Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 i BBC Music Magazine

ON DISC Tis the season This issue’s round-up of Christmas discs is a particularly bounteous affair, including a new yuletide offering from this month’s cover CD stars, The King’s Singers. And Siglo de Oro, an impressive new choir on the UK scene, makes its recording debut with an imaginative programme for Advent. See p66 ON STAGE Dickens alive! Christmas at Saffron Hall begins with a chill and a scowl but ends with jollity and warmth, as Neil Brand’s musical version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol invites the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Singers to get in touch with their inner Scrooge. Conductor Martin André directs the bah-humbugging. See p94 ON AIR Oh Christmas Three BBC Radio 3 intends to get into the Christmas party spirit with a festive In Tune, broadcast…

MUSIC OF THE STREETS Your photo of composer Philip Glass strolling on the lower West Side of New York (A-Z of American Music, November) struck a deep chord. Behind him walks an obviously poor, maybe homeless, person carrying his belongings strapped to his belt. The young composer holds in his hands a score; his expression is troubled. The urban setting, bestrewn streets, harsh concrete and steel, the poverty and sadness juxtaposed against the inspiration and hope of composition make a powerful statement. So much essential American music (the blues, jazz and, yes, classical) emerges from this contrast. Mashey Bernstein, Santa Barbara, US BACH ON TRACK I thought The Best of British cover CD (October) was too Brexit-ish for comfort and I didn’t enjoy listening to it either. Then,…

Chart for week ending 27 October 2016 1 The Lost Songs of St Kilda Trevor Morrison (piano); Scottish FO/ James MacMillan Decca 481 2795 MacMillan and friends breathe new life into the musical heritage of an abandoned archipelago 2 Winter Works by Alexander, Arnalds, Bingham, Dale, Holst, Pärt, Pott, Praetorius, Rachmaninov and Vasks Voces8 Decca 483 0968 Atmospheric seasonal repertoire, superbly sung 3 Wiseman The Musical Zodiac National Symphony Orchestra/Debbie Wiseman Classic FM CFMD46 From Aries to Pisces, this is an orchestral astrological journey in 12 instalments 4 JS Bach Christmas Oratorio Dunedin Consort/John Butt Linn CKD499 The Dunedin Consort’s take on Bach’s festive favourite positively sizzles with good cheer 5 Liszt Transcendental Etudes Daniil Trifonov (piano) Deutsche Grammophon 94795529 In works…

THE PRIESTS vocal trio We were introduced to the music of composer Ola Gjeilo about a year ago through his Ubi Caritas, which we sang in a choral group that we are part of. It really resonated with us, and as we got more interested in his music, we came across his piece The Ground. It weaves the words ‘Pleni sunt coeli’ into a lovely melody, and while it sounds simple, the simple-sounding pieces are often the hardest to perform! Tenebrae sing it beautifully on their 2016 recording of Gjeilo’s music. We’re all fascinated by the music of Philip Glass. What’s amazing about Glass is that you can recognise him immediately through his style, and yet everything he composes is different. There’s a charming relentlessness about his music plus those…

Early life: Born in 1969 in Kansas, DiDonato sang in school musicals and studied to be a music teacher, although opera singing was latterly at the back of her mind. Development: In 1995 she became a Santa Fe Opera apprentice, before entering Houston Grand Opera’s young artist programme. Professional career: DiDonato has sung with many opera companies and orchestras, receiving acclaim for performances such as Elena in Rossini’s La donna del lago at the Met. As a recording artist, she has won many awards, among them two Grammys for Joyce & Tony and Diva Divo. Recently: DiDonato has ventured into film, playing Florence Foster Jenkins in a new documentary about her life, and continues to record and tour extensively.…

Jerusalem Next year’s Verdi Festival opens with the little-performed opera Jerusalem . Verdi wrote this reworking of his 1843 opera I Lombardi in 1847, adding a ballet and changing the setting to fit its new French audience. Stiffelio Verdi angrily withdrew Stiffelio from circulation in 1856 after the censors asked him to write an alternative ending for the opera. The autograph disappeared until 1992, when the Carrara Verdi family allowed access to Verdi’s score and accompanying sketches. The complete Verdi Festival programme will be announced in January 2017 Bologna Jazz Festival Nearby Bologna has a prestigious history when it comes to jazz. Legends Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie previously performed at the Bologna Jazz Festival – walk…

THE LIFE 1585 Heinrich Schütz is born on 8 October in KÖSTRITZ , Saxony. The second of eight children in an upper-class family, he is educated by the local Kantor and organist. 1599 At the age of 13, Schütz becomes a chorister after Moritz, composer and Landgrave of Hessen-Kassel, visits and hears him sing. 1615 After studying with GIOVANNI GABRIELI in Venice, he moves to Dresden to assist the Elector of Saxony and soon becomes the Kapellmeister. This move cements his career as a composer. 1627 He composes Dafne which, although largely spoken, is generally regarded as the first German opera. 1642 Having been first invited to Denmark back in 1633, he moves to Copenhagen from Dresden to act as Kapellmeister. He remains there for two years. 1656 The Elector…

George Guest (conductor) Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge (1988) Chandos CHAN 10448 X IN HIS 40 YEARS as director of music at St John’s College, Cambridge, George Guest built a formidable choir of boy choristers and male undergraduates. He had a particular affinity for French repertoire, and it’s no surprise his recording of Poulenc’s Christmas Motets is so vividly successful. Even in the hushed opening of ‘O magnum mysterium’, which can seem flat and sleepy, Guest is already conjuring atmosphere, the subtle dynamic inflections of the lower voices sharpening expectations. The treble entry, when it comes, is pure and silvery, and the tenors match it at ‘Beata virgo’, which rises up gleaming and supple from the choral textures. Guest’s expert balancing of the four voice-parts reveals more of the…

Helen Wallace writer, critic Helen joined BBC Music Magazine in 1993 and was editor from 1998-2004, and consultant editor and chair of the Awards jury until 2016. She’s author of Boosey & Hawkes: The Publishing Story and Spirit of the Orchestra , and currently programming consultant and editor-in-chief at London’s Kings Place. John Allison editor, Opera; critic, Sunday Telegraph Nicholas Anderson Baroque specialist Terry Blain writer, critic 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 Elinor Cooper journalist Martin Cotton radio…

ADESTE FIDELES Christmas carols from Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal Choir of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal/ Huw Williams Signum SIGCD 460 72:19 mins It’s good to hear this unique, 17-voice choir in a disc of mostly familiar favourites, recorded at St James’s Palace. Forthright and lusty performances, if lacking in finer shadings. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING **** A CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION Works by Holst, Prokofiev, Rutter, Williams, Darke, Ireland, Poston et al Hallé Choirs and Orchestra/Stephen Bell Hallé CDHLL7545 76:04 mins Glitzy, studio-recorded instrumentals complement live choral performances from the Hallé’s 2014 Christmas celebrations. The singing is hearty if unsubtle: you probably had to be there on the evening. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING **** JUBILO Works by JS Bach, Corelli, Fasch & Torelli Alison Balsom (trumpet); Academy of Ancient Music; Choir of King’s College,…

Vincent D’Indy (1851-1931) On Duparc’s advice, D’Indy studied under Franck at the Paris Conservatoire from 1872. To supplement his studies, he became the Colonne Orchestra’s second percussionist, and from 1875 until 1879 was chorus master of the Concerts Colonne. Duparc had also introduced D’Indy to Wagner, and on making his first visit to the Bayreuth festival in 1876 D’Indy became a fervant admirer. In 1894 he co-founded the Schola Cantorum, subsequently teaching composition at its music school, becoming its sole director in 1911.…

Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis audibly inspire and provoke the other BRAHMS • SCHUMANN Brahms: Double Concerto; Piano Trio No. 1; Schumann: Violin Concerto – Langsam (arr. Britten) Joshua Bell (violin), Steven Isserlis (cello), Jeremy Denk (piano); Academy of St Martin in the Fields Sony 88985321792 76:32 mins It’s often been said of Brahms that his chamber music was orchestral, and vice versa. Here’s an unconducted Double Concerto transformed into pure chamber music, in which two old friends spar amicably with the lithe support of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. There’s an intriguing, subtly competitive friction between violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis, the one so glossy and fluent, the latter more gnarly and individual, each audibly inspiring – and often provoking – the other. Just…

Currentzis conducts a revelatory and unsettling performance MOZART Don Giovanni Dimitris Tiliakos, Vito Priante, Mika Kares, Myrtò Papatanasiu, Kenneth Tarver, Karina Gauvin, Guido Loconsolo, Christina Gansch; MusicAeterna Choir; MusicAeterna/Teodor Currentzis Sony 88985316032 150:10 mins (3 discs) This version of Don Giovanni by the Greek conductor Teodor Currentzis, now based in Perm in Russia, strips away many of our distorting performance habits, and the result is refreshing, revelatory and unsettling. There is no trace of 19th-century vocal assertiveness, nor fear of embellishment. Zerlina’s ornamentation in ‘Vendrai carino’ – sung by soprano Christina Gansch – is, for instance, spectacular. Currentzis’s dynamics are scaled right down – there is a lot of piano in Mozart’s scores. On the other hand Teodor Currentzis does pander a little to our modern notions of musical excitement.…

JOHN ADAMS SCHEHERAZADE.2 Written for violinist Leila Josefowicz, this recording of Adams’s “dramatic symphony” was made during 2016 performances by the St. Louis Symphony, led by David Robertson. ‘Scheherazade.2 is at once a violin concerto and an orchestral showpiece. Romance mixes with drama, luscious vistas of Ravel with outbursts of Stravinsky in his spectacular Russian fairy-tale vein.’ Financial Times LULU METROPOLITAN OPERA The Metropolitan Opera’s critically acclaimed 2015 production of Alban Berg’s monumental opera, directed by visual artist William Kentridge, and starring Marlis Petersen in her final performances as Lulu. Released on Blu-ray and DVD together in one package. ‘A stunning and searing production.’ New York Times NICO MUHLY & TEITUR CONFESSIONS A collaboration between the acclaimed American composer Nico Muhly and Faroese singer/songwriter Teitur, which began when Mulhly was…

BRAHMS • SCHUMANN Vocal Quartets Petersen, Vondung, Doufexis, Güra, Jarnot; Berner, Radicke (piano) Harmonia Mundi HMG50847071 (2007/10) 125 mins (2 discs) State-of-the-art performances of much-loved repertory, with superb individual singers also blending with ease, immaculate accompanying, and flawless recorded sound. No texts are included in the booklet. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING ***** ELGAR Caractacus; Severn Suite Howarth, Davies, Wilson-Johnson, Roberts, Miles; London Symphony Chorus & Orchestra/Richard Hickox Chandos CHAN 241-58 (1993) 119:51 mins (2 discs) Caractacus has Victorian oratorio conformity rubbing shoulders with music of true Elgarian sensibility. Excellent singing and playing throughout. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING **** FINZI Introit; For St Cecilia; Dies natalis; In terra pax; Magnificat, etc Langridge (tenor); London Symphony Chorus & Orchestra; Richard Hickox Singers; City of London Sinfonia/ Hickox; Exultate Singers/O’Brien Eloquence 482 2556 (1979/80) 156:44…

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75) Shostakovich’s first string quartet, written in 1938, hardly suggests the emotional depth of his subsequent works in the form. His first attempt at a sequel, in 1940, resulted in his Piano Quintet: he said the piano part was so he could take part in its performance. Quartet No. 2, in 1944, immediately followed his Piano Trio No. 2 (dedicated to the memory of his friend Ivan Sollertinksky). So began a major cycle, of which his last quartet, No. 15, was completed a year before his death.…

MARIA YUDINA: Short Musical Portrait Beethoven, Berg, Bartók & Stravinsky Maria Yudina (piano); USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra/Rozhdestvensky Praga Digitals PRD 250 342 (1961-64) This reveals an overwhelmingly powerful personality: Beethoven with ferocity, searing Berg, a whirlwind of Bartók and almost surreally brutal Stravinsky. Awful sound quality, but worth it. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING ** BRAHMS Hungarian Dances Wo0 1; Klavierstücke Op. 76; Waltzes Op. 39 Cédric Tiberghien (piano) Harmonia Mundi HMA 1952015 (2008) 71:14 mins A pleasingly mixed selection of Brahms – two kinds of dances plus the dramatic Op. 76 – finds Tiberghien in lively mode, with plenty of elegance and warmth for the waltzes and supple accounts of the capriccios and intermezzos. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING **** SCHUBERT Sonatas Nos 17, 20, 21; Impromptus D899, Nos 2 & 4…

THE BIG SHAKE-UP The Big Shake-Up Jon Stokes (trombone), Jean-Paul Gervasoni, Paul Munday, Gavin Broom (trumpet), Sam Bullard (sax) et al, plus Sharleen Linton (vocals) Big Shake-Up 33 mins Brass bands seem to be back in vogue: this album from the band formerly known as Bad Ass Brass follows an equally enjoyable release by the Hackney Colliery Band (HCB). As with the HCB, there are echoes of distinguished forerunners like the Dirty Dozen and Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, but The Big Shake-Up also has its own personality. At 33 minutes, the album is brief and to the point. It opens with ‘Don’t Block the Box’, immediately setting out the stall with a funky strut, beefy sousaphone underpinning the interweaving lines of the reeds and higher-register brass. The title track is…

CAROLS FROM KING’S: The Stories of our Favourite Carols from King’s College Alexandra Coghlan BBC Books ISBN 978-1-78594-094-1 208pp (hb) £9.99 rrp The title of this book is a misnomer, but in a good way, for what the reader gets here is considerably more than a skim over the potted histories of ‘favourite carols’ sung annually at the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge. There is, for one thing, a fair amount of material on how Christmas itself developed. Alexandra Coghlan traces its origins to the pre-Christian Roman festival of Saturnalia, and the solstice festival of Yule in Scandinavia. Saturnalia in particular could be a wild occasion, with cross-dressing, partying and social insubordination run riot. Sound familiar? Some of these pagan influences affected…

Terry Blain Music journalist and critic ‘What’s most striking about the American composer Eric Whitacre is the natural, organic use that he is making of the internet and social media to take the act of choral singing to places it has never been previously.’ Page 22 Alexander L’Estrange Composer ‘Choosing words for this year’s Christmas carol commission was a challenge but I found a good one: “Love came down at Christmas” by Christina Rossetti. See what I’ve done with it, and give it a try with your choir!’ Page 32 Ashutosh Khandekar Writer and editor ‘Entering Westminster Abbey Choir School, I was struck by the sense of history and deep-seated tradition, but also of boys living together as a modern, friendly and civilised family, a world away from…

‘I’ve learnt to have my own sound and my own voice’ BBC Music Magazine’s Rising Star slot is often filled with tales of brilliant young things who first picked up their instrument almost as soon as they could stand. For Korean cellist Yoon-Kyung Cho, it all happened a little later. ‘I actually played the piano first,’ she tells us, ‘but my piano teacher recommended I learn a string instrument, so I started the cello at the age of nine. And then, as I learned more and more, I really fell in love with it.’ So what was it, then, about the cello that reached the parts that the piano evidently failed to reach? ‘I once listened to the Berlin Philharmonic’s ensemble of 12 cellists,’ she says, ‘and I was really…

THIS MONTH Alexandre Tharaud pianist French pianist Alexandre Tharaud has made over 40 recordings, covering repertoire from JS Bach to the contemporary French composer Thierry Pecou. His latest album is an all-Rachmaninov affair, with the Second Piano Concerto at its heart, and is out now on Warner Classics. My finest moment Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9; Rondo in A; ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te?’ Haydn Keyboard Concerto No. 11 Alexandre Tharaud (piano); Les Violons du Roy/Bernard Labadie Erato 2564626268 (2014) A few years ago I did a recording of Mozart, the Jeunehomme Concerto, in Canada. I have recorded 43 CDs, but maybe this was the only one that I felt very good doing. It was made at Le Domaine Forget, around two…

London’s hopes for a new concert hall have been nipped in the bud. Though £5.5m had been put aside by former chancellor George Osborne for a feasibility study into building a ‘Centre of Music’ in the capital, the government has now decided the money would be best spent elsewhere. ‘London is already home to world class culture and music venues,’ says a spokesman. ‘The government has concluded that [a new hall] does not currently offer value for money for taxpayers and is not affordable.’ Though he himself has not yet given his reaction to the decision, some fear that Sir Simon Rattle (above) may now have second thoughts about becoming musical director of the LSO – the conductor’s decision to take the post was partly reliant on the provision of…

@nicholascollon All my ‘eventful’ concert stories will forever be eclipsed by this afternoon – an exploding light falling into the bassoon section, on fire Eek. Conductor Nicholas Collon (left) enjoys an incandescent moment from the wind section @ayepatz I’m revising my previous ‘Wagner was a genius’ position to ‘Wagner was a cruel sadist.’ #holländerhell Bass-baritone Iain Paterson finds The Flying Dutchman isn’t all plain sailing @WatkinsHuw Who knew #Ravel had made it to @ THSHBirmingham? I wonder if he went for a balti after the show... Composer Huw Watkins ponders an intriguing meeting of French composer and lamb bhuna gosht @violincase I wonder if flight attendants are unnerved by attentive viewers during the safety demo. Further ponderings, this time from sky-bound violinist Hilary Hahn (right) @Baddiel I only like folk…

Oliver Condy Editor Within Rimksy-Korsakov’s opera Christmas Eve, which tells Gogol’s story of Vakula’s attempt to court his beloved Oxana, lies a beautiful orchestral suite. There’s an air of excited expectation in the opening to the opera itself, ‘Holy Night’ – a major influence, surely, of many scores to festive Hollywood films. Rimsky’s sparkling orchestration combines harp, glockenspiel, flute and trilling strings for a magical effect. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor For me, the pick of last year’s festive releases was Carols from Queen’s, a superbly sung disc by the Oxford college’s mixed-voice choir. I drove my family to distraction with repeated playings of the likes of Philip Stopford’s Lully, Lulla, Lullay and John Rutter’s arrangement of O Holy Night, and have every intention of doing exactly the same thing this…

MAX ENJOYMENT A message written by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies in a friend’s score of An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise has given tips on which whiskies best accompany his work. ‘Think about Highland Park or Scapa (MY favourite!) before lifting the baton,’ the composer advised conductor Christopher Warren-Green. Both distilleries are to be found on Orkney, where Max lived for 45 years. ACCORDION WOE Less jollity, alas, at The Piano and Accordion Shop in Sunningdale, which recently suffered a break-in – 39 accordions worth over £130,000 were stolen. As the finer models, such as the Italian-made Cooperativa 508 Elite 120 Bass, were targeted, it is reckoned that the thieves knew exactly what they were after. DUBAI DO The United Arab Emirates is going to get its first ever taste of…

Ensembles with poor morale rarely produce consistently thrilling performances The last time I saw Martyn Brabbins was in June, at London’s St John’s, Smith Square. He was sitting quietly behind me during the interval of a London Sinfonietta concert, and we had a pleasant chat about the musical world. Which would have been entirely unremarkable, except for one thing. The concert contained four fiendishly demanding premieres, it was being broadcast on Radio 3 and Brabbins was not only conducting but presenting it as well. I remember thinking then what an unsung hero he is. Unassuming, unpretentious, unflappable, genial and a complete professional, he also does a rather nice line in irony. ‘I thought all British conductors went to private schools and Cambridge,’ he once quipped to me. ‘I grew up…

Light and Gold Grace Davidson, Stephen Kennedy, Hila Plitmann; Christopher Glynn (piano); The Eric Whitacre Singers, Laudibus, The King’s Singers, Pavão Quartet/Eric Whitacre Decca 274 3209 Released in 2010, these are finely polished performances of some of Whitacre’s best known works, including the ultra-popular carol Lux Aurumque. Water Night The Eric Whitacre Singers, London Symphony Orchestra/ Eric Whitacre Decca 279 6323 A fascinating, atmospheric album from 2012 that combines choral and orchestral works. Soloists include cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and Whitacre’s wife, the soprano Hila Plitmann. The Stolen Child etc The King’s Singers, Concordia Choir/ René Clausen Signum SIGCD262 Five Whitacre choral works are heard here alongside those by his contemporaries, ex-King’s Singer Bob Chilcott and the American Morten Lauridsen. Cloudburst Polyphony/Stephen Layton Hyperion CDA67543 Recorded in 2006, Polyphony’s immaculate…

I was delighted to be asked to compose this year’s carol for the readers of BBC Music Magazine. The poem ‘Love came down at Christmas’ is classic and Christmassy, and although many composers (including John Rutter) have set these words by Rossetti, no one melody has come to dominate. The words are direct, sincere and expressive; my aim was to provide music that would be a suitable stylistic match. The form is very straightforward: verses 1 and 3 are essentially the same, with a chance for the basses to come to the fore in verse 2 while the sopranos provide an angelic descant. A simple coda begins in unison and brings things to a serene close. As a jazz musician with a love of harmony (I was briefly banned from…

This year, Christmas at Westminster begins on the 27 Nov with an Advent Liturgy by candlelight. On 1 Dec, the Abbey Choir and St James’s Baroque will perform JS Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, conducted by James O’Donnell. The choir’s annual Christmas Concert on 15 Dec promises a wide range of festive choral works alongside traditional carols for all to sing. On 18 Dec, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols is the centrepiece of the Abbey’s Christmas Meditation, prefaced by a reading of The Christmas Proclamation. On Christmas Eve, families can hear the Nativity story and join the blessing of the crib at the 12pm Crib Service. There will also be the Service of Lessons and Carols at 4pm, before Midnight Mass at 11.30. The main service on Christmas Day begins at 10.30am,…

Excitable high recorders and dulcian speed the shepherds on their way to Bethlehem; the skies of ‘Ehre sei Gott’ pulsate with the whirring of angels’ wings, while the brass accompanying the high priests add a touch of Rembrandt to an unfolding tableau that softens the precision and illustrative thrust of a Dürer woodcut with the festive sparkle of a beguiling instrumental palette. It’s little wonder that of all Heinrich Schütz’s works, The Christmas Story, first heard during Christmas Day Vespers 1660, is the best known. Some three quarters of a century later, JS Bach would marry theology, meditation and jubilation in his own six-cantata Christmas Oratorio; Schütz, however, is content to deliver season’s greetings with a finely calibrated storytelling whose sheer freshness belies his 75 years. The music is worlds…

Christmas Vespers Gabrieli Consort and Players/Paul McCreesh DG E463 0462 (download)  The Christmas Story is wrapped here in the context of a Christmas Vespers service. Musikalische Exequien Vox Luminis/Lionel Meunier Ricercar RIC311 Schütz’s haunting music for the funeral of a prince is delivered with a dignified immediacy. First Book of Madrigals Cantus Cölln/Junghänel Harmonia Mundi HMG501686 Schütz’s countrymen do him proud in the first fruits of his studies in Venice. The Complete Narrative Works Ars Nova Copenhagen/ Paul Hillier Dacapo 8204035 Schütz’s six ‘Historiae’ in performances that are as stylish and as they are thoughtfully considered.…

Martin Neary (conductor) Winchester Cathedral Choir (1987) Warner Classics 972 1652 It says something for the technical control and concentration the Winchester singers bring to bear that conductor Martin Neary can add a full minute to the standard three-minute timing for the opening ‘O magnum mysterium’, and not reap negative consequences. On the contrary, this is a raptly sustained piece of singing, more meditatively inclined and inward-looking than most rival versions. And while Neary’s vocal blending is silkier and more homogenised than Guest’s, the Winchester choir is still capable of cutting attacks when necessary – at ‘Dicite quidnam vidistis’ in ‘Quem vidistis pastores’, for instance, and in an ebullient ‘Hodie’. Harry Christophers (conductor) The Sixteen (1990) Erato 562 4312 (download) Of all the versions sung by adult voices, this is…

BRAHMS Handel Variations; Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79; Piano Pieces, Opp. 118 & 119 Murray Perahia (piano) Sony 88697727252 78:37 mins ‘Perahia’s long experience with Bach’s keyboard works gives him a natural point of entry to the Handel Variations. He takes quite fast tempos that nevertheless sound so inevitable that the work seems to unfold in one majestic breath.’ February 2011 BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas, Op. 14 Nos 1 & 2; Op. 26; Op. 28 Murray Perahia (piano) Sony 88697326462 70:58 mins ‘It’s been a while since Murray Perahia recorded Beethoven. The wait has been well worthwhile. A masterly recital, and one whose undemonstrative performances enable the music to speak for itself most eloquently.’ January 2009 JS BACH Goldberg Variations Murray Perahia (piano) Sony SK 89243 73:28 mins ‘Murray Perahia is one…

JS BACH Christmas Oratorio Dunedin Consort/John Butt Linn CKD499 141:19 mins (2 discs) This is the latest in an acclaimed series of Bach recordings by the Edinburgh-based Dunedin Consort. It has the same sense of freshness as previous releases, with one singer to a part except in the three cantatas which use trumpets, where there are two. This leads to a pleasing transparency of texture, and nimbly sprung rhythms under John Butt’s scholarly direction. Arias and recitatives generally emerge more convincingly than choruses, where the recording struggles to integrate singers and players in a single acoustic, and the instrumental playing can be scraggy. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING **** A WELLS CHRISTMAS Carols by Chilcott, Carter, McConnaughey, Sargent, Willcocks, Rutter, Vaughan Williams, Owens et al Wells Cathedral Choir/Matthew Owens Resonus RES10176 61:54…

DEBUSSY Images; Jeux; La plus que lente San Francisco Symphony/ Michael Tilson Thomas San Francisco Symphony SFS 0069 (hybrid CD/SACD) 60:21 mins This is a delicious triptych of Debussy’s mature orchestral works, all written in the couple of years before the start of the First World War. Michael Tilson Thomas has a long and illustrious pedigree in Debussy, and it shows in the control and care taken over nuances of texture while keeping sight of the whole – no mean feat in these exceptionally challenging works. No wonder that, while almost always appearing complete on disc, the orchestral Images are often heard as isolated movements in the concert hall. In Tilson Thomas’s hands, each interlocking phrase and brush of colour can be heard emerging from the San Francisco Symphony, aided…

HAYDN • MOZART Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro – overture; Symphony No. 40; Haydn: Symphonies Nos 88 & 94 Vienna & Berlin PO/Furtwangler Praga Digitals PRD/DSD 350126 (1948-51) 73:18 mins The sound here belies the performances’ ages, and you’ll be hard pressed to find more alive accounts than this passionate Mozart 40th, and two of Haydn’s most popular symphonies. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING **** MOZART Symphonies Nos 34, 39 & 40; Eine kleine Nachtmusik; Le nozze di Figaro – Overture; Mass in C minor Los Angeles Philharmonic; Israel Philharmonic; LPO/Zubin Mehta Eloquence v (1974-98) 110:30 mins (2 discs) A curious ragbag of Mozart performances with three contrasting orchestras, but all of them bearing the mark of Mehta, whose reading of the works is beefy but unmemorable. Von Otter is great. PERFORMANCE…

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) Mendelssohn wrote several concertos, but it was his E minor Violin Concerto that really captured the popular imagination. It also helped reshape concerto form for the Romantic era. Rather than waiting for an orchestral introduction, the violin dives straight in. The three movements are then played without a break, in effect making it a through-composed concerto. Mendelssohn wrote the work for his friend Ferdinand David, the leader of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.…

KUDA, KUDA : Famous Russian Arias and Scenes DVD Glinka, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky Gorchakova, Marusin, Netrebko et al Arthaus 109246 (1990-2016) 120 mins Mostly filmed at the Mariinsky with Gergiev conducting, highlights of these extracts include Alexander Golovin’s spectacular designs for Ruslan and Lyudmila and Graham Vick’s staging of War and Peace. PERFORMANCE **** PICTURE & SOUND **** INBRUNST IM HERZEN : Famous German Arias and Scenes DVD Mozart, Strauss and Wagner Fassbaender, Hawlata, Te Kanawa, Kollo, Meier, Schäfer, Terfel et al Arthaus 109244 (1990-2016) 80 mins The best of this DVD features scenes from Harry Kupfer’s Elektra starring Brigitte Fassbaender and Eva Marton and conducted by Abbado, and Bryn Terfel’s Jokanaan opposite Catherine Malfitano’s Salome. PERFORMANCE *** PICTURE & SOUND *** CASTA DIVA : Famous Italian…

JS BACH Peasant Cantata, BWV 212; Non sa che sia dolore, BWV 209; Amore traditore, BWV 203 Mojca Erdmann (soprano), Dominik Wörner (bass); Bach Collegium Japan/ Masaaki Suzuki BIS BIS-2191 (hybrid CD/SACD) 63:25 mins Bach’s sacred style is so distinctive, his output so prolific, that he’s much less familiar in secular guise. In this substantial ‘Cantate burlesque’, as the Peasant Cantata is subtitled, he’s indebted to the public comic opera developed by Reinhard Keiser in Hamburg. The Overture is a series of six contrasting fragments; the text is in German, songs are mostly short, and constructed from brief repeated phrases, some folk-related. Comedy is topical, reviling the tax collector, praising the newly-succeeded Lord of the Manor. Elsewhere you will be hard-put not to join in the belly laugh of the…

JS BACH Toccata and Fugue in C minor BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata No. 7 in D, Op. 10/3 MEDTNER Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5 Lucas Debargue (piano) Sony 88985341762 70 mins The deluge of pianistic Wunderkinder shows no sign of abating, and the latest is Lucas Debargue. He has the added attraction of being controversial: after being placed fourth in last year’s Moscow Tchaikovsky competition, he was awarded a special prize – the biggest boost a career can have. On this first studio recital he doesn’t go in at all for showiness as he did in his live recital. He begins with a brief but wonderful Toccata and Fugue by Bach. He chooses the most dramatic of Beethoven’s early piano sonatas before the Pathétique, with a slow movement which,…

WADADA LEO SMITH America’s National Parks Golden Quintet: Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet), Anthony Davis (piano) et al Cuneiform Records Rune 430/431 98 mins (2 discs) If anything defines Wadada Leo Smith, it’s his ability to marshall big ideas while also addressing the finest of detail, so a project such as this suite, with its title theme of America’s National Parks, suits him well. It may seem an unlikely subject to the average European, but Smith neatly knits some universal sociopolitical concepts into the work, such as the importance of common ownership and its attendant freedoms. He also applies some elegant lateral thinking to the idea of preserving and respecting shared legacies by incorporating hommages to New Orleans and to the musicologist Eileen Southern, whose book The Music of Black Americans:…

MUSIC FOR LIFE: 100 Works to Carry You Through Fiona Maddocks Faber ISBN 978-0-571-32938-0 212pp (hb) £12.99 rrp ‘You might say my brother and I owe our lives to Beethoven’, writes Fiona Maddocks. Beethoven’s ‘compact, sunny’ Eighth Symphony brought the writer’s parents together when her father whistled its opening (incorrectly) at work and was answered by a hum from her mother. A half-remembered phrase helped a young couple fall in love and became ‘a theme tune’ to their daughter’s childhood. An early lesson in the particular joy that is the subject of Music for Life. That joy is something to hold on to in difficult times. Hence the subtitle of this book – 100 works to carry you through – and its deft zig-zag from merriment to…

• Christmas Eve is an opera in four acts, composed by Rimsky-Korsakov between 1894 and ’95. The plot is based on a short story by Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol. Tchaikovsky’s earlier work Vakula the Smith (1874) was based on the same source. • The story is set in a Ukrainian village and concerns a young blacksmith, Vakula (the son of witch Solokha), and his attempts to woo Oxana. To test his love, Oxana sets Vakula a task of fetching the Tsarina’s boots from St Petersburg’s Imperial Palace. He is helped by the Devil, who flies him there. On his Christmas Day return, Vakula discovers that Oxana would have loved him anyway, even without the boots, and they marry. • Rimsky-Korsakov’s orchestration is enriched by Ukrainian folk references, including koliadki folk…

We’re hoping to create a bit of a choral splash ourselves this month Back in 2009, American composer Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir was a stroke of genius. Harnessing the power of social media and online communities and forums, and capturing the imaginations of choral singers worldwide, the latest incarnation of the VC attracted over 8,000 singers, each recording their single vocal part from the comfort of their own home. The results are wonderful, Whitacre’s music inventive, challenging but also attractive, singable and popular – he knows how to hit the sweet spot of each voice part. A rare thing in a composer today. Whitacre now plans to go even bigger with his VC, as you’ll read on p22. It’s a staggering demonstration of how the internet, rather than pushing us…

Kennedy composes himself Violinist Nigel Kennedy is releasing an album of his own compositions. Titled My World, the recording falls into two halves. In ‘Dedications’, he pays homage to his mentors, including violinists Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Stéphane Grappelli and Mark O’Connor. Three Sisters, a suite he has composed based on Chekhov’s play, completes the disc. It’ll be released on Neue Meister records this December. It’s billed as his first album of his own compositions, although he is no stranger to improvising, arranging and writing music – it follows his jazz albums A Very Nice Album and SHHH!, which feature a lot of his own material. A Parisian in America Natalie Dessay has signed to Sony Classical. Her first album for the label, Pictures of America, is out this December.…

Pianist William Youn has reached the fifth and final volume in his complete Mozart piano sonata series. He’s heading to Munich to polish off the final notes; the disc will be released on Oehms records. The King’s Singers have been in the studio to record their triple album GOLD, which will be released next year as part of the group’s 50th anniversary celebrations. There will be a disc of close harmony and two of a cappella arrangements. It will be released on the Signum Classics label. The Ephiphoni Consort and director Tim Reader have recently recorded their debut disc. The chamber choir headed to St John’s Church, Upper Norwood to record choral works by David Bednall, for Delphian Records. Viola da gamba player Robert Smith, member of the acclaimed Fantasticus…

‘You’re a rude scoundrel, Wolfgang. Remember, I can hear in heaven’ It had been a stimulating morning, working with the cast of Amadeus at the National Theatre. We’d roared our way through a very vulgar canon by Mozart, and a much more prim and proper one by Salieri. We’d clapped Mozart and whistled Mozart, and paced him out around the rehearsal room. And now on the train home, I was sleepy, but I suddenly heard Mozart’s voice… ‘Happy Christmas, Salieri!’ ‘Ah, my dear Mozart, Happy Christmas!’ ‘Hey, now that they’ve found the one surviving copy of that piece we wrote together, d’you think they might get over all this poisoning stuff?’ ‘Alas, I think Pushkin and Peter Shaffer between them have made the idea indelible.’ ‘Just…

Stuart Law Fleet With a concert performance of Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 fresh in my mind, I decided to revisit Anthony Payne’s ‘elaboration’ of the sketches for the Third. It reminded me what a masterful job Payne did. Most of the orchestration sounds as if it’s come directly from the pen of Elgar himself. If the finale, which Payne admitted gave him the most problems, is maybe less satisfying, the quiet gong stroke that ends the work seems entirely appropriate. Chris Davies Dorset I recently purchased a recording of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra performing Martin∞’s Symphonies Nos 3 & 4, so it was with great interest that I listened to Radio 3’s Composer of the Week programmes on him. Also on Radio 3, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s (BSO) live…

JAM MAKING There are two main periods in the year when I’m making preserves: August and September are full-on for me because that’s when the vegetables or fruit are in season, and it is also a good time to get your mincemeat done for next year; and then January is Seville orange time. I’ve been making jam with my family since I was a kid because my sister married the local farmer and we were always doing stuff. Among the products I make are apricot jam – with their own kernels, because they add a flavour like almonds – plus rhubarb jam with currants and ginger, and a ‘good morning’ marmalade which is made with grapefruit, blood orange and Seville orange. My husband, Chris, makes his own preserved lemons, and…

Picture a dark room in Sing Sing prison in upstate New York, packed with 300 or so hard-boiled inmates, most of them violent criminals – ‘the toughest of the tough’. Rival gang members are being kept apart by guards, plug-uglies are everywhere and the atmosphere is electric. But they’re listening to a performance of arias by Handel and Rossini. ‘It was dark, shadowy and threatening,’ says mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. ‘I was thinking to myself that the guys on the stage would protect me, but it was nerve-wracking. Then I hear a big, loud voice from the back’ – she puts on a rough New York accent – ‘and it says, “Thank you for comin’ here.”’ This story is the unexpected prelude to her explanation for her latest project, In War…

THE MOST IMPORTANT thing here, as indeed in all choral music, is the clarity and communication of the text. The English language is abundant with consonant clusters and diphthongs which are to be revelled in, not shied away from. If we sing the words as closely as possible to how we would say them, they can be heard and understood. As choral singers and directors, we can too often become overly concerned with precisely where to place final consonants and pay so much attention to lengthening ‘pure’ vowels that the resulting sound, while beautiful, can be less meaningful or moving for the listener. To this end, initial consonants (for example, on ‘Love’) and closed ‘m’ and ‘n’s in words such as ‘came’ and ‘sign’ must be heard. I have a…

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) is one of the most iconic conductors of the 20th century, thanks in part to his role as the first ‘television’ conductor in the 1920s. He began his career as a cellist at Parma conservatory, and went on to become music director at La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and the New York Philharmonic. The house in Parma where he was born is now a museum filled with artefacts from his life, including his piano. Upstairs, there’s a collection of every recording Toscanini made, along with video footage of famous performances.…

Coro favorito/capella Schütz’s personal take on the Venetian multi-choir technique divides the forces into a ‘coro favorito’ of more skilled musicians whose function resembles the concertino in a Concerto Grosso, and the lesser skilled ‘coro capella’ that provides heft at climaxes. Word painting Schütz was solicitous in illustrating the words he was setting. Sometimes a melodic figure suffices, such as the encircling depiction of birds in Psalmen Davids’s setting of Psalm 84, or more obvious is the matching of near approximations to the instruments mentioned in Psalm 150. Venice How would Schütz’s music have turned out had he not headed towards Venice (above)? In the imperatives of the polychoral style and the sensuous freedom emanating from opera and the concertante intersection of voices and instruments, he…

Recording of the Month Pianist Murray Perahia turns to the tender and refined French Suites as he continues his journey through JS Bach’s keyboard works with his first disc on Deutsche Grammophon, p64 The sounds of Christmas Our postbag has been packed with Christmas CDs, and we’ve rounded up the highlights on p66. And there were a few last-minute arrivals that you might want to add your festive wish list. Voces8 sets the scene with its Winter album (Decca), while the Royal Hospital Chelsea Chapel Choir has put together a more traditional carol disc (Somm). Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien offers a ‘Noël Baroque’, with a programme featuring, among others, Corrette, Daquin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Alpha). And you can hear all Charpentier’s Christmas pastorals and Advent antiphons on the Ensemble…

In your Bach journey on disc, you’ve now reached the French Suites. How do they compare to his other keyboard works? They are in a different style to the English Suites and the keyboard Partitas. They are less virtuosic, very tender and rather delicate. A lot of the voice-leading is in two or three parts, like the inventions or sinfonias, so they are not as brilliant in the obvious sense as the other pieces I have recorded. But I find them full of love and sensitivity. Bach gave them as a present to his wife at some point, I think – they are, bar the Sixth Suite, in the Anna Magdalena Notebook. There’s that tenderness to them. What does playing Bach on the piano bring to the music? For two…

The Sixteen’s consummate technical ability is legendary SONG OF THE NATIVITY The Sixteen/Harry Christophers Coro COR16146 73:58 mins Christmas CDs by famous choirs can have an element of routine or cashing in to them, but not this one. From the gorgeously shaped performance of Morten Lauridsen’s modern classic O magnum mysterium which opens the programme, to the urgent, ardent account of James MacMillan’s O radiant dawn which closes it, The Sixteen give a masterclass in the art of unaccompanied singing, and in close emotional engagement with the pieces chosen. These are a canny combination of old and new. Boris Ord’s classic setting of Adam lay ybounden rubs shoulders with Howard Skempton’s anxiously pulsing version, while the traditional How far is it to Bethlehem? is counterpointed by Peter Warlock’s Bethlehem Down.…

Handsome, songful breadth is balanced with sheer naughtiness PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4 (1947 version); Symphony No. 7 Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/ Andrew Litton BIS BIS-2134 (hybrid CD/SACD) 81:58 mins With this golden performance of the revised Fourth Symphony, Prokofiev’s Soviet-era rearmament of music from the ballet The Prodigal Son, Andrew Litton’s already fine championship of the composer scales new heights. The deep and broad BIS recording scores over Neeme Järvi’s Royal Scottish National Orchestra version, with truer and less reverberant sound. But it’s not about sound alone, although that allows even the more stop-gappy passages of the 1947 expansion of the much shorter 1930 Fourth Symphony to weave a spell. Litton’s mastery shows in the immediate contrasts of broad, epic opening and razor-sharp Allegro mechanics. He never rushes, and allows…

J ADAMS • HARRIS Violin Concertos Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin); BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Litton Signum Classics SIGCD 468 62:22 mins Spanning some 50 years, these two concertos capture both the evolution and enduring spirit of American classical music. Tamsin Waley-Cohen brings magnetic performances and an enthusiast’s passion to this splendid disc: the soloist herself traced Roy Harris’s 1949 score to Washington’s Library of Congress after discrepancies among orchestral parts saw the work’s premiere cancelled and the piece little performed since. Born in 1898 to an Oklahoma farming family, Harris followed a musical trajectory that neatly encapsulates the development of 20th-century American composition, encompassing rural roots, studies on the West Coast, a spell in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and an eventual return to the states to pursue a distinctly ‘American’ music. His…

BERG DVD Wozzeck Christian Gerhaher, Brandon Jovanovich, Mauro Peter, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Lars Woldt, Gun-Brit Barkmin et al; Zurich Opera Chorus; Philharmonia Zurich/Fabio Liusi; dir. Andreas Homoki (Zurich, 2015) Accentus DVD : ACC 20363; Blu-ray : 10363 100:58 mins Berg is a hard sell, and when Christian Gerhaher fell ill and withdrew from Zurich Opera’s concert performance of Wozzeck at the Royal Festival Hall in October 2015, the patches of empty seats were like dried grass on a disused playing field. Yet those of us who came to see Leigh Melrose replace Gerhaher heard a reading of such lyricism from Fabio Luisi, Philharmonia Zurich and the rest of the cast that we could only shake our heads. This DVD of Andreas Homoki’s production – sensitively filmed for small screen…

Here are five great operas in five classic recordings This month I’ve been listening to five great operas in five classic recordings. But after they’ve been reissued multiple times and digitally remastered, is there really any more ‘added value’ to be squeezed out of them? For the record company, certainly – but this time around Warner Classics hasn’t gone the cheap’n’cheerful route. These editions scream quality and collectability: handsome hard-backed books with contextual essays, full libretto and translations, complete with dust jackets on the folds of which the Abbey Road engineers describe the challenges of remastering each opera in HD from the original masters. The earliest features Victoria de los Angeles as a sultry and seductive Carmen in Bizet’s opera, conducted by Thomas Beecham in Paris in 1958 and 1959…

In ‘Full Fathom Five’ the opening bell sequence is exquisitely weighted MUSIC OF THE SPHERES Part Songs of the British Isles: works by Murrill, Bridge, Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Walker, Bingham, Stanford, Harvey and Chilcott Tenebrae/Nigel Short Bene Arte SIGCD 904 65:04 mins The British part song is, as conductor Nigel Short acknowledges in the booklet, still a relatively under-excavated area. It contains treasures in it, not least Herbert Murrill’s two Shakespeare settings from Twelfth Night, a blithe, lilting ‘O Mistress Mine’ and a harmonically adventurous ‘Come Away, Death’. Both are sung with delicate sentience by Short’s choir Tenebrae, the pulse and phrasing of the musical lines determined by a refined attention to words and meaning. The same is true of Vaughan Williams’s Three Shakespeare Songs, where the performance of ‘Full…

The Escher Quartet’s playing is full of propulsive intensity MENDELSSOHN String Quartet No. 5 in E flat, Op. 44/3; String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80; Four Pieces, Op. 81 – Capriccio and Fugue Escher String Quartet BIS BIS-2160 (hybrid CD/SACD) 71:17 mins The Escher Quartet have reached the climax of their CD series of the Mendelssohn quartets, with a disc that hits the jackpot in every way. For a start, the programme works very well: the E flat major and F minor quartets make an excellent contrast and the two pieces from the diverse collection that comprise Op. 81 serve as palate cleanser while also revealing their own sterling quality. The two big quartets represent opposite poles: the E flat major, dating from 1837-8, is a sunny,…

Franck’s Prélude, Choral and Fugue is ineffably beautiful HOMAGES Works by Bach-Busoni, Mendelssohn, Franck, Chopin, Liszt; (digital edition only: Ravel) Benjamin Grosvenor (piano) Decca 483 0255 74:43 mins This third recital album from Benjamin Grosvenor is every bit as pianistically brilliant as its precedents, showing off his fluid virtuosity, musical sensitivity and fearless approach. Homages is the title but the 24-year-old pianist hasn’t taken the theme too literally. In fact, this is as much a homage to his great pianist predecessors as a showcase of composers paying tribute to one another. Best not worry about semantics and simply revel in the imaginative programme. The Busoni transcription of Bach’s solo violin Chaconne in D minor opens the disc. Grosvenor doesn’t evoke the soundworld of the original, instead…

The 200th Jazz Starter column, and at Christmas too! The occasion demands something special, and to me that still means Sonny Rollins. Routinely hailed as the greatest living saxophonist/jazzmusician/improviser, Rollins is our link with the giants of the golden age. From his earliest days, he was accepted as one of the immortal company blazing a trail to the future. Miles Davis observed that some contemporaries even thought of him as on the same plane as bebop legend Charlie Parker. In Davis’s words, ‘I knew one thing: he was close’. Now sadly prevented from performing by ill health, Rollins still casts his unique spell on disc. His first Jazz Starter (Oct 2001) was about Saxophone Colossus, the classic 1956 album he still regards as one of his best. In May 2006,…

JAMIE BARTON WAS BORN in Georgia, US. Following studies at Shorter College in her home town of Rome and then at Indiana University, she began her career at Houston Grand Opera. In 2013, Barton won both the Song Prize and the Main Prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, leading to major engagements worldwide. In 2017, she sings in Verdi’s Nabucco and Dvorák’s Rusalka at the New York Metropolitan Opera, to be shown live in cinemas across the UK on 7 January and 25 February respectively. I come from an extremely musical family – I grew up in the northwest Georgia mountains, and several of my family played bluegrass instruments. My dad started my music recognition education from a very early age with THE BEATLES . One of their…