Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2017 i BBC Music Magazine

EDUCATED OPINION I was amazed by the response to Charlotte Gill’s article in The Guardian, ‘Music education is now only for the white and the wealthy’. Six hundred signatories from the musical world signed a letter opposing her stance on sight-reading – that it should be given up in favour of aural learning – and, in your June issue, Richard Morrison also unleashed his fury. Of those 600 names, almost all are professional musicians and teachers. Where are the audience members? The most noticeable feature of classical audiences now is the vast preponderance of grey heads, and the lack of youngsters. There is no shortage of talented young performers, but persuading young audiences to attend a concert hall is difficult. Is it easier for educationalists to measure and gain league…

‘From a number of singing competitions, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t’ Glynebourne is to launch a new televised opera competition. The famous Sussex venue, which has itself staged many an award-winning production over its 73-year history, has announced that the first ever Glyndebourne Opera Cup will take place next year, culminating in a final in March. The competition will be held in cooperation with other leading opera houses, one of which will give a role in a future production to the overall winner as part of his or her prize. Another part of the winner’s prize will be a cheque for £15,000, though arguably of even greater value will be the chance to showcase their talents on television – the competition is to be shown on Sky Arts.…

Mark Padmore has already recorded Schubert’s Winterreise once – to great acclaim, with pianist Paul Lewis. But the British tenor has decided it’s time to return to this bleak song-cycle, taking a different approach by working with a fortepianist. He recorded it with Kristian Bezuidenhout in Amsterdam, for Harmonia Mundi. Our Opera Choice this month is a recital starring contralto Sonia Prina (see p68). She’s been in the studio in Vienna to record Handel’s opera Lucio Cornelio Silla for Glossa, with a first-rate cast including Roberta Invernizzi, with Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi. Czech Ensemble Baroque has taken the cause of Franz Xaver Richter’s forgotten music to its heart. He was an Austro-Moravian musician who was director of music at Strasbourg Cathedral. With two discs of his music to its…

Thomas Søndergård (left)is to be the next music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The Dane, who is currently principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, will make the move from Cardiff to Glasgow in September 2018. He takes over from Peter Oundjian, who has been at the helm of the RSNO since 2012. Based at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the RSNO boasts a mightily impressive list of previous music directors and chief conductors, including John Barbirolli, George Szell and the much-adored Alexander Gibson, who held the post for 25 years. Søndergård himself first conducted the orchestra as a late, but very successful, stand-in back in 2011.…

@jbartonmezzo I take great pride in being described as both a foghorn and one of the sexiest performances of the season... in the same review!! Dvoπák brings out two very different sides to mezzo Jamie Barton (left). @nickythespence I’m very proud that I stayed in the right octave when a man produced a giant RAT from his trousers on the metro just now... Tenor Nicky Spence avoids squeaking out of place. @esapekkasalonen Waitress at the Finnish-named restaurant in Taichung, Taiwan: “you look hot”. Me (naively): “thank you”. She: “I put ice in your beer” As the temperature rises, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen so nearly enjoys a compliment. @PeterHDonohoe An unfamiliar large bright yellow ball in the sky giving off pleasant bright light & turning the sky blue. Anyone know what it…

Oliver Condy Editor A characterful cottage tucked away in Tetbury in the Cotswolds; a barrel of local Old Spot Gloucestershire ale; oodles of fine food; the new Warner Classics recording of JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations played exquisitely by Italian pianist Beatrice Rana; and some choice choir friends to share it all with. This is surely the recipe for the most perfect of summer weekends… Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Working on this Proms issue brings back memories of being despatched to the Royal Albert Hall seven years ago to spend a day in the company of the front-row Promenaders and Mahler’s Third Symphony, conducted by Donald Runnicles. I can’t recreate that wonderful one-off experience, but listening to the Bamberg Symphony’s recording under Jonathan Nott comes a pretty good second. Rebecca Franks…

Helmut Schmidt was such a confident pianist that he is featured on an EMI recording It doesn’t quite have the allure of ‘Make Love Not War’, the slogan that those of us of a certain age used to chant in the 1960s. But ‘Make Music Not War’ isn’t a bad motto for politicians. And it has become strangely topical. The new French president, Emmanuel Macron, has astonished everyone by revealing in an interview a detailed appreciation of Rossini’s operas, Bach’s spirituality and the piano music of Schumann and Liszt. Whether the astonishment is caused by Macron being an investment banker or a politician is debatable – both occupations are routinely castigated as ‘philistine’. But his musicological discourse, along with slightly vague reports that he won piano prizes in his youth,…

There are several Proms in a slightly different format this year – what are they? Well, I’m presenting a Prom with the Aurora Orchestra (22 July), who are playing from memory, where we’ll explore the music beforehand then hear a complete performance. It’s part of a wider range of things that Proms director David Pickard has programmed this year. There’s a Beyond the Score performance of Dvoπák’s Ninth, which combines actors, projections and live musical examples. And there’s an inclusive Relaxed Prom (see p29). All these formats help audiences relate to the music in different ways. Why is it so important to try these new formats? The mission of the Proms is bringing the highest quality music to the widest possible audience in the most democratic way possible, using all…

SOME COUNTRIES won their independence amid scenes of bloodshed and tales of heroism. Finland’s move towards self-rule was a more prosaic affair, achieved by a combination of opportunistic timing, no little self-confidence and the shuffling of paperwork. While a head of steam towards Finnish independence had been building up since the late 19th century, it was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II (above) following the first Russian Revolution in February 1917 that presented the ideal opportunity to press for change – it was, after all, the Tsarist regime that had kept such a tight control on expressions of nationalism. Though attempts by the Finnish Parliament to assert its sovereignty came to nought while the Russian Provisional Government was in power, the ball was rolling, and the second (‘October’) revolution in…

Ella Fitzgerald’s appeal, like her talent, knew no bounds Long before her death in 1996, Ella Fitzgerald was acknowledged as jazz’s vocal queen, a singer who commanded capacity audiences around the world and sold millions of records, inspiring devotion across the problematic divide between jazz and mainstream pop. Her appeal, like her talent, knew no bounds. She was a performer sans frontières, esteemed by fellow musicians from bebop king, saxophonist Charlie Parker to Lieder master Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and adored by listeners whose tastes ranged from the supercharged thrill of improvised scat-singing to the agreeable pleasures of classic tunes from Broadway shows. To paraphrase one of her greatest admirers, Duke Ellington, Fitzgerald was not just beyond category, but beyond categories, freely bestowing her talent on everything she touched. And while her…

WHEN IT COMES TO taking high jumps over genre walls and long leaps of imagination, London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO) look like world champions. The band, formed in 2008 by Robert Ames and Hugh Brunt, offers a modern counterpart to the multimedia experiments and pioneering spirit of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. LCO musicians inhabit a world in which art is boundary free and where creative dialogue between the arts can flourish. Their credits include partnerships with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, a UK tour of his There Will Be Blood soundtrack score and an appearance on the latest Radiohead studio album. Other musical collaborations include cross-genre work with Belle & Sebastian, Goldfrapp and Foals, alongside work with composer Terry Riley. London-based electronic artist Actress is joining LCO at The Tanks at Tate Modern on…

Old and New Holst followed the latest developments in music, playing Richard Strauss as a freelance trombonist, and later attending British premieres of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Yet his greatest enthusiasm from 1913 was for Bach (pictured above) and English Renaissance composers, whose work prompted him to reassess and pare down his own compositional style. Counterpoint Holst had a knack for marrying apparently dissimilar melodies, so they could play simultaneously, whether he composed them himself (such as the finale of his Military Band Suite No. 1) or used traditional and folk melodies (combining Greensleeves and the Dargason in the finale of the St Paul’s Suite ). Rhythm Holst hated performances in which rhythm was carelessly played. Inspired by the Russian…

THOUGH ROME’S FINEST orchestra undoubtedly rises to the occasion of playing its ‘home’ music, the magic here is really down to conductor Antonio Pappano (right) who, in a performance rich in imagination, captures the mood of the work’s four very differing moments spot on. Outside the Villa Borghese, Pappano lets his children run gleefully amok – as the movement frantically gathers tempo, the orchestra sounds as though it’s on the cusp of haring out of control… but is just about kept in check. And in the following ‘Pines Near a Catacomb’, Pappano creates the necessary sense of space by duly following the composer’s instruction to place the trumpet soloist ‘as far away as possible’ – many, surprisingly, don’t. A feel for distance, too, distinguishes Pappano’s march along the Appian Way.…

Recording of the Month Semyon Bychkov and the Vienna Philharmonic have turned their attention to an orchestral rarity, revelling in the rich colours of Franz Schmidt’s Second Symphony, p60 Farewell to a much-loved friend It was with great sadness that I recently learned of the death of our reviewer George Pratt (see obituary, p19). George had a rare, and enviable, ability to communicate the finer points of a recording without ever losing his way in the details. His vast knowledge, of Baroque repertoire in particular, was of course partly down to decades of listening to performances and studying scores. However, few are aware of the extent to which he was also a ‘hands-on’ expert – as a young teacher in the 1960s, he was already researching and performing little-known Handel…

How did you come to record this rarely heard Schmidt symphony? For the Salzburg Festival in 2015, the Vienna Philharmonic was performing works it had premiered throughout its history, and I was conducting one of those programmes. One piece was Brahms’s Third Symphony, and the other idea was Schmidt. Technically speaking, it was an orchestra that became the Vienna Symphony that premiered Schmidt’s Second. However I insisted on No. 2 rather than No. 3, which they did premiere, because I found it to be a much stronger piece. And Schmidt was second cellist in the Vienna Philharmonic at the time of Mahler, so he was a member of the family. Which of Schmidt’s strengths do you think the Second displays? The entirety of it is on an extraordinary level. I…

Every detail is clear and well-placed in these excellent recordings ELGAR Introduction and Allegro; Symphony No. 1 Doric String Quartet; BBC Symphony Orchestra/Edward Gardner Chandos CHSA 5181 (hybrid CD/SACD) 65:20 mins Reviewing Vasily Petrenko’s Elgar First Symphony two years ago, I thought it was unlikely to be beaten for a long while. After hearing Edward Gardner’s version I’m feeling slightly chastened. Gardner’s sound is less opulent and rounded: you’re more aware of striving or singing lines in his textures, sometimes contending, sometimes deliciously interacting. But this more complex, multi-faceted, subtly changeable Elgar feels just that little bit truer. The nobility and majesty in the first theme are genuine enough, so too are those gorgeous ‘heard down by the river’ nature moments. It isn’t long though before the troubled, restless, yearning…

A disc full of fast-flying vocal runs and showoff turns of phrase GLUCK Heroes in Love: arias from Sofonisba, Demofoonte, Demetrio, Semiramide riconosciuta, Ezio, Ippolito, Ipermestra and Telemaco Sonia Prina (contralto); La Barocca/Ruben Jais Glossa GCD 924101 71:28 mins This Gluck recording offers an exceptional combination of illumination and pleasure-giving. Eight of its 12 operatic items are ‘firsts’ on record, the other four hardly better-known. It offers a sampling largely of Gluck’s earliest years as a successful composer of opera seria, mostly in Italy. As a whole the programme doesn’t just claim attention for rarity value – and for the way it extends further the current rediscovery of Gluck’s pre-Orfeo output, previously entirely neglected – but simultaneously showcases brilliant interpretative confrontations between one of today’s most exciting early opera performers…

BEACH Piano Trio in A minor KLOUDA Piano Trio No. 1 C SCHUMANN Piano Trio in G minor Monte Piano Trio Genuin GEN 17449 54:44 mins The enigmatic, impressionistic opening of Amy Beach’s 1938 Piano Trio in A minor promises much: Fauré hovers in the air, but his ghost is rapidly dispelled in the violin’s soupy first melody, and laid to rest in thunderous piano scales that seem ludicrously inappropriate in this whimsical context. It’s as if she toyed with something dangerously Continental but lost heart and fell back on the crutch of virtuosic noise. Beach is at her best in passages of light, sinuous counterpoint, which, for example, carry the Lento espressivo through into a charming, skittering middle episode. In the pummelling bass of the jolly moto perpetuo Allegro…

JS BACH Cello Suites Nos 1, 2 & 3 Slava Grigoryan (guitar) ABC Classics ABC 4814553 58:43 mins The mostly-single-line abstract purity of Bach’s six solo cello suites makes them playable on any instrument. On YouTube, No. 1’s bustling Prelude appears on sax, marimba, ukulele and more. With upward key changes, the pieces arrange conveniently for guitar, and have been recorded in original keys before on eight-string guitars. But Australian Slava Grigoryan’s is apparently the first such on baritone guitar: a larger brother, tuned a fifth below (A-D-G-C-E-A). The cello score is played note-for-note with control, precision and excellence. Ornamentation and elasticity is sparing – richness comes from the instrument’s sound, its dark, deep resonances hinting at cello or even piano, in No. 2’s Sarabande for instance. (So they sound…

ALEXI TUOMARILA Kingdom Alexi Tuomarila (piano), Mats Eilertsen (double bass), Olavi Louhivuori (drums) Edition EDN 1090 56mins The regeneration of the piano trio began around the turn of the century, but reputations often seemed to flower from factors bearing little relation to the fundamental virtues of the genre: for example, a preponderance of elements imported from rock, additional instruments or electronics. Nothing necessarily wrong with these, but it is refreshing to hear a trio like this, developing the tradition while staying within its broad constraints. Kingdom marks pianist Alexi Tuomarila’s settling back in Helsinki, his home town. Each trio member contributed some compositions (there’s also a Bob Dylan piece) and each carries pretty much equal weight. As we tend to expect these days, this is a trio with a pianist,…

BEHIND THE BATON: An American Icon Talks Music Gerard Schwarz with Maxine Frost Amadeus Press ISBN 978-1-57467-476-7 378pp (hb) Anyone hoping this insightful memoir might add substance to rumours of acrimony surrounding conductor Gerard Schwarz’s departure from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in 2006 (following five years as music director) will be sorely disappointed. Indeed, he has nothing but praise for the musicians in his charge and the ‘many lasting friendships’ he made and ‘fantastic concerts’ he gave during his time there. This in many ways sets the tone for a book that refreshingly exchanges ephemera for an information-packed, sweeping narrative, full of optimism and affection, that reveals a man whose passionate dedication to music is evident on every page. Schwarz is a man driven by a desire to achieve the…

Five key facts about a work being performed this month (Choice 17) • Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, a setting of an old Slavonic church text from the ninth century, was composed during the last few years of the composer’s life. It is a large-scale composition, written for four vocal soloists (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), with a double chorus, organ and orchestra. • The original version was premiered in December 1927 by the Brno Arts Society, and a revised edition was performed in Prague a year later. The choral masterpiece takes its name from the Glagolitic alphabet, an early form of Slavic. Janácek brings out the staccato articulation of the Slavic language. • Although Janácek had grown up in a monastery, he didn’t appear that interested in religion. According to his…

1 SATURDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9am-12.15pm Record Review – Building a Library Richard Morrison on Janácek’s Sinfonietta 12.15-1pm Music Matters 1-3pm Saturday Classics 3-4pm Sound of Cinema 4-5pm Jazz Record Requests 5-6.30pm Jazz Line-Up 6.30-10pm Opera on 3 from Garsington Opera. Handel Semele. Heidi Stober (Semele), Robert Murray (Jupiter) et al. Garsington Opera Orchestra/Jonathan Cohen 10pm-12 midnight Hear and Now 12 midnight-1am Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz 2 SUNDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9am-12 noon Sunday Morning 12 noon-1pm Private Passions Lindsey Davis, author 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert (rpt, from Wigmore Hall) 2-3pm The Early Music Show Hannah French delves into the history of Handel’s Water Music 3-4pm Choral Evensong (rpt) 4-5pm The Choir 5-5.30pm The Listening Service 5.30-6.45pm Words and Music 6.45-7.30pm Sunday Feature From the Ashes – the growth of UK music festivals after…

Stephen Johnson Critic and author ‘I’ve been drawn to Finland since I fell for Moomintroll and the music of Sibelius as a child. That love is now enriched by knowledge of that magical country. When I’m stressed, I often think of rocks, trees and lakes, and of twilit summer nights.’ Page 34 Geoffrey Smith Radio 3 presenter and writer ‘Ella Fitzgerald was a vocal wonder, a natural virtuoso whose technique flowed from her inspired creativity and joy in performance, illuminating every note. Which is why she’s adored by singers of every genre.’ Page 42 Daniel Jaffé Writer and critic ‘His friendship Vaughan Williams apart, Holst has usually been thought of as a rather lone figure. It has been very exciting to discover crucial friendships with other musicians that…

‘When I won Operalia, the interest I received changed overnight’ ‘There’s a young Norwegian soprano called Lise Davidsen,’ David Pickard, director of the BBC Proms, told BBC Music Magazine in an interview earlier this year. ‘When I first heard her sing, she completely knocked me sideways.’ From the man responsible for the largest classical music festival in the world, that’s high praise indeed for a singer whose discovery of classical music could be described as a happy accident. At high school in Stokke, Norway, Davidsen was given a choice between music and handball. She chose music and, thanks to a teacher who ran a local choir, discovered she had a voice. ‘I remember being given an aria to sing when I was about 14,’ she says. ‘I had no idea…

THIS MONTH Anne-Sophie Mutter violinist One of today’s most renowned violinists, Anne-Sophie Mutter was championed at an early age by conductor Herbert von Karajan. She plays the Dvoπák Violin Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck at this year’s Proms. (Prom 69, 4 Sept). My finest moment Tango Song and Dance Works by Brahms, Fauré, Gershwin, Kreisler and Previn Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), André Previn (piano), Lambert Orkis (piano) Deutsche Grammophon E471 5002 (2003) This recording was made in a private and unique setting. We had to record in the early morning hours, from 4-7am, as it was the only time available in the Munich Herkulessaal that we knew we wouldn’t be disturbed by traffic noises. We crawled out of the house to go there and play…

It’s always interesting to hear different settings of the same poem, such as Warlock and Gurney’s Sleep A17th-century house overlooking a canal bridge in Amsterdam certainly gives you a bird’s-eye view of the cyclists’ daily dance with death. OK, so no one actually died while we were there – for all the fallings-off – and it’s probably much safer than London, but even to someone who used to cycle round London 40 years ago, it all seemed terrifyingly casual: pillion-passengers with their legs stuck out to balance; bakfiets – a sort of bike-operated wheelbarrow – overflowing with toddlers and dogs, unless the dog was in the basket; never a helmet, rarely a lamp. And the hand-signals! Basically, a vague wave in the general direction before cutting across diagonally.…

Matthew Eve London A few years back I got hold of a recording of Jonathan Dove’s There Was a Child, performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and I can’t stop listening to it. It’s an exciting piece of music that transcends time and speaks to different types of people. Dove writes brilliantly for community choirs, children and professional choirs. I think it’s one of the best pieces of modern music. His orchestral soundworld is unique. Melanie Bruce Cape Town, S Africa I recently attended a celebration of contemporary choral music by Cape Town’s latest choir, VOX Cape Town, under the direction of John Woodland. He and his singers created an intimate, sensory experience as they showcased the music of Eric Whitacre , demonstrating what powerful beauty there is…

ASTERIX BOOKS I first became aware of Asterix when I was about eight or nine and my French cousins came to visit. They had one of the books and I was fascinated by it. I couldn’t speak French and didn’t understand a word of it, but I loved the drawings and my cousins explained to me what was happening in it. I then started to read Asterix books in the English translations. It’s the general style and character of the books that I love plus their irreverence and charm, and the more you read them, the more you start to notice tiny little quips on the side. And I love the names, such as the Roman called Magnumopus in Asterix and the Roman Agent, and Postaldistrix, the Gaulish postman. I…

Composers plied their trade under Stalin’s oppressive regime FEW EVENTS IN HISTORY have had quite the same direct impact on the course of classical music as the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, as will be shown in this year’s centenary exploration at the BBC Proms. When, in February and October 1917, two revolutions led first to the removal of the Tsar and then the beginning of the Bolshevik regime, Rachmaninov, a member of the bourgeoisie, was one of the first to make a rapid exit, heading to the US. Prokofiev would soon follow, but returned to what was now the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Others such as Myaskovsky and Shostakovich – a boy at the time of the Revolution itself – plied their trade within the Soviet Union, their…

There’s nothing more refreshing that finding a young musician who talks about her developing career without any artifice or anxiety. It’s simply a question of playing as often as possible and persuading others that the journey is worth taking. Jess Gillam turned 19 in May, and in July she’ll be playing at the BBC Proms. She’s in huge demand here and abroad, and she is as good a young evangelist for the saxophone as you could hope to find. ‘Everyone says of every instrument that it’s close to the human voice but I think the saxophone definitely is. I know it. Something about the saxophone is particular – whatever you’re feeling, it feels with you,’ she says. We meet in the Royal Albert Hall, and she talks about the first…

This is a building that belongs to the people of Hamburg Christoph Lieben-Seutter, the chief executive of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, can laugh about it now… But just a few years ago, when the north German city’s new complex of concert halls, hotel, apartments and more was failing to meet deadline after deadline and haemorrhaging hundreds of millions of euros, the byword for ‘building scandal’, he admits, was ‘Elbphilharmonie’. Although, he adds, attention was eventually diverted away from them by the even bigger delays of Berlin’s new Brandenburg Airport. But thankfully, and luckily for Hamburg, the Elbphilharmonie is a triumph, albeit an 800m euro triumph (the original estimate was below 300m euros). Parked atop a disused red brick warehouse, the glass-clad building is a striking addition to the city’s rapidly developing port,…

THE LIFE 1874  Gustav Holst is born on 21 September in CHELTENHAM , where his father, Adolph, is organist at All Saints’ Church. His mother dies during his childhood. 1893  The year after gaining his first appointment as organist/choirmaster at a local church, he wins a place at the Royal College of Music. His teachers include Stanford and PARRY . 1905  He is appointed head of music at St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, a post he holds for the rest of his life. 1908  Suffering from depression, he holidays in Algeria, where he explores the desert on a bicycle. A tune played repeatedly by a local musician inspires his Beni Mora suite. 1918  His orchestral suite The Planets is heard for the first time, performed by the New Queen’s…

Lorin Maazel (conductor) Cleveland Orchestra (1976) Decca 466 9932 Respighi’s Pines was championed in the US by Toscanini and the New York Philharmonic soon after its premiere, and its continuing popularity across the pond is amply reflected by a sizable clutch of excellent recordings by American orchestras: the Philadelphia Orchestra and Riccardo Muti (Warner) make up for lack of subtlety with raw excitement, while Fritz Reiner’s similarly thrilling 1957 recording with the Chicago Symphony (RCA) and Seiji Ozawa’s lively account with the Boston Symphony (DG) are also worth exploring. For an elegant performance coupled with truly opulent sound, however, Lorin Maazel and the Cleveland Orchestra get the nod – to pick out just one moment, the thundering organ and brass emerging from the dark depths in Maazel’s ‘Pines near a…

Claire Jackson writer, journalist Claire has edited International Piano (2011-15), Music Teacher (2015) and Muso (2008-11). Her most memorable moments include listening to Bach’s Art of Fugue performed in an aquarium, having breakfast with flautist James Galway and attending Grimes on the Beach at Aldeburgh Festival. 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…

JS BACH Harpsichord Concertos; The Art of Fugue (arr. Isaacs) Malcolm (harpsichord); Stuttgarter Kammerorchester/Münchinger Eloquence 482 5187 (1964-65) 134:36 mins (2 discs) Malcolm’s mid-1960s Art of Fugue and concertos with Karl Münchinger feature noble, first-generation revisionism on modern instruments of highly compelling dramatic sweep and vision. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ HARPSICHORD CONCERTOS Works by Arne, CPE Bach & JC Bach Malcolm (harpsichord); ASMF/Marriner Eloquence 482 5117 (1968-69) 74.23 mins Combining the contents of two late 1960s LPs, these invigorating performances capture the Academy during its first flush of success and George Malcolm at the height of his powers. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ JEAN PIERRE RAMPAL - IN PRAGUE: the Complete Supraphon Recordings Works by Feld, Richter, Prokofiev, Benda, Rössler-Rosetti, Stamitz Rampal (flute); Various musicians Supraphon SU 4217-2 (1955-58) 162:23…

JS BACH St Matthew Passion Hannah Morrison, Zoë Brookshaw, Charlotte Ashley (soprano), Reginald Mobley, Eleanor Minney (alto), James Gilchrist, Hugo Hymas (tenor), Stephan Loges, Ashley Riches, Alex Ashworth, Jonathan Sells (bass); Trinity Boys Choir; Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner Soli Deo Gloria SDG 725 161:04 mins (2 discs) It is almost 30 years since John Eliot Gardiner made his first commercial recording of Bach’s Great Passion, as his family were accustomed to call it. Gardiner’s approach has not significantly changed over the decades though one discernible difference is a mixed male and female voice texture for the alto strand of the choral numbers as opposed to the all-male countertenor line up of the earlier version. I prefer the mixed sound though some readers may not. In this recording,…

Thile and Meyer bring an appealing swing and spontaneity to Bach JS BACH Arrangements for trio Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Chris Thile (mandolin), Edgar Meyer (bass) Nonesuch 7559-79392-0 57:72 mins Bach’s protean music has been arranged for the most surprising resources, from marimba bands to synthesizers and saxophone quartets. The unlikely ménage à trois here is cello, double bass, and mandolin – but it’s a winning combination in the hands of virtuosos Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile. Despite musical backgrounds that are poles apart, their previous collaborations, in cross-over projects like the Grammy Award-winning Goat Rodeo Sessions, testify to an exhilarating meeting of minds. These skilled arrangements of Bach are bookended by versions of the Trio Sonata BWV 530 and the G minor Gamba Sonata, and include preludes and…

REFLECTIONS OF AN AMERICAN HARPSICHORDIST Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick, ed. Meredith Kirkpatrick Rochester UP ISBN 978-1-58046-591-5 226pp (hb) £80.00 rrp Following 2014’s publication of a collection of his eminently urbane correspondence, anyone impelled to know more about the trailblazing American harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick will welcome its sequel – again edited with exemplary thoroughness by his niece Meredith Kirkpatrick. Divided into four sections spanning essays, reflections Humour and waspish observations gild both memoir and polemic and lectures, it’s kick-started by an agreeably gossipy memoir opening in pre-war Salzburg where Poulenc, Eugene Ormandy and the poet Stephen Spender were among those dropping by his studio. There’s a vividly-observed vignette of Franco’s Spain as he pursues his groundbreaking Scarlatti studies (striking gold when the Madrid telephone directory…

1 MOZART’S MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO Royal Opera House, 26 June – 7 July Tel: +44 (0)20 7304 4000 Web: www.roh.org.uk Two brothers are in love with the woman their father intends to marry. It’s a big subject for a composer not yet 15 when Mitridate, re di Ponto was premiered in 1770. Graham Vick’s classic Mozart production from 1991 is revived under the baton of Christophe Rousset, with tenor Michael Spyres in the title role and soprano Albina Shagimuratova as his intended, Aspasia. 2 SCHUBERTIADE  Crail Church, East Neuk, 29 June – 1 July Tel: +44 (0)131 473 2000 Web: www.eastneukfestival.com A five-concert Schubertiade crowns the East Neuk Festival, majoring on the decisive decade of 1816-26. Pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja tackles sonatas, the Wanderer…

Alan Davey , the controller of Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into in July FIRST NIGHT OF THE PROMS ‘This is the composer I feel closest too’, enthuses pianist Igor Levit ahead of his performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto at the start of this year’s exciting BBC Proms season. The concert also marks the first time that the pianist has worked with Edward Gardner – who is conducting the massed forces of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with the BBC Proms Youth Choir. All the Proms concerts are being broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and this festive opener begins with the world premiere of Tom Coult’s St John’s Dance. It also picks up one of this year’s main anniversaries, John Adams at 70,…

BEST KNOWN TODAY as one of the world’s leading wine experts, Oz Clarke was previously an actor and singer. A chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, he later sang with the Schola Cantorum while at Oxford University before beginning a career in the West End, where he starred in shows including Sweeney Todd and Evita. He is currently presenting wine-and-music concerts with the Armonico Consort, which can be enjoyed at this month’s Harrogate, Buxton and Lichfield festivals. My mum came from a very musical family in County Kilkenny in which everyone played a musical instrument. My father was a doctor, but he wrote music as well. One of the first things my mother did when we moved to our house in Kent was to order a Blüthner piano. She would sit at…

Listening live to world-class concerts is one of the great thrills of our age The planner is up on the kitchen door, the Proms guide given pride of place on the coffee table and my diary is marked with the concerts I plan to see. The anticipation of those eight weeks of wall-to-wall music is as much a part of the Proms as the music itself. Even the stroll through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens from Paddington to the Royal Albert Hall has become part of my summer ritual, the magnificent venue hoving into view as I make my way through the avenues of lime trees, past the Albert Memorial. And when I’m at home of an evening, the dial on my radio (and yes, my FM radio does have…

ANU KOMSI Soprano I’m currently doing a production of Meyerbeer’s L’étoile du nord, and as there is only one recording of it – from 1996, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski and with tenor Juan Diego Flórez in one of the roles – I’ve been listening to that. The opera, whose plot begins in Finland, has started to enjoy a revival in Germany but has been largely forgotten in Scandinavia. I’m not sure why that is, as it is a fantastic opera and really, really funny. I always enjoy listening to JS Bach played on piano. Glenn Gould is a good choice, but I like the Inventions played by Tatiana Nikolayeva, who was a great pianist in the Soviet Union when I was young. She looked like a babushka from some…

EPIC FAILIO There has been much consternation in Cologne, that fine German city just a few miles down the river from Beethoven’s birth town of Bonn, as a new production of the great man’s Fidelio is advertised at the opera house. Someone in charge of designing the posters evidently didn’t read the brief properly. See above… LOFTY TENOR Mind you, things are little better here in Blighty, where The Times recently told us that tenor Stuart Skelton will be taking the title role in Fidelio at the BBC Proms. Given that said role is traditionally played by a soprano – in fact, it’s the whole point of the opera – we ask Skelton if he’ll be taking helium for the evening. He assures us that a pair tight trousers should…

NONA LIDDELL Born 1927 Violinist Nona Liddell was an inspiration for many musicians, not just for the brilliance of her playing but also for her determined leadership of various ensembles and for the causes she championed. She made her BBC Proms debut in 1947 with Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending, but it was her passion for chamber music that drove her career, from when she led the English String Quartet in the 1950s to her involvement with the MANA (Musicians Against Nuclear Arms) Chamber Orchestra in the ’90s. Interested in a range of styles and ways of playing, from modern unconventional notation to the subtle nuances of Baroque technique, she led ensembles from the Monteverdi Orchestra to the BBC Symphony Orchestra and was best known for her 24-year tenure as…

BY THE TIME THE first Prom was televised, the UK had been selling television sets for almost 20 years, although early ‘visionettes’ were little more than glorified radios, with pictures barely bigger than a playing card. And cheap they weren’t. Still, by 1947, the choice – and the screens – were considerably wider, with families of more modest means able to afford one to crowd around on a wet Friday evening. If you’d lived in the 1930s and could afford its 120-guinea price tag (around £18,000 in today’s money) you could buy yourself a Marconiphone 701 (see above), a mahogany-cased television that could switch between the Baird and Marconi-EMI ‘high definition’ systems – the BBC alternated the two in the early days of their Alexandra Palace broadcasts. But you had…

It was with his great choral work The Hymn of Jesus, rather than The Planets, that Holst achieved phenomenal overnight success. The music scholar Donald Tovey, one of its most fervent yet perceptive admirers, wrote of The Hymn: ‘the resources of its style range through all the centuries in which music has been intelligible to western ears down to the present day. There is no essential novelty in the musical aesthetic of Strauss, nor in the diametrically opposite musical aesthetics of Ravel, which may not be found in this score, and found in its clearest and simplest form. There is no musical truth known to Palestrina that is not also to be found here… There are older truths still, truths of musical resonance that are older than Palestrina’s classical harmony.’…

WAGNER Lohengrin Botha, Lang et al; WDR Radio Choir, NDR Choir, Prague Chamber Choir, WDR SO, Cologne/Bychkov Profil Hänssler PH 09004 (hybrid CD/ SACD) 214:48 mins (3 discs) ‘Bychkov’s Cologne orchestra and various choruses are focused and involved, and his cast is similarly strong. Johan Botha’s clear, bright tone and unforced power embody the title role splendidly’. June 2009 R STRAUSS Eine Alpensinfonie; Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche WDR Koln SO/Bychkov Profil PH 09065 63:48 mins ‘Whenever hardworking, energetic detail is required, as in the mountaineers’ first clambering or their slips on the glacier, Bychkov’s is an unsurpassably responsive performance.’ Christmas 2009 R STRAUSS Elektra Palmer, Polaski, Schwanewilms, Clark; WDR Radio Choir & SO/Bychkov Profil Hänssler 2SACD PH 05022 (hybrid CD/SACD) 106:47 mins (2 discs) ‘Of all repertory operas, Elektra is…

BOULEZ Dialogue de l’ombre double; Mémoriale; Le marteau sans maître*; Anthèmes 2; Dérive 2; Messagesquisse *Hilary Summers (contralto); West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/ Daniel Barenboim DG 479 7160 142:27 mins (2 discs) That many more music-lovers now know Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) as a groundbreaking composer as well as conductor and one-time polemicist is thanks to his collaborator of 50-some years, Daniel Barenboim: following the latter’s performance of Dérive 2 at 2012’s BBC Proms – conducting members of the likewise trailblazing West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – Boulez reportedly joked that more people heard it that evening than at all previous performances combined. The occasion forms the highlight of this superb tribute comprising live recordings of solo and chamber pieces. Drawn from those Proms (CD 1) and Berlin’s 2010 homage to Boulez at 85 (CD…

NENOV Piano Concerto; Ballade No. 2 Ivo Varbanov (piano); Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Emil Tabakov Hyperion CDA 68205 64:46 mins Though almost forgotten today, Dimitar Nenov (1901-53) was a significant figure in Bulgaria’s cultural life. Trained as an architect, he designed several of Bulgaria’s public buildings, and was also an accomplished pianist who taught at the Sofia State Conservatoire. He founded the nation’s first radio orchestra in 1930, and was co-founder of Bulgaria’s Contemporary Music Society. Yet the music on this CD is colourful and spicy rather than avant garde even for its day. It seems sadly ironic that Nenov’s work was attacked in the 1940s by Khachaturian – whose music it often recalls – in an article published in Soviet Music. Nenov was clearly targeted not for his music but…

BENJAMIN Into the Little Hill*; Flight; Dream of the Song Hila Plitmann (soprano), Susan Bickley (contralto), Bejun Mehta (countertenor), Michael Cox (flute); Netherlands Chamber Choir; *London Sinfonietta; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/ George Benjamin Nimbus NI 5964 64:17 mins Be ready. The opening of George Benjamin’s 40-minute opera Into the Little Hill gives quite a jolt when heard live, and the effect is magnified in the purely auditory realm of CD. If anything, this second recording of Benjamin and librettist Martin Crimp’s exceptionally concise reimagining of the pied piper story, with two singers conveying all the roles and the story’s narration, is even tauter and a shade harder edged than the first (also on Nimbus). While that featured the singers from the original production, the new version boasts long-standing Benjamin advocate Susan…

Here’s a fascinating history in sound of pre-Bach Lutheranism EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT: Luther and the Music of the Reformation Works by Luther, Hammerschmidt, Praetorius, Scheidemann, Gesius, Schein, Othmayr, Altenburg, Scheidt et al Vox Luminis/Lionel Meunier; Bart Jacobs (organ) Ricercar RIC 376 155 mins (2 discs) The 500th anniversary of Luther’s ‘95 theses’, a shot across the Papal bows that would eventually lead to the Protestant Reformation, is being roundly celebrated in Germany right now. It may just be, however, that one of the most illuminating of the musical celebrations hails from a Belgian vocal consort, and two outstanding organs built by the Belgian firm of Thomas – one, incidentally, gracing the church where Ravel was christened in the French town of Ciboure. Ein Feste Burg not…

MENDELSSOHN Piano Trios Nos 1 and 2 Julia Fischer (violin), Daniel Müller-Schott (cello), Jonathan Gilad (piano) PentaTone PTC 5186 609 (hybrid CD/ SACD) (2006) 59:04 mins Plenty of passion, mercurial wit and lyrical reflection in this brilliant performance of the D minor Trio. An intelligently calibrated C minor Trio emphasises the work’s darker undercurrents. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★★ MENDELSSOHN Octet; Albumblatt in E minor; Song Without Words, Op. 109 etc Roel Dieltiens (cello), Frank Braley (piano); Ensemble Explorations Harmonia Mundi HMA 1951868 (2005) 49:32 mins Lean vibrato and admirable textural clarity bring welcome lightness to the more full-blooded passages in the Octet. Dieltiens gives warmly sensitive readings of the cello pieces. PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★ MOZART String Quintets Walter Trampler (viola); Budapest Quartet Praga Digitals PRD 250 370 (1965-66) 185…

TILL APRIL IS DEAD – A GARLAND OF MAY Lisa Knapp Ear to the Ground ETTGM003CD English folk luminary Lisa Knapp’s Till April Is Dead: A Garland Of May builds brilliantly on her slim discography. It’s a boldly innovative concept album featuring a dozen startling takes on traditional English May songs that confirms her status at the cutting edge of British folk music. Knapp’s thorough research of conventional folkloric and sound archives was supplemented by colleagues and friends, and the material even broadens into May song traditions and sayings from Spain, France, Germany and Ireland. Her sleeve notes praise the efforts of her multi-instrumentalist producer and partner Gerry Diver. Together, their fierce imaginations colour in these old songs with enormous zest, capturing the vibrancy of summer’s keenly awaited arrival.…