Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2017 i BBC Music Magazine

ON STAGE Varèse variety Given that he only left 12 complete works, lasting around three hours in total, devoting a whole ‘Immersion Day’ to the music of Edgard Varèse (pictured) may seem a little ambitious. However, a little can go a long way, as the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s exploration of this groundbreaking (and rowdy) French-American composer should amply reveal. See p90 ON AIR Behind the Vale Founded by composer John Metcalf in 1969, the Vale of Glamorgan Festival has always shown an admirable dedication to celebrating living composers and the various delights of contemporary music. On 29 May, Radio 3’s In Concert features Paul Watkins playing his brother Huw’s Cello Concerto, written in 2016, plus works by Philip Glass. See p94 ON DISC Gorgeous Borgias Lucrezia Borgia was born into…

OPERA ON AIR When Tony Hall moved four years ago from running the Royal Opera House to being director-general of the BBC, a friend of mine (no lover of classical music) grumbled, ‘Now I suppose we’ll have wall-to-wall opera on BBC Four.’ He could not have been more wrong. Apart from the annual feast of the Proms, classical music has practically disappeared from BBC television. This is a real loss, especially for opera. Radio 3 still does its best for music in the concert hall, but opera demands to be seen as well as heard. A depressing sign of the times was BBC television’s recent treatment of Opera North’s widely acclaimed production of Wagner’s Ring. The entire cycle was broadcast on Radio 3 last year, but when it came to…

Soviet censors, at a private screening, demanded 20 per cent of the film be cut Eighty-eight years after it was written, a film score by Shostakovich has at last enjoyed its first public performance as the composer intended it. At a screening at the Barbican at the end of March, pianist Sasha Grynyuk accompanied a screening of The New Babylon, a silent film from 1929 that, at the time of its creation, should have proved a major boost to the young Shostakovich’s career but in fact turned into a major debacle. Commissioned to write the music for Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg’s film – which tells the story of the Paris Commune in 1871 – Shostkovich wrote a brilliantly detailed score that, as well as closely following the action on…

Chart for week ending 9 March 2017 1 A New Heaven Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford/ Owen Rees Signum Classics SIGCD475 The only way is up for this heavenly choral collection, with works by Rutter and McDowall 2 MacMillan Stabat mater The Sixteen, Britten Sinfonia/ Harry Christophers Coro COR16150 The Sixteen commissioned this ethereal masterpiece from MacMillan last October 3 Beach • Chaminade • Howell Piano Concertos Danny Driver (piano), BBC Scottish SO/ Rebecca Miller Hyperion CDA68130 A celebration of three great women composers 4 British Tone Poems, Volume 1 BBC National Orchestra of Wales/ Rumon Gamba Chandos CHAN10939 After his British Overtures series, Rumon Gamba conducts tone poems by Alwyn and Bantock 5 Rímur Trio Mediaeval • Arve Henriksen ECM 481 4742 Trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Trio…

SPEEDY VIOLA As this issue goes to press, we await news of Alistair Rutherford, who has been aiming to get his name into the record books for running the fastest ever half-marathon dressed as a musical instrument. Rutherford, who donned a viola outfit at the Liverpool Half-marathon to make his attempt, was raising funds for the South African music charity ARCO. We do hope he ran in tune. PIPE DREAMS Maybe next time, Rutherford could run dressed as a pipe organ? If so, he would surely have a fan in Louis Moss, who has just been appointed as the youngest ever organist of an Oxbridge college. Moss, who is 12 years old, will start off in his new post at Jesus College, Oxford, by playing hymns for services. A STRAD…

One box set of Mahler’s symphonies will never satisfy every musical taste – all conductors have their strengths and weaknesses, high points and blind spots. So here, with the help of BBC Music Magazine’s team of formidable critics, is our ultimate Mahler symphony cycle. Symphony No. 1 Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/ Yannick Nézet-Séguin BR Klassik 900143 We heralded this recent disc as the ‘most perfect’ reading in 50 years. The playing is disciplined, glissandos tastefully executed, rhythms taut and moods stunningly captured, including the lugubrious funeral music and joyful rustic dances. Brilliant. Symphony No. 2 City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle Warner Classics 9463458025 (download or stream only) Recorded during Rattle and the CBSO’s heyday together, this Second is bursting with intensity. It is broad and spacious and underlines the…

Anderson In lieblicher Bläue, poem for violin and orchestra; Alleluia; The Stations of the Sun Carolin Widmann (violin), London Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir/Vladimir Jurowski LPO LPO 0089 A celebration of the long relationship between the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Julian Anderson, this disc includes two world premiere recordings of works he wrote for the ensemble during his tenure as composer-in-residence. ‘It’s a very responsive orchestra,’ says Anderson, ‘and they treat contemporary music just as they would any repertoire – which is exactly what a composer wants.’ This is, in part, due to the open-minded approach of conductor Vladimir Jurowski, whom Anderson admires greatly. ‘He’s got an exceptionally wide repertoire and very interesting ideas about the music, but he also likes to start with the composer and find out how they…

Early years: Born in Stockholm in 1955, Anne Sofie von Otter studied in Stockholm and at the Guildhall School in Music in London. Notable roles: The mezzo made her name as Octavian (Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier ) which took her to opera houses across the world; other notable roles include Geneviève (Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande ) and Countess Geschwitz (Berg’s Lulu ). Concert success: Von Otter has recently performed with the Berlin Phil, Royal Concertgebouw, New York Phil and Boston Symphony among many others. On disc: She has collaborated with John Eliot Gardiner, Marc Minkowski, Giuseppe Sinopoli and more, and has won four Grammys: ‘Best Opera Recording’ (2000) and ‘Best Classical Solo Vocal Album’ (2000, 2004 and 2015).…

‘We have already started work on our own productions’ The Royal Opera House Muscat is a mightily impressive sight. Visit it during the daytime and you’ll be dazzled both literally and metaphorically by its immaculate white marble façade – round here, you can pretty much take sunshine as read. But lit up at night, it is, if anything, even more eye-catching. Make your way inside, admiring the luxurious main lobby as you go, and you’ll find yourself in a 1,100-seat auditorium, clad in hand-carved wood. It is all really rather swish. This, though, is not an old and venerable building that has been welcoming the great and good of the opera world since time immemorial – the country of Oman itself has, after all, existed in its current form for…

Through-composition ‘Boundless melody’ is how Wagner described his increasing rejection of traditional operatic structure – separate melodies for arias, choruses, ensembles and the like – in favour of a more dramatically natural, ‘through-composed’ flow of music, developing almost symphonically. Leitmotifs These are not, as many assume, little ‘calling-card’ themes with pet names. Composers have always used thematic references, but in Wagner’s scores, especially the Ring , they grow, change, unite and evolve into complex yet meaningful textures. He never named them; they can only be understood by listening, the more the deeper. Often imitated but never matched. Orchestration Wagner’s demands are often immense – six harps! – fuelling caricatures of his music as noisy and overblown; but in fact it’s more for a wide choice of instrumental…

Richard Strauss Symphonia domestica Elgar’s fond descriptions of family and friends – complete with the odd ribbing – in the Enigma Variations has a companion in Strauss’s 1903 affectionate tone poem representing 24 hours in his family life. ‘It will be partly lyrical, partly humorous – a triple fugue will bring together Papa, Mama and Baby,’ he commented. Like Elgar’s work, various characters and their moods are discernible (only the husband has a fiery side – his wife and child are invariably tranquil and easy-going), and the action revolves around scenes of utmost simplicity: the baby resisting bedtime, the husband working at his desk, his wife gently seducing him… It all culminates in that fugue, conjuring up an almighty family hoo-ha. Recommended recording: Berlin Radio SO/Marek Janowski Pentatone PTC5186507…

BEETHOVEN Symphonies Nos 4 & 7 Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen/Paavo Järvi RCA Red Seal 88985328562 69:23 mins ‘The German Chamber Orchestra, Bremen has some very fine instrumentalists, and the sheer sound they make is an enormous pleasure. Smallish though the orchestra is, the recorded sound is quite mellow, even plush.’ September 2016 NIELSEN Complete symphonies Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Paavo Järvi RCA Red Seal 88875178802 203:95 mins (3 discs) ‘There’s a prevailing freshness and briskness which draws on the excellent Frankfurt Radio Symphony’s playing to emphasise Nielsen’s clarity, a constrast to the lush post-Romanticism then fashionable in central Europe.’ March 2016 RACHMANINOV Symphony No. 3; Caprice Bohémien; Symphonic Dances; The Rock; Vocalise Orchestre de Paris/Paavo Järvi Erato 2564619579 117 mins (2 discs) ‘Rachmaninov’s demeanour as a pianist – patrician, no-nonsense and impeccably musical…

ADÈS Asyla; Tevot; Polaris; Brahms Samuel Dale Johnson (baritone); London Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Adès LSO Live LSO 0798 (Blu-ray & hybrid CD/ SACD) 62:55 mins (2 discs) Here’s a useful survey of Adès’s major orchestral works, performed live under the composer’s baton. While that lends a certain authenticity, it does not always guarantee success. The audacious Asyla (1997), in particular, feels less cogent, less propulsive and integrated than in Simon Rattle and the CBSO’s hands. In that 1998 recording there’s an impressive meshing of texture, and even a depth of field that’s missing here, despite the SACD. The bass drum beats in ‘Ecstasio’ feel less Ibiza rave, more crude one-man band. If Asyla lacks tension, Tevot’s scintillating surge is brilliantly realised, as Adès’s ‘ark’ rides the glistening orchestral waves towards us.…

BRAHMS • LISZT Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1; Liszt: Three Funeral Odes Sándor Falvai (pianist); Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra/ Zoltán Kocsis Celestial Harmonies 07869 80:59 mins (2 discs) Zoltán Kocsis’s death last November, aged only 64, hit the classical music community hard. Therefore this recording, posthumously released, acquires extra poignancy as Kocsis and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra (HNPO), of which he had been music director since 1997, traverse the grand rhetoric of their fellow countryman Franz Liszt’s three Funeral Odes. This music is, admittedly, not always Liszt’s finest, but with restrained pace, sinuous strings and the evocation of taut, Danube-black atmospheres, the HNPO and Kocsis make the best possible case for its mingling of the ceremonious and the tragic. Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 can be nearly as dark.…

HANDEL Arias from Giulio Cesare, Alcina, Theodora, Rodelinda and Agrippina & Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas Sonya Yoncheva (soprano), Karine Deshayes (mezzo-soprano); Academia Montis Regalis/Alessandro De Marchi Sony Classical 88985302932 61:01 mins Though known for her Bizet, Verdi and Bellini, Sonya Yoncheva trained with William Christie, and has always cultivated Baroque repertory. Here she resumes her collaboration with the Academia Montis Regalis (joined by Karine Deshayes for two duets) to perform the indomitable females of Handel’s operas: Alcina, Morgana, Cleopatra, Theodora, Agrippina, Rodelinda. Yoncheva is a force of nature. Her top notes merit a gale warning, her words drip with passion, and the bloom of her lowest register equals that of her top. Yet she is above all an artist. Singers this powerful often let the voice take over. She does…

GLUCK Iphigénie en Tauride Vaness, Allen, Surian, Winbergh; Chorus & Orchestra of La Scala/Muti Sony 88985389452 (1993) 116:34 mins (2 discs) This is the best recording of Gluck’s greatest opera, seething with tension and interpreted by a wonderful team of artists, with Muti making sure that the thrilling drama hits home at every point. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING **** MOZART Don Giovanni London, Weber, Zadek, Simoneau, Jurinac, Berry, Waechter, Sciutti; Vienna Chamber Choir & Symphony/Moralt Eloquence 480 7181 (1955) 168:11 mins (3 discs) A tempting set, every singer a major star at the peak of their career. Unfortunately the conducting by Moralt is so routine that what should have been a thrilling drama becomes a staid concert. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING *** R STRAUSS Die Frau ohne Schatten Thomas, Bjoner, Mödl, Borkh,…

HANDEL Messiah Elizabeth Harwood, Marjorie Thomas, Gerald English, Kim Borg; Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus; Hallé Choir; Hallé Orchestra/Sir John Barbirolli The Barbirolli Society SJB 1086-7 (1964) 131:51 mins (2 discs) Heavy tempos alternate with moments of inspiration in this recording made live for BBC broadcast. The two choirs respond impressively to Barbirolli’s direction. One for specialists only. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING *** MOZART Requiem Soloists; Wiener Hofmusikkapelle; Wiener Philharmoniker/Josef Krips Eloquence 482 6530 (1950) 56:25 mins Boys choristers sing the soprano and alto parts (including solos) in this wiry mono recording. Krips was a great Mozartian, but this all-male Requiem has mainly curiosity value. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING ** DRESDNER KREUZCHOR : 800 JAHRE Works by Brahms, Mauersberger, Flämig, Kopp, Kreile, Rheinberger et al Dresdner Kreuzchor Berlin Classics 0300738 BC (1964-2015) 55:46 mins…

GERVASE DE PEYER Works by Benjamin, Weber, Martin∞, Horovitz, Schmitt and Debussy Gervase de Peyer (clarinet), Cyril Preedy (piano) Eloquence ELQ4822851 (1960) 45 mins An enjoyable recital from the master clarinettist in his prime, soaring and chortling through 19th- and 20th-century delights, with strong piano support. Horovitz’s Majorcan Pieces are particularly infectious. PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING *** BARTÓK String Quartets Nos 1-6 Végh Quartet Praga Digitals PRD 250 358 (1954) 153:49 mins (2 discs) This new digital incarnation of the Végh Quartet’s first Bartók cycle vividly projects its famous qualities: fiery passion, romantic warmth, aggressive force, dynamic subtlety, and that unique Hungarian snap. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING **** QUARTET CHOREOGRAPHY Works by Stravinsky, Lutos√awski, Ligeti and Finnissy Kreutzer Quartet Métier MSVCD 92105 (2007/8) 72:34 mins Isn’t it daft to separately issue on…

Music After the Fall makes for an enticingly good read MUSIC AFTER THE FALL Modern Composition and Culture since 1989 Tim Rutherford-Johnson University of California Press ISBN 978-0-520-28315-2 368pp (pb) As Tim Rutherford-Johnson’s fascinating chronicle of western art music notes, histories of ‘contemporary music’ usually begin in 1945. Not so this one. The cut off here is 1989: the year the Berlin Wall fell, the atrocities of Tiananmen Square unfolded and the first whispers of the World Wide Web were heard: ‘1989 was the tipping point for the forces that shaped much of the economics, politics, and, one might say, psychology of our modern world.’ And it is this sense of psychology – the complex, messy humanity that is the beating heart of all music-making – which elevates…

Bayan Northcott Composer and writer ‘The way that Mahler opens up a vast sense of symphonic “landscape”, filling his grand formal perspectives with all manner of musics, intensely felt sentiments and poignant poetic echoes seems to me unique.’ Page 22 Rebecca Franks BBC Music’s reviews editor ‘It’s exciting finding out which recordings you’ve voted for in the BBC Music Magazine Awards. The shortlists were wonderfully varied, proving the brilliance and creativity of today’s musicians and record labels.’ Page 32 Mike Scott Rohan Writer and critic ‘Writing about Wagner is always liable to draw unnerving responses from academics, axegrinders and obsessives, both pro and con. But opening up this unique music for others both confronts and refreshes my own love of it.’ Page 50…

MUSIC’S PROTESTANT REFORMERS I enjoyed your article ‘Lutheran Legacies’ (April issue) but have a problem with the following sentence: ‘The rather bleak austerity of Protestant reformers like Calvin and Zwingli in Switzerland has rubbed off a little on Martin Luther’s posthumous reputation.’ Even today, Swiss German hymn books have kept at least two hymns written by Zwingli. And Calvin? Though he wasn’t a trained musician, he commissioned what is now known as the Geneva Psalter. It was the first containing rhymed paraphrases in French, set to 125 different melodies. With this publication, Calvin started a movement that didn’t stop at the borders of Switzerland. Scots call the ‘Old Hundredth’ their own, Germans wrote metric Psalms to fit the Geneva tunes and early Dutch immigrants brought them to North America. Daniel…

‘I’ve played in the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Carnegie Hall’ Nathalia Milstein’s career took an enormous leap forward in May 2015, when she emerged as the tenth winner of the Dublin International Piano Competition – and the first female winner, in fact, in the competition’s history. The win immediately opened all sorts of doors for the French pianist, now 22. ‘Thanks to Dublin, I’ve had many engagements in the best halls in the world,’ she says. ‘I’ve already played in the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Carnegie Hall in New York. I’ve also played several times in Ireland since the competition, including a tour of nine cities across the country, so I’ve got some very strong links there.’ For the Dublin competition, Milstein turned to a much-loved friend. ‘In the final I played…

THIS MONTH Herbert Blomstedt conductor The American-Swedish conductor is particularly renowned for his performances of Austro-German repertoire of the Classical and Romantic eras, and has over 150 recordings to his name. He conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra at The Bath Festival on 26 May. My finest moment Bruckner Symphony No. 7 Staatskapelle Dresden/Blomstedt Dal Segno DSPRCD046 (originally Denon) (1982) When I heard this Bruckner it was one of the few times that I’ve been really overwhelmed by my own recording. Mostly when I listen to them I am appalled by all the things I’d like to do differently. Here, just hearing the sound of the orchestra was a rousing experience. We had been touring Japan and had played the Seventh Symphony several times and we were scheduled to record…

Which famous musical figures deserve to be recognised in your area? Whose achievements ought to be forever flagged up in a fetching shade of blue? One of the big themes of this year’s BBC Music Day (Friday 9 June) will be a call for people to suggest musicians who should be formally recognised with a blue plaque on a building with which they were associated. All genres of music will be included, but we want to know your suggestions for classical music-related plaques. Send us your thoughts to music@classical-music.com and we will include the best ones in a feature in next month’s issue of BBC Music Magazine.…

@susanbu1 Having a pre-Hansel lunch with Shirley Bassey giving it some welly on the sound system. Ideal! #inspiration ‘Goldfinger’ inspires soprano Susan Bullock (left) to Humperdinck heights… @louisealdersop Sunday’s treats: girl-dressed-as-boy saving unfaithful lover, and highest voiced gypsy tart. And much fortifying brunch in between. …and soprano Louise Alder looks forward to a day in the company of Rigoletto and Carmen @iestyn_davies When I get home I might spend a lot of time in York Cemetery. It’s wild garlic season! Countertenor Iestyn Davies goes on the hunt for supper, best enjoyed with fava beans a nice chianti @houghhough Man slurping soup in the @cathaypacific lounge. A gentle sound. Comforting. Rhythmic. With a pinch of rubato, like salt. Pianist Stephen Hough hears music in the unlikeliest of places @GernonBen…

Oliver Condy Editor A broken ankle has rather limited my organ pedalling and has encouraged me to dig out some new music for manuals to play this month – among the many early, Renaissance, Tudor, French Romantic and modern gems I’ve unearthed is Francis Jackson’s charming six-movement Georgian Suite composed in 1992. It’s a delightful, uncomplicated homage to the 18th century, with a playful 20th-century English twist. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor With the ultra-exacting Maria João Pires as his mentor, it’s of little surprise that pianist Julien Brocal shows immaculate attention to detail on Les états d’Âme, his debut recording of Chopin’s Second Sonata and 24 Preludes – one suspects that every single note has been pondered over. But there’s a lot more to his playing than that, as these…

Governments and private corporations alike are willing to finance new venues If I had a hundred quid for each time someone in the past 100 years had proclaimed the death of live music, I could pay for a new concert hall myself. And claim the naming rights! Mmm, the Morrison Hall has a nice ring to it – at least in my ears. Whether musicians would enjoy playing in a venue named after a critic is another matter. But enough of improbable whimsy and back to the main point. When the gramophone first became popular, just over a century ago, gloomy musicians said it would kill live music making. Similar jeremiads were issued a few years later when the BBC started broadcasting music: why would people pay money to go…

‘You should never trust anyone who listens to Mahler before they’re 40.’ Clive James, writer, broadcaster and poet ‘I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of The Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours; we’d take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear.’ Paul McCartney, member of The Beatles ‘A Haydn symphony had a meaning for the social group that listened to it. A Mahler symphony had a meaning for the man who composed it. Here is the difference between the Classical and Romantic attitudes to art.’ Anthony Burgess, writer and composer ‘The difference between Beethoven and Mahler is the difference between watching a great man walk down the street and…

Martin∞ Piano Trios Nos 1-3; Bergerettes Smetana Trio Supraphon SU 4197-2 ‘For us this is not only an award for our interpretation but a fantastic compliment for Czech music,’ says Jitka ∫echová, the Smetana Trio’s pianist. ‘We are sure about Martin∞’s place in the front line of 20th-century composers. His chamber works are extraordinary and should be heard on the prestigious stages around the world.’ This is not the first time the Smetanas have won a BBC Music Magazine Award. Back in 2007, their stunning Dvoÿák disc also scooped the Chamber prize. But recording Martin∞’s Three Piano Trios and the Bergerettes was particularly meaningful for this Czech trio. ‘It’s not only as a trio that we love to play his music. We also love his solos, duos and concertos, and…

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Beatrice Rana (piano); Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano Warner Classics 2564600909 Most young artists, when signed to a major record label, tend to dip their toe gingerly into the water with, say, a low-key solo recital disc. Beatrice Rana, in contrast, dived straight in with Prokofiev’s Second and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concertos. There was, however, a good explanation for this bravado. ‘I was very lucky to have the support of the incredible musician and person that is Tony Pappano,’ Rana tells us. ‘I had played the Tchaikovsky concerto at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and, apparently, he liked it so much that he wanted me to record it with him. It was one of the biggest and…

Toscanini was ferocious. Karajan was a control freak. Beecham was the witty one. The camera loved Bernstein. And everyone adored Barbirolli. For all their faults and idiosyncrasies, few could ever accuse conductors of being a bland bunch. In fact, with the possible exception of opera singers, these are the musicians who have, over the years, captured the public attention above all others – while the players and singers in front of them do the donkey work, they are the ones who we see on posters and TV, who command the biggest pay packet and enjoy the trappings of fame. And yet, they are also the musicians whose art is often least understood and appreciated, with some sceptics – as we shall see – even openly questioning whether they need to…

Qaboos bin Said came to power in 1970, when he overthrew his father in a bloodless coup. As a young man, he served as an officer in the British army, during which time he became an enthusiast of western classical music. As well as championing orchestral music and opera in Oman, by means of the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra and Royal Opera House Muscat respectively, he is also a fan of organ music. Three of the stops on the opera house’s organ – the Royal Chimes, Royal Trumpet and Flûte Qaboos – are named in his honour.…

THE LIFE 1813 Richard Wagner is born on 22 May in LEIPZIG . When his father Carl dies six months later, he is adopted by the actor and painter Ludwig Geyer. 1832 Studying at Leipzig University and with the Kantor of the Thomaskirche, he writes his first keyboard and orchestral works, including a Symphony in C major. 1837 Accompanied by his wife MINNA , an actress, he moves to Riga as the new musical director of the Latvian town’s theatre. 1848 Though employed as Kapellmeister at the King of Saxony’s court, he takes part in insurrectionist activities in Dresden. The following year he has to flee to Switzerland. 1860 Relieved of his debts by Otto Wesendonck, a wealthy silk merchant, he composes the first two operas of the RING cycle…

BESIDES COMING THROUGH THE ranks as a professional violinist, Elgar played several other instruments fluently, and his knowledge here engendered a work so securely written for every section of the orchestra that it’s almost impossible for a performance to come off badly. Then again, achieving an exceptional one isn’t straightforward either: the range of musical portraits is so varied, with orchestral imagination to match, that finding a near-ideal touch with each one can be elusive. Sir Mark Elder’s (right) interpretation with the Hallé, recorded live in Manchester in 2002, is as good as you can get. The orchestra’s way with the Enigma theme sets a benchmark, with the strings beautifully shaded and balanced. The variation sequence that follows offers one delight after another – the poise of the opening woodwind…

‘It seemed like magic then, and it still does.’ So begins Tom Service’s book Music as Alchemy, in which the broadcaster explores just what it is that turns certain conductor-orchestra partnerships to gold. ‘It’ is near impossible to pin down, yet, as Service noticed in that first childhood concert experience, we always know when the magic’s there. It’s tangible in our Recording of the Year, announced on p32, a disc that’s the result of a brilliant, ten-year long relationship between the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko. And this issue’s Recording of the Month reveals the first fruits of what looks set to be an exciting new musical collaboration between the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Paavo Järvi.…

Why did you choose Strauss for your first recording with the NHK Symphony Orchestra? The real reason was the tradition of the orchestra. No one talks about Japan’s Strauss tradition but if you start looking closely at who has conducted the NHK Symphony Orchestra, then it’s pretty obvious they have spent a lot of time with great conductors. Herbert von Karajan is a good example, and of course he was one of the greatest experts on Strauss. There’s this love for Strauss’s music which I immediately felt when I conducted the orchestra. His orchestral writing is dense and complicated but on top of that it requires familiarity with his idiom, which the orchestra really has. I chose to pair Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben as the stories are both about…

Bernard Haitink is the finest living interpreter of the big symphonies MAHLER Symphony No. 3 Gerhild Romberger (mezzo-soprano); Augsburger Domsingknaben; Bavarian Radio Womens’ choir; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink BR Klassik BRK 900149 100:88 mins (2 discs) Half a century separates this live Munich recording and Bernard Haitink’s first (studio) recording of the Third Symphony made in Amsterdam. (For the record, the massive first movement lasts three minutes and 40 seconds longer in the latest performance). If we as audience members are still willing to hear the finest living interpreter of the big symphonies in his late eighties – and he gave a compelling Third with the LSO at the Proms last year – why shouldn’t proud orchestras go on issuing yet more CD documents of his ongoing thoughts on…

What comes across in all this music is Ligeti’s unerring ear for colour LIGETI Cello Concerto; Chamber Concerto for 13 Instruments; Melodien for orchestra; Piano Concerto Christian Poltéra (cello), Joonas Ahonen (piano); BIT20 Ensemble/Baldur Brönnimann BIS BIS-2209 (hybrid CD/SACD) 71:30 mins Hard on the heels of the disc by Les Siècles (see March issue, p92), comes another fine all-Ligeti CD, again including the Chamber Concerto of 1969-70. The main focus here is on Ligeti’s activity as a concerto composer, and only Melodien – described by him as ‘iridescent and metallic music with celesta, glockenspiel and crotales colouring it as though with gold dust’ – falls outside this category. The Cello Concerto of 1966 is almost an anti-concerto, inasmuch as the soloist’s part is very discreet: the initial cello entry carries…

Camilla Tilling’s vocal and verbal refinement delights the listener LOVES ME... LOVES ME NOT... Arias by Gluck and Mozart Camilla Tilling (soprano); Musica Saeculorum/Philipp von Steinaecker BIS BIS-2234 (hybrid CD/SACD) 65:51 mins In this outstandingly accomplished selection of 18th-century operatic arias, Camilla Tilling demonstrates just how rewarding such albums can be when executed with the most genuine kind of musico-dramatic artistry. The eminent Swedish soprano intersperses – not in entirely logical order – familiar Mozart with slightly less familiar Gluck to showcase some of their most fully-fleshed female characterisations: Gluck’s Euridice, Armide and the Tauride Iphigénie, Mozart’s Ilia, Susanna, the Countess and Fiordiligi. It’s an idea followed through with the sort of fine-grained delivery – in equal part vocal and verbal, whether in French or Italian – that results in…

JS BACH St John Passion Sophie Bevan (soprano), Robin Blaze (countertenor), Benjamin Hulett, Robert Murray (tenor), Andrew Ashwin (baritone), Neal Davies (bass-baritone), Ashley Riches (bass), Peter Jaekel (organ); Crouch End Festival Chorus; Bach Camerata/David Temple Chandos CHSA 5183(2) (hybrid CD/SACD) 109 mins (2 discs) Singing Bach’s Passions in a language other than German can be a gnarly issue. The inflected colours of the original text are as crucial to the soundworld as the use of period instruments. And for a translator, how paramount are Bach’s notes, the rhyming schemes, the theological niceties? ‘Accessibility’ drives this new recording in English. Yet within the opening recitative, ‘for Jesus resorted thither oft’ betrays a certain clunkiness; and where Bach allots four notes and a springy rhythm to Jesus’s first utterance, the English version…

ALWYN String Quartets Nos 10-13 Tippett Quartet Somm SOMMCD 0165 69:48 mins The numbering here is deceptive: despite composing numerous earlier works in the string-quartet medium, the always self-critical Alwyn was 48 before, in 1953, he produced what he was prepared to designate his official No. 1. The four works here, numbered posthumously, were written between 1932 and 1936, in the composer’s usual taut and ultra-lucid manner (none lasts more than 20 minutes). Their individual voice and level of technical command make it hard to understand why Alwyn didn’t think any of them good enough for his own final seal of approval. There is no known evidence of No. 13 being performed at all in his lifetime. No. 10 is a kind of four-movement Quartet-Suite, composed at sea on the…

JS BACH Goldberg Variations Beatrice Rana (piano) Warner Classics 9029588018 77:45 mins My first encounter with this pianist was accidental. While clearing the kitchen one day in January, I casually put on Radio 3: somebody was halfway through the Goldbergs at the Wigmore Hall. And I was transfixed. No question of waiting until it became available on iPlayer: I had to stay with it, listen to every note, there and then. The playing was irresistibly persuasive, and perfectly judged – clearly the product of musical maturity. Who could it be? Step forward Beatrice Rana, now the talk of the town – and this month voted our Newcomer of the Year – at the ripe old age of 24. Her CD of this same work confirms my initial assessment: 77 minutes…

Jazz critics may not be the most reliable judges of jazz. Reviewing a concert by Abbey Lincoln in the 1990s, The New Yorker’s resident sage, Whitney Balliett, dismissed her as a ‘kind of pop singer’, ignoring her almost cult-like status as a unique vocalist reaching the height of her powers in her 60s. But then Lincoln had spent her career defying misunderstanding and misrepresentation. As a beautiful young singer in the 1950s, she’d been packaged as a kind of male fantasy, before breaking free to cultivate her talent for cutting-edge jazz and the expressive legacy of Billie Holiday. Married to drummer Max Roach, she played a prominent role in the struggle for racial equality, her vocal style turning from silken to raw and declamatory. Following her divorce, she concentrated on…

HIGH-RESOLUTION TURNTABLE Sony PS-HX500 £350 Thanks to brands such as Rega and Pro-Ject, you can get a lot of turntable for £300, but with the PS-HX500 Sony has not only built a stylish deck with a bright, engaging sound, but included the ability to download and digitise your records in high-resolution quality. You will need Sony’s free Hi-Res Audio Recorder software, but once the turntable is plugged into your computer, you can rip from vinyl to your preferred digital format, whether that’s Sony’s own DSD (Direct Stream Digital) format or WAV files, both in a wide range of resolutions, from CD-quality 44.1kHz/16-bit, all the way up to 192kHz/24-bit. If you’ve got a vast record collection full of deleted and un-downloadable gems, it’s a tempting, albeit time consuming, proposition. Thankfully the…

Five key facts about a work being performed this month (Choice 18) • Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony was written between 1946 and ’48 as a commission for conductor Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. It was premiered in Boston in 1949 with Leonard Bernstein stepping in to conduct after Koussevitzky was taken ill. The first performance featured Yvonne Loriod, later Messiaen’s second wife, as the piano soloist. • The work features the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument that produces eerie wavering notes which was invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The performer in Turangalîla was Ginette Martenot, the inventor’s sister. Messiaen was pivotal in raising the instrument’s profile, using it in other works including Fête des belles eaux (1937) and Saint François d’Assise (1983). • Turangalîla is scored for a…

Luther valued his friendship with many composers of his day Exactly 500 years ago, in 1517, the German cleric Martin Luther published what became known as his ‘95 theses’, in which he attacked the common church practice of selling ‘Indulgences’ – people being led to buy their way out of God’s punishment for having sinned and enriching the church in the process. To Luther, salvation was a personal matter; it came direct from the Scriptures, not from the trappings of ceremony and the corruption that went with it. He didn’t want to split from the church but to reform it – to draw in ordinary people to the faith in which he profoundly believed. And while this wasn’t exactly a new idea, his defiant act lit the fuse for a…

BORN IN ISRAEL in 1976, Ilan Volkov studied at the Royal College of Music in London. After serving as assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony, he was appointed principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from 2003-9. Also formerly music director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, since 2012 he has curated Tectonics festivals in both Reykjavík and Glasgow to explore contemporary music. This year’s Tectonics Glasgow festival takes place from 6-7 May. Music was all around me when I was young. My father was pianist with the Israel Piano Trio, and I used to go to his concerts and hear him teach. Above all I remember him playing the Brahms and Schubert Trios, and it is still very emotional for me to hear them. I myself started playing the…

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 has rarely sounded so thrillingly alive Once every so often, a recording will have an instant, profound effect. Listening to our Recording of the Year at the end of 2016, I had a strong feeling that it would be, at the very least, shortlisted for an award. And so it proved. The clarity of the sound, the passion of the musicianship, the arc of the symphonic narrative: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 has rarely sounded so thrillingly alive, its triumphant ending so defiant. It’s a wonderful testament to the work that Vasily Petrenko and his Liverpool players have put into their orchestra since the Russian joined them almost exactly ten years ago. The BBC Music Magazine Awards, now in their 12th year, shine a spotlight on a…

Rediscovering Reicha The Serbian pianist Ivan Ilicÿ (above) is embarking on a multi-album recording project in which he explores the recently discovered solo piano works of Antoine Reicha (left). A friend of Beethoven, the Czech composer is known for his wind quintets, but he also wrote piano repertoire which has been preserved in France’s National Library. Available in September, the first disc (on Chandos) includes premiere recordings of Reicha’s Grande Sonate in C and the Sonate in F. Ilicÿ was drawn to Reicha by his fugue experiments. ‘Imagine if Haydn wrote a fugue in 5/8 – that’s what it sounds like,’ he says. ‘I’ve always been interested in asymmetric meters. That was the hook. Reicha wrote 12 hours of piano music and the best of it clearly deserves a place…

Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish Symphony have recorded Tippett’s Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 at Glasgow’s City Hall for Hyperion. Their last Tippett collaboration – with pianist Steven Osborne in 2007 – was named Critics Disc of the Year by Radio 3’s CD Review and nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award. Louis Lortie has just recorded the fifth volume of his Chopin series for Chandos in Potton Hall, Suffolk. Previous discs in the series have each focused on a different genre, including waltzes and nocturnes. Now, the French-Canadian pianist turns to the mazurkas and polonaises. The Gävle Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jaime Martín have collaborated with the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir to record a disc of Brahms lieder in the orchestra’s hometown. It is the second in a…

Arthur Sullivan once rushed into a rehearsal of The Mikado, seized the score and scribbled something in it The air seems to be full of Arthur Sullivan. Pirates of Penzance at English National Opera, The Mikado at Southampton University. And our double CD of songs is out – singers Mary Bevan, Ben Johnson and Ashley Riches and me. It’s the result of years of taking Sullivan’s songs seriously, with my Sullivan Song Day for Gresham College back in 2011 as a notable landmark. We’ve included the Tennyson song-cycle The Window, the brain-child of musicologist Sir George Grove, who persuaded Tennyson to write it, Sullivan to compose it and John Everett Millais to illustrate it. The surprisingly unmusical Tennyson hummed and hawed for so long that Millais…

Bob Foale Essex After a horrendous week at work, it was good to be able to finally relax at Wigmore Hall. On stage was the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group under the baton of Oliver Knussen, with a programme of works by Helen Grime, Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez and Peter Maxwell Davies. Definite highlight? The world première of Helen Grime’s Piano Concerto, written for and performed by her husband Huw Watkins. I’m looking forward to this appearing on disc, so that I can study this work further. Don Dugal Pittsburgh, US Being familiar with most of the standard orchestral repertoire, I was delighted to discover the fine Philharmonia Orchestra recording of Clementi’s Symphony No. 1. Having mistakenly positioned this composer to an earlier period, I was not prepared for the robust…

CUSHION COVER MAKING Making cushion covers is something I’ve stumbled upon fairly recently. It was when, in 2014, I was singing a long German role that I knew that I would need something to do while waiting around in rehearsal. I found this kit in WH Smith and thought ‘let’s do that’. It’s a perfect hobby, because when you are in a rehearsal room you don’t want to look completely switched off – that really annoys directors and looks quite rude – but you still want something to do. It’s also a nice thing to be able to do on a flight or a train, and makes a very personal gift. It mainly involves cross-stitch embroidery, and I either buy patterns or invent them myself. I have five nieces and…

Mahler once spied Hans von Bülow with his fingers in his ears Gustav Mahler was brooding on the worldly success of his great rival and friend Richard Strauss when he wrote to his young fiancée Alma in January 1902 that ‘my time will come when his is over’. Though four years the younger, Strauss was by then widely regarded as the Master of the Age. As a young prodigy he had long since dazzled the concert public with the outrageous brilliance of his early tone poems and was advancing towards sensational success as an opera composer. He was also harmonically daring, pushing the boundaries enough to impress the young modernists while simultaneously retaining the loyalty of the Romantic traditionalists with the lyricism of his songs. And he was everywhere,…

Mozart Don Giovanni Dimitris Tiliakos, Vito Priante, Myrtò Papatanasiu, Kenneth Tarver, Karina Gauvin, Guido Loconsolo, Christina Gansch; MusicAeterna/Teodor Currentzis Sony Classical 88985316032 If it had been any other conductor, any other record label, this Mozart Don Giovanni might well not exist. The recording was made, the editing completed. And then Teodor Currentzis changed his mind. ‘Sony said it was perfect, but I listened again and again, and I didn’t have the transition from the sparkling comedy to the weird drama of this theatre of shadows,’ he explains. ‘It’s one of the greatest pleasures in my life that Sony allowed me to go for this very specific idea of mine about the piece and rerecord it.’ So Currentzis headed back to Perm’s Tchaikovsky Opera House with the Siberian orchestra he founded…

Berg Wozzeck Christian Gerhaher, Brandon Jovanovich, Mauro Peter, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Lars Woldt, Gun-Brit Barkmin; Zürich Philharmonia, Zürich Opera Chorus/ Fabio Liusi; dir. Andreas Homoki (Zurich, 2015) Accentus ACC 20363 Berg’s Wozzeck is, quite simply, ‘the perfect opera’, says Christian Gerhaher. One of the most powerful works of the 20th century, it’s a searing tale of individual powerlessness in a cruel society. Yet when the German baritone was approached by Zurich Opera to sing the title role, he wasn’t sure he was right for it. ‘Singers who normally do this role have bigger voices than I have,’ says Gerhaher. ‘But then I decided that it’s a role that doesn’t match any voice perfectly. Some parts are so low that they should be sung by a bass-baritone, others so high that they…

Anne Sofie von Otter is in enthusiastic mood when we meet in Hamburg. She is singing Countess Geschwitz in Berg’s Lulu , staged by one of her favourite opera directors, Christoph Marthaler. She wants most of all to talk about intelligence in music. It’s a production that she has enjoyed because Marthaler hasn’t been interested in fiddly stagecraft, but in the revelation of character. ‘It would be so boring if every time somebody said “you’re scratching your nose” you were scratching your nose. Marthaler doesn’t bother with that. ‘You could say it’s static but people are really living the thought they are singing about. The tension is huge, and the audience feels it. I am with him 100 per cent and I want to do it his way. I tune…

COMMENTATORS LIKE TO point up the fact that conductors often carry on baton-waving until very advanced years: witness, for example, the late Sir Neville Marriner and Stanis√aw Skrowaczewski, both of whom carried on conducting into their nineties. Still on the podium, meanwhile, are the likes of Bernard Haitink (87), Sir Roger Norrington (83) and Vladimir Ashkenazy (80 this year). However, it’s a job not without health hazards. Ada P Kahn’s Encyclopedia of Work-Related Illnesses, Injuries and Health has an entry on conductor-related complaints. Cited are such ailments as plantar fasciitis (caused by keeping time by tapping the heel) and strained vocal cords from shouting in rehearsals. And let’s not forget injuries inflicted on bystanders when batons fly out of conductors’ hands, or the time-honoured peril of falling off the podium.…

Wagner. That name still conjures up for many listeners images of ponderous, overblown Teutonicism, of a prototypical Nazi, egocentric, womanising, dishonest, an unspeakable anti-Semite. This is the image promoted by popular books such as journalist Joachim Kohler’s 1997 Wagner’s Hitler: The Prophet and his Disciple, which made the long-dead composer the moving spirit of Hitler and the Holocaust. Yet only a few years later, something changed. In 2012 Kohler published Den Lachenden Wagner (‘The Laughing Wagner’), wholly revising this grim picture in favour of a genial, generous, liberal, impish figure. And in a 2014 Wagner Journal article he specifically absolved Wagner of any blame for the Holocaust. So should we, like him, really reassess our whole view of Wagner? For some people it doesn’t matter. ‘Forget the horrible man,’ they’ve…

Die Meistersinger Gerald Finley et al; LPO, Glyndebourne Chorus/ Vladimir Jurowski Opus Arte OA1085D (DVD) An intimate, glowing performance, with Gerald Finley on form as Hans Sachs. Die Walküre Matthias Goerne et al; Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra/Jaap van Zweden Naxos 8.660394-97 A high-quality perfomance of the most passionate Ring opera at a bargain price. Overtures & Preludes Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Neeme Järvi Chandos CHSA5126 From Die Feen to Die Meistersinger, an orchestral disc that shows Wagner at his most vivid. The Ring Cycle Birgit Nilsson, Hans Hotter et al; Vienna PO/Georg Solti Decca 478 8370 The most spectacular Ring of all and a landmark of recorded music history.…

Adrian Boult (conductor) London Symphony Orchestra (1970) Warner Classics 764 0152 Sir Adrian Boult knew Elgar personally, which gives special authority to his recordings of Enigma. The recorded sound of his last one, made in 1970, impressively conveys the focused lustre that he was able to conjure from the orchestras he conducted. No other recording combines unportentous grandeur with sensibility as this one does. Among countless memorable touches are the searching melancholy of the Enigma theme itself, the beautifully balanced violin-and-cello counterpoint to the woodwind melody in ‘C.A.E.’ (Alice, Elgar’s wife), the almost keening intensity of ‘Nimrod’, and Boult’s pacing of the ‘E.D.U.’ finale, with its carefully judged holding-back of the ‘C.A.E.’ theme’s recall before the rousing conclusion. That said, it’s possible to feel that the total effect sounds too…

This is exactly the sort of Hero’s Life I want to hear, with spectacular sound RICHARD STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben; Don Juan Fuminori Maro Shinozaki (solo violin); NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo/ Paavo Järvi RCA 88985391762 61:29 mins It looks as though many of us in the west have underestimated the top-league nature of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo. Of the generalisations trotted out about Japanese playing, those about fine-tuning and focus turn out to be absolutely true; the one about lack of emotion completely false. This orchestra’s recent performance of Mahler Symphony No. 6 at London’s Royal Festival Hall was the ultimate mix of passion and precision, while on this recording the elements combine to give us supremely vivid Strauss, guided by the surest of conducting hands, the Estonian Paavo Järvi’s.…

Paul Riley Journalist, critic Having gained his ARCM while still at school, Paul read music at Bristol University before moving into broadcasting and music journalism. He presented Mainly for Pleasure on Radio 3 after a spell in commercial radio where his weekly programme was nominated for a Sony Award. 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 music, Birmingham Conservatoire Misha Donat producer, writer…

RUSSIAN ORCHESTRAL WORKS Rachmaninov: The Rock*; Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini; Borodin: Symphony No. 2 Orchestra de la Suisse Romande/Silvio Varviso; *LPO/Walter Weller Eloquence 482 2888 (1967/*74) 67 mins Varviso’s Borodin No. 2, raw and spirited, is now outclassed by superior budget alternatives. His Tchaikovsky, rich in dread and melodrama, is short on tenderness. Weller conducts a decent Rock. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING *** BRUCKNER • WAGNER Bruckner: Symphony No. 4; Wagner: Parsifal – Good Friday Music Vienna Philharmonic; Berlin Philharmonic/Wilhelm Furtwängler Praga Digitals PRD/DSD 350 130 (1951) 77:32 mins In this live account of Bruckner No. 4 the echoey acoustic and less than immaculate horn playing – crucial, given the instrument’s key role – may deter all but the most devoted Furtwängler fans. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING ** SCRIABIN Symphony No. 1;…

GERSHWIN • SAINT-SAËNS Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5; Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F Richter (piano); Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, SWR/Eschenbach SWR Music SWR 19407 CD (1993) 67:05 mins Recorded when Richter was in his late 70s, the Saint-Saëns is musically captivating, although one readily senses the Gershwin is not in the musical bloodstream of either pianist or conductor. PERFORMANCE *** RECORDING **** LISZT Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Hungarian Fantasy Richter (piano); LSO/Kondrashin Alto ALC 1332 (1958-61) 75:06 mins Classic accounts of the concertos of magisterial flair; but it is the solo numbers, including dazzling accounts of Gnomenreigen and Feux follets, that galvanise attention. PERFORMANCE ***** RECORDING **** SHOSTAKOVICH Violin Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Alone – Suite David Oistrakh (violin); Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra/Mravinsky; Moscow Philharmonic/Kondrashin; USSR State Symphony…

Verdi’s Aida fields a dream team with Leontyne Price This beautifully produced box (Metropolitan Opera 1135701822; 22 discs) celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Met’s first season in its brand new purpose-built home at the Lincoln Center. And we’re there on the opening night: 16 September 1966, for the premiere of Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. It was written for Met superstar Leontyne Price, but Franco Zeffirelli’s production caused problems as the Met troubleshot new technology – and that applies to the broadcast as well. They were still figuring out where to put the mics, struggling with the balance, a distant chorus and stage noise. But the electricity is palpable, and the highlights disc allows us to hear the singers’ nerves in live radio interviews. They’re still…

Seven Songs in Folk Style feel defiant in their national pride HAAS Fata Morgana; Seven Songs in Folk Style; Four Songs on Chinese Poetry; Chinese Songs Anita Watson (soprano), Anna Starushkevych (mezzo-soprano), Nicky Spence (tenor), James Platt (bass); Navarra Quartet; Lada Valesová (piano, director) Resonus RES 10183 69:29 mins Among several promising Czech-Jewish composers taught or inspired by Janácek, Pavel Haas (1899-1944) shone especially brightly. His brutal murder in a Nazi death-camp alongside others of his generation remains an incalculable loss to western music, which may otherwise have taken very different directions post-World War II. By 1941, when Haas was transported to Terezín, he had already produced many fine works in a highly expressive idiom combining Moravian and Bohemian folk tunes and Hebrew chant with a quirkily off-kilter,…

Cooper’s keyboard mastery is as searching as the music itself LISZT • WAGNER Liszt: Deuxième valse oubliée; Gretchen; Années de pèlerinage II – excerpts; Nuages gris; La lugubre gondola I; Bagatelle sans tonalité; Wagner: Elegie; Prelude to ‘Tristan und Isolde’ (transcr. Kocsis); Isolde’s Liebestod (arr. Liszt) Imogen Cooper (piano) Chandos CHAN 10938 74:36 mins In March’s issue, Imogen Cooper offered some intriguing thoughts about her interest in performing Liszt’s music, after decades of being known and admired as a Schubert specialist. The supposed gulf in style between the two composers is indeed not at all as wide as received opinion would have it. Ten per cent of Liszt’s huge output consisted of Schubert transcriptions; and the anti-virtuosic manner of much of Liszt’s music – as explored in this beautifully devised…

PHRONESIS The Behemoth Ivo Neame (piano), Jasper Høiby (bass), Anton Eger (drums), Frankfurt Radio Big Band/Julian Argüelles Edition EDN 1085 65 mins In the golden era of big bands, small groups of key players would sometimes get together to record familiar material outside the mothership. Phronesis, a trio whose reputation has grown over the last ten years on the back of six impressive studio albums and their dynamite live shows, has done it the other way around. In an inspired move they’ve hired Julian Argüelles to re-arrange material from their back catalogue for the Frankfurt Radio Big Band (FRBB), with the trio at its centre. The risk for Argüelles was always going to be that the energy of the originals could be dissipated. In fact he’s succeeded in making the…

MESSIAEN: Texts, Contexts and Intertexts (1937-48) Richard DE Burton ed. Roger Nichols Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-027794-9 246pp (hb) Messiaen’s music is always about something. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he was convinced that music could convey or embody meaning and he spoke volumes about what his music was portraying. Anyone thinking that Messiaen’s loquacity leaves little else to discuss would be speedily disavowed by Richard Burton’s absorbing and thought-provoking Messiaen: Texts, Contexts and Intertexts (1937–48). The book itself needs a little context. A professor of French rather than music, Burton died in 2008 leaving a manuscript with the five chapters presented here, deftly edited by Roger Nichols. While it is a great pity that we shall never know what provocative insights would have emerged in the unwritten concluding…