Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i BBC Music Magazine

ON AIR Sheku returns Nearly a year after winning the BBC Young Musician competition at the Barbican, Sheku Kanneh-Mason is returning to the London venue to perform the work that secured his victory. Tune in to Radio 3’s In Concert on 24 April to hear the 17-year- old cellist in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with the National Youth Orchestra under Carlos Miguel Prieto. See p138 ON DISC English Passion Just in time for Easter arrives the first recording for over 45 years of Bach’s St John Passion in English. David Temple directs the Crouch End Festival Chorus and Bach Camerata in this Baroque masterpiece, with the soloists including tenor Robert Murray and soprano Sophie Bevan. The disc will be released on 31 March on Chandos Records. See review next…

MECHANICAL MUSIC I couldn’t let Richard Morrison’s (March) dig at Ravel’s Boléro – as ‘his most famous (though possibly worst) composition’– pass, particularly when Morrison fails to grasp the main point of his own article: that preserving a composer’s home can provide us with such insight into their music. Ravel’s home, with its clockwork toys, illustrates his fascination with mechanisation and how it could be a thing of beauty. Boléro, conceived as a ballet where a woman dances with increasing passion in front of a factory production line, is the apotheosis of this aesthetic, marrying sensual melody with mechanical motion. The constant tempo, repetitive beat and lack of harmonic change were ahead of their time – it would take 50 years and the invention of sequencers before artists such as…

Lang Lang returns Lang Lang started out his recording career with Deutsche Grammophon (DG) in 2003, before jumping ship to work with Sony Classical in 2010. But now he’s gone back. The world-famous pianist has signed to Universal Music Group (UMG) for the forseeable future, with plans to record JS Bach’s The Goldberg Variations for DG, after an album of popular piano classics called The Piano Book for UMG. During his seven-year stint with Sony, Lang Lang made a good number of recordings, including Bartók and Prokofiev piano concertos with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, and Mozart piano concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic and the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Dove from above When treble Ernest Lough recorded ‘O, for the Wings of a Dove’ from Mendelssohn’s anthem Hear My Prayer…

Suzi Digby and ORA have recorded their third volume of choral works together, for their ‘Renaissance Gems and their Reflections’ series. Victoria is the focus of this latest album, with new commissions featuring alongside the Spanish master’s music. The Harmonia Mundi disc was recorded at St Augustine’s Kilburn. Stile Antico has also been recording Victoria, turning to the Tenebrae Responsories of 1585, written for performance as part of the Holy Week liturgy. The conductorless early-music vocal group made the recording, which also includes Spanish plainchant, in All Hallows Gospel Oak, for Harmonia Mundi. Nicholas Ludford’s Missa Dominica is rarely heard, but Trinity Boys Choir joins vocal group Quartonal to record a historically-informed performance of it for Rondeau Productions in Munich. It’s written for the unusual forces of two treble lines…

Informusic £0.99 Built by two musicology masters students in the US, the Informusic app aims to give students and fans of classical music a portable guide to the major composers and their music. Users are able to browse timelines of the featured composers’ lives, read biographies and listen to recordings of ‘key works’. The biographies are interestingly written and detailed – though occasionally the creators’ background is betrayed by their overuse of academic terms – and updates are planned to add to the list of composers currently featured. The quality of the featured tracks varies, and listening to them requires you to have a constant internet connection, but the ability to read along with a score in-app will interest some users. The timelines, meanwhile, frame the composers’ lives with events…

There’s a sort of piano student who thinks there’s One Way to Play a Piece, if only he could find it All through the 1990s, I headed up a programme of singing masterclasses at Illinois’s Ravinia Festival, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (and the oldest outdoor music festival in America). It was a fascinating job, working with singers like Peter Schreier, Ernst Haefliger, Reri Grist, Christa Ludwig, Sir Thomas Allen and many more. One of the most memorable was soprano Victoria de los Angeles, whose most potent weapon was her smile. She would sit smiling seraphically at the students as they sang, and they would nearly always respond with the best performance of their lives. One day, however, that smile became more and more fixed, more strained,…

Dashon Burton New York, US I’ve been listening to lots of Dowland lately, as it makes the perfect accompaniment to travelling through the mountains of the western US. A particular favourite is lutenist Jakob Lindberg and tenor Rogers Covey-Crump’s recording of Dowland’s Wilt thou unkind thus reave me. I just love the lute lines and Jakob Lindberg is, as always, unflinchingly accurate. He balances it just right with Covey-Crump’s gorgeous sense of the text. Stephen Shea London I chanced upon a CD of songs by Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960) on the Marco Polo label and was instantly hooked. He is absolutely in the same league as Finzi and Vaughan Williams, but totally distinctive – a true master at work. His Walter de la Mare settings are especially magical, and a…

DEEP-SEA FISHING I’ve recently just got back from a deep-sea fishing trip. It was very cold and windy, but my boat caught an 80-pound tuna! That’s an absolute monster! So, of course, we had tuna for dinner. We go right up to the top of New Zealand, as far north as you can go. I have a team – my nephew and some friends, along with the boat-boy and captain – and there’s about five or six of us on board the boat. It’s all completely weather-dependent. The last few days have been magnificent, but the days before that weren’t good at all. I get seasick, so when it gets rough they have to put me back on land – I’m a bit of a deadweight. It’s very exciting seeing…

Ronald Brautigam’s career with the fortepiano, which has shaped his musical life, came about by chance. In Amsterdam in the late 1980s, he found that he was living only two streets away from the American piano-builder Paul McNulty who had begun, after a short period with Steinway in New York, to explore the world of the early piano. Brautigam’s visit to McNulty’s workshop proved decisive. ‘It was a happy accident, no more. I played an instrument, and I knew I wanted to have it. I ordered one.’ Mozart’s Sonata in F major, K332 proved enough. ‘I heard it quite differently, and everything seemed so natural.’ Brautigam had studied with pianist Rudolf Serkin in the early ’80s, and when I ask whether he’d discussed the fortepiano with that legendary player, he…

THE REFORMATION WAS a religious, political and cultural upheaval that split Catholic Europe in the 16th century. It began in the German town of Wittenberg in October 1517 with the publication of Martin Luther’s ‘95 Theses’ protesting at the Pope’s sale of ‘indulgences’ (offering time off from penance), followed later by Luther’s wholesale rejection of the power of the papacy. Christians should, he said, be free to follow their faith through the teachings of the Gospel. This led to new forms of worship and a growing Lutheran church galvanised by Luther’s writings, widely circulated through the new power of the printing press. By the second half of the 16th century, Lutheranism had become the state religion throughout much of Germany. The key ideas of the Reformation – a call to…

IGNACE PLEYEL handed over the reins to his son Camille who, as a pianist, had studied with Dussek and Steibelt, and was on friendly terms with Cramer, Chopin and Kalkbrenner. His relations with Berlioz, though, were not quite as amicable. After winning the prestigious Prix de Rome at the fourth attempt, Berlioz set off for Italy having become engaged to the gifted young pianist Marie Moke. When rumours reached him only a few months later that Marie had taken a lover in the form of Camille Pleyel, the composer was incandescent with rage and left Rome for Paris disguised as a lady’s maid intent on killing both Marie, her amour and then himself. He had reached Genoa when he managed to mislay his disguise. The delay in finding a replacement…

THERE’S BEEN a Christmas festival dispensing seasonal cheer at St John’s Smith Square for just over 30 years, but only now does it acquire an Easter sibling – a week-long celebration of the musical riches, ancient and modern, associated with Passiontide. Nigel Short and his vocal ensemble Tenebrae spearhead the newcomer which includes late-night liturgical performances by candlelight of Victoria’s Tenebrae Responsories following concerts that trace the trajectory of Holy Week, from the BBC Singers’ Palm Sunday Festival opener to Siglo de Oro’s Easter Saturday account of Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater. Intimate meditations include The Gesualdo Six who give the London premiere of Owain Park’s Sequence: In Parenthesis flanked by Tallis and Gesualdo; vocal consort Alamire’s Tallis odyssey which pursues a composer adjusting to the requirements of no fewer than four…

A VISIT TO THE arts-rich Berkshires region of east-coast state of Massachusetts may, for many, feel particularly satisfying in these uncertain times. With the region’s first-rate mix of museums, theatre festivals and historic homes, it’s icing on the cake to have terrific dining and outdoorsy pursuits on your doorstep. It’s no wonder then, that when Andris Nelsons quit the Bayreuth Festival last summer, he quickly stepped up his commitment to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). Nelsons will conduct nearly twice as many Tanglewood concerts as last year – ten in all, including the BSO’s first concert performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Among his other programmes are Mahler’s Second and Fourth Symphonies, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, with Daniil Trifonov as the soloist, a John Williams…

Aspen’s president and CEO, Alan Fletcher is also a respected composer. After studying at the Juilliard School with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt, he took up prestigious teaching positions in Boston and Pittsburgh. His music, which bears the stylistic hallmarks of Bernstein and Copland, includes An American Song for wind ensemble, which won a national competition in 2000 to celebrate the bicentenary of the US Military Academy at West Point. He has written over 70 works, including a Clarinet Concerto (2008) and Bassoon Concerto (2011) for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.…

Melody Donizetti was a gifted melodist, whose operas abound in lyrical highlights, whether in terms of solo arias, duets, trios or other ensembles; but his vocal lines are not merely melodious: they express clearly the meaning of individual words while also underlining the character’s overall dramatic situation. Harmony Donizetti’s is an art that conceals art. Much of his harmony is perfectly straightforward, which means that even quite small deviations from its regular semantic procedures register more strongly than they otherwise would, individual vocal inflections projecting sharply from a background of apparent consistency and stability. Orchestration Invariably neat, Donizetti’s orchestration supports his vocal lines without masking or overwhelming them. However rich they might become in mature works – especially when a dramatic crisis articulated in a complex ensemble is underway –…

IT’S A MATTER OF TASTE whether you prefer to experience Mendelssohn’s masterpiece in the original German or in its English translation, since both versions were deemed authentic by the composer. This recent performance, recorded live in the Berlin Konzerthaus in July 2015, proves to be especially riveting, surpassing highly rated versions sung in German conducted by Frieder Bernius and Thomas Hengelbrock . The 40-strong RIAS Kammerchor is superb throughout, projecting the text not only with phenomenal clarity and sensitivity, but also employing a wide range of dynamics and colouring so as to create the illusion that a far greater body of singers is involved. Equally, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is expert in bringing out the subtleties of Mendelssohn’s orchestration and deliver arguably the finest period instrument playing on…

‘The aim of all good music is to affect the soul,’ wrote Claudio Monteverdi. As John Eliot Gardiner discusses in an illuminating interview, p22, the Italian composer brought human emotion into music in an entirely new way. It’s the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s birth this year, and although the celebrations have yet to yield a flurry of recordings, next month we’ll be reviewing the final volume of Les Arts Florissants’s acclaimed Madrigals series. And this issue features a fascinating opera by one of his contemporaries, Francesca Caccini, the highest paid musician in the Grand Duchess of Tuscany’s court. Turn to p117 for more on La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola di Alcina.…

John Allison editor, Opera; critic, Sunday Telegraph John Allison was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and after his studies worked as assistant organist at Cape Town Cathedral. He is now editor of Opera magazine, and before joining the Sunday Telegraph spent 10 years on The Times . Nicholas Anderson Baroque specialist Terry Blain writer, critic Kate Bolton-Porciatti lecturer, The British Institute; L’Istituto Lorenzo de’Medici Garry Booth jazz writer & critic Geoff Brown critic, The Times Anthony Burton writer, editor Michael Church , critic, Independent and The i Christopher Cook broadcaster, critic Elinor Cooper journalist Martin Cotton radio & recording producer Christopher Dingle professor of…

Mendelssohn’s First Symphony is delivered with exemplary brio MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Overture & Incidental Music; Symphony No. 1* Ceri-lyn Cissone, Alexander Knox, Frankie Wakefield (actors); Monteverdi Choir; LSO/John Eliot Gardiner LSO Live LSO0795 (hybrid CD/SACD & *Blu-ray) 55:09 mins There’s an unadvertised bonus item on the Blu-ray disc, and not just a tiny makeweight either. A deliberate surprise? If so, I’m afraid my duty as a reviewer is to review it, so – spoiler alert! – before reaching Mendelssohn’s fairy realm, you will have the unadorned pleasure of a performance of his First Symphony, and one that includes both the original Minuet and Trio, and his orchestration of the Octet Scherzo with which he replaced these for London in 1829. That Scherzo was then encored – not…

BRAHMS DVD Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Rudolf Buchbinder (piano); Vienna Philharmonic/Zubin Mehta Sony CD: 88985371582; C Major DVD: 733508; Blu-ray: 733604 90:36 mins (2 discs) There’s always something heroic about Rudolf Buchbinder’s exploits. One thinks of his complete Haydn sonatas, his two Beethoven sonata cycles – one recorded in his twenties, the other in his fifties – and of his live recording of the Beethoven concerto cycle, directed from the keyboard and made in the space of a few pressured hours without a safety net. He never takes the easy route when an option exists to duck a score’s extreme technical demands, and his readings are unfailingly persuasive. And so it is with these readings of the Brahms…

Erkki-Sven Tüür (b1959) Erkki-Sven Tüür studied flute and percussion at the Tallinn Georg Ots Music High School, then composition at the Tallinn Conservatoire (1980-84). He formed and headed the Estonian progressive rock band, In Spe, from 1979 until 1983. Taking inspiration from a variety of sources including Mike Oldfield and Frank Zappa, the group achieved cult status before Tüür left to devote himself full-time to composition. He has written predominently for the orchestra, including among his compositions eight symphonies and nine instrumental concertos.…

Her Rachmaninov Vocalise , matchlessly phrased, is peerless AIDA GARIFULLINA Works by Delibes, Gounod, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Soloviev-Sedoy and Tchaikovsky Aida Garifullina (soprano); ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien/ Cornelius Meister Decca 478 8305 58:51 mins Is it fatuous to say she’s as fair of face as she is of voice? I hope not: those Tatar cheekbones, like Nureyev’s, are going to be a trademark as Aida Garifullina dazzles in roles like Rimsky-Korsakov’s other-worldly Snow Maiden. Her Natasha in the Mariinsky’s latest production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace was as moving as Yelena Prokina’s and more intense by far than Anna Netrebko’s. True, she has limits, and I hope she won’t push the voice into unsuitable repertoire like Netrebko has. But this very fine showcase launch shows where she’s peerless: as a…

BRAHMS • GLANERT Brahms-Glanert: Four Preludes and Serious Songs; Glanert: Weites Land (Distant Land); Brahms-Berio: Clarinet Sonata No. 1 Michael Nagy (baritone), Kari Kriikku (clarinet); Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Olari Elts Ondine ODE 1263-2 59:12 mins Fascinating things can happen when one creative mind homes in on another. Think of the Stravinsky-Pergolesi Pulcinella, or in our time the Elgar-Payne Symphony. Detlev Glanert’s version of Brahms’s Four Serious Songs is much more than an ‘arrangement’ for a suitably Brahmsian orchestra; Glanert has also added preludes and transitions, which morph from echt Brahms to modern and back again with Dr Who-like deftness. Somehow it manages to be teasing and stirring at the same time. In the process Glanert has bridged the abysm that divides the initial hearty assurance of the final song from the…

18TH-CENTURY SHAKESPEAREAN SONGS Works by Arne, Smith, Haydn, Greene, Weldon, Chilcot, Hook and Linley April Cantelo; English Chamber Orchestra/Raymond Leppard Eloquence 482 4765 (1961) 45:13 mins Niceties of style have changed, but this 1961 recording of songs by Arne, Greene, the Linleys and John Smith is vivacious and elegant, with a striking reading of Haydn’s She never told her love. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING **** DOWLAND Lachrimae Ruby Hughes (soprano), Reinoud van Mechelen (tenor), Paul Agnew (tenor), Alain Buet (bass), Thomas Dunford (lute) Alpha 326 (2012) 69:02 mins Crystalline sound, exquisite playing from lutenist Thomas Dunford, a hidden bonus track, and vividly wrought performances from a fine vocal consort. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING ***** FRITZ WUNDERLICH Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte; Haydn: Scottish and Welsh folk songs*; R Strauss: Lieder† Heinrich Schmidt…

BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas: No. 4 in E flat, Op. 7; No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 (Pathétique); No. 30 in E, Op. 109; No. 31 in A flat, Op. 110; No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 Paavali Jumppanen (piano) Ondine ODE 1298-2D 118:42 mins (2 discs) The more I hear of Paavali Jumppanen’s Beethoven sonata series, the more perplexed I become. I was impressed by the first disc I heard, with its muscularity and intensity. But I have grown increasingly suspicious of the kind of intensity Jumppanen purveys, and on one of these two discs I found it positively annoying. To make matters worse, it was the first of the discs, with two early sonatas, that irritated me more. Both are very familiar pieces, in the case of…

JOHN ABERCROMBIE QUARTET Up and Coming John Abercrombie (guitar), Marc Copland (piano), Drew Gress (double bass), Joey Baron (drums) ECM 572 3377 48 mins Guitarist John Abercrombie has been a mainstay of the ECM label catalogue for decades, with his distinctive approach, complex yet unfailingly euphonious, almost functioning as a signature for the label. That said, his abandonment of the plectrum in favour of plucking with the thumb, a technique used by some of the instrument’s finest exponents from Wes Montgomery to Jim Mullen, has had a subtle yet profound effect on both his sound and his articulation. The former has become the musical equivalent of a warm embrace while the latter, paradoxically, has taken on even more implosive energy. This quartet’s music is typical of the artful mellifluousness associated…

Callow stresses Wagner’s mercurial, theatrical nature BEING WAGNER Simon Callow William Collins ISBN 978-0-00-810569-3 232pp (hb) £14.99 rrp Simon Callow hardly needs introducing, whether as actor, director, biographer, contributor to music magazines and creator of one-man shows – including Inside Wagner’s Head, from which this book sprang. He played Mozart in the original stage production of Amadeus, but coming to grips with this most unfathomable, paradoxical and often wildly unpleasant of great composers presents a still greater imaginative challenge. Callow meets it in racy and conversational style, avoiding elementary pitfalls some others don’t. Unlike many academic critics he doesn’t pin down Wagner like a specimen to be deconstructed into endless publication fodder; nor, unlike the late Robert Gutman, does he distort him into a blank-eyed psychopath. Refreshingly he…

• Schubert’s Schwanengesang (‘swan song’) is a collection of songs compiled by publisher Tobias Haslinger after the composer’s death and published on 19 November 1828. It consists of 14 settings of texts by three poets for singer with piano accompaniment. There are seven by Ludwig Rellstab, six by Heinrich Heine and one by Johann Gabriel Seidl. In a manuscript from August 1828 Schubert wrote out the first 13 but it is unclear how he intended to combine them. • Unlike Schubert’s other songs cycles, Schwanengesang does not have a common theme. The seven Rellstab-Lieder are programmed first and include the tender ‘Liebesbotschaft’ (Message of Love) and ‘Kriegers Ahnung’ (Soldier’s Foreboding) in which a warrior cheers himself up by confronting his anxieties. ‘In der Ferne’ (In the Distance) has a shift…

Each week Michael Berkeley talks to a guest about their favourite music, one of whose choices are below PETER ROBINSON Crime writer BEETHOVEN String Quartet in C sharp minor, Op. 131 (7th mvt: Allegro) Takács Quartet ‘Beethoven was one of the first composers I discovered. It was through the film A Clockwork Orange and its version of the Ninth Symphony. I bought the real recording and developed a fondness for his chamber music and the intimacy and the conversation between the instruments. His late quartets have a poignancy and he breaks the rules: he has as many movements as he wants.’ SCHUBERT Piano Sonata in B flat, D960 (1st mvt: Allegro) Imogen Cooper (piano) ‘In my novel Before the Poison the hero is a film composer who’s struggling…

Paul Riley Author and journalist ‘As he takes to the road in celebration of Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary, conductor John Eliot Gardiner is firing on all cylinders, painting an engaging portrait of a composer who changed his life – and the course of music.’ Page 22 Elinor Cooper Editorial assistant, BBC Music ‘It was a joy to talk to choir leaders from all over the world about their choirs. The resounding message from them all is that singing – like nothing else – can bring communities together.’ Page 40 Erik Levi Writer and academic ‘Listening to the 30-or-so available recordings of Elijah was a surprisingly invigorating experience, with many interpreters demonstrating why the initial British enthusiasm for this masterpiece was entirely justified.’ Page 102…

A SYMPHONIC JOURNEY In Building a Library (February), there is a compelling account of the recordings of Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, which is one of my favourite symphonies. But I was also interested to read about Casella’s Symphony No. 2 in the So, where next...? section. I had barely heard of this composer and was inspired to get a recording of this work, which I found to be wonderful, and this further inspired me to get recordings of his other two symphonies, Nos 1 and 3. My home has been resounding with these works ever since, so I’m most grateful to the magazine for drawing my attention to them. Please keep this up, as I am sure there are more obscure works to be discovered. Karl A Bettelheim,…

Chart for week ending 23 February 2017 1 For the Fallen: works by Elgar and Bax Soloists; Hallé Choir and Orchestra/ Mark Elder Hallé CDHLL 7544 Fine performances from the Hallé in these elegiac memorial works by Elgar and Bax 2 The Lost Songs of St Kilda Trevor Morrison; Scottish Festival Orchestra/James MacMillan Decca 481 2795 It’s yet another month in the chart for last year’s haunting Hebridean folksong hit 3 Philip Glass Piano works Víkingur Olafsson (piano); Siggi String Quartet Deutsche Grammophon 9479 6918 The Icelandic pianist turns to the American minimalist. Look out for our review next issue 4 Vaughan Williams Piano works Mark Bebbington (piano) Somm SOMM0164 All of RVW’s piano music features in this intriguing disc from the acclaimed British…

RUBY HUGHES Soprano When I’m travelling, I keep on finding myself going back to Ian Bostridge’s recording of Schubert Lieder that he made with Julius Drake at the end of the 1990s. I’m a real admirer of Bostridge’s work. His voice is very beautiful and has a lot of clarity, and I love his attention to detail – he has a very enlightened way of portraying text. He’s got a wide repertoire, and whichever composer he’s singing, he really inhabits the music. Together, he and Drake have done something very special here. The mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter is one of my favourite artists, and I’ve really been enjoying her recording of …lontana in sonno… by Anders Hillborg . Hillborg is a composer who is very much about creating…

VOCAL VARIETY Change is afoot at the St Paul’s Cathedral Choir, which has appointed its first ever female singer. Carris Jones, who has sung with leading choirs including Tenebrae and Stile Antico, will take her place as an alto ‘vicar choral’ in the cathedral stalls in September. St Paul’s follows the lead of Lincoln Cathedral, who welcomed Helen Vincent as an alto back in 2011. A NOBLE CAUSE A concert is to be held at London’s Milton Court in support of the family of New Zealand soprano Anna Leese, whose husband Stefano has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease. Among the performers at the ‘Singing for Stefano’ event on 8 April will be baritone Sir Thomas Allen and soprano Sophie Bevan. For tickets, go to azurialopera.com/stefano SINGLE SUCCESS Research at…

NICOLAI GEDDA Born 1925 Tenor In a career lasting nearly 50 years, Nicolai Gedda (left) was admired for a flawlessly agile technique and versatility that saw him explore all corners of the repertoire. Born and educated in Stockholm, he made his debut at the city’s Royal Opera in 1952, playing the demanding role of Chapelou in Adam’s Postillon de Lonjumeau. In the audience was producer Walter Legge who, impressed, then championed the young tenor. A performance under Herbert von Karajan at Milan’s La Scala followed, as did the first of many visits to the studio – Gedda’s recordings would go on to range from Bach and Gluck to Enescu and Bernstein. In 1957, US audiences became acquainted with his vocal prowess when he appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New…

WHEN MONTEVERDI’S L’Orfeo was first staged in Mantua in 1607, it was the first great example of a musical form that was very much in its infancy: opera itself. Though music and dance had played a significant part in plays from Ancient Greece onwards, the concept of presenting wholly sung drama did not develop until much later. Opera’s immediate predecessor can be found in the plays that entertained the House of Medici in 16th-century Florence, where acts were divided by increasingly elaborate musical ‘intermedi’, and it was for a Florentine audience that Jacopo Peri’s Dafne, widely regarded as the first ever opera, was performed in 1598. What distinguished Dafne, plus his Euridice that followed a couple of years later, was the use of recitative, by which the action is narrated…

Early life: Born in Amsterdam in 1954, Ronald Brautigam began playing the piano as a boy. After learning his first Beethoven sonata, he saved up his pocket money so he could afford printed scores of all 32. Education: Brautigam studied the piano in Amsterdam before moving to London and the US and continuing under Rudolf Serkin. He took up the pianoforte in 1987. In the studio: Originally signed to Decca, his recording career took a new direction in 1995 when he signed with the Swedish label BIS. He has made over 60 recordings. In partnership: Brautigam’s regular recording partners include the violinist Isabelle van Keulen, and also the Kölner Akadamie, with whom he has recorded Mozart’s complete piano concertos.…

Luther and the Music of the Reformation Vox Luminis/Meunier Ricercar RIC376 Music by the earliest Lutheran composers, beginning with Martin Luther himself. Praetorius Lutheran Mass Gabrieli Consort/McCreesh DG Archiv 479 1757 A spectacular recreation of a Lutheran Mass as it might have been celebrated c1620. Tunder Organ Works Bernard Foccroulle Ricercar RIC239 Half a century before Bach, Franz Tunder showed Lutheran organists the way, especially in their treatment of chorales. Telemann Reformation Cantatas Rosenmüller Ensemble/Rohn Christophorus CHR 77405 Reformation Day was marked every year; in 1717, Telemann wrote a magnificent cantata for the 200th anniversary. Johann Kuhnau Sacred Cantatas King’s Consort/King Helios CDH55394 One of a fascinating series of CDs exploring the music of Bach’s predecessors at Leipzig. Bach/Kuhnau/Zelenka Magnificat Bach Collegium Japan/Suzuki BIS CD-1011 The Latin ‘Magnificat’ was used…

Jonathan Biss A noted Beethoven scholar and performer, pianist Jonathan Biss (above) is in the middle of a three-year sonata odyssey at Aspen. This year he’ll be performing Sonatas Nos 3, 15, 20, 27 & 28 followed by 2, 7, 16, 19 & 31 (1 & 8 Aug). Schubert’s Schwanengesang Baritone Andrè Schuen and pianist Andreas Haefliger are taking a unique approach to Schubert’s final collection of songs, interspersing groups of them with piano works by Beethoven and Berg (29 July). Luke Bedford’s Seven Angels British composer Bedford’s chamber opera receives its US premiere at Aspen. Inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost , the work is an eco-parable about climate change (5 Aug). The Year of the Concerto Aspen is celebrating the concerto this year,…

THE LIFE 1797 Gaetano Donizetti is born to a poor family in BERGAMO , Italy, the fifth of sixth children. His father actively discourages his interest in music. 1807 He is admitted to the new Lezioni Caritatevole school, where he studies singing, keyboard and composition with Simone Mayr, choirmaster of Bergamo Cathedral. 1822 The year after Zoraide di Granata proves a major success in Rome, bringing him to the attention of southern Italian audiences, he moves to Naples. 1830 With GIUDITTA PASTA in the title role, the premiere of Anna Bolena in Milan propels him into the spotlight. The opera is subsequently staged in Paris and London. 1835 Based on the Sir Walter Scott’s novel and featuring the famous ‘mad scene’, his Lucia di Lammermoor is premiered in Naples. 1842…

Paul McCreesh (conductor) Simon Keenlyside, Rosemary Joshua et al; Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir, Gabrieli Consort & Players (2012) Signum Winged Lion SIGCD300 McCreesh has opted to recreate the special frisson of the 1846 Birmingham Festival performance of Elijah by engaging similarly massed forces to those used by the composer. But this is no mere exercise in historical correctness, for the conductor marshals the huge number of singers and players with masterly skill, taking infinite care to ensure that textures remain as light and clear as possible. Admittedly, there are a few moments where the words are not always entirely clear, but at the big climaxes, for example in the opening chorus, the visceral power of the choral sound sends shivers down the spine. Wolfgang Sawallisch (conductor) Theo Adam,…

The Ninth must be one of Vaughan Williams’s least often-performed symphonies. Why? When it appeared it was dismissed by rather a lot of critics as being all the stuff they had heard before. For me the piece is completely new and different. It has this rather severe mood, certainly to begin with; an absolutely wild scherzo and a very quiet trio section for saxophones with some extraordinary chordal progressions that sound like Messiaen. I have always thought the ending sounded as if Vaughan Williams was not with us anymore. There’s something so visionary about it. It’s one of my very favourite Vaughan Williams symphonies, with Nos 5 and 6. So it’s a piece that’s close to your heart? When I was about 12 or 13 I took part in a…

George Antheil (1900-59) Antheil trained as a pianist, then studied composition under Ernest Bloch in New York (1919-21). He wrote piano pieces with such titles as Airplane Sonata and Jazz Sonata before going to Europe in 1922, touring as a composer-pianist. He met Stravinsky, a major influence, while living in Berlin (1922-23). In Paris from 1923, Antheil entered the circle of James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Satie. After the huge success of Ballet mécanique (see review), performed in Paris, then Carnegie Hall in 1927, he became a film composer in Hollywood.…

Batiashvili focuses on poetic intimacy in the Tchaikovsky Concerto SIBELIUS TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concertos Lisa Batiashvili (violin); Staatskapelle Berlin/Daniel Barenboim DG 479 6038 69:27 mins For many years, Lisa Batiashvili has steadfastly resisted incorporating the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto into her repertory, believing that there were too many different views of the work in her head. Fortunately, thanks to the encouragement of Daniel Barenboim she changed her mind and was persuaded to look afresh at the music. The results in this vividly recorded release are certainly impressive, for Batiashvili and Barenboim have come up with an interpretation which, although lacking the startling audacity of the recent Patricia Kopatchinskaja/ Teodor Currentzis release on Sony, places special emphasis on preserving the structural logic of Tchaikovsky’s musical argument and making the orchestra an equal partner…

Francesca Caccini (1587-c1640) Born in Florence, daughter of the composer Giulio Caccini, Francesca was employed by the Medici Court. As well as playing various instruments, she distinguished herself as a singer: when she sang to King Henry IV in Paris, he invited her to stay at his court, but was denied by the Florentine authorities. Caccini composed music for comedies written by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (grand-nephew of the artist). Her ‘comedy-ballet’ La liberazione di Ruggiero was successfully performed both in Florence and in Warsaw.…

The boy choristers grasp their moment with confidence BAX This wordless joie; I Sing of a Maiden FINZI Lo, the full, final sacrifice IRELAND Te Deum; Greater Love The Choir of Westminster Abbey/ eJames O’Donnell; Daniel Cook (organ) Hyperion CDA 68167 73:40 mins Finzi’s Lo, the full, final sacrifice is a work that can easily sprawl and seem shapeless, but not in this excellent new recording by James O’Donnell and his Westminster Abbey forces. It’s a performance where all the individual components in this 15-minute-long anthem seem justly weighed and articulated, from the introspective organ prelude (sensitively shaped by Daniel Cook), through the rising elation signalled at ‘Rise, Royal Sion!’ to the gentle sensuality of the closing eight-part ‘Amen’. O’Donnell knits the various episodes together with unobtrusive surety,…

BRAHMS • SCHUBERT Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 2 in F; Sonata in A (arr. cello); Schubert: Grand Duo in A, D574 (arr. cello) Pieter Wispelwey (cello), Paolo Giacometti (piano) Evil Penguin EPRC 0022 69:57 mins Two of these three works are actually violin sonatas with the stringed instrument’s part mainly transposed down by an octave. Perhaps it’s not altogether surprising to find repertoire-starved cellists poaching on violinists’ territory like this, and in the case of Brahms’s lyrical A major Sonata – several of its themes derived from songs he composed around the same time – most of the piece works very well on the cello. So, too, do the expansive opening bars of Schubert’s sonata in the same key – one of the most sheerly beautiful beginnings in his early…

Farr brings gutsy élan to the Missa da Gloria’s concluding toccata LEIGHTON Complete organ works Stephen Farr, John Butt (organ); Nicky Spence (tenor), Chloe Hanslip (violin) Resonus RES 10178 208:06 mins (3 discs) Stephen Farr’s Leighton odyssey is an ear-opener. ‘Complete organ works’ sells the set short. As well as the solo harpsichord Improvisations – a title best approached with caution given a composer so wedded to the personally liberating disciplines of counterpoint and variation form – there’s also a substantial Fantasia for violin and organ, and a 70th-birthday tribute, setting George Herbert, for Sir Peter Pears. Given Leighton’s background as a cathedral chorister, it’s perhaps surprising that he didn’t start producing organ works until his 30s. But when he did, the idea of pre-Evensong fingers…

A music critic once observed that if Herbie Hancock ‘had gone to the great beyond in 1968, he would now be solemnly regarded as a jazz god’. Instead, the eminent pianist-composer has spent the last few decades as the crossover king, a master of pop as well as jazz, effortlessly slipping across the tricky frontier between the genres and, in his words, ‘walking that tightrope’ between them. Approaching 77 in April, he remains an exemplary musical force, a superstar beyond category, preparing to headline this summer’s Love Supreme Festival. His two previous Jazz Starters (No. 18, Oct 2002; No. 97, Jan 2009) highlighted the early and late phases of his career: his iconic 1965 album Maiden Voyage defined Hancock the jazz prodigy, with the elliptical modal compositions and piano attack…

‘Your mouths are like compost heaps,’ suggested Gardiner at one point It must be the influence of BBC Music Magazine… Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists are launching their worldwide celebration of the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi not in London, but in our home city of Bristol. On 12 April, Colston Hall, slowly but surely becoming once again a major national classical music venue, will ring to the extraordinary vocal and instrumental colours of the composer’s late opera, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. The musical preparations for Gardiner’s Monteverdi tour (which also stops at Venice’s La Fenice opera house) started last year, however, with a series of workshops and a final concert at the Fondazione Cini on the Venetian island of San Giorgio. I…

KING LEAR SHAKESPEARE Royal Shakespeare Company Following his performance as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s great 20th century American tragedy Death of a Salesman , Antony Sher returns to play King Lear, one of the greatest parts written by Shakespeare. The production is directed by the RSC’s Artistic Director Gregory Doran. DVD | BLU-RAY GISELLE ADAM Royal Opera House Giselle has remained a cornerstone of the classical repertory. Peter Wright’s production is one of the most challenging and demanding ballet roles, and has always been a showcase for exceptional ballerinas. With Marianela Nuñez’s ‘absolute mastery’ of the choreography, she and her Albrecht, Vadim Muntagirov, are ‘technically thrilling’ (Guardian). DVD | BLU-RAY HANDEL GIULIO CESARE · RINALDO SAUL Glyndebourne This set brings together three of Handel’s most compelling works for the…

‘The nature of the saxophone means you can do a lot’ If it’s tempting to think of saxophonists as solitary beasts – practising their beautiful but strangely mournful-sounding instruments into the small hours, in glorious isolation – the Ferio Saxophone Quartet would beg to differ. ‘We actually forged a quartet through friendship,’ says Huw Wiggin, the group’s soprano saxophonist. ‘We met at the Royal College of Music where we were studying. We were initially put into different groups, but then came together because we enjoyed each others’ company. It’s quite nice!’ By ‘we’, Wiggin means Ellie McMurray (alto), Jose Bañuls (tenor), Shevaughan Beere (baritone) and, of course, himself. And while there are other saxophone quartets around, Wiggin is keen to point out how he and his colleagues are creating a…

THIS MONTH Michala Petri recorder One of the world’s leading recorder players, Petri has an extensive discography ranging from JS Bach to Borup-Jørgensen. The Dane’s next CD features Brazilian music, with guitarist Daniel Murray and percussionist Marilyn Mazur, for her label OUR Recordings. My finest moment JS Bach Sonatas BWV 1030-5 Petri (recorder), Keith Jarrett (harpsichord) RCA Red Seal 09026 61274 2 (1992) I gave a concert in New York at the Mostly Mozart Festival, and standing very modestly in the corner was Keith Jarrett. We ended up talking, and he suggested that we play together sometime. I don’t know if he said it out of politeness, but anyway the next day his manager drove me to his place and we played a lot of Baroque…

The latest jewel in Manchester’s musical crown will go on display on 21 April, when Chetham’s School of Music unveils its new Stoller Hall (above). In a celebratory opening weekend, the likes of conductor Sir Mark Elder and pianist Paul Lewis will help to get the 482-seat venue off to an auspicious start – other concerts will feature Chetham’s alumni such as pianist Gwilym Simcock plus, of course, present pupils. Much of the funding for the £8.7m hall was provided by businessman Sir Norman Stoller, hence the name.…

@RoxannaPanufnik At my piano 07:45 this morning – impressed?! Composer Roxanna Panufnik (left) sends an early-morning tweet from her piano before heading back to bed. @Flutelicious Hoping the Beijing hotel doesn’t have the Mozart flute and harp 2nd Movt’s first 40 bars on loop at breakfast again tomorrow Meanwhile, on tour, LSO flautist Gareth Davies craves a little Ligeti with his muesli and eggs benedict. @Sviceridor Do any other singers find themselves blubbing awkwardly as soon as the pianist plays the intro to Das Wirtshaus from Winterreise? #getagrip Just when it’s least convenient, Schubert reduces baritone Roderick Williams to a wreck. @StevenIsserlis Unfortunately, I’m going to have to KILL the next person who tells me that classical music is ‘relaxing’. Apologies if it’s a friend of yours Hmmm. Cellist Steven…

Oliver Condy Editor Prompted by Simon Heighes’s Reformation piece this month, I’ve been revisiting the organ works of 17th-century German composer Franz Tunder , precursor to Buxtehude and JS Bach. His Italianate chorale fantasias (based on Lutheran hymn tunes), preludes and partitas explore the entire range of colours and textures of the north German organ through constant stop and manual changes. It’s thrilling, unbridled, improvisatory stuff. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor You can’t beat a good musical sunrise, such as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra’s recording of the opening of Haydn’s Symphony No. 6, ‘Le Matin’. Beginning with the first violins creeping cautiously around the tonic note of D, the other strings then join in, followed by the winds, as the music gradually rises in pitch. At sun up, the movement that…

The big boys must learn lessons fast from what is being achieved by smaller companies Back in the 1990s when Bernard Haitink was music director at Covent Garden, desperately trying to maintain a semblance of ‘business as normal’ as the Royal Opera House went through the worst organisational shambles in its history, I asked him whether he had foreseen the job being as tough as this. ‘I never enter an opera house without expecting an axe to fall on my head,’ he replied, with a classic Dutch mixture of phlegmatism and pessimism. Perhaps there’s some law of nature stating that the world of opera will always be stressful, insecure and beset by rows and crises. Tense, talented individuals from many artistic disciplines have to work together. Relations between managements and…

HAVING ASSEMBLED an international cast of soloists to join forces with his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner started work on his Monteverdi 450 tour in earnest a year ago, with a series of workshops and a concert in Venice to set some stylistic markers. Now the preparation all comes together. Apart from a couple of one-off performances of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in France and Spain, the three surviving operas – Ulisse, L’incoronazione di Poppea and L’Orfeo – are presented together in an extensive tour that ends in New York in late October. There are two opportunities to catch the trilogy in the UK: the project launches at Bristol’s Colston Hall on 12 April; and, in between appearances at the Salzburg and Lucerne festivals, arrives at Edinburgh…

Pleyel and Haydn’s impresarios invented a rivalry between them Had you been around in the Paris of 1840 and the name of Pleyel come up in conversation, the reaction might have been: ‘Mais oui. Les pianos merveilleux fabriqués ici par le célèbre Monsieur Camille Pleyel.’ Your neighbour might have elaborated and told you that said Pleyel was the preferred piano manufacturer of the famous pianist and composer Monsieur Frédéric Chopin, no less. But 40 years earlier, if you had been in Paris – or anywhere else in Europe – the name of Pleyel would have elicited a different reaction: ‘Ah oui – mais tout le monde connais Monsieur Ignace Pleyel, le célèbre compositeur.’ Indeed, everyone did know Ignace Pleyel, the famous composer. It is hard to comprehend today that Ignaz…

Festival friends WELCOME TO OUR 2017 festival guide, covering fantastic events the length and breadth of the UK (plus the best of Europe and North America). Artistic directors have been flat out for the past 12 months conjuring up musical themes, matching their chosen music with the right artists, commissioning composers and ensuring visitors are well entertained throughout their visit. But thanks is also due to the thousands of local volunteers who ensure the smooth running of a festival, from putting out chairs and selling tickets to ferrying artists, serving refreshments and ushering audiences to seats. Without them, festivals wouldn’t be viable; with them, the UK enjoys the richest classical festival scene in the world. Enjoy the season, and do let us know of any particular highlights – we’d love…

IT’S EXACTLY 70 YEARS since the Edinburgh Festival stepped onto a post-war stage to inspire, in the indelible words of founding father Sir Rudolf Bing, ‘a platform for the flowering of the human spirit’. What he’d have made of the state of that spirit today is anybody’s guess, but as director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House for nearly a quarter of a century he’d surely have welcomed Edinburgh 2017’s enlarged operatic programme, extending from Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s semi-staged Monteverdi trilogy to Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek. After 2015’s Mozart Marriage of Figaro, Iván Fischer returns as conductor and director at the helm of the Budapest Festival Orchestra for Don Giovanni with a starry cast including baritone Christopher Maltman in the title role, alongside sopranos Laura Aikin and Lucy Crowe and…

During the early 19th century, the Italian public was keen to experience new operas at the theatres that formed the social and artistic hubs of their towns and cities. Audiences relished comedies in the age-old tradition of opera buffa, which pinpointed human foibles in music that was straightforward and spontaneous. They wept at tragedies in which the new themes of Romanticism were explored in impassioned, vocally virtuosic works often showing women attempting to evade the limitations imposed upon their self-determination. In between the two was the mixed form of opera semiseria, which viewed a serious theme at least partially from a comic standpoint. Developing a mastery of all three of these genres, Gaetano Donizetti became one of the most successful composers in Italy, eventually developing his career beyond its borders…

Mendelssohn St Paul Pre-dating Elijah by ten years, Mendelssohn’s St Paul of 1836 follows the life of the eponymous New Testament character from the stoning of St Stephen to his own martyrdom. On the way, we also get his conversion on the road to Damascus – in contrast to the dramatic depictions by artists such as Reubens and Caravaggio (right), Mendelssohn chose to make this event a more transcendental affair, with the words of God heard in the choir’s upper voices. With ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’ quoted from the outset, the work pays obvious homage to Bach, though the influence of Handel is also plain to hear. Recommended recording: Susan Gritton (soprano) et al; BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales/Richard Hickox Chandos CHAN10516(2)X Spohr Die letzten…

ELGAR Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf; The Banner of Saint George Soloists; Bergen Philharmonic Choir, Choir of Collegiûm Mûsicûm, Edvard Grieg Kor; Bergen Philharmonic/Davis Chandos CHSA 5149 (hybrid CD/SACD) 112:25 mins (2 discs) ‘Well before Enigma Variations, King Olaf confirmed Elgar’s rising star in British music. Davis’s expansive conducting and the excellent Bergen Philharmonic bring out Elgar’s vivid orchestral textures.’ September 2015 DELIUS Norwegian Bridal Procession; Paa Vidderne; Sleigh Ride etc Bergen Philharmonic/Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA 5131 78:32 mins ‘“Delius in Norway” is the theme, though the best of this composer’s music always inhabits a country of his own. Head, for instance, to the evocative Eventyr, succulently performed by Davis’s Bergen forces.’ October 2014 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending; plus Moeran and Delius Little (violin); BBC Phil/Andrew Davis…

ANTHEIL Ballet mécanique (original 1924 version); A Jazz Symphony (original 1925 version) Boston Modern Orchestra Project/ Gil Rose BMOP 1033 39:53 mins On 19 June 1926 the not yet 26-year-old American composer George Antheil created a sensation with his Ballet mécanique in Paris. It combines the changing rhythms and obsessive repetitions of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with the machine-age noise-making of the Italian Futurists, putting pianos alongside player-pianos, and pitting xylophones and drums against electric bells, siren and aeroplane propellers. This recording goes further than any before it in recreating the work’s original version, not just as performed in 1926 but as shown in the composer’s manuscripts. Antheil wanted multiple player-pianos in unison, but was thwarted because the technology to synchronise them didn’t exist: now, MIDI computer links do the…

BARTÓK • KODÁLY Bartók: Dance Suite; Music for strings, percussion and celesta; Kodály: Háry János – Suite; Peacock Variations; Psalmus Hungaricus; Dances of Galanta William McAlpine (tenor), London Philharmonic Choir & Orch /Georg Solti Eloquence 480 6599 (1953-55) 121:39 mins Solti in top form with the LPO in masterpieces by two great Hungarians. But Decca’s mono sound, though excellent, does less than justice to Bartók’s Music for strings, percussion and celesta. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING *** BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4 SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10 Leningrad Philharmonic/Mravinsky Praga Digital PRD/DSD 350 115 (1953) 79:28 mins Live radio recordings, in erratically balanced mono, of a legendary team of orchestra and conductor: spick-andspan Beethoven and blisteringly thrilling Shostakovich. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING ** DVOR ÁK Symphony No. 7; The Heirs of the White Mountain; symphonic…

RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 Sviatoslav Richter (piano); Moscow Philharmonic/Kurt Sanderling Minuet 428421 (1958/60) 78:51 mins Richter’s mesmeric virtuosity, breathtaking variety of touch and clear-sighted sense of structural direction override any qualms about primitive sound. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING ** SAINT-SAËNS Cello Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Suite; Allegro appassionato Walevska (cello); Orchestre National de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo/Eliahu Inbal Eloquence 482 2033 (1974) 56:41 mins Christine Walevska’s impetuosity hardly suits the A minor Concerto (No. 1) which needs more sparkle. The Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra does its best to keep up, but ensemble is a bit speculative. PERFORMANCE ** RECORDING *** SCHUMANN TCHAIKOVSKY Schumann: Cello Concerto; Tchaikovsky: Rococo Variations Jürnjakob Timm (cello); Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig/Kurt Masur Berlin 0300842BC (1983) 78:56 mins Jürnjakob Timm, former principal cellist…

BIZET DVD The Pearl Fishers Diana Damrau, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, Nicolas Teste; Metropolitan Opera/Gianandrea Noseda; dir. Penny Woolcock (New York, 2016) Erato DVD : 9029589361; Blu-ray : 9029589360 120 mins A century after Enrico Caruso, Giuseppe De Luca and Frieda Hempel adorned the Met’s first and only previous production of Les pêcheurs de perles, Bizet’s ‘other’ opera returns to New York in Penny Woolcock’s thoughtful production. First seen in London at English National Opera, Woolcock’s Pearl Fishers reveals itself as more than its much-loved duet for tenor and baritone, ‘Au fond du temple saint’. Updated to Sri Lanka and located in a shanty village clinging to the seashore, Woolcock finds a double drama in Bizet’s opera. It’s not simply the love triangle between the priestess Leïla, the…

BELLINI I Capuleti e i Montecchi Kasarova, Mei, Vargas, Chiummo, Alberghini; Bavarian Radio Choir; Munich Radio Orchestra/R Abbado Sony Classical 88985404322 (1997) 170:09 mins (3 discs) This only recording of Bellini’s wonderful opera includes the alternative finale by Vaccai, but its most attractive feature is Kasarova as Romeo and Eva Mei as Giulietta. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING **** DONIZETTI Il Campanello Baltsa, Dara, Casoni, Romero, Gaifa; Vienna State Opera Choir; Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Gary Bertini Sony 88985389442 (1981) 55:53 mins One of Donizetti’s most charming short operas, with a Don Pasquale-like plot, and gorgeously performed by Agnes Baltsa and Enzo Dara, this is a nice way of spending a spare 55 minutes. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING **** ROSSINI La donna del lago Ricciarelli, Valentini-Terrani, Gonzalez, Raffanti, Ramey; Prague Philharmonic Chorus; COE/Maurizio Pollini Sony…

Detlev Glanert (b1960) Born in Hamburg, Glanert has a particular affinity with Brahms who was also native to that city. Ironically, one of Glanert’s main teachers was Hans Werner Henze, who made no secret of his distaste for such an ‘establishment’ composer. Henze’s expertise in writing opera, though, had its impact – Glanert is today the most frequently performed of living opera composers in Germany. He has also written several tributes to Brahms, including a Brahms-Fantasie which takes the First Symphony as its starting point.…

Few accounts get so close to the complex truth of this music BEETHOVEN Complete Sonatas and Variations Ralph Kirshbaum (cello), Shai Wosner (piano) Onyx ONYX 4178 133:32 mins (2 discs) The thrill of new discovery can be uplifting in a performance; so too can the depth that comes from long experience – especially in repertory like this. Somehow or other, Ralph Kirshbaum and Shai Wosner manage to combine a sense of both. It would be easy to say that Kirshbaum brings the mature wisdom, Wosner (who can’t have had so many opportunities to play these works) the relatively youthful freshness. But like everything else in these remarkable accounts, those qualities are shared. Sometimes it’s like listening to two people excitedly bouncing ideas off each other; at others it’s like a…

Kenneth Leighton (1929-88) Born in Yorkshire, Leighton’s gift for music was soon recognised, and he became a chorister at Wakefield Cathedral. While still at school he composed several pieces, including the first to be published, a Sonatina. Leighton won a scholarship to study classics at Oxford, and simultaneously studied composition under the organist Bernard Rose at Queen’s College. In 1951 he won the Mendelssohn Scholarship, enabling him to study under Petrassi in Rome. He spent most of his adult life teaching at Edinburgh University.…

EIVIND OPSVIK Overseas V Eivind Opsvick (bass), Tony Malaby (sax), Brandon Seabrook (guitar) etc Loyal Label LLCD020 39 mins Norwegian-born bassist Eivind Opsvik, resident in New York for 20 years, began his shape-shifting Overseas album series in 2003. With its tight, nervy sound, this latest chapter is a contrast to the more epic IV. Its nine short tunes are heavily rhythmic and the atmosphere changes from jangling to jaunty at the drop of a hi-hat cymbal. Opsvik says he was channelling 1980s art rock when writing the album and the giveaways are an electronic handclap here and a twitch of Talking Heads funk there. ‘I’m Up On This Step’ sets the tone with its dissonant bursts of notes from the ensemble against a repeated guitar riff. ‘Extraterrestrial Tantrum’ has sour…

OVERTURE OPERA GUIDE: Verdi’s Rigoletto Ed. Gary Kahn Overture ISBN: 978-1-84749-626-3 176pp (pb) £12 rrp Some operas generate more thought and controversy than others. Rigoletto, the first of Verdi’s most celebrated central trio of operas, is one of those works that, for all its bizarre and even ludicrous features, hardly needs much in the way of introduction and commentary. Still, the most valuable feature of this latest volume in the Overture Opera series is the printing of the full Italian text, with the excellent translation by William Weaver on facing pages. Now that most CD opera sets come either without the work’s text, or only in microscopic print, this makes for comfortable listening. Valuable, too, is the immense list of recordings of Rigoletto, 20 on CD and…

BLUETOOTH-STREAMING DAC Astell & Kern AK XB10 £149 This 23g Oreo biscuit-sized Bluetooth receiver (right) adds wireless functionality to any pair of wired headphones, including five hours of music playback and the ability to skip tracks, adjust volume and answer voice calls. But there’s more; thanks to the AK XB10’s built-in 24-bit DAC (digital-to-analogue-converter) it can handle hi-resolution music files, while a built-in amplifier helps get the best possible sound from your headphones. I tried the dongle with the excellent Sennheiser Momentum headphones and a tatty old pair of Apple earbuds and, aside from the freedom afforded by the Bluetooth, each pair sounded fuller, wider and significantly louder. Louder isn’t better, but it’s good news if you’re a music-loving commuter. Plugging in the AK XB10 won’t whisk you sonically to…