Innholdsfortegnelse for Christmas 2015 i BBC Music Magazine

ON STAGE Bleat Midwinter There’ll be plenty of ‘Baaa!’ but certainly no ‘humbug’ when the Marian Consort appear at the chapel of Keble College, Oxford, on 8 Dec. The vocal ensemble is approaching Christmas from the perspective of the shepherds, rounding up works by Morales, Victoria and the aptly ovine Mouton. See p98 ON DISC Rare Polish By happy coincidence, our festive CD round-up features two of the lesser-known Christmas gems revealed in our cover feature. Alongside more familiar yuletide fare, you can read about new recordings of Respighi’s Lauda per la Natività del Signore and Lutos›awski’s 20 Polish Carols. See p72 ONLINE Carol Countdown We at BBC Music Magazine are celebrating this Christmas season with our Advent Calendar of Carols. From 1 December we will start the countdown of…

BEFORE BEETHOVEN In your December issue, you have an interesting guide to Beethoven’s symphonies. It’s a shame, therefore, that a couple of inaccuracies have crept in. Firstly, the idea of bringing back the dance movement in the finale (Symphony No. 5), wasn’t ‘an original idea’, as Haydn had done this in his Symphony No. 46 (1772). Secondly, the fff in the finale of the Seventh wasn’t the ‘first time ever in an orchestral work’ – Haydn (again!) did this in the ‘Il terremoto section’ of The Seven Last Words (the original orchestral version) in 1786. Peter Humphreys , via email TICKING OFF I am surprised that your expert writers are perpetuating the idea that Beethoven’s Eighth symphony Allegretto was ‘said to have been provoked by the recent invention of…

When 28-year-old Fergus Macleod steps onto the podium this autumn, he will become the youngest conductor of an English National Opera production since Sir Charles Mackerras, who was 26 when he first conducted the company and was its musical director from 1970-1977. Macleod’s musical life began at the age of three when he took up the violin – he had wanted to start even earlier, but there wasn’t an instrument small enough. Eventually, however, he joined the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain as a violinist, but was soon inspired to take up the baton. ‘I already loved chamber music for the musical conversation that took place within a small ensemble,’ he says, adding that seeing a conductor communicate with a whole orchestra in this way was a revelation: ‘It…

THIS MONTH JANINE JANSEN For her latest album, the acclaimed Dutch violinist turns to concertos by Bartók and Brahms, recorded with conductor Antonio Pappano. Available as a digital download now ahead of its release date, the actual CD is out on Decca Classics in January. My finest moment Schubert String Quintet •  Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht Decca 478 3551 (2013) I’m proud of this project because it feels somehow this recording was made in the perfect way. It is with wonderful colleagues and friends of mine whom I play with very regularly. We worked intensively on this music, performing it many times and we recorded it live at the end of a two-week tour through Europe. Living with this music and playing it with them was…

The craze for Mozart memorabilia shows no sign of slowing. In a year that has seen a lock of the composer’s hair go for £35,000, a one-line letter written by him in 1786 has now sold for $217,000 (£142,000) in Boston, US. In the scrawly note, Mozart asks a friend to return the scores of his Piano Quartet No. 1, Violin Sonata No. 33 and Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in G Major, K496. It is mention of these works, says Bobby Livingston of Boston’s RR Auction, that makes the note so valuable: ‘Mozart letters are among the most sought after of all musical autographs. With such specificity concerning his own compositions this is an outstanding example.’ $217,000 is indeed a lot of notes for a note about notes.…

@Sviceridor Sitting on hotel room floor, laptop in lap, trying to figure out Twitter... and what to send as my first ever tweet. Will this do? Yes – splendidly. Welcome, baritone Roderick Williams (left), to the weird and wonderful world of Twitter @gavricivana In the land of funky lamps, wind farms & bridges rising out of the sea and v v tall people #Copenhagen #DanishLampFettish #happy Pianist Ivana Gavric sums up the essence of Denmark… but forgets the pastries @ThomasGouldVLN Where else but on a plane would anyone not laugh out loud when offered a spinach sandwich to eat? Violinist Thomas Gould regrets flying with Air Rabbit @ifagiolini In my spoken intro, the phrase ‘I heard a great programme on Radio 3 abt 15 years ago’ greeted with huge mirth.…

Oliver Condy Editor A gem of a box-set landed on my desk recently: ten CDs of remastered Mercury Living Presence recordings by legendary organist Marcel Dupré. In among the Bach, Saint-Saëns, Widor and Franck, Dupré performs his own music, including the Variations sur un Noël, played idiosyncratically on the organ of St Sulpice, Paris in 1959. It’s beautifully atmospheric, even if the organ does need a bit of a tune… Jeremy Pound Deputy editor It was only when we compiled a feature on the 50 Greatest Carols in 2008 that I got to know Morten Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium. I was instantly captivated by its gorgeous crushed harmonies and overall sense of contemplative calm, and it is now an essential part of my Christmas listening, particularly on the excellent all-Lauridsen…

J Haydn Parvulus Filius (c1800) Was this really by Haydn, or possibly by his contemporary Franz Schneider? It’s not exactly clear. Whoever the composer was, he produced a three-minute motet that, scored for singers, strings, organ and two horns and cast in a sunny A major, positively bounces along with genial Christmas spirit. R Strauss Weihnachtslied (1870) At an age when most children are leaping around giddily at the prospect of Santa and co, the six-year-old Richard Strauss instead sat down to write this little song for voice and piano. Setting festive words by Christian Schubart, it is about a minute long, surprisingly sophisticated, and really rather delightful. Fauré Noël (1885) Over a bustling piano part, a soprano soloist breathlessly tells about the star guiding the Three…

The facts speak for themselves and are no less remarkable for that: Westminster Abbey chorister, music scholar at Clifton College, organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, distinguished war service (Military Cross), organist of Salisbury and Worcester cathedrals, back to King’s as organist and director of music, director of the Royal College of Music, conductor of the Bach Choir and The Really Big Chorus for nearly 40 years and much more besides. No wonder Sir David Willcocks will be remembered as the nation’s choirmaster. His descants for ‘O come, all ye faithful’ and ‘Hark! The herald angels sing’ are as well known all over the world as the carols for which he wrote them and there can be few choirs globally which have not performed and enjoyed his incomparable carol arrangements.…

When BBC Music Magazine asked me to compose a new carol for their Christmas issue, I was thrilled. My main goal was to write something unashamedly jolly – to my ear, the reds and greens of Christmas time are associated with the keys of G minor and E minor, often resulting in me writing pensive carols about Mary and the baby Jesus, so I wanted a change! My first port of call was the blog by A Clerk of Oxford (aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk) where I found the Old English text ‘Good Day, Sir Christemas’, probably the merriest of all medieval carols texts. It was exactly what I was looking for for my F major-rooted setting – to me a golden brown-coloured key, the aural equivalent of a pint of deep amber Christmas…

Behind every great man, it has often been said, is a great woman. This was certainly true of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1871 the then 27-year-old naval officer and amateur composer – on the strength of one colourful orchestral work, Sadko – was offered the post of professor of composition and instrumentation at the St Petersburg Conservatory. With the naive chutzpah of youth, Rimsky accepted, though, as he confessed in his autobiography, ‘I couldn’t at that time have harmonised a chorale properly, had never written a single contrapuntal exercise in my life, and had only the haziest understanding of strict fugue… My grasp of the musical forms (particularly of the rondo) was equally hazy. Although I scored my own compositions colourfully enough, I had no real knowledge of the technique of…

Christmas Eve Tarkhov, Krasovsky; Radio Moscow Choir & Symphony Orchestra/Nikolai Golovanov Documents 298348 This 1948 recording is full of character and worth hearing despite historic sound. Overture and Suites from the Operas RSNO/Neeme Järvi Chandos CHAN 10369(2) An excellent introduction to Rimsky-Korsakov’s fantastical side. The Snowmaiden Sokolik, Arkhipova; Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra/Fedoseyev Relief CR 991049 A fine cast captures the charm and poignancy of Rimsky’s pantheistic opera. Sadko Galusin, Tarassova, Gassiev; Kirov Chorus & Orchestra/ Valery Gergiev Philips 0704399 (DVD) A superb cast in a wonderful production of one of Rimsky’s fairy-tale operas.…

Vaughan Williams Suite from 49th Parallel Just seven years before he worked on Scott of the Antarctic, Vaughan Williams had written his first film score, for 49th Parallel. The movie follows a stranded Nazi U-boat crew trying to cross Canada to reach the US, and was designed ‘to scare the pants off the Americans and to bring them into the war sooner’. Muir Matheson, director of music for the Ministry of Information, which was behind the production, recruited Vaughan Williams, opening up the world of film to him. The suite created from the score is worth investigating, with string writing and pastoral elements that are pure Vaughan Williams; the Prelude was later restyled as the choral work The New Commonwealth, with words by Harold Child. Recommended recording: BBC Philharmonic/Rumon Gamba…

RUSSIAN TREASURES Choral works by Gretchaninov, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky etc Tenebrae/Nigel Short Signum SIGCD 900 61:27 mins ‘Tenebrae’s ultra-deep and resonant basses are immediately evident as the voices unfurl upwards in the opening Gretchaninov track. … these highly focused performances reveal the magnificent craft of some glorious music’ March 2014 PARRY Songs of Farewell; plus choral works by Howells, Holst, Bennett, Tavener, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Sullivan and Harris Tenebrae/Nigel Short Signum SIGCD 267 75:54 mins ‘Tenebrae’s account of Parry’s Songs of Farewell abounds in subtleties of phrasing and telling distinctions of dynamic, yet flows beautifully.’ Christmas 2011 VICTORIA • LOBO Requiem Mass, 1605; Lobo: Versa est in luctum; Lamentations Tenebrae/Nigel Short Signum SIGCD 248 79:04 mins ‘The Requiem is written for six voices, but this choir of 20 never seems lumbering…

NOËL FRANÇAIS Works by Poulenc, Bleuse, Mouton, Bouzignac, Moulinié, Clérambault, Charpentier, Roger-Ducasse, plus traditional noëls arr. Opstad La Maîtrise de Toulouse/Mark Opstad; Géraldine Bruley (viola da gamba), William Whitehead (organ) Regent REGCD470 77:08 mins La Maîtrise de Toulouse is the mixed-voice children’s choir of the Toulouse Conservatoire, and has recently added tenor and bass sections. The results are highly impressive in this delectable programme of French Christmas music. In an opening sequence of motets from the medieval period, those of Bouzignac stand out particularly, gem-like miniatures featuring translucent solo work from various sopranos. In the modern section, Poulenc’s Quatre Motets gain extra vibrancy from having young voices sing them, as does a group of traditional noëls. An utter pleasure. PERFORMANCE RECORDING VOM HIMMEL HOCH… Christmas carols Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Rita Streich,…

DUTILLEUX Symphony No. 1; Deux sonnets de Jean Cassou; Métaboles Paul Armin Edelmann (baritone); Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz/Karl-Heinz Steffens Capriccio C 5242 54:34 mins While the poet Jean Cassou was imprisoned in Toulouse for Resistance activities, he wrote 33 sonnets, published clandestinely in 1944. Henri Dutilleux, whose brother Paul spent five years in Stalag VIIIC, was attracted to the poems by their ‘contained lyricism, depth and rather abstract qualities’, and set two of them in 1954. The baritone Paul Armin Edelmann here delivers powerful and mostly accurate performances, holding his own in the first of these against some vivid brass writing. Elsewhere, though, the music suffers from rather weak (or weakly recorded) violin lines that are regularly obscured by both brass and woodwind. This partly contributes to a more general lack…

A Very English Christmas TENEBRAE NIGEL SHORT BBC Music Magazine Award winning choir Tenebrae present a sumptuous album of Carols, Hymns and other celebratory works for Christmas. Revel in the yuletide spirit with this wonderful collection of repertoire that provides a musical breath of fresh air this Christmas, heralding the extraordinary talents of some of the most dedicated and less well-known individuals from English choral music alongside traditional carols and heartwarming festive favourites. “This choir seems to have everything, our jury said – deep musical insight, technical finesse and an utterly mesmerising balance and poise. Beautiful singing.” Oliver Condy & James Naughtie, BBC Music Magazine Awards 2012 CONCERT & PRE-CONCERT TALK 11 DECEMBER 2015 - KING’S PLACE, LONDON SIGCD445 Time and its Passing Where except in the present can the…

VIVALDI CSÉKI • The Four Seasons • Alpha; Omega Roby Lakatos (violin); Brussels Chamber Orchestra Avanti 10422 (hybrid CD/SACD) 69:19 mins VIVALDI The Four Seasons Nigel Kennedy (violin); Orchestra of Life Sony 88875076722 61:09 mins VIVALDI The Four Seasons OLIVER DAVIS Anno; Anno Epilogue Grace Davidson (soprano), Kerenza Peacock (violin), Emma Heathcote (viola), Susie Winkworth (cello); Trafalgar Sinfonia/Ivor Setterfield Signum SIGCD 437 62:16 mins VIVALDI TARTINI JM LECLAIR • • Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Tartini: Devil’s Trill Sonata; JM Leclair: Tambourin James Ehnes (violin); Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Andrew Armstrong (piano) Onyx ONYX 4134 71:01 mins With over 250 recordings currently listed across all formats, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is the concerto gift that keeps on giving. But in a crowded market place, how to stand out from the crowd? Nigel Kennedy found…

Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) Born in Cologne to a Jewish family, the son of the local synagogue’s cantor, Offenbach studied at the Paris Conservatoire. He began his career as a cellist before composing his first one-act operetta, l’Alcôve, in 1847. The success of his first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld), composed in 1858, persuaded him to devote himself entirely to composition. Orphée’s librettist was the politically savvy Ludovic Halévy, with whom Offenbach collaborated again on La belle Hélène, a satire on the court of Napoleon III composed in 1864.…

JS BACH GABRIELI • Bach: Magnificat; Cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63; Organ preludes; Gabrieli: Hodie Christus natus est Dunedin Consort/John Butt Linn CKD 469 (hybrid CD/SACD) 78:07 mins Having already recorded Bach’s St John Passion in the revelatory context of a Lutheran Good Friday Vespers service, John Butt and his Dunedin Consort now turn their reconstructive gaze on Bach’s first Christmas in Leipzig, in 1723. He offers a similarly absorbing liturgical framework for the musical stars of the Christmas Day Vespers: Cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63 and the elaborate Magnificat in its E flat incarnation complete with the four seasonal interpolations favoured in Leipzig. Organ preludes, congregational hymn singing, collects and blessing all work their enriching spell, but the experience isn’t quite as immersive as it…

SCRIABIN • JANÁCEK Scriabin: Piano Sonatas Nos 4 & 5; Deux poèmes, Op. 32; Vers la flamme, Op. 72; Janácek: On an overgrown path; Piano Sonata Stephen Hough (piano) Hyperion CDA 67895 72:39 mins It would be difficult to find two more dissimilar contemporaries than these two composers. Strongly influenced by Chopin, Liszt and Wagner, Scriabin exploits an unbridled level of sensuality and pushes conventional tonality to its very limits. Janácek is no less impassioned, yet confronts images of foreboding and tragedy in an assertive idiosyncratic language strongly tinged with folk music. Stephen Hough’s juxtaposition of works by both figures in this recital proves to be inspired, not only emphasising the individual strengths of each master, but also reminding us that some of most remarkable music for piano dates from…

JOHN SCOFIELD Past Present John Scofield (guitar), Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone), Larry Grenadier (double bass), Bill Stewart (drums) Impulse 474 8510 52 mins Possibly titled Past Present because ‘Sco’ (John Scofield) called up his old Blue Note label mates, tenorist Joe Lovano and drummer Bill Stewart for this date, the material here reveals a reflective side to one of jazz music’s great guitarists. An influential sideman to later era Miles Davis, Scofield’s blues-based playing usually emphasises the groove. Here, in studied unison with Lovano’s restrained but muscular playing, his famous Gibson guitar is put to a little more subtle use. The fat, glowing sound is still in place – Jim Hall meets BB King – and judicious squeezes on the distorting Chorus pedal are familiar, but Scofield goes deeper and…

THE OTHER CLASSICAL MUSICS Ed. Michael Church Boydell Press ISBN 9781843837268 426pp(hb) As we learn in the preface to this fascinating study of ‘classical’ musical traditions from around the globe, the practice of cross-cultural musical analysis has ancient and esteemed roots. From medieval Arab musical theorists to 17th-century Moldavian polymaths, musicologists across the world have long studied musics beyond their ‘indigenous’ traditions, with rich and fruitful results. Beautifully produced and laden with colour images, the book sees 15 acclaimed contemporary musical scholars (mostly ethnomusicologist professors) introduce a particular ‘classical’ tradition from around the world, with accessible essays on musical forms from Iran to South India, Java to West Africa. What constitutes the ‘classical’ is of course contentious and discussed with suitable nuance in Michael Church’s introduction, where the term is…

For weekly broadcast highlights visit www.classical-music.com 1 ST JOHN’S COLLEGE ADVENT SERVICE The St John’s College, Cambridge Advent Service is a perfect start to the Christmas season. This year Andrew Nethsingha’s choir performs works by Herbert Howells and Peter Warlock alongside a new commission, The Birth of Speech, by Tim Watts. Radio 3; Choral Evensong; 29 November; 3pm 2 HANDEL’S MESSIAH Handel’s 1741 oratorio Messiah is high on many people’s Christmas concert schedule. Countertenor Iestyn Davies is among the starry soloists appearing at Cardiff’s St David’s Hall with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Laurence Equilbey. Radio 3; Live in Concert; 8 December; 7.30pm 3 SPITALFIELDS WINTER FESTIVAL At Christ Church, Spitalfields, Harry Bicket and the English Concert are shedding light on 17th-century settings of the Nativity, including Charpentier’s…

LUCY CROWE IS ONE of the world’s most in-demand sopranos and she has appeared in numerous recordings. Born in Staffordshire, she trained at the Royal Academy of Music and made her debut as Sophie in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at Scottish Opera and her Royal Opera House debut as Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. In February she plays Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at English National Opera, and in June she performs music by the Bach family at the Barbican, with the Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Reinhard Goebel. My earliest memories of music are rather eclectic. My mum loved singing and she used to play a record of Handel’s Messiah all year round, so I grew up singing every chorus: Handel got into my blood, which has…

Brian Kay Choral conductor ‘David Willcocks appointed me a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge in 1962 and laid the foundation for my life as a musician. It is a pleasure to be able to pay tribute to such an inspirational musician.’ Page 34 Cheryl Frances-Hoad Composer ‘It’s been an absolute joy to write a new carol for the readers of BBC Music Magazine to sing. Good day, Sir Christemas! sets a 15th-century text and is intended to be sung everywhere, from places of worship to the local pub…’ Page 40 Daniel Jaffé Writer and author ‘Rimsky-Korsakov has been close to my heart since hearing Sheherazade , and it has been wonderful to explore the very personal…

THURINGIA TREASURE Oliver Condy’s Musical Destinations piece on Thuringia (December) rightly points out the pleasure of performing or listening to performances in places where Bach lived and worked. He missed out one real delight, however. In Naumburg, about half way between Erfurt and Leipzig, the Wenzelskirche contains a Hildebrandt organ (above) commissioned in 1743. JS Bach was consulted about the commission and is known to have played the completed organ; his son-in-law later became the organist for the Wenzelskirche. After a symposium on the future of the instrument in 1992, it was restored to recreate as far as possible the sound Bach would have known. Three years ago I heard Colin Andrews perform inter alia the Passacaglia in C minor BWV 582 on it – a magnificent instrument in a…

1998 Grange Park Opera is founded at The Grange estate in Northington, Hampshire with a 350-seat auditorium built into the orangery. 2002 A new theatre is designed within the orangery, increasing the audience capacity to 550. 2007 Alongside The Grange, the company begins to stage productions at Nevill Holt Hall in Leicestershire. 2015 Failure to reach agreement over the terms of its lease result in Grange Park Opera announcing that it is to leave The Grange.…

The Heath Quartet has recorded Tchaikovsky’s String Quartets Nos 1 & 3 at Milton Court in London. It will be their first disc for Harmonia Mundi, although not quite their CD debut: their live recording of Tippett Quartets from Wigmore Hall will be out shortly. For BIS, violinist Vadim Gluzman has recorded Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and James Gaffigan in Switzerland, and the First Violin Sonata with pianist Angela Yoffe. Melvyn Tan has been at Potton Hall, Suffolk to a record a recital on the theme of ‘Master & Pupil’. His programme, for Onyx Classics, brings together Beethoven’s Sonata No. 30, Op. 109 and Bagatelles, Op. 126 with Czerny’s Variations on a theme by Rode and Funeral March for Beethoven and Liszt’s B minor Sonata. Mezzo-soprano…

This Christmas, I’ll be scrambling over the slippery rooftops as usual. No reindeer in sight, don’t worry – it’s not a Santa delusion. But it never occurred to the rugged men who built the organ loft at Winchester College that it might be convenient to reach it from within the chapel. It’s quite a long walk in the pitch dark, down the cloisters, duck under an arch, find the staircase, hope not too much has crumbled away over the last 500 years, tiptoe cautiously over the leads, through two doors, and then try not to trip down the vertiginous steps that lead to journey’s end. I’ll be there to conduct the annual carol service of the Rose Road charity, a wonderful institution which looks after young people with a variety…

Karen McAulay, Glasgow I’m listening to John Butt and the Dunedin Consort’s recording of Handel’s oratorio Esther. In October, I gave a talk at Edinburgh Central Library on the Bicentenary of the First Edinburgh Musical Festival, and the overture to Esther was the very first piece opening that first festival. It’s beautifully performed here, but the overture is very much ‘understated grandeur’ – a solemn start to such an exciting and eagerly awaited event. Gary King, Philadelphia, US I’ve been listening to the Piano Sonata by Frank Bridge. This work differs markedly from his earlier, ‘pastoral’ music, and was not well received at its premiere. Ninety years later, the varied rhythms, chromatic writing and bitonality sound tame to my ears, but still communicate Bridge’s distress at the horrors of the…

CAVING My dad was a member of Bradford Pothole Club, and used to take me caving as a kid. My enthusiasm grew from there. There are very few things in life that completely absorb you while you are doing them, but caving is one, not least because there are high consequences if you get it wrong. What I like, too, is that the more I get my ropework skills and fitness up to scratch, the more I minimise the risks – like conducting, as long as you are prepared, the risks of it going wrong are vastly reduced. I go caving about once a week, as it only takes half a day. From where I live in Skipton, I can go caving in, say, the Ease Gill System or Gaping…

Michael Morpurgo is waiting to hear a song about his parents at their moment of crisis. The children’s writer and former Children’s Laureate, author of dozens of best-selling books and the creator of War Horse, which has had a triumphant world tour as a theatre production, has this year become part of one of the most innovative musical opportunities for young people in the country. He’s written the words, and he’s waiting for the music. ‘I have no idea what they’ll do with it, but it’s a wonderful opportunity and so brave. That, of course, is what Benjamin Britten was.’ Friday Afternoons was established in Britten’s centenary year, 2013, in Aldeburgh, its name taken from the composer’s cycle of 12 songs for children written in the early 1930s. On the…

Roy Goodman (violinist and conductor; King’s College treble, 1959-64) ‘Sir David was very much a paternal figure for me as a chorister. Occasionally he might rap on his wooden lectern in dissatisfaction or frustration – intonation, diction, ensemble and blend were really important. As a chorister we had no vocal training. Everything had to be picked up “on the fly” from the older boys. We had to respond constantly to his conducting style – quickly reacting to either a raised finger, or both eyebrows up, if we were singing just a little “flett”. We fostered an inner “red light”, admitting a mistake in rehearsal by raising a hand, so mistakes in performance were almost impossible. That training and discipline has been invaluable in my career.’ Sir Andrew Davis…

THE MAIN THING with this carol is to have fun! I imagine the beginning (and all of the ‘Good day’ passages) to be the singers welcoming not just Sir Christemas but each other to the choir, so the more ‘conversational’ the performance the better. If (in bars 38-41, for instance) you’d like to make some of the ‘Good day’s for soloists, this could be an option – and the one at the end of bar 39 in the bass could be sung as if Sir Christemas finally bids good day back to the choir. Throughout the carol you can make the most of the changes in time signature, particularly in bars 6 and 7 – emphasising the dotted crochet and crochet pulses will add a fabulous jauntiness. Do make the…

Jan Lisiecki Born into a Polish family in Calgary in March 1995, Jan Lisiecki began his career as a concert pianist early – by the age of nine, he had already made his debut with an orchestra. Since then, that career has moved apace and Lisiecki has gone on to perform with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, including the late Claudio Abbado and, at the BBC Proms in 2013, Sir Antonio Pappano. At 15, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and has recorded discs of Mozart and Chopin for the ‘Yellow Label’. Loyal to his roots, he still returns regularly to Calgary to perform.…

Orchestral colours Rimsky-Korsakov admired Glinka’s uncluttered yet effective orchestration, which had a beneficial influence on his own. Rather than blending instrumental colours to make a rich sound, Rimsky typically highlights the typical character of each instrument and its family, often making striking contrasts between woodwind and brass, for instance. Instrumentation Himself a great and inventive orchestrator, much of Rimsky’s individual sound derived from his willingness to gain first-hand knowledge of an instrument’s capability in terms of virtuosity and colour. Some of his ‘special effects’ were admired and widely imitated, such as the natural-harmonic string glissandos used in Christmas Eve , ‘borrowed’ by Ravel ( Rapsodie espagnole ) and Stravinsky ( The Firebird ). Fantastical subjects Gogol’s (below) often surreal tales inspired Rimsky-Korsakov to…

Recording of the Month Conductor Nigel Short and his Tenebrae choir head to the 19th century for a brilliantly thought-out and sublimely performed recording of motets by Brahms and Bruckner, p70 ’Tis the season to be jolly imaginative Spare a thought for our reviewer Terry Blain, whose Christmas listening began in September as he set about the task of compiling our seasonal round-up (p72). Actually don’t, as the range, quality and sheer imagination of this year’s crop of releases was enough to have him raising an early festive glass – for ‘task’, read ‘pleasure’. Two of the works profiled in our ‘forgotten gems’ feature on p20 receive fine new recordings, and there are superb choral discs from the likes of Stile Antico and the choirs of Trinity College, Cambridge…

Why did you decide to pair Bruckner and Brahms? Tenebrae is a virtuoso choir that tackles all areas of repertoire. This is a genre that we hadn’t explored in any great depth but I did want to cover it eventually. The impetus came from our sound engineer Andrew Mellor, who lost his father to cancer. And a few years ago we also lost Tenebrae’s co-founder Barbara Pollock to cancer. So we decided to do a disc whose proceeds would go to a cancer charity. I knew pretty much instantly what I wanted to record: the Brahms Fest- und Gedenksprüche, Op. 109. They aren’t well known in the UK but they are gorgeous pieces. This music suited us instantly. What did putting these two composers side by side reveal? Well, there…

DANCING DAY Works by Britten, Rutter, Martin, Hadley, Scott, Ledger and Mathias Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, Fifth Avenue, New York/John Scott Resonus RES10158 63:58 mins The choir of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York has been gradually building a reputation as a beacon of excellence in Anglican worship, and this is the second CD it has recorded with the Resonus company. Sadly it will be the last under John Scott, the inspirational director of music at Saint Thomas’s, who died unexpectedly in August. The heart of the programme is a limpid, vernally fresh account of Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, sung by boy trebles as the composer intended. The tinglingly evocative playing of harpist Sara Cutler impresses, and there is glowing solo work by choristers John…

BEETHOVEN Triple Concerto; The Creatures of Prometheus Overture; Egmont Overture; Coriolan Overture Giuliano Carmignola (violin), Sol Gabetta (cello), Dejan Lazic (piano); Kammerorchester Basel/ Giovanni Antonini Sony 88883763622 55:13 mins Masterwork or monsterpiece? Too often Beethoven’s Triple Concerto comes across as a fitfully inspired behemoth – the one point in his concerto-composing career where he seems to wobble titanically off course. It’s also a nightmare to record, so full praise to the Sony production team for finding such a convincing balance, not just between soloists and orchestra, but between the soloists themselves. It all sounds wonderfully fresh and clear. So too does the performance. The Triple Concerto’s eccentricities are joyously celebrated, which means that the masterstrokes also tell as they rarely do. The first movement in particular grips one’s attention and…

DAVID Herculanum Véronique Gens, Karine Deshayes, Nicolas Courjal; Flemish Radio Choir; Brussels Philharmonic/Hervé Niquet Ediciones Singulares ES 1020 121:64 mins (2 discs) The Paris Opéra was an exciting place to be on the night of 4 March 1859, as the stage filled with flashes of lightning, crumbling pillars and possibly even surges of simulated pyroclastic flow: Vesuvius was repeating its explosion of 79 AD as Félicien David’s four-act opera Herculanum reached its terrible climax. Berlioz found the orchestration a touch dull, with instruments generally operating in the middle of their registers, but that tells us a lot about Berlioz. I was glad to find David responding effectively to the various dramatic incidents before the final conflagration with a musical palette that owes nothing to the exotic style he had embraced…

GOUNOD Faust (highlights) Corelli, Ghiaurov, Sutherland, Massard; Ambrosian Opera Chorus; LSO/Bonynge Eloquence 482 2566 (1966) 59:53 mins An amazing cast that never quite gels. Corelli’s ringing top is present but there’s trouble below. Sutherland glitters and droops when she should tug at our hearts. PERFORMANCE RECORDING DONIZETTI • ROSSINI • VERDI Arias from Falstaff, The Barber of Seville, The Thieving Magpie, L’elisir d’amore and Don Pasquale Fernando Corena (bass); various orchestras/Erede, Downes Eloquence 482 0268 (1952-63) 76:43 mins The combination of Fernnado Corena, the buffo bass of choice 50 years ago, with Edward Downes for Falstaff makes this a must. Otherwise Corena is an almost sympathetic Dr Bartolo and a rollicking Dulcamara. PERFORMANCE RECORDING SULLIVAN The Gondoliers D’Oyly Carte Opera Company; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Royston Nash Eloquence 482 0660 (1977) 125:23 mins…

MAHLER Des Knaben Wunderhorn*; Rückert-Lieder Forrester, Rehfuss; Orchestra of the Vienna Festival/Prohaska*; RIASSinfonie Orchester, Berlin/Fricsay Praga Digitals PRD 250 313 (1956, 1963) 71:54 mins The distinguished Heinz Rehfuss shares Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the great contralto Maureen Forrester, an exceptional performer of this repertoire, who also contributes the Rückert-Lieder. PERFORMANCE RECORDING WOLF Mörike Lieder Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Sviatoslav Richter (piano) PentaTone PTC 5186 219 (1973) (hybrid CD/SACD) 53:35 mins Recorded live in Innsbruck, this Wolf recital focuses on the 1888 settings of Mörike and captures the rewarding collaboration between Fischer-Dieskau and Sviatoslav Richter at its best. PERFORMANCE RECORDING BUTTERWORTH • ELGAR •  SOMERVELL A Shropshire Lad • Twilight • Maud John Carol Case (baritone), Daphne Ibbott (piano) Heritage HTGCD 297 (1968-1974) 68:58 mins A masterly interpreter of English song, John…

DEBUSSY Violin Sonata; Sonata for flute, viola and harp; Cello Sonata; Syrinx Boston Symphony Chamber Players PentaTone PTC 5186 226 (1970) (hybrid CD/SACD) 46:11 mins Part of a series aimed at restoring original quadraphonic recordings in modern surround sound, Debussy’s haunting neo-classical inspiration sounds utterly ravishing in these pristine transfers. PERFORMANCE RECORDING KREISLER Music for violin and piano Shlomo Mintz (violin), Clifford Benson (piano) PentaTone PTC 5186 228 (1980) (hybrid CD/SACD) 53:54 mins Arguably the finest Kreisler collection ever recorded, Mintz’s scintillating technique, golden tone and seductive cantabile phrasing makes each miniature gem sound utterly cherishable. PERFORMANCE RECORDING MOZART Church Sonatas Spivakov, Sheinyuk (violin), Turovsky (cello), Dizhur (organ) Melodiya MEL CD 10 02265 (1974) 66:05 mins Beguilingly expressive, opulently engineered mid-1970s performances that spill over with energy and charm, gloriously…

Johannes Brahms (1833-97) Brahms began his career as a pianist. The vast majority of his works were written for or involve that instrument, and virtually all his piano music, including both his piano concertos, was composed to perform himself. Brahms was often at his most inventive when writing for the piano. When he was introduced, aged 20, to Robert Schumann, he had already composed three piano sonatas; these prompted Schumann to hail Brahms as Beethoven’s successor, describing his talent as ‘like Minerva sprung full-armed from the head of Zeus’.…

O SING UNTO THE LORD: A History of English Church Music Andrew Gant Profile Books ISBN 9781781252475 454pp (hb) Ideas about national identity have flourished in the wake of Scotland’s independence referendum. Andrew Gant’s rich history of English church music joins the debate with what he calls the ‘biography of a tradition’. O Sing unto the Lord is ‘a book about people and a story of England’. At times his choice of people stretches the essential definition of ‘English’ to breaking point: James MacMillan and Eric Whitacre, a Catholic Scot and an incorrigibly upbeat American, make the cut, while Judith Bingham, one of England’s finest living composers of sacred music, is overlooked. The book’s appeal, however, lies in its enormous company of native Englishmen, many of them mustered here…

The Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus (‘Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus’) is a two-hour suite of pieces for solo piano composed by the French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) specially for his wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod. It is now considered to be one of the most outstanding piano works of the 20th century. The work was written during the 1944 German occupation of France when Messiaen’s home, in Paris, was surrounded by intense fighting. It initially came about after the composer was approached to write music to accompany the poetry of Maurice Toesca on the radio but the project took on a life of its own. A number of symbolic musical motives appear through the work, creating a level of cyclicism. The most important is the Thème de Dieu (Theme…

Maria Callas Pure Warner Classics 2564633994 Purcell Dido & Aeneas Lynne Dawson, Rosemary Joshua etc; Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment/ René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMC901683 Schubert Lieder Ian Bostridge (tenor), Julius Drake (piano) EMI 556 3472 Mahler Symphony No. 2 Sinfonie Chor Dresden & Staatskappelle Dresden/ Bernard Haitink Profil Hanssler PH07040 R Strauss Der Rosenkavalier Felicity Lott, Anne Sofie von Otter etc; Vienna Staatsoper/ Carlos Kleiber DG 073 0089 (DVD)…

Bargain Hunt, Cash in the Attic… Daytime telly in the UK seems to be full of advice on snapping up a bargain at your local household auction or antique fair. Which got us thinking: now that Christmas is almost here and our finances are understandable under considerable strain, is it possible to buy a second-hand musical instrument for next to nothing? After all, it’s possible these days to pick up a fairly decent piano free of charge, provided you’re prepared to take it away yourself. At the Taunton Antique Fair, I was offered a square piano that had been converted into clavichord, although the stallholder did say that it was more valuable as a sideboard than as a musical instrument. Of course, there’s a very good reason why the finest…

Chart for week ending 22 October 2015 1 Nessun Dorma – The Puccini Album Jonas Kaufmann (tenor); Orchestre e coro di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano Sony Classical 88875092492 Spectacular Puccini from today’s superstar tenor 2 Cantate Domino – La Cappella Sistina Sistine Chapel Choir/Palombella DG 479 5300 Italian masterpieces from the choir of the Sistine Chapel, the world’s oldest choral ensemble 3 JS Bach Magnificat; Christmas Cantata BWV 63 Dunedin Consort/John Butt Linn CKD 469 Our choral choice this month – a scintillating rendition of Bach’s sparkling Magnificat 4 Verdi Aida Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann; Orchestra e coro di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano Warner Classics 825646106639 Starry forces unite for a brilliant performance 5 Still with the music Karl Jenkins Warner Classics 825646100538 The greatest hits…

The British Library has acquired the D’Oyly Carte Theatre Company archive, making 107 years of Gilbert and Sullivan history available to the public. Consisting of comprehensive records and artefacts dating right back to the company’s founding by Richard D’Oyly Carte, one of the archive’s highlights is Arthur Sullivan’s personal score of the opera Iolanthe. It’s accompanied by a wealth of recordings, cigarette cards, photographs, financial records and contracts, press cuttings, librettos and orchestral parts. D’Oyly Carte commissioned his first Gilbert and Sullivan production, Trial by Jury, in 1875 and continued to enjoy a successful partnership with the pair until a financial quarrel ended their alliance in 1890. The D’Oyly Carte Theatre Company continued to produce G&S operettas, both in the UK and further afield, until finally closing in 1982.…

THOMAS NEWMAN film composer The first moment that I was drawn into classical music as a kid – at about ten or 11 years old – was when I heard Dvorák’s ‘New World’ Symphony No. 9, in a recording conducted by Antal Doráti (above). It was the drama of the piece that took my ears in a way they’d never been taken before, and I found myself listening to it, and in particular its motifs, over and over and again. I still appreciate it to this day. I think I like Charles Ives, a big hero of mine, for a number of reasons. The silliest is that I share a birthday with him! But more seriously, I like his pioneering spirit and his sensibilities, and I always find that…

REIGN IN SPAIN Andrew Gourlay has been appointed musical director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León. The young Brit, who has been the orchestra’s principal guest conductor since last year, will take up the post at the Auditorio Miguel Delibes in Valladolid in January 2016. He succeeds Lionel Bringuier, who himself has taken over from David Zinman as chief conductor of the Tonhalle Zurich. PRIZED PERFORMER Happy times, too, for Augustin Hadelich, who has won the inaugural Warner Music Prize. The German violinist was selected from a pool of 16 artists, all of whom performed at the Carnegie Hall during the 2014-2015 season, to be awarded the $100,000 prize. ENLIGHTENED BUTT Another musicians raising a celebratory glass this Christmas is John Butt, who has been named as a…

All bizarre things must come to an end, and it seems that show business has just lost one of its weirder double-acts. Never again will performances at The Grange in Hampshire commence with a warm-up comic turn from Wasfi Kani, the feisty East End-raised Indian who runs the opera company there, and Lord Ashburton, the former BP chairman who owns this grandly dilapidated pile. After 17 years of unlikely artistic bliss, the two have fallen out. Ashburton, or rather his son Mark Baring who now manages the place (yes, the family are part of the Barings banking dynasty), has had the temerity to demand rent from Kani’s opera company. Kani is the world champion at squeezing rich business moguls for donations, but being asked to pay money to them instead…

Early years:Born on 5 October 1943, he attended schools in London, Sussex and Canterbury, before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as a cadet. Starting Out: He studied English and French at London University, then became a primary school teacher in Kent. Development: He has now written over 100 books for children of all ages. In 2007 his novel War Horse was adapted for stage by the National Theatre, and in 2011 it was made into a feature film, directed by Stephen Spielberg. Awards: He became Children’s Laureate in 2003 and in 2006 was promoted to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to literature.…

Buying an instrument is, after lessons, usually a musician’s biggest outlay. A good trumpet can start at around £500, oboes can set you back thousands and you can easily spend as much on a house as a violin (bow not included). Of course, many young beginners borrow instruments from school while others take out loans. But, we wondered, with Christmas fast approaching and our wallets slightly thinner at this time of year, is there a cheaper way to own, say, a clarinet? Is it possible to snap up a viola for next to nothing? To find out, we set about trawling charity shops, antiques fairs, junk shops and the internet in our hunt for fine specimens at rock-bottom prices. And they had to be rock-bottom because we armed each member…

Honens Festival Though the next Honens competition isn’t until 2018, a four-day festival takes place at the Jack Singer Concert Hall from 8-11 September 2016. Full details have yet to be announced. honens.com Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra The Jack Singer Concert Hall is also home to Calgary’s professional orchestra. Soloists joining them this season include 2012 Honens winner Pavel Kolesnikov, violinist Augustin Hadelich (pictured) and singer Rufus Wainwright. calgaryphil.com Kensington Sinfonia Calgary’s leading chamber orchestra plays at the city’s Hope Lutheran Church. Its next concert, on 21 February, features works by Piazzolla, Vivaldi and Mendelssohn. kensingtonsinfonia.ca Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall Situated at the University of Calgary’s Rozsa Centre, the 384-seat Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall stages regular chamber music events. Artists appearing in early 2016 include violinist Stephanie Chase, jazz…

THE LIFE 1844 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is born in TIKHVIN , 120 miles east of St Petersburg, to a landless aristocratic family. 1850 Aged five, he begins piano lessons, though he later admits he was ‘indifferent’ to music, preferring to read novels. 1861 His piano teacher FEDOR KANILLE introduces him to Balakirev. He becomes part of a circle of musicians around Balakirev called ‘The Five’ that includes Cui, Musorgsky and Borodin. 1871 He becomes a professor at ST PETERSBURG CONSERVATORY despite a lack of formal music training. His embracing of the German music tradition is seen by fellow Russian nationalists as a betrayal. 1882 He is acquainted with wealthy music patron Mitrofan Belyayev, who becomes his benefactor. Belyayev supports many other Russian composers, who all write in a similarly nationalistic manner.…

SINFONIA ANTARTICA’S WIDE range of ideas and musical devices makes it a tricky work to bring off with complete success. The opening Prelude and the tragic Epilogue call for interpretation in the grand manner, while also drawing convincingly together a sequence of loosely connected musical ideas. Then there are the three central movements – a Scherzo depicting whales and penguins, a central Landscape, and an Intermezzo (where Scott writes a letter to his wife) – requiring wry humour, a Sibelius-like command of big-scale nature-depiction, and gentle romantic wistfulness. Made in 1970, the second of Adrian Boult’s (right) two Sinfonia Antartica studio recordings has his trademark directness of purpose and tight-reined pacing. It’s also the only one, in modern or modern-ish recorded sound, that excels in all five of the work’s…

George Hall writer, editor, translator George studied at the Royal College of Music and now writes widely on classical music and opera, especially for The Guardian , The Stage and Opera magazine. He has also contributed to various opera guides, the New Oxford Companion to Music , and most recently 30-Second 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 Michael Church writer, critic The Independent Christopher Cook broadcaster, critic Martin Cotton radio producer Christopher Dingle Professor of…

DECEMBER CELEBRATION Carols by Adamo, Bolcom, Corigliano, Garner, Gruber, Heggie, Woolf et al Volti Chorus; Musicians of the New Century Chamber Orchestra/ Dawn Harms Pentatone PTC 5186 537 57:06 mins Jake Heggie, Gordon Getty and John Corigliano all feature in this anthology of new American carols, but the programme is variable in quality, as is the solo singing. Pleasant if undistinctive. PERFORMANCE RECORDING LET THE ANGELS SING European Christmas carols and songs arr. for recorder & choir Michala Petri (recorder); Danish National Vocal Ensemble/ Michael Bojesen OUR Recordings 6.220615 52:20 mins If you like your carols drizzled with recorder embellishments, look no further. The soloist is the outstanding Michala Petri, though even she can’t stop the novelty wearing thin. PERFORMANCE RECORDING CHRISTMAS MUSIC THROUGH THE AGES 50 pieces from 6th…

BIBER Fanfara; Plaudite tympana; Battalia; Sonata Sancti Polycarpi; Missa Salisburgensis Hespèrion XXI, Le Concert des Nations, La Capella Reial de Catalunya/ Jordi Savall Alia Vox AVSA 9912 (hybrid CD/SACD) 71:40 mins This is Biber in gargantuan mode. A fanfare by Bartholomäus Riedl for merely ten trumpets and timpani introduces the motet Plaudite tympana for 54 performers: two eight-voice choirs, ensembles of strings, woodwind, cornets and trombones, strings, trumpets and timpani (two groups) and continuo. The structure and harmony is shaped by the limited notes available on natural trumpets and timpani, but when their repetitive dialogues are silent, glorious vocal and instrumental colours and counterpoints appear. Similar brass limitations arise in the Sonata Sancti Polycarpi, but this is off-set by the dialogues across the huge spaces of the 11th-century chapel of…

DVORÁK • SCHULHOFF • SUK Dvorák:String Quartet No. 13 in G; Schulhoff: Five Pieces; Suk: Meditation on the Old Czech Chorale Saint Wenceslas Signum Quartet Capriccio C 5257 47:78 mins In this inspired programme we arrive at Dvorák’s final quartet through the prism of Schulhoff’s playful anatomisation of dance Alla Czeca and Suk’s profound, patriotic cri de coeur. And the raw, fresh immediacy of the Signum Quartet’s delivery transforms what could be interesting in theory into something singularly illuminating. The links are fascinating: while Dvorák and Suk were famously close, Dvorák’s admiration for Schulhoff as a piano prodigy is less widely known. Suk declared himself a man ‘to whom all -isms have been alien’, while for Schulhoff music ‘is never philosophy’. The latter’s witty essays in dance include a guttural ‘Waltz’…

JS BACH Preludes and Fugues Rinaldo Alessandrini (harpsichord) Naïve OP 30564 70:33 mins Not for Rinaldo Alessandrini another version of the ‘48’ to swell a much-recorded corner of the repertoire. Having established his Bachian credentials with a refreshing rethink of the Brandenburg Concertos in 2005, his first solo disc in five years fashions a bespoke collection of preludes and fugues spliced with keen intelligence from sundry movements. Some are instructive teaching aids, others dry runs for a later more elaborate conception, some, indeed, whose attribution is less than solid. A ‘divertissement’ is how Alessandrini describes the result, though this is to undersell a project that proves thought-provoking in its couplings and in the questions it asks about the relationships between preludes and fugues. It’s also illuminating in the way didactic…

RAMEAU Premier livre de pièces de clavecin; Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin; La Dauphine Blandine Rannou (harpsichord) Alpha 309 (2001) 137:34 mins (2 discs) Despite an egg-bound ‘Poulet’ and a laid-back Allemande French harpsichordist Blandine Rannou’s debut solo discs (recorded in Rameau’s home town) are full of ear-tugging felicities. PERFORMANCE RECORDING JS BACH Partitas Nos 1-6, BWV 825-30 Huguette Dreyfus (harpsichord) Heritage HTGCD 292-3 (1983) 140:61 mins (2 discs) There’s a ‘sleeves rolled up’ directness to Huguette Dreyfus’s playing that can prove a little unyielding – a quality mirrored in the timbre of the William Dowd harpsichord – but her integrity remains sovereign. PERFORMANCE RECORDING JS BACH Cello Suites Nos 1-6 Bruno Cocset (cello) Alpha 301 (2001) 128:20 mins (2 discs) Bruno Cocset deploys no fewer than four cellos…

Geoffrey Smith , presenter of Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz, on a legendary jazz film that inspired a generation In December, 1957 – I well remember – Christmas came early for American jazz lovers. On a grey Sunday afternoon, at the unpromising hour of 5pm, CBS television devoted its documentary strand The Seven Lively Arts to an amazing celebration of one of the liveliest arts of all. Called The Sound of Jazz, the 60-minute tribute assembled 32 stars to play tunes mostly based on the blues in a spectrum of styles from Dixieland to swing to modern. What was most remarkable and gratifying was the complete absence of gimmicks or pomposity. The live setting was as natural as the music – a studio in which legends like pianist Count Basie, saxist Coleman…

HIGH-RESOLUTION MUSIC PLAYER Astell & Kern AK JR £399 High-resolution audio has been bubbling up over the past couple of years and, if you’re thinking of taking the plunge, it makes sense to invest in a player that can actually process the files to make sure you’re getting the highest of high-resolution audio. Paired with a set of studio-quality headphones, Astell & Kern’s AK Junior (top, left) is a solid investment. A fraction of the cost of A&K’s top-of-the-range players, it copes admirably with hi-res audio, looks the part and will make your smartphone sound like a fly in a tin can. www.astellnkern.com HIGH-END TURNTABLE VPI Nomad £999 VPI’s Nomad is a US-made, high-end turntable that’s equally at home plugged into a powerful home system as it is kicking back…