Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2017 i BBC Music Magazine

ON STAGE Norse friends Founded by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Orkney’s St Magnus International Festival turns 40 this year. And it marks the occasion by exploring the islands’ historic Norwegian links. Performers from Norway appearing include The Trondheim Soloists, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bergen Domkor… and a pair of celebrity Norwegian knitters! See p92 ON DISC Gidon with it Gidon Kremer (pictured) celebrated his 70th birthday in Februrary and, if his superb new album is anything to go by, the Latvian violinist is still firing on all cylinders. He’s joined forces with the Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov and Lithuanian cellist Giedrè Dirvanauskaite to record Rachmaninov’s two piano trios, with eloquent and dazzling results. p78 ON AIR Mountain Ayres Conductor Nicholas Collon’s Aurora Orchestra is famous for playing from memory, which…

NORTHERN NEED I often agree with Richard Morrison, but I take issue with his article in the May issue on the need for a new London concert hall. The case for yet another venue in London is completely outweighed by the need for one elsewhere. Kendal, in Cumbria, for instance, is at the centre of a region bursting with musical activity. We host visiting world class soloists and the Hallé, BBC Philharmonic and Royal Northern Sinfonia orchestras; we are home to pianist Martin Roscoe, BBC Young Musician finalist saxophonist Jess Gillam and others, and have any number of high quality amateur choirs and orchestras. Despite these riches, there is no concert hall anywhere between Manchester and Glasgow. All musical activities have to be tailored to fit in the frequently awkward…

‘A friend at school asked me if I’d thought of taking voice lessons’ Sometimes it pays to be a bookish type, as Kate Lindsey discovered as a student at Indiana University. ‘I had a work-study scholarship in order to give me a bit of spending money,’ explains the mezzo. ‘My work happened to be in the music library, so in between shelving books – which might seem very tedious – I would fish around for information. A lot of the magazines had advertisements for festivals and auditions, and so I got really excited about doing things to give me performing experience. Each summer I’d end up going somewhere.’ The experience racked up in summer holidays, not least learning the role of Cherubino in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro on a young…

THIS MONTH Nigel Short conductor Nigel Short began his music career as a countertenor, becoming a member of The King’s Singers in 1993. In 2001 he co-founded the choir Tenebrae, of which he is still artistic director. Throughout 2017, Tenebrae is touring Joby Talbot’s ‘Path of Miracles’ across the UK. My finest moment Joby Talbot Path of Miracles Tenebrae/Nigel Short Signum SIGCD078 Shortly after we’d sung the world premiere of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles in 2005, Tenebrae embarked on a four-session recording project that was meant to be for Parry’s Songs of Farewell. However, after one session, I realised that we weren’t ready to record it, so we then had three sessions left to fill. I thought, why not go for Path of Miracles as…

@WatkinsHuw My favourite thing on Twitter is reading about people whose trains are late… Pianist and composer Huw Watkins (left) wins no friends among those of us stuck on the 6pm from Bristol Temple Meads. @CherylHoad I am temporarily alone in the house with 1/2 a bottle of wine. I could either do some work or drink the wine. Hashtag dilemma, or something. No contest, really, as composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad reaches for the corkscrew. @EricWhitacre I’ve just bought this cheap thesaurus. Not only is it terrible, it’s also terrible. Should the music ever dry up, composer Eric Whitacre could always consider a career in stand-up comedy… @ThomasGouldVLN I sustained a freak boomerang injury recently. The pain keeps coming back. …as could violinist Thomas Gould. @JenniferStumm I dreamt I was…

Jim Miller Loughborough I travelled to Nottingham recently for the Vienna Tonkunstler’s visit, and a wonderful Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto from Angela Hewitt in the first half – thoughtful, dramatic, elegiac by turns. I have heard it many times, starting with Clifford Curzon well over 50 years ago, but this was up with the very best. Then we had a virile and electric performance of Sibelius’s Second Symphony. The orchestra was outstanding throughout, but the unquestioned star here was timpanist Margit Schoberleitner, who gave us an astonishing range of tonal effects by judicious choice of sticks, and the widest but perfectly controlled dynamic range, coupled with fearsome technique. Janet Hall North Yorkshire I belong to Richmondshire Choral Society and we’ve been rehearsing Handel’s Messiah. He manages to bring in absolutely…

SCUBA-DIVING I’ve been scuba-diving for over ten years. It’s not unusual for Malaysian kids to spend a lot of time in the sea – when I was young, we would go to the beach to swim and snorkel and eventually, when I was old enough, scuba-dive. I now have my advanced certificate, so can dive down to 30 metres. I try to dive at least once every six months anyway, but more and more I’m finding myself on tour in lovely places such as Turkey or the south of Italy, so I try and fit in a dive or two there too as well. My most recent dive was at Nusa Lembongan near Bali, which was absolutely incredible. The corals there were spectacular – it was like seeing gardens under…

SINGER Karita Mattila  In two unforgettable performances at the Royal Festival Hall and the BBC Proms, said the jury, Mattila ‘held huge audiences spellbound through the nakedly communicative power of her mature vocal and dramatic artistry’. INSTRUMENTALIST James Ehnes  ‘Blessed with a generosity of spirit and an innate musicality,’ Ehnes has delivered an ‘extraordinary breadth of communication through eloquent music making,’ throughout his 40th birthday year. OPERA AND MUSIC THEATRE Opera North  In a double win for Opera North (see main article, left) the company’s magnificent performances of Wagner’s Ring across five cities and five years reached huge audiences. ENSEMBLE Manchester Camerata  Through daring programming, this ensemble has blazed a trail for what a 21st-century orchestra can do, said the RPS, with pioneering work in education, health and wellbeing, and…

Kyung Wha Chung admits to being depressed by the number of talented young musicians who come for a session of coaching or counselling and choose, when invited to ask anything they want, to put the question, ‘What do I do about my career?’ She knows they are really asking: ‘How do I become like you?’, and she has to explain, gently, that no two careers are the same. She is also blunt about the possibilities. ‘None of them will have a career like mine, because no one can have an identical career.’ She dispenses a dose of reality. ‘I have to give them counselling and tell them that they are absolutely different from the girl who is about to come in next. They say they’re going to enter this competition…

The village of Snape is a few miles inland from the seaside town of Aldeburgh on the pebbled shore of the North Sea. It stands out from dozens of other small Suffolk villages because of the vision of two extraordinary men, the composer Benjamin Britten and the Victorian entrepreneur Newson Garrett. In 1841 Garrett bought a site adjacent to the port at Snape Bridge. First he built a depot in which local-grown barley could be stored before being shipped to brewers in London and Norwich. Then, in the 1850s, he saw the potential for a major business opportunity, constructing a large many-floored building expressly for drying out barley on-site and transporting it by boat to the brewers. His concept became Snape Maltings – a handsome outfit, the supporting buildings looming…

Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) After arranging exhibitions and concerts in his homeland, the Russian impresario (pictured above) brought Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov to Paris in 1908, starring bass Feodor Chaliapin. This was followed by three Stravinsky ballets, The Firebird (1909), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Diaghilev founded the Ballet Russes in 1909. Léonide Massine (1896-1979) Following studies at the Moscow Ballet School, the Russian dancer (pictured above) took over from Vaslav Nijinsky as the premier male dancer for Diaghilev in 1915. Parade was the fourth of the many ballets he choreographed for the Ballets Russes. Erik Satie (1866-1925) The composer earned his living as a café pianist in Paris before entering the city’s Schola Cantorum in 1905. Ravel’s performance of some of his piano pieces (1911)…

Fryderyk Chopin, to give him his original Polish name, was born around 30 miles west of Warsaw in 1810. The family soon moved to the city itself, where Chopin’s father held a teaching post at the Lyceum. Learning the piano from an early age, Chopin was recognised as a child prodigy and began giving concerts in the city from the age of seven. He later studied at the Lyceum himself and composed the first of his Etudes while still based in Warsaw. He left the city in 1830, shortly before the major uprising.…

Polonaise style Telemann was deeply affected by the Polish folk music (violinist pictured left) he encountered while working for Count Promnitz. Its rhythms, modal melodies and raucous bonhomie ‘sets the entire world a-leaping’, he declared; and whether explicitly in many designated Polonaises or more generally throughout his output, the folk element flavours its prevailing urbanity. Galant style From the start, Telemann was drawn to an elegant simplicity that found its natural ally in the emerging ‘style galant’ which favoured a focus on melody and uncluttered textures underpinned by readily graspable harmonies. Musical directions such as dolce (‘sweetly’), and affettuoso (‘with tender affection’) signal a break with Baroque’s stiff upper lip. Programme music A born story-teller, he enjoyed painting fanciful musical pictures, especially…

Paganini 24 Caprices for Solo Violin You’ve enjoyed the variations, now turn to the original. Perhaps the best way to truly appreciate the wit and ingenuity of Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody is to explore the work on which it’s based. Of the two-dozen caprices for solo violin that Paganini wrote from 1802-17, No. 24 is arguably the most complex – with double and triple stops aplenty, not to mention parallel octave runs and left-hand pizzicatos, it tests the violinist’s technique to the very nth degree. The preceding 23 are, of course, no gentle stroll in the park either, but Paganini’s gift for melody ensures they never dull the listener’s senses as simply a display of violin showmanship. Recommended recording: Julia Fischer (violin) Decca 478 2408 Rachmaninov Variations on a Theme of…

HAYDN The Creation Piau, Persson, Massey, Padmore, Davies, Harvey; Gabrieli Consort & Players DG Archiv 477 7361 ‘The sheer magnificence of the choruses that provide the oratorio’s structural pillars has rarely been so effectively realised on disc. McCreesh also has an exceptional set of soloists. The results are exceptional.’ May 2008 HANDEL L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato Webster, Ovenden, Harvey, Riches; Gabrieli Consort & Players Signum SIGCD 392 ‘The choral elements are scrupulously handled and the soloists are choice. Webster is the light, bright soprano, Laurence Kilsby the delightful treble. Ovenden brings his words to life, while Harvey provides a solid baritone and Riches a confident bass.’ August 2015 MOZART Mass in C minor Camilla Tilling, Sarah Connolly, Timothy Robinson, Neal Davies; Gabrieli Consort & Players DG Archiv 477…

BERLIOZ DVD Symphonie fantastique; plus extras: The Concert (comments from Emmanuel Krivine); The Bassoon (presented by Antoine Pecqueur); The Timpani (presented by Aline Potin); The Violin (presented by Christophe Robert); Round table with Emmanuel Krivine, Antoine Pecqueur, Aline Potin and Christophe Robert La Chambre Philharmonique/ Emmanuel Krivine Alpha Classics ALPHA714 125:05 mins Performing Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique on period instruments was regarded as a radical, if not downright potty idea when Roger Norrington made his pioneering 1989 recording. As soon became clear, though, this colourful, arch-Romantic fantasy is fertile territory for historically informed performance. Berlioz’s orchestral imagination is as precisely nuanced as the scenario is wildly febrile, his wide palette and expanded instrumental resources ensuring the differences of timbre and practice are readily apparent. This DVD of period instrument ensemble La…

BEETHOVEN Symphonies Nos 5 & 7 Philharmonia Orchestra/Ashkenazy Eloquence 482 4951 (1982/84) 77:05 mins Intense, well-shaped, cogent Beethoven performances from a conductor who sees these works very much whole. Add something of the rhythmic muscle and drive of Toscanini and these would be highly recommendable. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4; Violin Concerto Mischa Elman (violin); London Philharmonic Orchestra/Georg Solti Eloquence 480 6595 (1950) 78:10 mins Mischa Elman’s mellifluous, expressively generous, expansive style and the driven, fiercely literal young Georg Solti are a weird mismatch in the Violin Concerto. The Symphony is exciting, in a ruthless kind of way. PERFORMANCE ★★ RECORDING ★★★★ BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 Leipzig Gewandhaus/Konwitschny Berlin Classics 0300839BC (1962) 48:04 mins This magnificently coherent, nobly expressive, beautifully-toned, and above all refreshingly un-egoistic performance works…

CPE BACH Flute Concertos in D minor, A minor & G minor Jennifer Stinton (flute); Orchestra of St John’s Smith Square/John Lubbock Alto ALC 1347 (1993) 66:53 mins Delightfully sprung, elegantly shaped early 1990s Collins Classics recordings that capture the golden-toned Stinton at her youthful peak, shaping phrases with skin-rippling sensual allure. PERFORMANCE ★★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★ BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto; Violin Romances Nos 1 & 2* Wolfgang Schneiderhan (violin); Berlin Phil/Eugen Jochum; *David Oistrakh; RPO/Eugene Goosens Alto ALC 1350 (1961/62) 62:25 mins A bargain of bargains featuring arguably the finest performances of the concerto and romances on disc, with Schneiderhan achieving an inner purity and soaring emotional intensity of spellbinding radiance. PERFORMANCE ★★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ TARTINI 5 Violin Concertos Salvatore Accardo (violin/director); I Musici; English Chamber Orchestra Eloquence 482 5079 (1973/82)…

HANDEL Serse Carolyn Watkinson, Barbara Hendricks; La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy/ Jean-Claude Malgoire Sony 88985397842 (1979) 180:52 mins (3 discs) A pioneer of early music, director Jean-Claude Malgoire knew in 1979 what he wanted from his band, but not from his lead sopranos. They apply vocal heft where the music begs for a light touch. PERFORMANCE ★★ RECORDING ★★★ MONTEVERDI Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda; Il ballo delle ingrate Laczo, Poulenard et al; La Grande Ecurie et La Chambre du Roy/Malgoire Sony 88985397932 (1988) 58:52 mins The raw excitement of this performance, made when Monteverdi was still a novelty, compensates for its flaws. Malgoire rightly makes his singers almost speak, and the band plays with abandon. PERFORMANCE ★★★ RECORDING ★★★ MONTEVERDI L’Orfeo Emanuela Galli, Mirko Guadagnini;…

NUCIUS Missa ‘Vestiva i colli’, and other sacred Music Alsfelder Vokalensemble/ Wolfgang Helbich MDG 334 0454-2 (1993) 45:58 mins To investigate the music of German Renaissance composer Johannes Nucius (c1556-1620), this 1993 recording is your only option. Fortunately it’s a good one, though fewer voices would probably be used nowadays. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ OBRECHT Missa Sub Tuum Praesidium The Clerks’ Group/Edward Wickham Alto ALC 1308 (2003) 69:39 mins Obrecht’s Missa Sub Tuum Praesidium is the main work in this reissue of a 2003 ASV release. The performances by this nine-singer ensemble remain very persuasive, if closely balanced. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ PÄRT Triodion Choir of Lancing College/Neil Cox; Peter Davis (organ) Claudio Records CC 4943-2 (1998) 50:15 mins Pärt’s Triodion, as sung by the Lancing College choir which commissioned…

JS BACH Italian Concerto in F; Partitas Nos 1 & 3; Four Duets; Fantasia & Fugue in A minor; Jesus bleibet meine Freude Rafa√ Blechacz (piano) DG 479 5534 65:54 mins Rafa√ Blechacz is a pianist in love with his left hand. There are places in the Italian Concerto where Bach signals that it should dominate, but Blechacz more generally is inclined to seek out the byways and inner voices that lurk beneath a top line. The left hand often leads the ear, cherishing motivic snippets, highlighting an arresting harmonic progression, recalibrating the terms of discourse. It can be seductive, but it can also distract and undermine the Bachian bigger picture. In the Concerto, for example, Bach‘s distinctions between solo and ripieno can become blurred, though the prevailing crystalline articulation…

The late 1950s marked a golden age for jazz: it commanded a large public following, boasted an amazing array of performers from legendary figures to the present and, in the thriving style of hard bop, had an idiom at once contemporary, bluesy and accessible. Hard bop’s mix of soul, a driving beat and fiery virtuosity was the sound of the late 1950s, packing clubs and selling truckloads of records, from labels large and small. For a surprising number of fans who came of age in those halcyon years, a key figure of the hard bop vogue was not one of its obvious stars – Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Miles Davis – but tenorist Hank Mobley, who played with them all and made his own reputation as well. Indeed, Mobley was…

Fiona Maddocks Music critic and author ‘In Mark Elder’s Manchester apartment, I was struck by all the art books and pictures. His daughter Katie Elder is a rising young artist. The last time I interviewed him, I think she was at primary school.’ Page 26 Humphrey Burton Writer and broadcaster ‘In 1967, when I produced a BBC documentary about Britten’s festival, I had no idea that I would one day become an Aldeburgher too. Today Snape Maltings, a 10-minute drive from me, is my favourite UK hall.’ Page 40 Claire Jackson Music journalist ‘The Paganini Rhapsody is one of Rachmaninov’s most explorative, creative works. Its richness has been captured on record by many different pianists – I thrilled at the opportunity to revisit some…

The photograph of American composer Philip Glass taken by Laura Barisonzi (February cover feature, above) adds a great deal of detail to the article. The background environment is of unmitigated concrete structures of grey and black. All surfaces are hard, unforgiving and tightly closed, with only the smallest vestiges of black and barren tree branches barely discernible on the left. Glass, dressed in the same drab and dark colours of the background, faces us with an expressionless, uncompromising cold stare, his large black shoes firmly anchoring him to the concrete slabs of the walkway. Congratulations to Barisonzi for creating such a powerfully telling image which reflects the sterility so presciently depicted by TS Eliot in his 1922 poem The Waste Land. Brent Record, South Africa Every month the…

I played Bach, Debussy, Maxwell Davies and more on three pianos in a computer-generated random order It’s surprisingly difficult to hide three grand pianos in a concert hall. The Music Department and the Institute for Sound and Vibration Research at Southampton University share a student who wanted to do some experiments on what people think of piano tone when they don’t know what sort of piano it is. So, our Mason & Hamlin was taken to join the Steinway and the Fazioli already in the Turner Sims, our concert hall. The problem was to conceal them from the audience. Yards and yards of black theatrical drapes, rickety stepladders and microphone stands were a good start, but then we found that although the pianos were invisible, you could tell whether it…

DAVID PARRY Conductor I’ve admired Maria Callas for years. In my 1950s recording of her singing Elvira in Bellini’s I puritani, she has such control and virtuosity, but it is linked to an exceptional sense of drama. Every note has meaning and the way she sings is both incredibly intelligent and passionate. In this recording, there’s this chromatic run which is absolutely extraordinary – you can hardly believe a human being could do it. She’s had such a major impact on how I think about opera. For me, Martha Argerich is the greatest living solo performer. She’s incapable of playing a boring note and her unbelievable technique is harnessed entirely to musical and emotional ends. Her live recording of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, has…

SWEDE SINGING Sofi Jeannin has been named as the new chief conductor of the BBC Singers. The Swede, who is currently music director of the Choir of Radio France, will begin her new role in July 2018. She takes over from David Hill, who has been with the esteemed choral ensemble for ten years. HALL CHANGE, PLEASE The Colston Hall in Bristol is to change its name to disassociate itself from a notorious element of the city’s past – the venue, which has hosted the great and good of the classical music world for 150 years, is named after Edward Colston, a 17th-century philanthropist who made his fortune from slave-trading. A new name will be adopted when the hall’s refurbishment is completed in 2020. A NEW DAY Originally scheduled for…

The trouble with doing everything ‘by ear’ is that it takes you only so far Don’t you get tired of fighting the same battles again and again? In my case, the campaign to keep music alive in schools has started to seem like trench warfare, though mercifully without anyone getting killed: an endless struggle for a few precious gains, then a counteroffensive that pushes you right back to where you started. It’s bad enough when the counter-offensive comes from politicians and educationalists who, like the hard-nosed businessman Gradgrind in Dickens’s Hard Times, see no value in children being creative. Gradgrind regarded children as receptacles to be filled with ‘nothing but facts’. So, it seems, do those who have continuously rewritten the national curriculum over the past 30 years: a process…

Women conductors: ‘There are a number of extremely talented women conductors – I just wish there were more. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the Berlin Philharmonic has a female music director.’ (The Guardian, 2013) Multi-post maestros: ‘It’s a problem in our profession that conductors don’t spend enough time with one orchestra, and that whizzing around and having lots of different orchestras is seen as being more successful.’ (BBC Music Magazine, 2008) Trying to compose: ‘When I had to write music of my own, it came out like bad Shostakovich.’ (The Guardian, 2006) How to relax: ‘The first glass of beer after a concert is just heaven…’ (The Daily Telegraph, 2014)…

Early years: Born into a prodigiously musical family in March 1948, Chung made her solo debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at just nine years old. Trans-continental: When Chung was 13, her mother moved the family to the US in order to give her musical children better opportunities. She and her sister Myung-Soh attended the Juilliard School in New York. Rapid rise: In 1967, Chung and Pinchas Zukerman became the first ever joint winners of the prestigious Leventritt Competition. Three years later, after standing in last-minute for Itzhak Perlman with the London Symphony Orchestra, Chung was signed to Decca Records. Teaching: Aside from her performing commitments, Chung tutors at the Juilliard.…

JUST A FEW MONTHS after I began at Aldeburgh, we had the unexpected opportunity to buy the whole of the Snape Maltings site. Though this wasn’t something Britten ever imagined happening, as far back as 1970 he had a ‘master plan’ to increase the site’s year-round activity. This new land will help us do that. While we bring the derelict buildings back to life, we can also reconsider how we are using the existing buildings. The development will have three elements. We want to increase our accommodation for students and tutors to around 80 rooms, which will also allow us to house large ensembles for longer periods. Additional music studios will allow us to provide more residencies to musicians and composers. We’re also working with a number of academic and…

‘It’s amazing how many singers don’t take care with the text’ Thomas Quasthoff first received public acclaim in 1988 when he won the ARD Competition in Munich – one of the world’s most prestigious competitions. After retiring from an international singing career at 52, he set up his own competition, Das Lied, focusing on the art of song. In June, he returns to BBC Cardiff Singer of the World as a juror in both the main competition and Song Prize. I have a lot to thank competitions for. The ARD Competition in Munich propelled me to the highest level in the music profession, and brought me the support of baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Any competition that doesn’t go out of its way to help its participants is useless – there should…

Warsaw Philharmonic Conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk (pictured left), Poland’s national orchestra plays its regular season at the National Philharmonic concert hall, a venue that, originally built in 1901, was reconstructed after being destroyed in World War II. The orchestra’s season runs from September to June. filharmonia.pl Grand Theatre The Grand Theatre/National Opera building is home to its own opera company and the Polish National Ballet. As with the concert hall (above), it was rebuilt after WWII. Details of both opera and ballet seasons for 2017-18 have yet to be announced. teatrwielki.pl La Folle Journée Held annually since 1995, La Folle Journée festival takes place across several venues in late September, with each year’s event centred on a different theme – previous themes have included Russia (2012),…

THE LIFE 1681  Born in MAGDEBURG to an upper-middle class family, Georg Philipp Telemann teaches himself how to play a number of instruments from a young age. 1701  He goes to Leipzig University, intending to study Law. However, he soon abandons the course and pursues his passion for music. 1717  He is appointed Kapellmeister of the Eisenach Court, which entails composing a cycle of church cantatas every two years. He keeps this post until 1730. 1724  His marriage to his second wife, Maria Catharina, deteriorates amid rumours of her infidelity and the revelation of her debts from gambling. 1739  He becomes the sixth member of the Corresponding Society of the Musical Sciences, founded to promote shared theoretical thinking. Later members include HANDEL and JS Bach. 1755  Inspired by a new…

STEPHEN HOUGH’S RACHMANINOV collection for Hyperion includes all four piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The two-disc set was lauded on its release, and 13 years later remains inspirational. The performance by Hough (right) of the Rhapsody is exceptional, as he balances bravura with passion, poetry and a hint of whimsy. The variations are laced with insider jokes: the theme, which is given on the strings with selected notes picked out by the piano, doesn’t appear until after an introduction. Here, Hough is more reserved than some of the other pianists featured here. The restrained beginning quickly gains a fluency, and by variations three and four we understand the transformation that is under way. As we gather pace towards the end of the first group of…

Sometimes I wonder where musicians get their energy from. A case in point is Ronald Brautigam. With Mozart and Haydn’s sonatas done and dusted, in 2004 the Dutch fortepianist embarked on all of Beethoven’s solo piano works. Thirteen years later – during which time he’s also notched up a set of Mozart piano concertos and dipped into Mendelssohn’s solo music – the indefatigable Brautigam has now reached the 15th and final volume (see p83). Fittingly, this splendid disc features the composer’s last major piano work, the Diabelli Variations. So what’s next? In our interview with him in the April issue, Brautigam suggested Schubert. But first I think he’s earned himself a holiday. Rebecca Franks Reviews Editor…

Why has The Seasons been less popular than The Creation ? The Seasons is absolutely brilliant, but I feel in some senses Mozart and Beethoven are more indestructible. It’s much easier to give a bad performance of Haydn. Everybody knows the story of The Creation so there’s an easy point of access, whereas The Seasons has a much more diffuse story and no natural storyline. Also it has never had a decent English translation to lift it off the page. There’s nothing wrong with listening to it in German, but there’s something more immediate about a language with which you are totally familar. That’s why I have recorded it in English. Just how bad is the original English text of…

The shared vision of these remarkable players scours the soul JANÁ∫EK String Quartets Nos 1 & 2; plus Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata dramatised (English & Norwegian) Teodor Janson (actor); Norwegian Chamber Orchestra/Terje Tønnesen LAWO LWC1124 151:42 mins (3 discs) Nervous systems go haywire when confronted with committed performances of Janácek’s two quartets. Imagine the impact, then, when both are carefully and selectively arranged for string orchestra, as they have been here by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra’s inspirational artistic director Terje Tønnesen, and when the first can also be heard broken up with harrowing readings from the Tolstoy novella which inspired it, The Kreutzer Sonata. That so much scours the soul here is due partly to the shared vision of these remarkable players and partly, on the…

BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3 KRENEK Symphonic Elegy SCHOENBERG Accompaniment to a cinematographic scene Pina Napolitano (piano); Liepaja Symphony Orchestra/Atvars Lakstigala Odradek ODRCD 339 74:06 mins The linking theme here is the ache of exile. By the time the Second World War was really underway in 1940, Schoenberg, Bartók and Ernst Krenek had all taken refuge in the United States. Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto (1942) reflects the anxieties of the early years of the war, Bartók’s (1945) more his own sense of mortality at its conclusion, while Krenek’s Elegy (1946) laments the death of Anton Webern, one of the war’s last casualties. But all three works heave with nostalgia for the Central European culture their composers had lost. True, Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a cinematographic scene dates from a decade earlier, but…

BELLINI Adelson e Salvini Simone Alberghini, Daniela Barcellona, Enea Scala, Maurizio Muraro, Rodion Pogossov, David Soar, Kathryn Rudge; Opera Rara Chorus; BBC Symphony Orchestra/Daniele Rustioni Opera Rara ORC56 152:89 mins (2 discs) Where would we be without Opera Rara? Here is another forgotten opera brilliantly performed, and accompanied by a 140-page book(let), full of handy information and the full text in Italian and facing-page English. Bellini’s first opera is not a great work, but I felt last year when it was done at the Barbican with these same forces that it is far better than even an ardent Bellinian could hope, given that it was a student work, hugely indebted to Rossini and raided by the composer for individual numbers to be included in his later operas; and it was…

BEAMISH • J BINGHAM • J MARSH Beamish: Gaudent in Coelis; Two Canticles; St Catharine’s Service; J Marsh: Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me; Missa Brevis: Collegium Sanctae Catharinae; J Bingham: Edington Service; The Spirit of Truth; The Darkness is no Darkness; Distant thunder; Tallis: If ye love me; SS Wesley: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace; Parry: My soul there is a country The Choirs of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge/Edward Wickham Resonus RES 10185 69:08 mins Many of the pieces here are CD premieres, and two were specially commissioned for the choirs of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge – the mixed-voice undergraduate and graduate choir, and the choir of local schoolgirls formed in 2008 by director of music Edward Wickham. Combined for this recording, they number 49…

BACEWICZ Chamber music Jeremy Polmear (oboe), Lucy Wakeford (harp), Tristan Fry (percussion), David Juritz, Victoria Sayles, Richard Milone, Charlotte Scott (violin), Ashok Klouda, Rebecca Knight, Sarah Suckling, Morwenna Del Mar (cello), Diana Ambache (piano) Ambache AMB 2607 66:18 mins Following her previous recordings devoted to chamber music of women composers, Diana Ambache turns her attention to Graz•yna Bacewicz. Not long ago largely neglected, Bacewicz is at last being recognised as one of Poland’s outstanding – regardless of gender – 20th century composers, every bit the equal of her contemporaries Lutos⌅awski and Panufnik. Though she died younger (aged 63) than either of them, she produced a considerable output covering the major genres. The chamber music, though, is an ideal place to start for those new to her music, and this disc…

TRICHOTOMY Known-Unknown Sean Foran (piano), John Parker (drums & percussion), Samuel Vincent (bass) Challenge Records CR73439 55 mins Having included guest musicians on some previous releases, this highly regarded Australian trio rings the changes again: new label, new bassist and the introduction of live electronic manipulation. The title references the fact that some of the tunes were devised specially for the recordings, while others had been extensively road-tested… that, and the fluid relationship between written material and improvisation. The trio operates as a partnership of equals, not as pianist and accompaniment. The electronic effects are integrated in the same spirit, with each member exploiting them. Their use is sparing and enhances the acoustic instruments rather than distracting attention. The compositions supply Trichotomy’s usual range of ear-worm riffs, dancing melodies, insistent…

GONE Min Kym Penguin Viking ISBN 978-0-241-26315-0 (hb) 248pp Here’s the story of a real-life Gone Girl. When opportunistic thieves stole Min Kym’s £1.2 million Stradivarius in Euston Station in 2010, it wasn’t only the instrument’s insurers who gulped. The 31-year-old Korean violinist was devastated and fell into depression, unable to get up and unable to play: ‘It’s Gone! It’s Gone! But more than that… I’ve Gone too’. Slowly, she is now finding her voice again and coming to terms with a complex pyschological past. For all the thriller-like marketing and sometimes overly-staccato, melodramatic style, this is a pacy and memorable first-hand account of what it means to be a child prodigy. Kym was undoubtedly that: she picked up the violin at six, a year later became the youngest-ever pupil…

Albert Einstein called dancers ‘the athletes of God’ ‘Dance is music made visible’, said the great American choreographer George Balanchine. And it’s that relationship between dance and music that I’m going to be exploring in my new series on BBC Radio 3, Sound of Dance. Ever since I spent five months learning waltzes, foxtrots and tangos on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing I’ve been fascinated by the way certain types of music inform and inspire different types of movement. I’ve always loved to watch dancers – Albert Einstein called them ‘the athletes of God’ – but now I have a much deeper appreciation not just of their grace and prowess, but also of the way their art changes the way we listen to the music they are dancing to. From…

 Do you live in a house that was once owned by a famous classical musician? Perhaps Franz Liszt once leaned up against your mantelpiece; or Poulenc paced up and down your hallway? Ever since the 18th century, London, Birmingham, Manchester and other UK cities have been rich melting pots of international culture – and of course, visiting conductors, artists and composers in their droves needed to have somewhere to stay during their tours of the country’s great concert halls. They might have simply been put up by a friend, unfolding a Z bed to kip on the landing, or rather more lavishly bought their own pied-à-terre for easy access to their adoring fans… If your facade has been adorned with a shiny blue plaque commemorating a composer’s birthplace, or a…

‘I am 95 per cent sure we will find as yet unheard music by Verdi in these documents’ Well over a century after Verdi’s death, excitement has arisen at the possibility that previously unknown compositions by the Italian composer may soon see the light of day for the first time. A trunk full of handwritten notes by the great man has recently been handed over by his heirs to the Italian government, which now intends to make them public. At the very least, say experts, the 5,300 pages will give an invaluable insight into Verdi’s working methods and creative thoughts and there may even be some unheard music lurking within them. Until now, the trunk has sat undisturbed at the composer’s house near Piacenza while his family debated among themselves…

A disc of Martin∞ piano trios recently won Supraphon the BBC Music Magazine Chamber Award, and there’s plenty more of the Czech composer coming up from this Czech label. This June, soprano Martina Janková , baritone Tomáš Král and pianist Ivo Kahánek head to Prague’s Martin∞ Hall to record his songs. After scooping the BBC Music Magazine Choral Award this year for their disc of Jonathan Harvey, the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha have turned to another British composer. They’ve recorded an all-Vaughan Williams programme, including the Mass in G minor, for release on their own label. The world premiere of Shostakovich’s complete original music for the 1955 film The Gadfly (Ovod) has been made in Ludwigshafen, Germany for Naxos. It’s been recorded by the Deutsche…

There will a noticeably informal feel to the Royal Albert Hall on 29 July, as the BBC stages its first ever Relaxed Prom. No, this is not the latest in the fad for chill-out concerts, but a lunchtime performance aimed at children plus adults with learning disabilities. Other concerts and themes announced by BBC Proms director David Pickard at the season’s launch include a centenary celebration of the Russian Revolution, ‘Beyond the Score’ Proms exploring the history behind great works, and a Prom in Hull. We will give full details, and more, in our Proms issue next month.…

Oliver Condy Editor A couple of days after the BBC Music Magazine Awards, I was at Wigmore Hall, where German baritone Benjamin Appl gave a stunning song recital with pianist James Baillieu. They saved, in my humble opinion, the best until last – Grieg’s beautiful ‘Ein Traum’ (A dream), in which the composer demonstrates his genius at conjuring so much from so little. A simply brilliant miniaturist. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor As Captain Grimes rode off onto Egdon Heath in the BBC’s recent adaptation of Waugh’s Decline and Fall, I was reminded of Holst’s Thomas Hardy-inspired tone poem. Egdon Heath brilliantly captures Hardy’s bleak landscape, where you feel danger and misfortune lie just a misplaced step away. The LSO’s recording under Richard Hickox is spine-tingly atmospheric. Rebecca Franks Reviews editor…

‘There are lots of people at Opera North I count as good friends’ CONDUCTOR Richard Farnes ‘I’ll always remember the first time I went to Opera North,’ says Richard Farnes. ‘It was a terribly expensive train.’ The then-student pianist had gone up to Leeds to audition as a répétiteur for a panel including Opera North’s music director Paul Daniel. ‘At the end of my ten-minute audition they said “You play very nicely, but we don’t really need anyone here at the moment.” I walked out thinking, “what a waste of money!”’ But when Farnes, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, applied to study at the National Opera Studio shortly afterwards, Opera North offered to contribute to his course fees. Later, he was appointed as assistant on an Opera North…

Donizetti Le Duc d’Albe Angela Meade, Michael Spyres, Laurent Naouri, Gianlucca Buratto et al; Opera Rara Chorus, Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder Opera Rara ORC54 ‘Sir Mark Elder elicits fervent and accurate performances from every last participant.’ May 2016 Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony; Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis etc The Hallé/Mark Elder Hallé CDHLL7540 ‘Elder’s way with the music’s pacing articulates the whole design with a vividness that allows an element of genuine dramatic sweep to come through.’ January 2015 Elgar The Apostles Rebecca Evans, Alice Coote, Brindley Sherratt, Jacques Imbrailo et al; Hallé Choir, Hallé Youth Choir, Hallé/ Mark Elder Hallé CD HLD 7534 ‘This impressive new Hallé set is a superb introduction to Elgar’s The Apostles… Mark Elder has perfect control of the large forces and dramatic…

Cocteau suspected Picasso and Satie of plotting against him ‘How on earth,’ groaned president Charles de Gaulle, ‘can one govern a country that produces 246 kinds of cheese?’ For those seduced by the placid, pastoral paintings of the Impressionists into thinking of the French as naturally cosy or subservient, his complaint comes as a healthy dose of realism about a nation ever eager to prick the balloon of pomposity or fume against condescension. French musical life provides any number of examples of the critical spirit at work. In the 19th century, Berlioz’s life can be seen as one long battle against a conformist Establishment, while Debussy’s revolutionary music, if less noisy than Berlioz’s, is none the less powerful for that, and to some degree nourished by his antipathy to Gluck…

Chopin clearly plays a central role in Warsaw’s cultural life When a city names its airport after a composer, you know it is serious about promoting musical history. Warsaw’s Chopin Airport was officially renamed in 2001 and fans can now take a snap with the airport’s namesake via the ‘Selfie with Chopin’ app. Across the city, key sites activate a virtual incarnation of Frédéric Chopin, who sits in the corner of one’s smartphone to enable users to take a portrait with the pianist. It’s an innovative way of attracting new audiences to the myriad Chopin-inspired events that Warsaw boasts. Events, that is, like the concerts held at the Chopin Statue at ⇤azienki Royal Park. For the past 50 years, recitals have taken place at the foot of the stone sculpture…

Had Georg Philipp Telemann been born three centuries later he would surely have taken to social media like the proverbial duck to water. An enthusiastic and early adopter of the newest innovations right across the board, was there a composer more adept at networking, manipulating the system, or keeping himself and his music in the public eye? This was not out of vanity or an overweening ego – though as his three autobiographical sketches reveal, he was not a man to hide his light under a bushel. Largely self-taught (or so he claimed), Telemann simply wanted to reach out to the widest constituency in order to share his expertise, open-mindedness and enthusiasm. As well as the autobiographies, the running commentaries by letter or pithy verse and the copious self-published collections…

Orpheus Roman Trekel (Orpheus) et al; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMC901618/19 (download) Jacobs conducts a stylish account of this trilingual take on the Orpheus myth. Tafelmusik I-III Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra/Ton Koopman Erato 2564698381 Telemann’s assorted musical sweetmeats are served with the Amsterdamers’ customary lightness of touch. Der Tag des Gerichts; Ino Concentus Musicus Wien/ Nicolaus Harnoncourt Warner Classics 2564 699729-8 A probing account coupled with the cantata Ino , both products of an octogenarian still firing on all cylinders. Water Music Musica Antiqua Köln/Goebel DG Archiv E4137882 Neptune is a guest at this celebration of Hamburg’s maritime heritage.…

Philippe Entremont (piano) The Philadelphia Orchestra/ Eugene Ormandy (1958) Sony G010003653285X (download) French pianist Philippe Entremont’s vintage recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra thrills for its intensity. His pianism is like crisp champagne, his virtuosity leavened with precise ensemble playing. It helps that the ensemble in question has a long affinity with the work – the Philadelphia Orchestra had premiered the variations on disc in 1934 under Leopold Stokowski with Rachmaninov as the soloist, who reportedly considered the orchestra to be his favourite. Entremont’s approach is more energetic and less inhibited than most: this is effective in the final variations, perhaps less so in the middle parts. The recording, while exciting as a slice of musical history, suffers for its close miking of the piano. Originally released on LP in 1958,…

Haydn’s The Seasons is a celebration of rural life and the natural year HAYDN The Seasons Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Jeremy Ovenden (tenor), Andrew Foster-Williams (bass); National Forum of Music Choir; Wroc√aw Philharmonic Choir; Wroc√aw Baroque Orchestra; Gabrieli Consort & Players/Paul McCreesh Signum SIGCD 480 135:21 mins (2 discs) Following his success with The Creation, Paul McCreesh has now recorded the last of Haydn’s great oratorios –The Seasons. And the performance matches the high standards of McCreesh’s previous grand choral projects. This 1801 oratorio is a wide-ranging celebration of rural life and the natural year, characteristically colourful and ingenious in its picturesque detail as well as in its overview of each individual season, and draws from Haydn assured and enlivening tone-painting that achieves a genuine panoramic glow.…

Steph Power critic, The Independent, The i; editor, Wales Art Review Steph is a composer, critic and editor of Wales Arts Review . Formerly a guitarist specialising in contemporary music, she contributes to The Independent and more, with two chapters forthcoming in The Music of Simon Holt , edited by David Charlton (Boydell, 2017). 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…

Klaus Heymann found a niche and an opportunity Naxos’s arrival 30 years ago was almost accidental. Klaus Heymann, the businessman behind the Marco Polo label, used a company he already owned to release digital recordings from a cancelled project, and had the brainwave of selling each CD for the price of an LP. The first budget-priced classical label was born. Heymann had found a niche and an extraordinary opportunity, making digital recordings of core repertoire with little-known but very capable musicians, displaying the discs in easily recognisable packaging where they would attract impulse buys. Heymann’s personal selection of 30 recordings for this Anniversary Collection (Naxos 8.503293; 30 CDs) begins with gently stylish Bach Orchestral Suites from the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, and the first Beethoven from Naxos’s indefatigable house pianist Jeno"…

The two concertos here represent the zenith of Grigory Sokolov’s art SOKOLOV Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23; Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3*; plus DVD: Grigory Sokolov: A Conversation that Never Was Grigory Sokolov (piano); Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Trevor Pinnock; *BBC Philharmonic/Yan Pascal Tortelier; film by Nadia Zhdanova DG 479 7015 71:43 mins + 58:49 mins Grigory Sokolov is now on a don’ttouch-me pinnacle. The only recordings this great Russian pianist will release are live ones, and as he no longer plays with orchestras, that means any orchestral ones are from the past. The Mozart here is from 2005, the Rachmaninov from 1995. But what is new is a documentary by Nadia Zhdanova, and, as far as it goes, this is fascinating. Old photographs and archive footage vividly illustrate this shy boy’s…

Berio’s striking end to the opera keeps faith with Puccini’s sketches PUCCINI DVD Turandot Nina Stemme, Maria Agresta, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Angelo Veccia, Roberto Covatta, Blagoj Nacoski, Carlo Bosi; Coro di Voci Bianche dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala; Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala/Riccardo Chailly; dir. Nikolaus Lehnhoff (Milan, 2015) Decca 074 3937 136 mins There are many more riddles in Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s production of Puccini’s final opera than are asked of Calaf. But it is a measure of Lehnhoff’s authority that you never question his choices – the blood red geometrical set, studded with coat pegs it seems, the people of Peking in uniform black and wearing half masks and then in brilliant red, and Ping, Pang and Pong refugees from some extravagant commedia dell’arte troupe. We are…

For Benjamin Appl the expression comes through the music BENJAMIN APPL Heimat: songs by Schubert, Wolf, Brahms, Poulenc, R Strauss & Grieg Benjamin Appl (baritone), James Baillieu (piano) Sony 88985393032 66:54 mins Benjamin Appl is not only a singer of boundless promise, he is already a great artist. This disc shows how versatile he is, with not only great Lieder but interesting rarities too. Many of the pieces are by Schubert, but there’s also one in French and several in English, including ‘Home, Sweet home’, though the others, by Britten, Vaughan Williams, Warlock and Ireland, do more to add to our growing awareness of the great tradition of English songs. In a moving and helpful note, Appl writes about the concept of Heimat, which basically means ‘home’ but whose connotations…

Kremer and his friends show the music to be eventful and eloquent RACHMANINOV Rachmaninov: Trios élégiaque Nos 1 & 2; Rachmaninov/Kreisler: Preghiera Gidon Kremer (violin), Giedré Dirvanauskaité (cello), Daniil Trifonov (piano) DG 479 6979 67:07 mins To celebrate his own 70th birthday, violinist Gidon Kremer has recruited the much-acclaimed pianist Daniil Trifonov and cellist Giedré Dirvanauskaité, a regular partner in Kremerata Baltica projects, to record Rachmaninov’s Piano Trios. These early works have not generally had a good press; even Rachmaninov’s biographer, Geoffrey Norris, has described the Second as ‘of uneven quality’, writing off its second movement – a set of eight variations on a theme from Rachmaninov’s The Rock – as an unworthy companion to its ‘memorable and impressive’ first movement. Kremer and his colleagues have upended that verdict: in…

For all its massiveness, this book proves unputdownable TOSCANINI: Musician of Conscience Harvey Sachs Liveright ISBN 2-370000-385888 864pp Harvey Sachs’s third publication devoted to Arturo Toscanini, a monumental new biography, follows his earlier one (1978) and his edition of the conductor’s letters (2002). The need for a second biography – ‘completely new’, in the words of his explanatory Preface – was made imperative: first by the discovery of those letters, unknown until the 1990s and full of revelations about Toscanini’s extraordinarily complex private life, and then by the more recent coming-to-light of recordings made in secret by his son Walter – recordings which capture Toscanini in old age recalling the past with characteristic vivacity. This material has resulted in a vast enrichment of Sachs’s command of his subject. ‘Monumental’…

• Albert Herring is a comic chamber opera in three acts which Britten composed in the winter of 1946 and spring of 1947. The libretto was by Eric Crozier and based on Guy de Maupassant’s 1888 novella Le rosier de Madame Husson, with the action transposed from France to the imaginary Suffolk village of Loxford. It was premiered at Glyndebourne in June 1947 with Britten conducting and tenor Peter Pears as the lead. • Albert Herring is set at the turn of the 20th century and pokes fun at village stereotypes. The action revolves around a May Day festival. Lady Billows needs to elect a May Queen but on discovering the disreputability of the local girls she turns to Albert Herring – a lad who works at the local greengrocer’s…

CARDIFF SINGER OF THE WORLD The Welsh capital will be filled with song, as the shortlist of 20 international singers arrive for the final rounds of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. BBC Four’s coverage of the biennial contest is presented by Radio 3’s Petroc Trelawny and soprano Angel Blue from the 2,000-seater St David’s Hall, where the prestigious jury – including soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, opera director David Pountney and soprano Ailish Tynan (above) – will deliberate their verdicts. With the Main Prize of £15,000 up for grabs, the five final competitors will be accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thomas Søndergård and the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera under Tomás Hanus. The final four rounds of BBC Cardiff Singer of the…

BORN IN 1945 in Tbilisi, Georgia, Elisabeth Leonskaja performed her first concert with an orchestra at the age of 11. A pupil and friend of the pianist Sviatoslav Richter, while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory she won prizes at the Enescu, Marguerite Long and Queen Elisabeth piano competitions. In 1978 she emigrated from the Soviet Union to Vienna. Leonskaja appears at this year’s East Neuk Festival, performing works by Schubert, on 29 June and 1 July. Tbilisi, or Tiflis as it was called when I was a child, is a very musical city. My parents moved there from Odessa at the end of World War Two, having lost everything when their home was destroyed. We had no means of making music at home, so my first musical experiences…