 7 Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä BIS BIS-2006 Osmo Vänskä’s revisiting of three of Sibelius’s lesser-known symphonies proves a triumph 2 Glazunov and Shostakovich Violin Concertos Nicola Benedetti; Bournemouth SO/ Karabits Decca 478 8758 Atmospheric and passionate performances 3 Clementi • FX Mozart Piano Concertos Sinfonieorchester St Gallen/ Howard Shelley (piano) Hyperion CDA 68126 Piano concertos by Mozart’s son, Franz Xaver, enterprisingly recorded by Howard Shelley 4 G Butterworth A Shropshire Lad James Rutherford; BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Kriss Russman BIS BIS-2195 A sensitive recording of works by Butterworth 5 Granada 1013-1502 Hespèrion XXI; La Capella Reial de Catalunya/Jordi Savall Alia Vox SVSA 9915 Jordi Savall finds a rich blend of ethnic…

THOMAS ALLEN baritone I was in St Peter’s Church in Salzburg for a concert that was very attractive, not least because it was free. The Salzburg Bach Choir sang Tallis’s 40-part motet Spem in alium. It was a remarkable achievement. Just to sit there for 20 minutes looking at this amazing, packed Baroque Rococo church and hearing this work was wonderful. I’ve got a strong connection with Durham University, being the chancellor there. The standard of music that’s performed by chemists, physicists and classicists, none of whom are intending on a professional career in music, never ceases to amaze. I enjoyed their performance of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé: the tension and skill of it and the level of playing. In that concert, a mathematician was the soloist in Saint-Saëns’s…

#SYMPHONYWORLDCUP Beethoven Nine has been crowned the winner of our Twitter Symphony World Cup. Hundreds voted in the all-Beethoven final, in which the composer’s Seventh and Ninth symphonies went head-to-head. The 151 conductors who voted in our greatest symphony poll (September) came to a different conclusion, with Beethoven’s Eroica coming out top. WRITE YOUR OWN CAROL Ever fancied writing a carol? Now’s your chance, as Radio 3’s annual Breakfast Carol Competition is open for entries. Alleluia! A new work is come on hand! is the medieval text. Six carols will be shortlisted and performed on Radio 3 by the BBC Singers, judged by a panel including composer Judith Weir and conductor David Hill. The closing date is 1 Nov, and you can find out more by visiting www.bbc.co.uk/bbcradio3 DOUBLE WINNINGS…

LISZT’S ECCENTRICITIES, success and cool originality inspired detractors at points throughout his career. He was a true pianist-composer, and nowhere is this more evident that in the Etudes d’exécution transcendante – the Transcendental Etudes . The etudes foreshadowed the tonality that would later be explored in expressionism, and marked Liszt as a cutting-edge modernist. They began as a set of sketches penned by Liszt in the early 19th century. When he published them in the format we know today, the music was deemed virtually unplayable. The title is something of a misnomer – an etude was traditionally thought of as an exploration of a particular technique; although the genre was popularised by Cramer, Czerny and Clementi, it was transformed under Chopin, Alkan and Liszt. The Romantic composers turned mechanical detail…

Early life: Born in 1956 in Singapore, Tan began learning the piano aged five after copying a piece his sister was playing by ear. Development: In 1969, aged 12, he moved to England to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School, where his teachers included Nadia Boulanger and Marcel Ciampi. Partnerships: In the 1980s Tan formed a close partnership with Sir Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players, who were at the forefront of the period performance movement. He won acclaim for his performances on the fortepiano, an instrument he championed widely. Return: In 1996 Tan returned to the modern piano to perform repertoire from the Romantic era. He remains a prolific artist on both historical and mainstream instruments.…

The BBC’s Archive Centre at Perivale, West London. Sitting shyly on groaning shelves behind a mountain range of cardboard boxes, metre upon metre of bound copies of Radio Times , all the way back to Issue No. 1, dated 28 September 1923. There in black and faded white sits proof of the BBC’s commitment to classical music long before the arrival of the Third Programme in 1946. By that autumn of 1923, broadcasts by the British Broadcasting Company (predecessor of today’s British Broadcasting Corporation) had been in progress for almost a year. This first Radio Times issue flagged programmes from a string of stations. The Wednesday schedule, for example, shows London Station (call sign 2LO) opening up at 11.30am with an hour of ‘pianoforte duets’ from the Misses Marcia Bourn…

RADIO 3 IS MARKING the 90th anniversary of Choral Evensong with a special broadcast from Westminster Abbey, the location of the programme’s very first transmission back in 1926. A specially-invited congregation of the UK’s eminent cathedral music directors and organists will convene for the celebration which takes place on the eve of the Feast Day of St Michael and all the Angels. The music, sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey under their organist James O’Donnell, includes Tippett’s Plebs angelica, written for the Choir of Canterbury Cathedral in 1943, Gibbons’s Second Service and Harris’s 1925 anthem for double choir, Faire is the heaven. The special 90th anniversary service of Choral Evensong will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 28 September at 3.30pm…

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Palestrina was for years director of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter’s Basilica, before Pope Julius III appointed him to the Cappella Sistina. The next Pope objected to Palestrina being married, but even after he left he continued to compose for the Sistine Choir and in 1571 returned to his St Peter’s post. He was eventually made maestro di cappella of the papal choir. Born in the town of Palestrina near Rome around 1525, he first studied music at St Maria Maggiore in Rome. Nothing is known about his composing life before 1554, when he published his first book of masses.…

Stile brillante Chopin’s output shows how he became increasingly disenchanted with the limiting vocabulary of the stile brillante , the figurative patterns so favoured by early 19th-century piano composers. His early works for piano and orchestra, however, are not immune from these influences. A more sophisticated kind of virtuosity emerges in his music, creating a unique soundworld: when achieved by a great Chopin player, it conveys a feeling of oneness with the piano found nowhere else in the literature. Echoes of the Baroque Bach (pictured above) was the basis of Chopin’s own practising and his teaching. His own music also reflects a love of Baroque symmetry, and many technical features of the Preludes and Etudes have their origins in Baroque keyboard music. Bel canto Chopin may…

Recording of the Month Period ensemble Florilegium offers up some wonderful discoveries: lithe, graceful, thrilling performances of works by the celebrated 18th-century German composer, Telemann, p64 A unique symphonic journey Leif Segerstam is not like anyone I have interviewed before. Brilliant, whimsical, wise, insatiably curious, observant but with a unique view of the world, Segerstam seems to see everything in the universe as connected. Sibelius, strawberries, sudoku, the moth that landed on Ronaldo’s cheek in Euro 2016, Palestrina, lemmings, birthdays, deathdays and opus numbers – all this and more was brought into a discussion about how ‘tonechoosers’ write symphonies. There’s a long way to go before all his 306 (so far) symphonies are recorded, but you can hear Segerstam’s Symphony No. 288 on a wonderful new CD from Alba.…

What made you decide to devote an album to Telemann concertos? I think Telemann is such an attractive and inventive composer. His real genius was writing effectively for various instrumental combinations. Florilegium had previously recorded three volumes devoted to his Paris Quartets, and a disc and a half of music from his Tafelmusik; and our debut back in 1992 was very much a miscellany of works by Telemann. But we’d not really addressed his concertos, so to celebrate our 25th anniversary I chose to focus our new CD on the concertos – also to really highlight the breadth of exceptional musicians in Florilegium. How did you choose your programme? Our playing the A minor Concerto for recorder, oboe, violin and continuo secured our recording contract with Channel Classics back in…

JG Graun (c1703-1771) A brother of the rather better-known tenor and composer, Karl Graun, Johann Gottlieb was a violinist and composer. From 1726 he was Konzertmeister at Merseburg, and in 1732 entered the service of Frederick the Great at Rheinsberg; after the accession of his employer in 1740, Graun was posted to Berlin where he became conductor of the royal orchestra. According to the contemporary English music historian Charles Burney, Graun was, ‘most assuredly, a composer of the first rank’. Graun was most noted for his instrumental works which included 40 symphonies.…

CHARPENTIER Les Arts Florissants Soloists; Les Arts Florissants/Christie Harmonia Mundi HAF 8901083 (1982) 40:43 mins Charpentier’s idylle en musique blooms sweetly in this intimately scaled performance. Vocal style has moved on but the tone of the strings, flutes and recorders is delectable. PERFORMANCE RECORDING GASPARINI Mirena e Floro – Intermezzi Elena Checchi Fedi, Lucia Sciannimanico, Marco Orestano Cristarella; Auser Musici/Carlo Ipata Glossa GCD C80016 (2003) 57:07 mins Two delicious pastoral intermezzos from Rome (1716) and Dresden (1718) are given an animated, stylish performance despite lumpy interjections from the lute and Baroque guitar and occasionally astringent singing. PERFORMANCE RECORDING RAMEAU Dardanus Bernard Richter, Gaëlle Arquez, Benoît Arnould, João Fernandes; Ensemble Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon Alpha ALPHA 964 (2012) 145:13 mins (2 discs) Last year’s release of Castor et Pollux was a triumph for…

BRITTEN • PENDERECKI Britten: War Requiem; Berg: Violin Concerto; Penderecki: Threnody Lövaas (soprano), Roden (tenor), Adam (bass-baritone), Scherzer (violin); Leipzig Radio Choir; Dresdner Philharmonie/Herbert Kegel Brilliant 95354 (1978-89) 123:52 mins (2 discs) An especially sombre, monumental War Requiem. Theo Adam’s English is idiosyncratic, but generally the solo team is strong. Penderecki’s Threnody really stings, but the Berg is less impressive. PERFORMANCE RECORDING BRUCKNER Te Deum; Psalm 150; Mass No. 2 in E Soloists; Gachinger Kantorei Stuttgart;Bach-Collegium Stuttgart/ Helmuth Rilling Hännsler CD 98.054 (1996) 76:44 mins Solid performances, craggily impressive at times, this Bruckner has plenty of architectural grandeur, but not much human devotional feeling. PERFORMANCE RECORDING LIGETI • HEPPENER Ligeti: Lux aeterna; Drei Phantasien nach Friedrich Hölderlin, etc; Heppener: Im Gestein; Libera me, Domine Cappella Amsterdam; musikFabrik/ Daniel Reuss Harmonia…

BIBER The Rosary Sonatas Andrew Manze (violin), Richard Egarr (harpsichord) Harmonia Mundi HMG 507321-22 (2004) 141:30 mins (2 discs) Music illustrating the joyous, sorrowful and glorious events in the life of the Virgin is played with stylistic assurance and expressive sensibility by artists at home with Biber’s unique instrumental palette. PERFORMANCE RECORDING A & J-B FORQUERAY Pièces de viole avec la basse continuë Paolo Pandolfo, Guido Balestracci (viola da gamba), Rolf Lislevand, Eduardo Egüez (theorbo, Baroque guitar), Guido Morini (harpsichord) Glossa GCD C80412 (1994-95) 146:36 mins (2 discs) Almost equal to Marais, Antoine Forqueray’s music for bass viol was issued by his son, Jean-Baptiste, who added three of his own pieces. Pandolfo is an eloquent advocate for distinctive repertoire. PERFORMANCE RECORDING TELEMANN Chamber music with flute Wilbert Hazelzet (flute), Konrad…

CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3; Polonaises Nos 3, 4 & 6; Ballade No. 1 Emil Gilels (piano) Eloquence 482 2091 (1949-79) 57:07 mins A compelling mix of visceral power and attention to detail, but these interpretations sometimes err on the side of ponderousness. Definitive neither for music nor performer. PERFORMANCE RECORDING LISZT • REUBKE Rebuke: Piano Sonata in B flat minor; Liszt/Busoni: Fantasy and Fugue on ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’ Hamish Milne (piano) Eloquence 482 2574 (1977) 62:05 mins Absolutely heroic stuff from Hamish Milne, on CD for the first time. Reubke, a Liszt pupil, died aged only 24 and his rarely heard, gargantuan, virtuoso Sonata stuns with its sheer ambition. PERFORMANCE RECORDING YOURI EGOROV Mozart: Fantasie in C minor, K475; Schumann: Fantasy in C, Op. 17; Chopin: Fantasy…

JASPER HØIBY Fellow Creatures Jasper Høiby (bass), Mark Lockheart (sax), Laura Jurd (trumpet & flugelhorn), Will Barry (piano), Corrie Dick (drums) Edition EDN1075 56 mins Høiby built his reputation on the fine work of his principal project, Phronesis, but has wanted to stretch himself by writing for additional melody instruments. He has made good use of the opportunity afforded by this album, and his writing is well served by Barry, Jurd and Lockheart, who take his lines and fly with them. The varied compositions cohere extremely well as a programme. Some, including the bustling title track, recall Herbie Hancock classics like Maiden Voyage, which is high praise. The opening ‘Folk Song’ begins with a stark, percussive bottom-register piano chord and a sparse but almost declamatory tune on the bass, simple…

JULY 2016 Join us for our complete guide to this year’s BBC Proms. Hear Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 on the cover disc AUGUST 2016 We meet the CBSO’s new music director, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla; plus a CD of chamber music by Beethoven, Brahms and Webern SEPTEMBER 2016 We reveal the 20 greatest symphonies, as voted for by 151 top conductors; plus Beethoven’s Third on the cover CD. We’re sorry, but issues of BBC Music published more than 12 months ago are no longer available. BBC Music Magazine and CD slipcases are perfect for storing your collection. Subscribers can save up to 30% when ordering both together. TO ORDER CALL 0844 844 0260 BACK ISSUE PRICES SUBSCRIBERS UK – £4.48 per copy Europe – £5.28 per copy Rest of world – £6.08…

Commissioned for the 1951 Festival of Britain by the Arts Council, Britten began work on his opera Billy Budd in 1949, with the author EM Forster as librettist, alongside Eric Crozier who was responsible for researching aspects of naval history. The original story by Herman Melville, of Moby Dick fame, was an unfinished 1891 novella, Billy Budd, Foretopman, loosely inspired by an account of a failed mutiny on a US ship. Melville transposed the action to the Royal Navy. Originally planned as two acts, the opera was first performed as four at Covent Garden with the composer conducting, but after 1960 it reverted back to two (with a prologue and epilogue). Billy Budd is set in 1797, as an old sea captain, Vere, looks back at a troubling incident from…

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT Film composer and flautist MOZART String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K421 (2nd mvt: Andante) Quatuor Mosaïques ‘I heard this record when I was a child. They used to make these books with a record inside and we’d listen to this great actor, Gérard Philipe, tell Mozart’s story. He is my ultimate composer and behind all this wit there is a darkness, a melancholy that I’ve always felt.’ PASCAL DUSAPIN Perelà, uomo di fumo John Graham Hall (tenor), Montpellier National Orchestra/Alain Altinoglu ‘Dusapin is one of those composers with a voice that doesn’t sound like any other. The sound that he creates is very meaningful, because of his rich, complex and precise orchestration. One of his most beautiful operas is Perelà, uomo di fumo, the…

These premieres have had that rare distinction of joining the repertory If Britain’s radio audience had already been enjoying classical music broadcasts since the 1920s, the Third Programme was launched in 1946 as a way of protecting those arts programmes (including plays and talks) and ensuring the continued survival of the BBC’s ensembles that had emerged to serve the regions. And it’s those ensembles, in their infinite variety, that we celebrate on this month’s cover CD, featuring works originally written for each group and chosen specially by their current conductors. It’s not just the inclusion of every single current BBC performing ensemble that makes our disc unique (although that in itself is a first), but the music itself, which would not have been written without their commissioning clout. They are…

‘My mum used to sayI could stop playing whenever I wished’ ‘When I was about six or seven my parents took me to the Verbier Festival,’ says Francesca Dego. ‘I was already quite serious about the violin, but when I saw these amazing female violinists performing in these beautiful, glamorous dresses, I could see myself in their place.’ The Italian-American violinist first started playing when she was just three and a half years old, and by the age of six was practising an hour every day. ‘My parents aren’t professional musicians, but they are both in love with music. They always have been.’ The onus, however, was on Dego to practise. ‘My mum used to say I could stop playing whenever I wished, but if I wanted to become a…

THIS MONTH Kent Nagano conductor The American conductor has been music director of the Montréal Symphony Orchestra since 2006. He has made over 200 recordings, ranging from Adams to Varèse. Nagano and the Montréal Symphony Orchestra’s latest album, ‘Danse macabre’, is released by Decca on 21 October. My finest moment Bruckner Symphony No. 8 Bavarian State Orchestra/Kent Nagano Farao B108075 (2013) I take ‘my finest moment’ to be a recording that came as close to an ideal as possible. And that was a recent Bruckner Symphony No. 8, in the original longer first version. It was with a very special orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra, which historically was involved in giving Bruckner one of his first successes – he was really appreciated by the orchestra and…

In a move that provoked debate, the Edinburgh Festival offered refunds for its new production of Così fan tutte before the opera even opened. Ticket buyers were told that Christopher Honoré’s production, which opened the Aix-en-Provence Festival this year, was a ‘provocative and sexually explicit take on Mozart’s opera’, and that it contained ‘adult themes and nudity’ and would be unsuitable for children. The production, updated to 1930s Eritrea, is described in the New York Times as ‘often brutal’. Honoré told The Telegraph: ‘It saddens me that this is being labelled as “provocative” … I feel a shadow of suspicion upon my work.’…

@davidpickard Proms fact. Ed Gardner conducted the first half of tonight’s Prom wearing 2 left shoes. #ouch #BBCProms The Proms controller gives the lowdown on this season’s wardrobe malfunctions @Thomas_ades German opera critic to me: ‘why do you write operas?’ Me to German opera critic: ‘to keep you in work.’ He didn’t get it. And it’s not why. Some jokes get lost in translation, finds the British composer Thomas Adès @MahanEsfahani Friday evening: time to test Kirkpatrick’s theory that a chicken roasts in the time it takes to play two Bach partitas Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani branches out into some thoroughly scientific dinner-time research… @Sviceridor Awkward moment earlier trying to serve dinner through streaming tears; @BBCRadio3 CotW Poulenc last scene of Carmelites. I wasn’t ready! …and baritone Roderick Williams…

Oliver Condy Editor In a recital at the Aspen Music Festival, pianist Jeremy Denk explored the notion of syncopation through musical history. His eclectic first-half programme included works by Byrd, Stravinsky, Nancarrow and US composer William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag, a beautiful, wistful homage to Scott Joplin. Bolcom was a resident composer at this year’s festival which made Denk’s performance all the more personal. Rebecca Franks Acting deputy editor I first heard Martha Argerich’s playing as a teenager at a school, when a friend was given her recording of Bach’s C minor Partita. The performance was electrifying. Listening to her early 1960s recordings of Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Ravel, recently released for the first time, brought back that moment, as they convey a similarly wonderful sense of excitement and discovery.…

When robots take over the world, you can rest assured there will still be music. A recycled Robot Orchestra has given its debut performance in Manchester, premiering The Robots are Coming!, composed by Steve Pickett. Nine musicians from the city’s Hallé orchestra joined forces with 16 robots at the EuroScience Open Forum as part of Manchester’s year as European City of Science. People were invited to work together to build home-made robots from old computer parts and recycled materials including old instruments and tin cans, with schools and community organisations getting involved. And in charge of both humans and robots was Graphene, a robot conductor created by Siemens, who worked on the project with the Hallé and University of Manchester. Sir Mark Elder (pictured) and the Hallé might want to…

Slava enveloped me in a ferocious bear-hug. ‘Now your son grow up to be cellist’ I bring you news of supreme unimportance to anyone except myself. It’s 40 years since I wrote my first piece of paid journalism. My debut – a crass review of an LP of Borodin symphonies, for the princely fee of £2 – was in the first issue of a magazine called Classical Music Weekly. The following year it became Classical Music Intermittently (or so we young wags dubbed it) when the original publishers cut their losses and flogged the title. Yet the magazine still survives, as does my writing career. I don’t know which miracle would have been more amazing to the founding editors. Since then I’ve reviewed about 8,000 concerts or operas and 3,000…

Rachmaninov Variations on a Theme of Chopin; Variations on a theme of Corelli etc Daniil Trifonov (piano), Philadelphia Orchestra/ Yannick Nézet-Séguin DG 479 4970 ‘Trifonov’s range of colour and imagination in the Corelli Variations is mesmerising. The earlier Chopin Variations are also projected with brilliance, staggering clarity of fingerwork and lightness of timbre.’ December 2015 Trifonov Live, including the Carnegie Hall Recital Works by Liszt Chopin, Scriabin et al Daniil Trifonov (piano) DG 479 3795 ‘In the Carnegie recital, Trifonov’s levels of energy and inspiration would probably be enough to fuel at least two usual pianists… His sensitivity to atmosphere allows Scriabin’s Sonata No. 2 to burst into colourful and fantastical flame.’ December 2014 Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, plus works by Chopin and Liszt Daniil Trifonov (piano) Mariinsky Orchestra/…

Gilels was the first Soviet artist to visit the US since WWII Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was one of the greatest musicians of his time, a pianist with staggering technique and ‘golden’ sound who redefined our understanding of what the piano could do. Even the formidable Sviatoslav Richter admitted that he thought twice before performing pieces associated with his fellow Soviet pianist, steering clear of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto and Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata. The public life of Gilels is well documented and his career intertwined with many of the iconic musical moments of the 20th century. When he made his solo debut in America against the backdrop of Cold War tensions in 1955, he was the first Soviet artist to visit the US since the Second World War. He was…

The Third Programme The Third Programme began broadcasting on 29 September 1946 with advice on ‘How To Listen’, followed by Bach’s Goldberg Variations (played by harpsichordist Lucille Wallace) and then ‘Reflections on World Affairs’ from Field-Marshal JC Smuts, prime minister of South Africa. Broadcasting for six hours each evening, the network was high-brow and aimed at a minority audience. Its output covered far more than classical music and jazz – there were plays, talks, documentaries… and poetry programmes. The rest of the day became occupied by educational programmes in the early evening via Network Three (from 1957) and (from 1965) by the Music Programme, devoted to classical music, but with some live sport. Radio 3 Taking to the airwaves on 30 September 1967, at the departure of the Third Programme,…

THE LIFE 1810 Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin is born in ZELAZOWA WOLA near Warsaw to a French father and Polish mother. His mother and older sister play the piano. 1817 He writes two polonaises, aged seven, one of which is published. It is performed in public that year, not long before Chopin starts giving piano recitals of his own. 1826 At the Warsaw Conservatory of Music he studies with Polish composer JOSEF ELSNER. 1831 Chopin settles in Paris after eight months in Vienna, where he learns, to his distress, of the failed uprising in Warsaw. 1839 A year after he begins a relationship with the French novelist George Sand, Chopin is diagnosed with tuberculosis. 1848 He and Sand separate, partly due to her portrayal of their relationship in her autobiographical novel…

WORK ON THE CHURCH of Saint-Jean Baptiste in Belgium began six years after Queen Mary’s burial. The building’s sacred space – more intimate than Westminster Abbey – and the clear yet warm sound caught within its acoustics contribute to the intense atmosphere of Lionel Meunier’s recording of the Queen’s funeral music. Meunier creates a convincing survey of works performed on the occasion, embracing Wood’s research and placing Purcell’s funeral music for Queen Mary within the context of pieces associated with earlier English royal funerals. Vox Luminis follow their conductor’s unsentimental lead, sparing in their use of vibrato and eternally wedded to immaculate intonation and articulation. Their unmannered singing allows the harmonic tensions and surface colours of Purcell’s second setting of Thou knowest, Lord to emerge naturally; the addition of four…

David Owen Norris pianist, broadcaster and composer The first winner of the Gilmore Artist Award, David has performed across North America, Australia and Europe. His regular column, Notes from the Piano Stool , has transmuted into a series of autobiographical recitals, due to tour soon in Norway and Canada. 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, editor Michael Church writer, critic, The Independent Christopher Cook broadcaster, critic Martin Cotton radio & recording producer Christopher Dingle professor of music, Birmingham Conservatoire Misha Donat producer, writer Jessica Duchen…

BARTÓK The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Four Pieces for Orchestra Orchestre National de Lyon/Robertson Harmonia Mundi HMG 501777 (2002) 74:58 mins Refined accounts but somewhat lacking in heft. The more sexually-charged passages in the Miraculous Mandarin sound disappointingly understated with far too polite brass playing. PERFORMANCE RECORDING MYASKOVSKY Symphonies Nos 16, 17, 21, 22, 25 & 27 USSR State Symphony Orchestra/ Svetlanov, Ivanov Melodiya MEL CD 10 02268 (1950-92) 204:20 mins (3 discs) Fascinating compilation of later symphonies by a hugely significant Soviet composer. The best orchestral playing by far features in 1950s recordings of the 16th and 21st, despite primitive sound. PERFORMANCE RECORDING TCHAIKOVSKY Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos 2 & 5*; Serenade for Strings; plus works by Musorgsky, Borodin & Glinka *Paris Cons Orch; Berlin Phil/Georg Solti Eloquence 480 6585…

BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4; Coriolan Overture; Symphonies Nos 3 & 7 Wilhelm Backhaus (piano); Vienna Philharmonic/Hans Knappertsbusch Orfeo C 901 162 B (1954/62) 139:12 mins (2 discs) Beethoven doesn’t come any statelier than this; these performances conjure up a different world, and, with patience, one very well worth getting to know. PERFORMANCE RECORDING BRUCH • MENDELSSOHN Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1; Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto Shlomo Mintz (violin); Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Claudio Abbado PentaTone PTC 5186 208 (hybrid CD/ SACD) (1980) 55:23 mins This remastering of a quadraphonic LP presents us with two popular violin concertos in succulent performances, with Mintz producing the richest violin tones and Abbado answering in kind. PERFORMANCE RECORDING HAYDN Piano Concertos: in G, HOB. XVIII:4; in F, Hob.XVIII:6; in D, Hob.XVIII:11 Andreas Staier (piano); Freiburger Barockorchester/Von…

BEETHOVEN DVD Fidelio Adriane Pieczonka, Jonas Kaufmann, Hans-Peter König, Tomasz Konieczny; Vienna State Opera Chorus; Vienna Philharmonic/Franz Welser-Möst; dir. Claus Guth (Salzburg, 2015) Sony DVD : 88875193519; Blu-ray : 88875193529 136 mins This is a great musical performance of Beethoven’s sublime opera, hitched to a production which sets new standards, if that is possible, of irrelevance, impertinence and directorial conceit. My advice for Fidelio-lovers is to watch it once, then to listen to it often. The conducting of Franz Welser-Möst is on the highest level, a traditional account which even, unfashionably, has a performance of the overture Leonore No. 3 between the dungeon scene and the final scene. Jonas Kaufmann is a magnificent Florestan, apart from an affectedly extended first note, and Adrianne Pieczonka a heroic…

BEETHOVEN Missa solemnis Laura Aikin (soprano), Bernarda Fink (mezzo), Johannes Chum (tenor), Ruben Drole (bass); Arnold Schoenberg Choir; Concentus Musicus Wien/ Nikolaus Harnoncourt Sony 88985313592 82 mins There are moments when Harnoncourt’s Missa solemnis is just wonderful, moments when you genuinely hold your breath at its beautiful audacity. The descent of the Holy Ghost in the Credo, flute fluttering like a fragile dove, the bass’s anguished prayer in the Agnus Dei – these are things to treasure. The timpani-haunted ambiguity of the closing pages is also truly visionary: so many conductors miss the vital questioning element in the Missa’s ending; not Harnoncourt. Perhaps he’s right, too, to invest in passing revelations rather than trying to find some overarching symphonic cohesion to it all. But that does mean that there are…

BEETHOVEN String Quartets, Op. 18 Nos 1-6 Cypress String Quartet Avie AV 2348 158:27 mins (2 discs) The Cypress String Quartet is a San Francisco-based outfit of almost 20 years standing which has already won praise for its albums of middle and late Beethoven Quartets. They play an impressive array of vintage instruments including a Strad and an Amati and, in addition to their faultless intonation, they command a wide spectrum of tone, attack, colour and expression. The one slight reservation, at least as heard on these new discs, is that, between the incisive sweetness of Cecily Ward’s lead violin and the weighty firmness of Jennifer Kloetzel’s cello, the second violin of Tom Stone and viola of Ethan Filner can sometimes seem a bit subdued – this, despite the definition…

BERTOLOZZI Tower Music Joseph Bertolozzi (Eiffel Tower) Innova 933 49:41 mins Most people wouldn’t consider the Eiffel Tower a musical instrument. But then most people aren’t Joseph Bertolozzi, an American composer, organist and percussionist who cut his teeth in 2007 ‘playing’ the Mid Hudson Bridge, near Poughkeepsie to create Bridge Music. Tower Music is similar in form: a suite of pieces assembled on the computer from some 10,000 field samples generated from contact mikes, a range of mallets, and every possible metal surface of the Eiffel Tower, from girders, rivets and safety fences to the scraped stair gratings behind the second-floor sales boutique. As you’d expect, sustained melodies and the legato caress aren’t the Eiffel Tower’s thing. But if you love kinetic percussion carnivals and rhythmical jigging, sometimes reminiscent of…

THE IDEA OF ART MUSIC IN A COMMERCIAL WORLD 1800 1930 Ed. Christina Bashford and Roberta Montemorra Marvin Boydell Press ISBN 978-1-78327-065-1 368pp (hb) £65.00 rrp The notion that everyone in the world of classical music is above commercial interests is still prevalent. It’s nonsense, of course. Professional composers, musicians and administrators deserve to be paid well without that reflecting on the quality of the art they produce. In this volume containing 13 substantial and well-researched academic essays on the relationship between art and commerce, the contributors explore how the two interacted in particular contexts during the 19th and early 20th centuries; similar studies could equally inform our understanding of today’s classical music business. Denise Gallo investigates how the original dedications of some little known military marches by…

ANDRÉ RIEU... AND FRIENDS Sky Arts has something for fans of the waltzing violinist and conductor, André Rieu, an artist whose Viennese antics have seen him achieve superstar status worldwide. The so-called ‘King of the Waltz’ began playing violin at the age of five, going on to study at the Music Academy in Brussels before founding his Johann Strauss Orchestra in 1987. His sales have reached the millions, numbers that are perhaps partly explained by the lavish performances he stages, featuring a mostly female 60-piece orchestra in brightly-coloured ball gowns. Every Thursday afternoon throughout September, you can see Rieu in concert, beginning with André Rieu & Friends: Live in Maastricht VII (8 Sept). Next, he heads down under for André Rieu: Live in Sydney (15 Sept), before André Rieu: Wonderful…

A CHILD PRODIGY who made his solo debut with an orchestra at the age of ten, Frank Peter Zimmermann early on fulfilled his dream to become an international soloist. He recorded many of the major concertos with EMI, playing in concert halls worldwide. He’s also a renowned chamber musician. The Zimmermann Trio’s second disc, of Beethoven string trios, won a BBC Music Magazine Award in 2013. His latest disc, of Mozart violin concertos and the Sinfonia Concertante, is out on Hänssler. Both of my parents were musicians. I grew up with chamber music. Every Sunday morning my father and three of his colleagues played quartets in our apartment when I was four or five, in the early 1970s. I remember them playing Ravel’s String Quartet and SCHUBERT’s Rosamunde Quartet. One…

MUSIC CHOICE Schubert  The Last Four Quartets, including ‘Rosamunde’ Quartetto Italiano Decca 446 1632 Paganini Violin Concerto No. 1 Leonid Kogan (violin); Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/ Charles Bruck Testament SBT1226 Wagner Tristan und Isolde Helge Brilioth, Catarina Ligendza etc, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra/Kleiber Opera d’Oro OPD 7039 Debussy Images Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (piano) Deutsche Grammophon 477 5345 Mozart Complete String Trios and Duos Grumiaux Trio Decca 454 0232…