Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i BBC Music Magazine

ON DISC Inspired by the Bard ‘By the third act, scarcely able to breathe – it was as though an iron hand had gripped me by the heart – I knew that I was lost,’ wrote Berlioz after seeing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet . He channelled his astonishment into a wonderful choral-symphony, which you can hear on two excellent new recordings from Sir Andrew Davis and Robin Ticciati. See pp74 & 75 ON STAGE Reich at 80 The Britten Sinfonia turns the spotlight on Steve Reich this autumn at the Barbican, as the influential American composer turns 80. ‘The Sounds that Changed America’ features his latest work Pulse , his 11 September memorial piece WTC 9/11 and the multi-media work Three Tales , which explores three historic moments during the…

A RARE FIND The mention of Le duc d’Albe in Roger Parker’s article on Opera Rara and forgotten operas (Back in the Groove, July) reminded me of a production my wife and I saw back in 1992. The reason this opera had been dusted off more than a century after its first staging was not the discovery of a long-lost score, but rather the set. The director Luchino Visconti discovered the beautiful original sets in a Rome warehouse in 1959. What may be keeping the opera from the standard repertoire is its duration. Opera Rara includes only the first two acts on which Donizetti had done the most work, representing a little over 90 minutes of music. The 1992 stage production included those two acts and the final two acts…

In November Marin Alsop returns to Brazil’s Sala São Paulo to record a new Bernstein disc for Naxos with the São Paulo Symphony. Popular orchestral works such as the Candide Overture and West Side Story Suite No. 1 will feature alongside Slava! A Political Overture, the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Suite and CBS Music. Stephen Hough has been spending time at Wyastone to prepare what is provisionally titled ‘Hough’s Dream Album’, including works on the lighter side by Elgar, Johann Strauss I and Eric Coates, plus some less-expected pieces by Chaminade and Mompou. More exalted fare from Mariss Jansons, who in October is recording Strauss’s Alpine Symphony with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Philharmonie im Gasteig, to be released by BR Klassik in January. James Ehnes is joining the…

Mussila: Musical Monster Adventure £2.99 Mussila is a level-based game which aims to enable very young children to learn the basics of music theory, without finding it difficult or boring. Challenges include guessing the instrument behind the curtain, matching a written rhythm to what you hear, and playing a tune back after hearing (and seeing it) played on an on-screen keyboard. All the teaching is done by ear, but written music slips in without much palaver. As children win stars for getting the challenges right, prizes are given in the form of clothes and instruments for the avatars. Kids also get the chance to vamp along with the Mussila band at various stages in the game, learning a different song each time. The app aims to appeal to ages six…

Pianists seem to hope for uniformity, even in such matters as the height of the pedals At the University of Southampton, we have a grand piano by Mason & Hamlin of Boston. It sounds marvellous, partly because of the adjustable bracing bars under the soundboard – I remember crawling underneath to admire them with the piano’s designer when he came to lunch. A few of our students, however, think that the pedals are set too high: their ankles get tired, or something. I explain that the whole point of our suite of pianos – we have the ubiquitous Steinway D, of course, and also two very fine Bechstein grands, and a Fazioli – is to accustom them to taking advantage of the subtle differences between pianos. I had an enjoyable…

Charles Brickley via email My recent ‘discovery’ is conductor Rumon Gamba and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s album, Overtures from the British Isles, Vol. 2. It contains a stunning programme of British compositions from the mid-20th century; including a premiere recording of York Bowen’s Fantasy Overture alongside works by Walton, Ansell, Coates, Foulds and Quilter. I have now ordered a copy of the first volume, released in 2014, containing more masterpieces by British composers who have been overshadowed in recent times by the classic behemoths. Thanks to Mr Gamba and other enlightened musicians who have highlighted a plethora of British talent and put them back into the performance arena. Nadia Koval Buenos Aires, Argentina Every Friday I go to my friend Mónica’s house. Despite a 22-year age difference, we…

VINTAGE CARS Vintage cars offer a journey down memory lane. I enjoy keeping memories alive and reliving the past. I have a lovely Mercedes 420SL approaching 30 years of age which I drove in London, but then shipped over to Cyprus where there is a bit more sunshine. I had it all redone and it looks sterling. I just enjoy something of that era very much. When I was a child growing up on the island – I left when I was 12 – I had an uncle who was a musician and he had an old 1950s Hillman Hunter. The horn on that car was so beautiful, it was like a note on a lovely musical instrument. When he bought a new car he put the horn in it…

North American classical music has lingered in Europe’s shadow To consider classical music in North America is to come to terms with its vast size and diversity. The US alone has some 120 professional opera companies, 1,600 orchestras, and thousands of choruses. The story of classical music on this continent is one intertwined with its civil rights struggles, its media and entertainment industries, its religion and entrepreneurial zeal. It’s a landscape of brash juxtapositions – where Van Cliburn could win a Russian piano competition and receive a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan, and where soprano Renée Fleming could sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. North American classical music has lingered deep in Europe’s shadow, especially when it comes to the concert repertoire. Composer Ned Rorem once declared that US…

John Wilson brought his orchestra into being almost by accident. In the early 1990s, he was moonlighting from the Royal College of Music, playing the piano at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane. When they asked him to play for some dancing, he needed a drummer, then a bass player… and then a saxophonist. He sourced some students from the Royal Academy’s jazz department (the Royal College didn’t have one), and they began to play regularly. He wrote some arrangements for a jazz gig at London’s Pizza on the Park where he also put together a string ensemble and Clive Davis of The Times happened to be in the audience. He gave them a five-star review and the band was born. ‘We suddenly found ourselves, to our surprise, as…

Leo Brouwer String Quartets Nos 1-4; String Trio Havana String Quartet Zoho Classix ZM 201108 Brilliant playing of the vibrant quartets by Brouwer, a composer who incorporates Afro-Cuban elements into his works. Carlos Chávez Piano Concerto; Meditación Jorge Federico Osorio (piano); Mexico National Symphony/Prieto Cedille Records 90000 140 A bravado performance of Chávez’s Piano Concerto, plus solo works by fellow Mexicans José Moncayo and Samuel Zyman. Astor Piazzolla Sinfonía Buenos Aires; Bandoneón Concerto Daniel Binelli (bandoneon); Nashville Symphony Orchestra/Guerrero Naxos 8.572271 The Sinfonía Buenos Aires showcases early Piazzolla, while the Bandoneón Concerto is a brilliant clash of classical and folk. Manuel Ponce Complete guitar music Gérard Abiton (guitar), Ensemble Orchestral Stringendo/Jean Thorel Brilliant Classics 94986 Ponce’s music returned the guitar to its rightful place in the…

It’s one of music’s intriguing ironies that the composer who most vividly captures the sound of the American Wild West – from the coyote-styled howls of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to the lone harmonica of Once Upon a Time in the West – is from Italy. Though his classic collaborations with director Sergio Leone have significantly influenced Hollywood’s vision of its mythical past, Ennio Morricone has never been seduced by California: he doesn’t go looking to work with Hollywood’s directors (he even made the decision early on his career not to communicate with his American collaborators in English); rather, he surmises, the directors will come to him. And so it is that Morricone has continued to work from his home in the Italian capital, while casting shadows…

Composer, librettist, pianist, conductor, teacher, philosopher, aesthetician and critic, Ferruccio Busoni was a Renaissance man. A visionary and idealist, he spent a lifetime striving for a personal voice at a time when musical language was undergoing seismic shifts in emphasis. Cosmopolitan and open-minded, he anticipated many of the subsequent developments in music that would take place years after his death. For these reasons alone, it is difficult to understand the current neglect of a musician who was one of the towering figures in early 20th-century music. Perhaps one factor that prevents him from being more widely acknowledged is that his immense achievement as a composer does not fit into a specific national tradition. Whereas the music of his contemporaries Sibelius and Nielsen seems inextricably linked to their homelands, Busoni was…

Orchestral works NDR Symphony Orchestra Werner/Andreas Albert CPO 9991612 Seasoned Busoni conductor Andreas Albert presents the Berceuse élégiaque, Nocturne Symphonique and more. Piano Concerto Garrick Ohlsson (piano), Cleveland Orchestra/ Christoph von Dohnanyi Telarc CD80207 Garrick Ohlsson’s playing is rugged, impassioned and beautifully shaded on his Bösendorfer piano. Doktor Faust Soloists, Orchestre National de Lyon/Kent Nagano Warner Opera 2564 646824 Busoni’s unfinished masterpiece, with two scenes completed from his sketches. Late piano music Marc-André Hamelin (piano) Hyperion CDA67951/3 A fabulous set, Hamelin has sensitivity of phrasing and clarity of tone.…

John Wilson (conductor) BBC Philharmonic (2015) Chandos CHSA 5164 (hybrid CD/SACD) If you’re looking for a recording in the most up-to-date sound, this performance in John Wilson’s new Copland series is for you. Wilson is famously steeped in US popular idioms, which proves to be a perfect grounding for conducting Copland’s music. His interpretation has an infectious verve in its fast episodes, and a seamless flow integrating those with the solemn, prayerful passages. It seems closely modelled on the composer’s own: one unmarked speeding-up turns out to be just what Copland did at that point. The BBC Philharmonic responds with pristine ‘white’ woodwind tone, brilliant brass, and string colours ranging from subtly overlapping waves of sound to whiplash attacks. The recording quality is exemplary. Nicholas Collon (conductor) Aurora Orchestra (2014)…

Michael Scott Rohan author, editor Edinburgh-born of French and Scottish parents, Michael was active in music there and at Oxford. Singing ambitions ended by injury, he became a novelist, and created the pioneering Classical Video Guide . A regular contributor to BBC Music , he has also written for Opera Now , Gramophone and Opera . 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…

Christopher Rouse (b1949) Born in Baltimore, Rouse studied composition at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music before taking private lessons with George Crumb (1971-73). He completed his studies under Karel Husa in Cornell. Rouse has a particular interest in rock music, teaching a course in its history at the Eastman School of Music. In 1993 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Trombone Concerto, and in 2002 his guitar concerto, Concert de Gaudí , written for Sharon Isbin, was awarded a Grammy for best contemporary classical composition.…

LEOPOLD MOZART Serenade in D for Trumpet, Trombone and Orchestra; Concerto in E flat for two Horns, Strings and Continuo; Sinfonia in G Aljoscha Zierow (trumpet), Fabrice Millischer (trombone), Carsten Carey Duffin, Philipp Römer (horn); Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie/ Reinhard Goebel Oehms OC 1844 75:57 mins In his day, Leopold Mozart (1719-87) was known across Europe for his ‘Violin School’, one of the most important instrumental tutors of the day, and more locally in Salzburg as a prolific composer. These days, rather fatally for his reputation, he is best known as the father of the world’s favourite composer. Sadly, very little of his music, which by all accounts included a large range of instrumental and choral works, is now extant: the Serenade in D recorded here is the only one of some…

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864) Giacomo Meyerbeer began his career as a virtuoso pianist, greatly admired by Moscheles. However he was increasingly drawn to composition, and Salieri urged Meyerbeer to study vocal methods in Italy to improve his opera writing. There he became an enthusiast for Rossini’s operas, and composed six Italian operas between 1817 and 1824. His friendship with Weber had an impact on his own music, and combining Italian vocal style with German orchestral writing laid the foundaiton of his own influential brand of Grand Opera.…

Davis’s reading is warm and full of subtle atmospheric nuances BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette; Marche troyenne; Chasse royale et Orage Michèle Losier (mezzo-soprano), Samuel Boden (tenor), David Soar (bass); BBC Symphony Chorus; BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA5169(2) (hybrid CD/SACD) 107:41 mins (2 discs) Recordings often arrive like rush-hour buses, in packs. On the heels of Valery Gergiev’s recent Roméo come two more, adding to almost 20 already available. Robin Ticciati (see review, p75) is a fine Berliozian, whereas I recently found Andrew Davis’s Harold in Italy rather bland. That, though, definitely doesn’t apply here. Unlike Ticciati’s and Gergiev’s recordings, this is studio-made, but in the wake of an acclaimed live concert this January, retaining much of its immediacy. Davis’s reading is slower but grander, richly expansive, glowingly warm and…

BRAHMS Cello Sonatas Nos 1 & 2; Four Serious Songs (transcr. Shafran/Baillie) Alexander Baillie (cello), John Thwaites (piano) Somm SOMMCD 0158 71:19 mins Cellos Sonatas Nos 1 & 2 Marie-Elisabeth Hecker (cello), Martin Helmchen (piano) Alpha 223 53:39 mins Brahms’s cello sonatas are sufficiently grand and capacious to accommodate a range of approaches. Here we have youth (Hecker/Helmchen) and age (Baillie/Thwaites in a 60th birthday ‘tribute’ recording), a straight-up modern instrument performance against one using period German pianos (though, oddly, a non-period steel-strung cello). The chosen 1860s Rönisch piano in Op. 38 has a bass bathed in Dresden fog and an astringent treble in this too-resonant acoustic. Moreover, Alexander Baillie’s cello playing is boomily vague, lacking in sinew and, sadly, too often under the note. Pianist John Thwaites adopts Brahms’s…

Rolf Lislevand offers a haunting, introspective journey ROLF LISLEVAND: La Mascarade De Visée: Preludes; Les Sylvains de Mr Couperin; La Mascarade – Rondeau; Chaconnes; La Muzette – Rondeau, etc Corbetta: Passacaille en sol mineur; Partie de Chaconne en ut majeur; Sarabanda per la B; Caprice de Chaconne; Folie Rolf Lislevand (Baroque guitar, theorbo) ECM 481 1716 48:22 mins The contrasts of shimmering light and dusky shadows on the cover photo of this CD offer a foretaste of the soundscape within: a haunting, introspective journey through the extremes of the musical spectrum. Norwegian virtuoso Rolf Lislevand offsets the sunlit idiom of the 17th-century Italian Francesco Corbetta with the brooding sonorities of his younger French contemporary Robert de Visée. To highlight these contrasts, Lislevand uses a slender and delicate gut-strung Baroque…

DET ANDRE ROMMET Erlend Apneseth Trio Hubro CD: HUBROCD 2570; LP: HUBROLP 3570 In 1651, in the Norwegian town of Hardanger, Jonsen Jaasted developed a modified version of the fiddle by adding four or five sympathetic/resonating strings to the basic four-stringed instrument. Today, the Hardanger fiddle or hardingfele is Norway’s most iconic instrument, treasured for its ringing, silvery overtone drone. Erlend Apneseth is one of Norway’s leading young fiddlers, widely recognised for his prowess in traditional music, although it’s obvious from the nimble arpeggios of ‘Trollsuiten’ (‘The Troll Suit’), the startling opener on Det Andre Rommet (‘The Other Room’), that he has a background in classical music as well. This new album is a confident follow-up to his acclaimed 2013 solo debut Blikkspor, which featured the rhythmic foot-stomping percussion effect…

JOHN SCOFIELD Country For Old Men John Scofield (guitar), Larry Goldings (piano/organ), Steve Swallow (bass), Bill Stewart (drums) Impulse 506 2514 63 mins The pun on the novel/film title is fun, but when the chuckles subside it becomes clear than this is a thoroughly noteworthy release, being both enjoyable and gently educational. It’s no surprise that a guitarist of John Scofield’s experience is entirely conversant with country music, even though a disc of this nature might be more expected from, say, Bill Frisell. However, what’s remarkable here is the way in which the music itself, rather than any statements about it, demonstrates the shared roots and myriad interconnections between jazz, the legacy of the blues and the complex history of country music; country standards by the likes of Hank Williams…

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 Eroica Symphony on CD. OCTOBER 2016 An interview with the dazzling Russian pianist Danill Trifonov; plus a ‘Best of British’ CD of Radio 3 commissions. 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 per copy…

30TH ANNIVERSARY DIGITAL RADIO Ruark R1-30 £199 Ruark’s R range has long been the go-to product line for those of us who want a healthy slice of style to go with our hi-fi sound. It combines beautifully finished cabinets and cutting-edge audio engineering. The latest addition to the range is the R1-30 (left), a 30th anniversary edition of the landmark RI, which established Ruark in the digital radio market. It’s clad from top to bottom in a ‘Swiss Red’ lacquer, making it stand out from the more neutral colours in the rest of the range. Setting up the R1-30 is a breeze. Just plug it in, screw in the telescopic aerial and let auto tuning mop up all the DAB stations in your area. The RotoDial control system (a rotating,…

Mozart’s Don Giovanni was composed in 1787 with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. The work draws from the legend of Don Juan, a tale about a womaniser who gets his comeuppance when he’s visited by the Commendatore’s ghost in the form of a statue. It was first penned by the monk Tirso de Molina, as El burlador de Sevilla in 1630, and was rewritten many times, notably as a play by Molière and as a ballet by Gluck. Da Ponte based his libretto on Giovanni Bertati’s, written for an opera by Gazzaniga. There’s no doubting the Don’s capacity for womanising in Mozart’s version. He has a ‘book of conquests’ that boasts he has slept with 2,065 women, and the plot sees him chasing women wherever he goes. After fleeing…

JULIA DONALDSON Children’s author SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in A, D664 (1st mvt: Allegro moderato) András Schiff (piano) ‘I read that it was written during a time when Schubert was in love, and I think it’s a very tender first movement. I listened to several recordings and felt Schiff was very faithful compared with some pianists who take tremendous liberties.’ HANDEL Recorder Sonata in F Michala Petri (recorder), Keith Jarrett (harpsichord) ‘I love the way, in the fast movement, that it alternates between the two instruments. All three of my sons learnt the recorder and I think it’s very underrated. I’ve got happy personal associations because when I took them to their lesson, I’d often be writing while I was waiting in the teacher’s kitchen. That’s how I wrote…

THE BELIZE-BORN British composer and pianist studied composition at London’s Goldsmiths and King’s colleges, and King’s College, Cambridge, as well as piano with Edith Vogel. A lover of dance, Wallen has written 13 operas and five ballets, and her musical style embraces many different influences. In 2007 she was awarded an MBE, and in 2013 she won an Ivor Novello Award for classical music, the first woman to do so. The album PHOTOGRAPHY, a showcase of her music, is out now on NMC Records. My Dad says he remembers that the first thing I sang was ‘When I Fall in Love’ by NAT KING COLE, when I was a baby. I was in my cot quietly singing it to myself. It’s got quite complicated intervals. I still love thinking about…

Brian Wise Music journalist ‘North American music is a story of great performances – there were many more to choose from than there are letters in the alphabet. Then add festivals, trends, composers and venues and you’re still just scratching the surface.’ Page 22 Janet Crane Author and academic ‘I’ve been interested in Latin America and music since childhood. My degree is in Latin American Studies and I did field work in Peru for my PhD. This article is only a peek at the superb music I have enjoyed over the years.’ Page 34 Nick Shave Music journalist and writer ‘An interview with Morricone can play out like a standoff in one of his westerns – he has little time for questions he doesn’t like. So it was…

‘He is fiercely intelligent... and has a genuine passion for our art form’ Oliver Mears has been named as the new director of opera at the Royal Opera House (ROH). His appointment is something of a surprise, as he’s a relatively unknown figure in the opera world. But the 37-year-old British director has impressed audiences and critics in Belfast, where he has spent the last six years putting Northern Ireland Opera on the map. Mears will begin at Covent Garden in March 2017, taking over from Kasper Holten who, after five years in the job, is leaving to spend more time with his family in Copenhagen. ‘I have been very impressed by Oliver Mears all through the selection process,’ said Antonio Pappano, the ROH’s musical director, ‘He is fiercely intelligent……

Chart for week ending 1 September 2016 1 JS Bach Goldberg Variations Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord) Deutsche Grammophon 479 5929 Straight to the top of the chart, Mahan Esfahani’s recording of this perennial favourite is unmissable 2 Glazunov and Shostakovich Violin Concertos Nicola Benedetti; Bournemouth SO/ Kirill Karabits Decca 478 8758 Atmospheric and passionate performances 3 Abrahamsen Let me tell you Barbara Hannigan (soprano); Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons Winter & Winter 910 232-2 Staggering vocal control from Hannigan 4 G Butterworth A Shropshire Lad James Rutherford; BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Kriss Russman BIS BIS-2195 Sensitive accounts 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…

ROTTERDAM RECORD Lahav Shani (above) has been named the next chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He will be the youngest person to take up the post when he starts in 2018, aged 29. ‘I am over the moon,’ says Shani. ‘From the first moment, I felt a rare click with this orchestra.’ He takes over from Yannick Nézet-Séguin. 28 CONCERTS LATER The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) will tour all 28 member states of the European Union over the next two years. The tour began in Dublin in August and will end in Sweden in December 2018. ‘Europe is in a very searching period,’ said the orchestra’s managing director Jan Raes. ‘The orchestra is a bridge-builder.’ JAZZ ENSEMBLE Pop-up radio station BBC Music Jazz is set to return for five…

JOHAN BOTHA Born 1965 Tenor Johan Botha (pictured left) made his name excelling in repertoire that many tenors would fear even to tackle. Stamina-sapping roles by Wagner, Richard Strauss and Verdi were the South African’s forte in a career that saw him win acclaim in many of the world’s great opera houses, and in particular Vienna State Opera where he sang on over 200 occasions. Born in Rustenburg, Botha began his studies in nearby Pretoria – first as a bass-baritone, then moving up to tenor – before beginning his career in earnest in Europe in 1990. His breakthrough appearance came in the role of Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madam Butterfly at Opéra Bastille, Paris in 1993. Highlights in the glittering career that followed included two seasons as Siegmund in Wagner’s Ring…

Maurice Arnold Strothotte (1865-1937) The Missouri-born composer studied with Dvoÿák in New York, and his American Plantation Dances were performed alongside Dvoÿák’s arrangements in an 1894 concert. He wrote a symphony, two comic operas, a ballet and vocal works, melding Romanticism with African-American folk music. Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943) Dett championed African-American folk music and spirituals as a wonderful store of melodies for composers to use. His 1937 oratorio The Ordering of Moses was broadcast live on NBC but this was cut short, reportedly after listeners complained about music by an African American being on air. The work was released this year on Bridge Records. Florence B Price (1887-1953) When the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Dvoÿák-inspired Symphony in E minor in 1933, Price…

Early days: Born in Gateshead, Tyneside, in 1972, Wilson was taught the piano from the age of five by his mother. At senior school he began playing the drums, and at 16 he set up his own orchestra. Development: Wilson went to the Royal College of Music as a percussionist, but switched to the composition and conducting course. He graduated in 1995 and formed the John Wilson Orchestra at 22. Applause: In 2009 he was invited to the BBC Proms to conduct his own orchestra in a programme celebrating MGM musicals. The Prom was watched by 3.5 million people. Film music: Wilson arranged and conducted the music for Kevin Spacey’s film Beyond the Sea, the score of which was nominated for a Grammy Award.…

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) The third part of Leone’s ‘Dollars’ trilogy shows Morricone’s instrumentation at its most vivid. The coyote motif – used for the three main characters, each represented by an instrument (Clint Eastwood: flute; Lee van Cleef: ocarina; Eli Wallach: human voice) – stands out like the caricatures of Leone’s bounty hunters on the hunt for gold. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Wordless vocals by Italian singer Edda Dell’Orso, and a haunting three-note theme suggested by its harmonica-playing gunman, bring atmosphere and space to this epic tale of revenge. The film’s soundtrack sold more than 10 million copies, but it’s on the big screen that Morricone’s powers of characterisation come to the fore. Once Upon a Time in America…

The great Hungarian violinist Zoltán Székely (1903-2001) is one of the key figures in the Banff Centre’s history. A renowned virtuoso, he was friends with and a recital partner of Bartók. In fact it was Székely who convinced the composer to write his Second Violin Concerto, and he premiered it in 1939. Székely played in the Hungarian String Quartet, whose players in 1972 became the first faculty members of the new Academy of Chamber Music at Banff. Székely became artist-in-residence the next year, and was even named Alberta’s violinist-in-residence, teaching musicians all over Canada.…

German-Italian duality Busoni’s music combines the intellectual weight and structural logic of the great German masters (JS Bach and late Beethoven) with the melodic and rhythmic élan of the Italian tradition, a feature he particularly admired in Verdi’s Falstaff (pictured below). Anti-Wagner Of all the composers of his generation, Busoni was the most successful in resisting the suffocating influence of Wagner. He deplored the exploitation of the erotic and the subjective in opera, wanting to reshape the genre so that text and music occupied clearly delineated and separate roles. His vision of an epic music theatre was to have a lasting influence on his pupil, Kurt Weill. Pantonality Busoni’s mature musical language encompasses a sophisticated harmonic language that frequently creates ambiguity between major and minor tonalities…

Copland Three Latin American Sketches The two other ballets that Copland wrote for Martha Graham – Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942) – are obvious pieces to hear after Appalachian Spring. But it wasn’t just the folk tales and music of his home North America that inspired him. He also looked South, and in 1972 completed his Three Latin American Sketches. ‘The tunes, the rhythms, and the temperament of the pieces are folksy,’ said Copland, ‘while the orchestration is bright and snappy and the music sizzles along – or at least it seems to me that it does.’ ‘Estribillo’ and ‘Danza de Jalisco’ play on jaunty folk songs and dance rhythms, and there’s a hint of the wide prairie sound of his earlier ballets in ‘Paisaje Mexicano’. Recommended recording:…

GUBAIDULINA Canticle of the Sun With Gidon Kremer (violin); Riga Chamber Choir Kamer/Maris Simais ECM 476 466 ‘Nicolas Altstaedt is fairly mesmerising in this new version, and the Riga Chamber Choir is extremely clear in its diction and alive to the work’s mercurial changes of textures and mood.’ June 2012 HAYDN • MOZART Haydn: Sinfonia Concertante in B flat, Op. 84; Mozart: Oboe Concerto; Bassoon Concerto With Alfredo Bernardini (oboe), Peter Whelan (bassoon), Ilya Gringolts (violin); Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen Hyperion CDA 68090 ‘[A] spirited and affectionate performance [involving] the sometimes-stratospheric cello playing of Nicolas Altstaedt…with the resplendent ensemble Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen.’ August 2015 LIGETI Cello Concerto PluralEnsemble, Fabián Panisello Neos NEOS 11013 ‘Does any work begin more quietly than Ligeti’s Cello Concerto? Nicolas Altstaedt manages a more restrained attack than…

BARTÓK The Miraculous Mandarin; Dance Suite; Contrasts Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay (violin), Mark van de Wiel (clarinet), Yefim Bronfman (piano); Philharmonia Voices & Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen Signum SIGCD 466 68:33 mins The Miraculous Mandarin’s opening is one of the most edgy things Bartók ever wrote, and needs a correspondingly garish sound. Here there’s warmth where there should be ice, and a sockful of wet sand to the stomach rather than a knife in the ribs. What’s actually happening in the performance is more incisive when you listen hard, and there’s greater detail and clarity in the less heavily scored passages. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s pacing of the music is excellent though, and the many solos are characterful, with some especially good clarinet work. Individual moments come off well – the entrance of the mandarin for…

CPE BACH Sinfonias for Strings Nos 1-6 The English Concert/Trevor Pinnock PentaTone PTC 5186 201 (hybrid CD/ SACD) (1979) 65:07 mins Strikingly individual music whose fresh, often surprising idiom is captured with spontaneity and panache in one of this pioneering group’s most effervescent recordings, first issued on the DG Archiv label. PERFORMANCE RECORDING CONCERTO KÖLN Portrait – JS Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5; Orchestral Suite No. 1; Handel: Water Music Suite No. 1 Concerto Köln Berlin Classics 0300786 BC (2008-14) 68:37 mins While this fine period instrument ensemble makes adventurous excursions into little-known Baroque and early Classical repertoire, Bach and Handel remain at the heart of its music making. Sparkling accounts. PERFORMANCE RECORDING BRESCIANELLO Concerti, Sinfonie, Ouverture La Centra Barockorchester Basel/ David Plantier, Václav Luks Glossa GCD C 82506 (2002)…

Moszkowski’s First Concerto is brimful of attractive melodies MOSZKOWSKI Piano Concerto in B minor, Op. 3 SCHULZ-EVLER Russian Rhapsody Ludmil Angelov (piano); BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Kiradjiev Hyperion CDA 68109 65:15 mins Moritz Moszkowski’s First Piano Concerto was given an auspicious world premiere in Berlin in 1875. A year later, the composer played it in Weimar in an arrangement for two pianos with Franz Liszt taking the second piano part. Thereafter, however, Moszkowski made little effort to get the work published, and it remained completely forgotten until a musicologist discovered the manuscript a few years ago in the Bibliothèque nationale. Moszkowski’s disparaging assessment of the Concerto as ‘worthless’ is certainly wide of the mark. Indeed, this ambitious work, laid out in four movements and even exceeding Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto…

LEHÁR Giuditta Christine Libor, Nikolai Schukoff, Ralf Simon; Bavarian Radio Choir; Munich Radio Orchestra/Ulf Schirmer CPO 777 749-2 142:38 mins (2 discs) The first performances of Lehár’s Giuditta, in Vienna 1934, undoubtedly marked the passing of the Silver Age of operetta; but in forcing open the gates of the Vienna State Opera, Lehár’s last work swept aside the debate about whether operetta was opera to embrace a idea that is still with us – that what matters is the music and not the category to which it belongs. The story is hardly new, mixing as it does Bizet’s Carmen – Giuditta the femme fatale who tempts an army officer, Antonio, to desert his regiment in North Africa – and Josef von Sternberg’s movie Morocco, which ends with Marlene Dietrich striding…

DONIZETTI L’elisir d’amore – highlights Battle, Pavarotti, Dara; Metropolitan Opera/James Levine Eloquence 482 5625 (1989) 68:27 mins Nemorino in Donizetti’s comedy was one of Pavarotti’s signature roles, though he sounds on the fulsome side in this highlights edition, with Kathleen Battle a distanced Adina. PERFORMANCE RECORDING DONIZETTI La favorite Kasarova, Vargas; Bavarian Radio Chorus; Munich Radio Orchestra/ Marcello Viotti RCA 88875194762 (1999) 149:39 mins (2 discs) One of the finest of Donizetti’s serious operas, sung here in the original French, La favorite impresses in this recording under Marcello Viotti, though Vesselina Kasarova’s Léonor sounds thin. PERFORMANCE RECORDING PUCCINI La Fanciulla del West Tebaldi, MacNeil, Del Monaco; Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome/ Franco Capuana Alto AlC 2028 (1958) 132:08 mins (2 discs) This remastering of a 1958 stereo recording of Puccini’s…

SCHUBERT Winterreise Hermann Prey (baritone), Helmut Deutsch (piano) SWR Music SWR19012CD (1987) 72:13 mins Overshadowed in his lifetime by Fischer-Dieskau, Prey’s warmly beautiful, unexaggerated Lieder interpretations are increasingly appreciated. This radio-made Winterreise, perceptively supported by Deutsch, is a memorable example. PERFORMANCE RECORDING SVIRIDOV Romances and Songs after Alexander Blok; Cast off Russia Obraztsova (mezzo), Sviridov (piano) Melodiya MEL CD 10 02420 (1980/83) 77:44 mins A 1980 radio recital of this distinguished 20th century Russian composer playing his own songs, sung by Obraztsova, his ideal interpreter, with power and passion that outweigh some overblown tone. PERFORMANCE RECORDING THE ART OF HANS HOTTER Works by Loewe, Brahms, Schubert, Wolf, Strauss Hotter (bass-baritone), Parsons (piano) Eloquence 482 0187 (1974-76) 110:00 mins (2 discs) The legendary Lieder bass-baritone recorded late in his career –…

They set Kodály ablaze with searing eloquence and zinging clarity DUO SESSIONS Kodály: Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7; Schulhoff: Duo for Violin and Cello; Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Cello; Halvorsen: Passacaglia Julia Fischer (violin), Daniel Müller-Schott (cello) Orfeo C 902 161 A 64:42 mins It’s easy to forget that Julia Fischer was originally a pianist, and she says playing the violin can feel ‘like the left hand is missing’. Enter long-term colleague cellist Daniel Müller-Schott and you have an Olympian team: two string players with a similarly sleek, high-calorific sound, intensity of purpose and technical command. Fortunately, this programme of duos can withstand their high-voltage attack: they set Kodály’s big-boned Op. 7 ablaze, Müller-Schott lending searing eloquence, Fischer rhythmic punch and zinging clarity, but both breathing as…

CPE Bach (1714-88) Carl Philipp Emanuel was the second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and his first wife, Maria Barbara. Though originally intended for a legal career, he took up music while at Frankfurt University, and in 1738 joined the court of Frederick the Great as a harpsichordist. After unsuccessfully applying to succeed his father in Leipzig in 1750, in 1767 CPE became successor to his father’s celebrated rival, Telemann, as director of church music at Hamburg. He is most widely remembered today for developing the sonata form in over 200 keyboard sonatas.…

DINOSAUR Together, As One Laura Jurd (trumpet, synth), Elliot Galvin (keyboards), Conor Chaplin (bass guitar), Corrie Dick (drums) Edition Records EDN1078 47 mins Hearing young horn player Laura Jurd’s work, it’s hard to credit that she is a Radio 3 New Generation artist, but only in the sense that she is already so accomplished. Together, As One – her third album as leader – has the varied textures and dynamic range of a George Russell project. But, with its dark electronic elements, it also has the mood swings and edginess of a late era Miles Davis record. And all this from a quartet. In a programme of eight seductively evocative original compositions, ‘Extinct’, for example, begins with the band interacting conspiratorially, Jurd’s trumpet making baby elephant calls around them. As…

FRANZ LISZT: Musician, Celebrity, Superstar Oliver Hilmes (trans. Stewart Spencer) Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-18293-4 368pp (hb) £25.00 rrp ‘Know thyself. Nothing in excess.’ Did Liszt know the Delphic Oracle’s injunctions? If so, he chose to ignore the second in his ‘transcendental’ offerings, while Dr Oliver Hilmes’s narrative suggests he had distinct problems with the first – nor were these the only problems in a richly eventful life. Chief among these were his relationships with women, most of whom can rightly be accorded membership of ‘the monstrous regiment’, ranging as they did from the merely challenging to (excuse the medical terminology) the plainly bonkers. Much of Hilmes’s attention is directed towards them, but far less to Liszt the musician: we learn of his pianistic effects on audiences…

WIRELESS MUSIC PLAYER Monitor Audio S150 £150 I recall once reviewing a CD player that ripped MP3s direct to a ‘docked’ MP3 player that then used its ‘mammoth’ 32MB to play those tracks while on the move. I forget the quoted battery life, but it was probably measured in nanoseconds rather than hours. The lesson is this: just because something’s possible, it doesn’t mean you should do it. Monitor’s S150 is an example of the opposite end of the spectrum. Proven technology that ‘just works’ in a chassis that calls on Monitor’s considerable audio heritage, all coming together to make the user experience a simpler, more enjoyable one. This 30th anniversary edition celebrates Monitor’s signature Gold Dome Tweeter speaker, which makes an appearance here as expected, alongside three bass speakers,…

YOUNG, GIFTED AND CLASSICAL Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason (above) rose to national attention winning this year’s BBC Young Musician, performing Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto – the first black musician to win the prize. He is now the subject of a one-hour BBC TV documentary which looks at his family life in Nottingham. The 17-year-old has six siblings who are all passionate about classical music and who perform in the junior and professional Chineke! orchestras, set up in 2015 to promote musicians from ethnic minorities in the UK. BBC Four; November, date and time tbc CLAUDIO ABBADO When Claudio Abbado took over as the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic he immediately stamped his own identity on the ensemble, introducing more Mahler and opera to the orchestra’s repertoire. Sky Arts 2 is screening…

MUSIC CHOICE Nat King Cole When I Fall in Love Capitol Records CD-CL 15975 Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel Ann Murray, Edita Gruberova et al; Staatskapelle Dresden/ Sir Colin Davis Decca 478 3047 JS Bach Concerto for Two Violins, BWV 1043 Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman (violins); ECO/Daniel Barenboim Warner Classics 9187002 Webern Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 24 Nash Ensemble/ Sir Simon Rattle Chandos CHAN6534 Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms Berlin Radio Choir; Berlin Philharmonic/ Sir Simon Rattle Warner Classics 2076300…

Neither candidate has given us much clue as to their policies on the arts On 8 November, the good people of the United States go to the polls to choose a new president. So far, neither candidate has given us much clue as to their policies on the arts, but perhaps that’s too much detail to ask at this stage. Donald Trump has at least mentioned the arts (in passing) and I’m sure Hillary Clinton has said something about them. Somewhere. Still, despite the funding difficulties that some orchestras and institutions are facing, the American classical music scene seems to be in rude health, much of it thanks to private donation. And although the government doesn’t directly give much cash to the arts, it actively encourages wealthy individuals to offset…

As a German, I’m not surprised that Beethoven, Mahler, Brahms and Bruckner dominate the list. However, I think that Vaughan Williams would have deserved a place. Why? There is hardly a composer who wrote nine so different symphonies – except Beethoven. What a range of themes, forms and sounds! Bernhard Eiser, Oberau, Germany The most glaring omission from the conductors’ choices must be Nielsen’s Fifth, dubbed by one critic as the greatest of the 20th century. Maybe, unlike Bernstein, Colin Davis, and many others, your choice of participants have not yet ‘discovered’ Nielsen – as I did as an undergraduate 45 years ago! Dr Martin Davies, Kent It is remarkable how similar the conductors’ choices are. The Zeitgeist dictates that Mahler, Bruckner and Brahms are favoured…

‘I wrote to the music director asking if he needed any assistance’ Before he’d turned 11, Jonathon Heyward hadn’t heard a piece of classical music. ‘I don’t come from a musical background at all,’ says the conductor, ‘but, once I started, playing the cello became a fantastic escape for me.’ It was at Charleston County School of the Arts in the US that Heyward first discovered his passion for conducting. ‘I must have been about 13. One day my music teacher was sick, so I ended up replacing her as conductor. That’s where it all began: being in front of my colleagues for that first time, trying to comprehend a score. That’s still the reason why I like to conduct. I like the idea that the score is a big…

THIS MONTH Lang Lang pianist A renowned virtuoso, Lang Lang has performed in the world’s great concert halls and at the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. He’s worked with classical and non-classical artists from Simon Rattle to heavy metal band Metallica. His latest album New York Rhapsody is out now on Sony. My finest moment Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 17 & 24; Piano ›Sonatas Nos 4, 5 & 8 etc With Vienna Philharmonic/ Nikolaus Harnoncourt Sony 88843082532 (2014) I would have to say that’s my recording with Maestro Harnoncourt – our Mozart. I’ve never met anyone like him in my life. He knew Mozart like he was his best friend, so that certainly inspired me, and this was a unique recording. I met him in 2006 at…

When Ian Bostridge was heckled at an all-Schubert recital in Austria this summer, the British tenor headed into the audience at the end, and led the heckler, who had shouted ‘Deutsch lernen’ (learn German), on stage. ‘I wouldn’t normally lose my temper,’ Bostridge told The Times. ‘But it’s important for people to know that when you get up on stage and deliver this intense music, it makes you very brittle.’ Much of the Schubertiade audience booed the man, perhaps, suggested Bostridge, because of the anxiety related to a rise in nationalism in Germany. ‘I think they felt offended by this idea that non-German speakers shouldn’t sing German music.’…

@VikingurMusic Successful night = practising Beethoven’s Emperor before heading to the sauna of my Finnish hotel before eating way too much salmiak candy Thanks to pianist Vikingur Ólafsson (left), we now know what ‘salmiak’ is @cargillmezzo Post concert haze has meant packing for the next trip in haste. Likelihood is that I have no actual clothes, 20 pairs of socks and a comb. Mezzo Karen Cargill masters the art of packing @ConductorBen Dubrovnik is delightfully health-and-safety free, with the exception of this helpful sign next to the sea. “Caution: Wet Floor”. Conductor Ben Palmer queries Croatian carefulness @WatkinsHuw Just remembered it’s #TheExterminatingAngel tonight – sounds sensational, but is that an ondes martenot, or my iPhone?? Composer Huw Watkins is undecided about the scoring of Thomas Adès’s…

Oliver Condy Editor The superb American organist Thomas Murray recently sent me a ‘limited edition’ recording on JAV Recordings of his arrangement of Elgar’s orchestral Severn Suite played by him on the famed Skinner organ of Yale University’s Woolsey Hall where in 1904 Sir Edward received an honorary doctorate. It’s wonderfully played and registered, full of charm, wit and ebullience. Rebecca Franks Acting Deputy editor I went to Banff for this month’s Musical Destinations feature to hear some of the world’s best young string quartets – and made some wonderful musical discoveries. Just two highlights were Jörg Widmann’s crazed Hunting Quartet, played (and shouted) with exhilarating dedication by the Quartet Berlin-Tokyo; and the Verona Quartet’s performance of Ligeti’s Métamorphoses nocturnes (String Quartet No. 1). Elinor Cooper Editorial assistant CPE Bach…

Artists and composers have an admirable habit of not creating what politicians want Nearly eight years have passed since the US inaugurated a new president. It wasn’t classical music’s finest hour. The great film composer John Williams had been commissioned to write a quartet based on Simple Gifts, the American Shaker song also used by Aaron Copland in Appalachian Spring. An all-star quartet of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinettist Anthony McGill was assembled to play it during the open-air ceremony in Washington DC. But the bitter January weather persuaded the musicians to mime to a recording they had made earlier. With the world’s TV cameras focused on their fingers, the faking was all too evident. A minor embarrassment, perhaps – but in retrospect it…

William Schuman Secular Cantata No. 2 ‘A Free Song’ (1943) Poetry by Walt Whitman formed the basis for Schuman’s A Free Song, premiered by the Boston SO and Serge Koussevitzky. It was the first piece ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. Gian Carlo Menotti (1950 and 1955) Menotti (above) was the first composer to win two Pulitzers, for The Consul (1950) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1955). Other double Pulitzer winners are Samuel Barber (1958, 1963), Elliott Carter (1960, 1973) and Walter Piston (1948, 1961). Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Symphony No. 1 (Three Movements for Orchestra) (1982) ‘My aim was to create a rich palette and a wide variety of melodic gestures, all emanating from a simple source,’ said Taaffe Zwillich of her Symphony…

The cities of Latin America have long been thriving cultural centres. From the late 19th century, audiences in the drawing rooms and theatres of Latin America – from the top of Mexico down to the tip of South America and across to the Caribbean – listened to much the same music that audiences were hearing in Europe. Local composers, from Havana to Buenos Aires, wrote Romantic music – sonatas, waltzes, and mazurkas – that followed the cultural and artistic trends of Europe, and famous European singers and instrumentalists included Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires on their tours, bringing the latest musical fashions with them. Yet Latin America’s many superb composers had more in common with each other than with either Europeans or North Americans. Similar cultures, derived…

Juan de Araujo Villancicos Araujo wrote a set of nearly 80 villancicos , mainly on nativity-based material, for soprano, alto and tenor (no bass). Villancicos were popular songs written in the vernacular, and these have a Spanish lilt, rhythm and spirit that sets them apart from the more traditional sounds of Bassani and Zipoli. Anon Pastoreta Ychepe Flauta A concerto for recorder and violin played by Florilegium on their first trip to Bolivia. It includes tunes so well known that the audience sang along with the performance. Pedro Ximénez Abril Tirado Minuets for guitar Born in Peru, after the expulsion of the Jesuits, Tirado worked in La Plata. He was known for his symphonies, masses, string quartets and concertos as well as his compositions…

Nico Muhly What I find great about John Adams’s music is that it is so large. He’s a symphonist and a composer of operas, and he dominates the orchestral idiom in America. He also shows a way to have an eclectic set of influences without feeling like it’s so deliberate. Because we as Americans have had access to so many different traditions, you can end up with too much on your plate. What he lets in and what he keeps out is fascinating. Harmonielehre is a distillation of all of his previous work. There are traces of Shaker Loops and The Phrygian Gate, but what makes it different is that it is fully weaponised emotionally. Coming out of that tradition of repetitive gestures and into the visceral power that…

The Banff Centre Details for early 2017 performances are still being finalised, but over the winter months, the Banff Centre’s concert series will include pianists Noriko Ogawa and Pedja Muzijevic, soprano Measha Brueggergosman, and violinist Guillaume Tardif. Banffcentre.ca The Gryphon Trio Singer Patricia O’Callaghan joins the Canadian piano trio for a festive concert at the Banff Springs Hotel. (2 Dec 2016) Banffcentre.ca Calgary Opera The nearest city to Banff is Calgary, a 90-minute drive away. Calgary Opera’s upcoming run includes Filumena , a 2003 opera by Canadian composer John Estacio revived to mark Canada’s 150th birthday. It tells the true, tragic tale of Filumena, an Italian immigrant to Alberta. (4-10 August 2017) calgaryopera.com Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra Highlights in the upcoming…

THE LIFE 1866 Ferruccio Busoni is born in Empoli, Tuscany, Italy on 1 April. The family moves to TRIESTE when he is just a few months old, transplanting him into a cosmopolitan, German-orientated environment. 1875 He enters the Vienna Conservatory at the AGE OF NINE . Though encouraged by Brahms and Hanslick, he is dissatisfied with the tuition, and leaves after just two years. 1881 Busoni begins composition lessons in Graz with Wilhelm Mayer who fosters his love of Mozart and his interest in mysticism and orientalism. 1894 He settles in Berlin, where he sets up home. He gives masterclasses at Weimar and the Vienna Conservatory, where his pupils include Eduard Steurmann and IGNAZ FRIEDMAN . 1904 Busoni’s work begins to take flight, although his Piano Concerto is greeted with…

Aaron Copland (conductor) London Symphony Orchestra (1970)  Sony download G010002019391C; or Sony 88883737232 (5 CDs) COPLAND WAS A FINE CONDUCTOR of his own music, accomplished in obtaining what he wanted from players in the way of phrasing and colour, and especially assured in piloting orchestras through his characteristic changing metres. He made two recordings of the orchestral Appalachian Spring. His 1961 version with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (for RCA; now on Regis and downloads) has an appealing freshness, but is beset by background rumble. In any case, it’s surpassed by his later recording with the London Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra with which he enjoyed a happy and productive association on the concert platform and in the studio. The beginning and ending say a good deal about the performance. At the…

Recording of the Month Cellist Nicolas Altstaedt takes a refreshing view of CPE Bach’s three wonderfully original cello concertos, performing with Arcangelo and its conductor Jonathan Cohen, p62 A treasure trove of melody Dipping into Steven Isserlis’s book revisiting Robert Schumann’s Advice to Young Musicians (p88), I was intrigued to learn that the composer advised students to ‘listen attentively to folksongs; they contain a treasure trove of the finest melodies.’ As Isserlis comments, it’s as if Schumann were looking into the 20th century, when so many composers brought folksong into their music. That’s certainly true of composers in North and South America, the subject of this issue. Read on for reviews of two superb discs showcasing US composers: the new volume of Copland’s orchestral works conducted by John Wilson…

You’ve recorded a huge range of concerto repertoire, including Haydn and Mozart, but you’ve also recorded Tchaikovsky, Ligeti and Shostakovich. Is it a challenge to play so many different styles? I grew up in Gütersloh and between the ages of 10 and 12 my cello teacher there was Michael Corssen. He played a lot of Baroque music, including continuo in the St John and St Matthew Passions. I think at that time probably there were not so many teachers into period instruments or performance practice, and I was very lucky to have him. It was only when I was 14, and studied with an ex-student of [André] Navarra, Marcio Carneiro, that I learned to play very much at the bridge to project my sound, and he taught me the standard…

This Short Symphony with its limber rhythms should not be missed COPLAND Orchestral works, Vol. 2: Symphony for Organ and Orchestra; Symphonic Ode; Symphony No. 2 (Short Symphony); Orchestral Variations Jonathan Scott (organ); BBC Philharmonic/John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5171 (hybrid CD/SACD) 70:17 mins John Wilson’s first Copland disc with the BBC Philharmonic (reviewed in March) was of popular ballet scores, but this one explores the more serious side of the composer’s output. The 1924 Organ Symphony was an early work, and indeed the first orchestral score of his own that Copland heard; its central Scherzo is in the lithe rhythmic manner that he’d already identified as characteristically American. The Symphonic Ode of the late 1920s begins and ends in the grand rhetorical vein that he wryly described as his ‘laying-down-the-law’…

BERG Violin Concerto; plus works by Beethoven, Fuchs and Joachim Pinchas Zukerman (violin), Marc Neikrug (piano); LPO/Zubin Mehta Biddulph 80251-2 88:55 mins (two discs) Sumptuous playing, glowingly engineered on these previously unissued studio accounts from Zukerman, especially valuable for its selection of Robert Fuchs’s enchanting fantasy miniatures. PERFORMANCE RECORDING BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 2; Paganini Variations; Klavierstücke, Op.76 John Lill (piano), USSR Radio SO/ Gennadi Rozhdestvensky Eloquence 482 2878 90:02 mins (two discs) Long-overdue, first-time outing on CD for John Lill’s stunning live Brahms Second Concerto recorded during the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition, and a fine studio recital taped the previous year. PERFORMANCE RECORDING CELLO Music by Elgar, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Casals, Chopin, Delibes, Dvoπák, etc Sol Gabetta (cello), Various artists Sony 88985342962 (2007-13) 127:43 mins (two discs) A well-chosen selection enshrining…

The singing by the principals is eloquent and sensual BRITTEN DVD The Rape of Lucretia Christine Rice, Allan Clayton, Kate Royal, Duncan Rock, Matthew Rose, Michael Sumuel, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Louise Alder; LPO/Leo Hussain; dir. Fiona Shaw (Glyndebourne, 2015) Opus Arte OA 1219 D 114 mins plus 17 mins bonus There’s a revealing moment in one of the extra features that come with this DVD of Fiona Shaw’s production of The Rape of Lucretia. The detail, says Shaw, is ‘there for the taking’. So it was at Glyndebourne in 2015, with a cast ideally balanced in ability and imagination, and a staging that had matured beautifully since its first, slightly unfocused incarnation as a touring production in 2013. Conducted by Leo Hussain, the playing of the 11 members of the London…

BANTOCK Omar Khayyám†; Fifine at the Fair; Sappho*; The Pierrot of the Minute †Sarah Walker, *Johanna Peters (contralto), †Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), †Brian Rayner Cook (baritone); †BBC Singers; †BBC SO; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Norman Del Mar Lyrita REAM.2128 257 mins (4 discs) Granville Bantock did nothing by halves. A conductor, educator, journalist, orientalist, Straussian, Wagnerian, friend and champion of Prokofiev, Delius and Sibelius (who dedicated his Third Symphony to him), his music was no less expansive and eclectic. He was well matched to an earlier polymath, Sufi philosopher-mathematician Omar Khayyám, whose wryly hedonistic verses, in Edward Fitzgerald’s famous free translations, he set as a three-part choral extravaganza, with a huge orchestra (including camel bells), and soloists representing ardent Poet, older Philosopher, and Beloved. The result is long-breathed, long-phrased and plain…

Ernst Krenek (1900-91) Born in Vienna, Krenek studied under Schreker at the Vienna Academy of Music (1916-18), and after military service continued his compositional studies under Schreker in Berlin. He first achieve notoriety with his atonal Symphony No. 2, premiered in 1923. He then achieved international renown with his ‘jazz’ opera, Jonny spielt auf, which was first performed in Leipzig in 1927. However, with the Nazis gaining power in Germany his career was hindered and finally, with the Anschluss of 1938, he emigrated to the US.…

CPE BACH The Solo Keyboard Music 31: Sonatas from Collections 1 & 2 ‘Für Kenner und Liebhaber’ – in C, Wq 55/1 (H244); in F, Wq 55/2 (H130); in B minor, Wq 55/3 (H245); in F, Wq 55/5 (H243); in G, Wq 56/2 (H246); in F, Wq 56/4 (H269); No. 3 in A, Wq 56/6 (H270) Miklós Spányi (harpsichord) BIS BIS-2131 73:23 mins Three-quarters of the way through his mammoth task of recording all CPE Bach’s keyboard music, Miklós Spányi has arrived at the sets for ‘Connoisseurs and Amateurs’. One sonata in this set requires performance on a particular instrument, rather than the choice including harpsichord or tangent piano he has used elsewhere; No. 2 in F includes vibrato, (‘Bebung’), created by the fingers varying pressure on the keys, only…

Top albums include Refugees for Refugees; plus Tobago-born legend McArtha Linda Sandy-Lewis reinvents herself in her new album JOHN MCCUSKER Hello, Goodbye Under One Sky UOSR 003 CALYPSO ROSE Far From Home  Because Music BEC 5156519 MELINGO Anda World Village (Harmonia Mundi) 479123 AMERLI Refugees For Refugees Muziekpublique 07 KHMER ROUGE SURVIVORS They Will Kill You, If You Cry Glitterbeat GBCD 036 BUSH GOTHIC The Natural Selection Australian Songbook  Fydle Records FYD 004 bushgothic.bandcamp.com JOHN MCCUSKER’s most recent album Hello, Goodbye (*****) celebrated his 25th anniversary as a professional fiddler. It lavishly showcases his warm, mellow tone and his seemingly effortless ability to pen haunting tunes such as ‘Calendar Boys’. He’s a versatile player, equally at home moulding a mournful air, a sentimental waltz, driving reels or cantering jigs. He…

In its post-war heyday, bebop combined high-performance jazz with a high-risk life style. Aspiring boppers felt obliged to imitate not only Charlie Parker’s breathtaking feats of improvisation but his lethal use of hard drugs: addiction was key to inspiration. That fatal superstition exacted an appalling toll on the talent of a generation, none more lamentable than trumpeter Fats Navarro. Just out of his teens, he was mentioned in the same breath as bebop’s trumpet king Dizzy Gillespie, commanding a similarly formidable technique, but with a richer, sweeter sound, and a spontaneous sense of structure which made every solo both shapely and thrilling. As a fellow trumpeter said, Navarro had it all, and, in the words of singer Carmen McRae, ‘He was a real sweet guy, playing the most beautiful horn,…

Steven Isserlis updates Schumann’s beautiful words of wisdom ROBERT SCHUMANN’S ADVICE TO YOUNG MUSICIANS Revisited by Steven Isserlis Faber & Faber ISBN 9780571330911 122pp (hb) £12.99 rrp Such palpable love for Robert Schumann emanates from Steven Isserlis’s words that you might almost think the composer had been his grandfather. Schumann’s Advice to Young Musicians rarely reaches today’s students, its language being, apparently, too 19th-century; Isserlis sets out to bring those nevertheless beautiful words of wisdom up to date, offering his own thoughts alongside. With deft prose – clear enough for children, profound enough for professionals – he meditates concisely on Schumann’s pointers towards essential musicianship. ‘Nothing great can be achieved in art without enthusiasm,’ Schumann suggests. Isserlis, responding, reflects that the music industry can sap that enthusiasm, adding:…