Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2017 i BBC Music Magazine

Jessica Duchen Critic, writer and author ‘Talking to Krystian Zimerman, you hear the same voice you hear in his playing: wise, witty, sometimes startling, always ringing true. He’s a piano wizard – and, happily, the best interviewee in the world.’ Page 48 John Evans Journalist  ‘In my short performing career I never cancelled a recital but came very close as the dreaded time drew near. Throw a sicky? Do a runner? I considered everything but in the end bit the bullet and did my duty.’ Page 56 Chris de Souza Writer and broadcaster  ‘I have always felt proud that Britain had a Bach of its own. JC seems to have been a sunny character, who wrote a lot of sunny music. The sad ending to his short life deserves sympathy.’…

Hurray for Potter How encouraging for those of us who have realised that there is plenty of hugely enjoyable British music from the Classical and early Romantic periods, to hear Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s recording of the Cipriani Potter concertos which received a fine review in BBC Music Magazine earlier this year. Those of us who know some of Potter’s symphonies would not have been surprised by the high quality of the outer concerto movements, but the revelation is in the two beautiful, dreamy slow movements. So when will we have the chance to obtain a proper appreciation of Potter’s cycle of symphonies and overtures? Nine of his symphonies are extant, yet only three have been commercially recorded. Perhaps one of the more enterprising CD companies will…

Seattle Dane Thomas Dausgaard has been named as the new music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The Danish conductor will begin the role at the beginning of the 2019-20 season, having served as the US orchestra’s principal guest conductor since 2014. Familiar with British audiences as chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Dausgaard is also chief conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Czech mate Also heading for pastures new is Semyon Bychkov, who is to join the Czech Philharmonic as chief conductor and music director in the 2018-19 season. The Russian, who first conducted the orchestra in 2013, fills a position that became vacant following the death of Jiří Bělohlávek in June. He will be joined by Jakub Hrůša and Tomáš Netopil as principal guest conductors. Regal…

Rautavaara’s final major piece, a violin concerto for Anne Akiko Meyers , has been recorded. The American violinist wrote to the Finnish composer to ask him to write her a piece, and the Fantasia was the result – the 87-year-old completed the score not long before he died in 2016. Meyers performs it with the Philharmonia and conductor Kristjan Järvi on her new disc for Avie. Violinists Renaud Capuçon and Vilde Frang have both been turning their attention to Bartók Concertos, for Warner. Capuçon has recorded both the Hungarian composer’s concertos with the LSO and François-Xavier Roth, while Frang pairs the First Concerto, recorded with Orchestre de Radio France and Mikko Franck, with Enescu’s Octet. Pianist Andreas Haefliger , who has previously recorded for Avie, has signed to BIS Records.…

Research has demonstrated that musical rhythms excite our bodies to move What is the elemental essence of the music we love the most? A good tune is essential. Isn’t it? Not quite: a hummable melody is always nice, but it’s hardly the definition of what makes a piece of music memorable. The opening of Beethoven’s Waldstein Piano Sonata, say, hardly has a melody worth the name; instead, it’s a collection of endlessly iterated cells of musical possibility, fragments that are expanded and contracted and repeated. So if it’s not about tunes, what about the harmonies that underpin them – surely they’re musically essential? Again, they’re nice to have, but we can do without them: think of folk tunes, plainchant, or early vocal polyphony – all musical cultures that do without…

Oliver Condy Editor Considering Elgar (below) was an organist himself, he wrote very little music for the instrument. Having just come into possession of the Novello score of Elgar’s complete works for organ, it’s been a joy to discover simple works such as the Vesper Voluntaries, the delightful Cantique, an arrangement of the orchestral Severn Suite, some of the unfinished sketches of fugues and sonatas and a work written for the opening of the Loughborough Memorial Carillon. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Road-testing various streaming services this month has given me the perfect opportunity to take a wander around some of classical music’s less well trodden areas. My favourite discovery has been the six symphonies by the Finnish composer Erkki Melartin (1875-1937) – these are works that surely deserve…

I’ve known Cecilia Bartoli for many years: she lives in Zurich and I live in Basel and we’ve been to each other’s concerts many times. She’s an extraordinary musician. Her most unbelievable quality is her extreme pianissimos – the control she has over every single note. Bartoli is very famous because of her virtuosity – which is quite right, of course, but I think that what moves me even more is how incredibly strong her slow and soft singing is. It’s much more difficult to keep your energy up in this sort of music. I recognised something in my personality that attracted me to her, probably because all string players are told by their teachers to play like a singer. The bow should breath like a singer; you should not…

“Pieces you thought you knew would take on a different light when Bernstein touched them” About ten years ago, pianist Krystian Zimerman gave a pre-concert talk before his recital at London’s Royal Festival Hall – and his sense of comic timing had the audience rolling in the aisles. Unexpected, perhaps, from someone whom many music-lovers consider either an outspoken maverick or a rare bird of musical paradise. But for 2017-18 the witty, daredevil side of this legendary Polish pianist may well be uppermost. He turned 60 last December – ‘I don’t accept this. Maybe the world is turning at the wrong speed after the Japan earthquake!’ he quips – but his chief preoccupation is not his own birthday, but Leonard Bernstein’s 100th. Zimerman is touring as soloist in Bernstein’s exuberant…

Wilhelm Furtwängler (conductor) Some would reckon that Wilhelm Furtwängler is the echt Bruckner conductor, and this recording, set down in Second World War Berlin, is like no other. It’s as if Furtwängler were mirroring the devastating world events unfolding beyond the walls of the Beethoven-Saal where this Berlin Philharmonic recording was made – tempos in the first movement are often frenetic, he unleashes the dogs of war in the Scherzo and the Adagio’s dissonant climactic chord becomes an agonised scream. Excellently remastered, this 1944 recording is now available on the Praga Digitals label (PRD350125). Claudio Abbado (conductor) What better testament to Abbado than this moving 2013 recording from his final concert with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra? Although mortally ill, he summons up all his reserves to produce a performance of…

There’s an art to great CD programming, as our stunning Recording of the Month from soprano-conductor Barbara Hannigan shows. Her juxtaposition of Berg and Gershwin sent me to the bookshelf to find out what happened when this leading light of the Second Viennese School and one of America’s most popular composers met. It was in 1928 – the year of An American in Paris – on a trip Gershwin made to Vienna. Mutual friends put them in touch, leading to a musical evening that included performances of a quartet arrangement of Berg’s Lyric Suite, and Gershwin playing parts of Rhapsody in Blue. His brother Ira noted in his diary: ‘George big hit with Berg’. The feeling was mutual. Gershwin, a keen champion of Berg, went off with an autographed excerpt…

Mark Elder reveals the most dangerous emotion of all Vaughan Williams Symphonies Nos 4 & 6 Hallé/Mark Elder Hallé CD HLL 7547 64:55 mins Vaughan Williams’s ferocious Fourth Symphony was first performed in 1935, four years before the outbreak of World War II. The stormy Sixth was completed two years after the War. Whether or not Vaughan Williams conceived these symphonies as ‘tracts for troubled times’, they certainly sound like that now. The urgency, the mixture of anguish, violence and desolation feels as relevant today as it ever did. Mark Elder doesn’t try to force the point. Nothing is over-hyped or over-driven – in fact there are times when he seems to have deliberately opted for a less sensational approach. The breathtaking hushed Epilogue of the Sixth Symphony, for example,…

JS Bach Keyboard Concertos Nos 1-3, BWV 1052-1054 Schaghajegh Nosrati (piano); Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin Genuin GEN 17482 59:37 mins Schaghajegh Nosrati’s debut disc of JS Bach’s The Art of Fugue came with ringing imprimaturs from pianist András Schiff and fortepianist Robert Levin, and the latter is partly implicated in this sequel devoted to three of Bach’s best-known keyboard concertos. ‘Best-known’ is perhaps misleading though. For while the D major Concerto, BWV 1054 appears newly spruced up, performed with delectable, unadulterated buoyancy, the protean D minor and E major Concertos unveil a fascinating new twist. At Levin’s suggestion, Nosrati presents the outer movements with added wind parts sourced from previous cantata incarnations. Necessary transpositions of key also necessitate instrumental tweaks, yielding a trio of oboe, oboe d’amore and cor anglais. The…

Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Gorgeous phrasing, soulfulness, wit, delicacy, elemental power – Martha Argerich’ s dream performances are expansively accompanied by Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Philharmonia, albeit in an over-resonant acoustic. Eloquence 482 8145 (1986) 65:24 mins ★★★★★ Gulda Improvisations 1 & 2 Mozart Rondos for piano and orchestra; Piano Sonata No. 12 Friedrich Gulda’s startlingly fresh improvisations and compositions rub shoulders with Mozart, the latter often sounding a tad dogged and pedantic. BR Klassik 900713 (1969/82) 54:36 mins ★★★ Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 3 Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2 Shostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues Recorded in Prague, some of these vivid and characterful performances are on CD for the first time and they’re a must-have for all pianophiles. Tatiana Nikolayeva’s own Concert Etudes are fabulous. Supraphon…

An Evening at the Lyric Opera of Chicago Recorded in indifferent sound, this gala concert from the Chicago Lyric Opera under Georg Solti features five starry principals in standard arias and duets. Eloquence 482 7518 (1956) 57:11 mins ★★★ The countertenors A riposte to The Three Tenors, this album from Pascal Bertin , Andeas Scholl and Dominique Visse provides a camp giggle or two as they essay unlikely and even inappropriate material. Harmonia Mundi HMA 1901552 (1995) 34:43 mins ★★ Handel Ombra cara Arias for Handel’s long-term associate, the alto castrato Senesino. Bejun Mehta sings with an expressive imagination matched by René Jacobs and the Freiburg players. Harmonia Mundi HMA 1902077 (2010) 71:46 mins ★★★★ Handel Arias An earlier generation of superb Handelians, led by Joan Sutherland , Bernadette Greevy’s…

Poulenc Stabat Mater; Litanies à la vierge noire Both the Choeur and Orchestre National de Lyon provide variable input to this Stabat Mater, under Serge Baudo , where impressively devotional moments alternate with others where tuning and rhythmic coordination waver. Harmonia Mundi HMA 1905149 (1985) 42:51 mins ★★★ Brahms A German Requiem If slow in places, Richard Hickox’s German Requiem is warmly expressive, with good soloists (Felicity Lott, David Wilson-Johnson) and especially glowing singing by the London Symphony Chorus. Chandos CHAN 10945 X (1991) 74:25 mins ★★★★ Ligeti Requiem; Lux aeterna No other currently available CD pairs these two Ligeti masterpieces. These evocative Stuttgart Chamber Choir performances with Frieder Bernius are coupled with short pieces by Ravel, Debussy and Mahler. Carus 83.283 (2006) 56:16 mins ★★★★ Elgar The Black Knight…

Tartini (see Chamber Choice) was one of the most remarkable figures of 18th-century music. Born in Pirano in Istria, he studied with equal lack of success for the church, law and armaments before being forced to flee from Padua in 1710, violently denounced by the Archbishop who objected to his niece becoming Tartini’s wife. Taking refuge in a monastery in Assisi, Tartini studied composition and acoustics, invented a new type of violin bow and gave violin recitals. The Archbishop of Padua is said to have pardoned Tartini when he became aware of his musicianship. In 1728 Tartini founded a school of violin playing in Padua and taught until 1768.…

Albéniz Piano music, Vol. 9 Miguel Baselga (piano) BIS BIS-2173  The final volume of Baselga’s Albéniz survey includes a brief improvisation transcribed from a phonograph recording made by the composer. The playing is sometimes a little lacklustre. (RF) ★★★ Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos 21, 23 and 26 Olga Pashchenko (piano) Alpha 365  Pashchenko plays on an 1824 Conrad Graf fortepiano belonging to a collection housed in Beethoven’s birthplace. The instrument can generate surprising drama, but sometimes lacks clarity. (OC) ★★★ Brian Symphonies Nos 8, 21 & 26 New Russia State Symphony Orchestra/ Alexander Walker Naxos 8.573752  The latest instalment in Naxos’s recordings of Brian’s 32 symphonies is a mixed bag. Symphony No. 8 is, frankly, as directionless as it is unmemorable, but Nos 21 and 26 have emotional depth and…

Nat Steele Portrait of the Modern Jazz Quartet  Nat Steele (vibraphone), Gabriel Latchin (piano), Dario Di Lecce (double bass), Steve Brown (drums) Trio 589 52:54 mins It’s easy to overlook a recording of this nature, as any x-plays-the-music-of-y disc can be its own worst enemy. Apart from the likely availability of the original material on CD, the question as to whether the work of a hugely respected artist or group – such as the Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ), who disbanded in 1994 – actually needs re-interpreting at all means that any undertaking of this kind has to be particularly convincing to avoid sounding like a tribute act. Happily, this quartet succeeds in all respects, bringing just enough vivacious originality to a set of early MJQ tunes to make its own…

HIGH END CHOICE Sennheiser IE 80 S £299  Exceptionally comfortable, light and unobtrusive, Sennheisher’s latest high-end in-ear monitors (IEM) offer the sort of sound quality that will make you wish your commute was just a little bit longer. Listening to the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin’s recent Telemann Concerti per molti stromenti recording, the detail and clarity of the soloists is remarkable, transporting you to the heart of the performance. Despite being firmly wedged in your ear, they’re poised, exciting, balanced and never overpowering. If I’m being picky, they lack wow-factor in the design, but they sound fabulous and, besides, I can’t see them. You can manually adjust the bass in each ear – using a tiny screwdriver – to suit your tastes. In a world dominated by bass-heavy pop…

The choices Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto David Oistrakh (violin); Staatskapelle Dresden/Franz Konwitschny DG 447 4272 Kurtág Twelve Microludes Quatuor Molinari Atma ACD 22705 Schubert String Quintet in C Amadeus String Quartet, William Pleeth DG 423 5432 Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2, Zoltán Székely (violin); Concertgebouw/ Willem Mengelberg Decca 480 7636 Brahms Violin Concerto Yehudi Menuhin (violin), BBC Symphony Orchestra/Adrian Boult BBC Music Magazine, Sept 1997 issue Born in Budapest, Gábor Takács-Nagy began learning violin at eight, later studying at the city’s Franz Liszt Academy and then with Nathan Milstein. In 1975, he co-founded the Takács Quartet which he led until 1992, earning worldwide acclaim and winning major awards. Also the founder of the Takács Piano Trio and Mikrokosmos String Quartet, he took up conducting in 2002. Among other posts, he is principal…

Is it really possible for a single performance to completely change your view of a piece of music – even a work that you must have heard hundreds of times? In this line of work, it happens with regularity. There I was, thinking I knew Schubert’s Impromptus backwards, having listened to more recordings of the pieces than I care to admit, and suddenly Alexei Lubimov came along a few years ago with a couple of restored early 19th-century pianos and tranformed their aural landscape. I haven’t heard them in the same light again. From the opening bars of Isabelle Faust’s new recording of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, you get a sense of its chamber qualities – the soloist much more a part of the whole than pitted against the symphony orchestra.…

Following our focus on Russian music in November, on social media we asked you to tell us which piece of music best encapsulated the Soviet era. Here are some of your replies: Prokofiev’s (pictured right) Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary: the Soviets banning it perfectly sums up the hypocrisy of the era – it’s brutally honest! Charlotte Perkins (@lottie_perkins) Shostakovich flipping the bird to Stalin in his Symphony No. 10 Gene De Lisa Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 4 – shows an exile longing for his homeland. Christopher Johnson The Iron Foundry Op. 19 by Alexander #Mossolov Orpheus (@OrpheusL) Alfred Schnittke’s First Symphony sums it all up Marek Škvarenina Shostakovich Symphony No. 10, with its ubiquitous 2nd movement (Stalin) and DS’s triumph in the finale Ben Daniell (@benjamindaniell) Shostakovich’s Festive Overture,…

2 …players are better than one. Nursing an injury but unwilling to cancel a concert of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, pianist Lang Lang invited Maxim Lando (age 14) to play the left-hand part for him. It went down a storm. 563 …eager maestros. This year’s Nikolai Malko Competition for conductors, run by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, has received a record entry. 3 …years and away. Having steadied the financial ship at ENO, Cressida Pollock is departing as chief executive. 900 …children, singing in harmony. On tour in Beijing, Scottish Opera has recruited a chorus from the Fang Cao Di School for Alan Penman’s Warriors! The Emperor’s Incredible Army.…

It was a ‘most bitter’ winter evening in Vienna when, on 22 December 1808, Beethoven staged the most ambitious and notorious concert of his career. The composer had booked the Theater an der Wien for his first benefit concert in six years, a showcase for his best and latest compositions and a chance to make some money. Over four hours, the shivering audience in the unheated hall was treated to the under-rehearsed premieres of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Gloria and Sanctus from his Mass in C, the concert aria ‘Ah! Perfido’, a solo piano improvisation and a hurriedly written finale in the form of the Choral Fantasy – which fell apart to the extent that it had to be restarted. ‘It was like a…

Who needs a cello anyway? When Alban Gerhardt (left) recently broke a string during a recital at the Lammermuir Festival and realised he had no spare with him, he did what any cellist would: he played the piano instead, joining his accompanist Steven Osborne in a four-hands rendition of Dvoÿák’s Slavonic Dance No. 10. He’s by no means the first soloist to play two instruments in one concert, mind… The violinist Julia Fischer has long dazzled audiences with her technique and musicality, but on New Year’s Day 2008 at Frankfurt’s Alte Oper she caused jaws to drop a little bit further. After playing Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, she rejoined them on stage in the second half… this time as the soloist in Grieg’s Piano…

This month: LEIF OVE ANDSNES Pianist MY FINEST MOMENT Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 3 Leif Ove Andsnes (piano/direction); Mahler Chamber Orchestra Sony 88725420582 (2012) I worked regularly for almost three years with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) recording the Beethoven concertos, and by the end of it I felt that I really knew the group. The first recording happened right after the very first tour we did, soon after we had got to know each other. I was naturally nervous. One never knows what the chemistry will be like. But immediately it was tremendously exciting to work on details that are usually not given such attention and care by orchestras. There is this real sensitivity and quality in the MCO’s sound and understanding. We had played a few…

Cultivating an aura of perfection can become more important than exhibiting spontaneity It helps to have more than one string to your bow, especially if you don’t have a spare one in your cello case. And if that sounds like a chronic example of mixed metaphors, bear with me. At this year’s Lammermuir Festival, the cellist Alban Gerhardt had the misfortune to snap a C string in the rehearsal, then another in his recital with the pianist Steven Osborne – leaving him C-stringless. Luckily a cellist in the audience had a spare one in her car, but that left a ten-minute hiatus. Gerhardt coolly put his cello down and played a piano duet with Osborne instead, one of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances . Of course he comes from a family of…

Berg & Beethoven Violin Concertos Orchestra Mozart/Claudio Abbado (Harmonia Mundi HMC902105) ‘Listening to these wonderful performances side by side is cathartic, an experience Faust eloquently describes in the booklet notes as “an intense journey through sorrow and suffering in the Berg, to Beethoven at his most radiant, leaving all earthly cares far behind him”.’ April 2012 Mozart Violin Concertos Il Giardino Armonico/Giovanni Antonini (Harmonia Mundi HMC902230/31) ‘Mozart told his father on one occasion that when he played one of his concertos “it flowed like oil”. Much the same could be said of Isabelle Faust’s remarkably smooth and sweet-toned playing.’ February 2017 Beethoven Violin Sonatas Alexander Melnikov (piano) (Harmonia Mundi HMC902025/27) ‘These are the most stimulating and fascinating accounts of the Beethoven violin sonatas I have heard in many years. Faust…

‘Radio often makes use of a language trusted by peoples of all tongues: music’ November 27th, 1967, 19.30 (Greenwich Mean Time) precisely. The refined tones of the Radio 3 announcer: ‘Tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London the BBC presents, on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union, the opening concert of the Union’s first international concert season.’ Simultaneously across Europe on that late autumn evening 50 years ago (see box, p54) – in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey – other radio presenters were introducing the concert in their own ways. The line-up of performers and repertoire was pure pedigree. Britten conducting the English Chamber Orchestra, opening up with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4. Then came the Amadeus String Quartet playing…

Early autumn is a pleasant time in Leipzig, and it was probably warm and sunny on 5 September 1735 when JS Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian, was born. He seems to have been, accordingly, an amiable personality. But he was an adventurous one too. Bach Snr never travelled further than 250 miles from his birthplace, and never left Germany. JC, in contrast, would go on to become the most travelled of all the Bachs. Johann Christian was 15 when JS died and, with three harpsichords bequeathed to him by his father, went to live in Berlin with his step-brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel, King Friedrich Wilhelm’s harpsichordist. There he continued his studies, played some of his works in public for the first time, and must surely have taken part in the…

The composer Anton Bruckner was born in 1824 near the Austrian city of Linz and in his early life worked as an organist and teacher, most notably (and happily) at the monastic church in nearby Sankt Florian. He later moved to Vienna to study, and then taught at both the Conservatory and the University there. He began writing symphonies relatively late in life, completing his First in 1866 at the age of 42. A lifelong bachelor – his various infatuations with younger women all came to nought – he was a devoutly religious man and, as well as his famous symphonies, wrote a number of similarly brilliantly crafted, if under-performed, masses. Building a Library is broadcast on Radio 3 at 9.30am each Saturday as part of Record Review . A…

There’s a mournful, expansive richness to Strauss’s Metamorphosen Like Brucker’s Ninth, Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 lay unfinished at the time of this death, although Mahler’s final statement was little more than a series of sketches. Cue various attempts to complete them, including Deryck Cooke’s from 1960, widely considered since to be the best encapsulation of Mahler’s late style and probable musical intentions (and endorsed by his wife, Alma). Like Bruckner, Mahler reserved his most abrasive and tonally ambiguous music for his final work – its fourth movement, the most complete, although not as violent as that of Bruckner’s Scherzo, is nevertheless sinister and despairing (Warner Classics 556 9722). Despair is very much the order of the day in Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, written in the aftermath of the destruction of Dresden…

How did you come up with this unusual programme? Lulu has been such an important role for me as a musician since I first started singing her in 2012. When I started conducting I was intrigued by Berg’s Lulu Suite, and I managed to find a way to both conduct and sing at the same time. I like to present music in a very dramaturgical way, so the CD is related by emotional themes rather than having three pieces in the same style. The Berio Sequenza III is an exploration of a woman in a traumatic and precarious situation – she is the 15-year-old Lulu from the opera’s third act. The Gershwin is a mirror of the Lulu Suite. There are Lulu themes worked into the orchestration, as well as…

Bartók Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta* Recorded with startling clarity, Rafael Kubelík and the Boston Symphony’s 1973 account of Bartók’s Concerto-in-exile blazes with passion and nostalgia. Seiji Ozawa’s fill up* is efficiently done, if less characterful. PentaTone PTC 5186 247 (hybrid CD/ SACD) (1973/76) 69:53 mins ★★★★ Brahms Symphonies Nos 1-4 Unmannered, firmly structured and phrased with loving musicality, Rafael Kubelík’s Brahms cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic in traditional form remains classic, despite its now aged recorded sound. Eloquence 482 4969 (1956-57) 158:23 mins (2 discs) ★★★★ Mahler Symphony No. 5; Five songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn Though the East Berlin brass of the 1979 Staatskapelle blare a bit, Otmar Suitner’s take on the Fifth is more cogent and forward-moving than many of today’s over-fussed accounts.…

Irmina Trynkos’s intensity recalls Isaac Stern’s golden period Borenstein Violin Concerto; The Big Bang and Creation of the Universe; If you will it, it is no dream Irmina Trynkos (violin); Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra/ Vladimir Ashkenazy Chandos CHSA 5209 (hybrid CD/SACD) 56:45 mins Born in Tel Aviv and educated in Paris, the composer Nimrod Borenstein originally trained as a violinist. It seems appropriate, then, that the most substantial work here, at nearly half-an-hour in length, is the Violin Concerto of 2013. There are moments when the ghosts of Prokofiev (the Second Concerto, especially), Khachaturian and Walton pass fleetingly over the music’s swirling, colourful textures, yet the overriding sensation here is of an exuberantly inventive composer with a symphonic instinct exhilarating in the concerto medium. This spectacular performance confirms violinist Irmina Trynkos…

Berg Lulu (DVD) Marlis Petersen, Daniela Sindram, Rachael Wilson, Rainer Trost, Bo Skovhus, Matthias Klink; Bavarian State Orchestra/Kirill Petrenko; dir. Dmitri Tcherniakov (Munich, 2015) Bel Air BAC 129 182 mins (2 discs) Controversy has surrounded Lulu since its 1937 Zürich premiere, in the form Berg left unfinished at his untimely death two years earlier. Still problematic today, the opera’s key question concerns surprisingly little-changed social attitudes towards women, sex and class hierarchy: exactly who – or what – is Lulu? Director Dmitri Tcherniakov rejects the cliché of a monstrous, pseudo-innocent vamp who torments men unto death, suicide and murder – including her own. Yet his protagonist, the vocally stunning Marlis Petersen, feels reined in from her extreme coloratura. White-costumed, in a set comprising glass labyrinths, cold lighting and anonymous crowds,…

JS Bach Secular Cantatas, Vol. 8: Schleicht, spielende Wellen, BWV 206; Preise dein Glücke, gesegnetes Sachsen, BWV 215 Hana Blazíková (soprano), Hiroya Aoki (alto), Charles Daniels (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone); Bach Collegium Japan/Masaaki Suzuki BIS BIS-2231 (hybrid CD/SACD) 70:23 mins Each of these resplendent works, first performed in the mid-1730s, fall into the dramma per musica or serenata category. Both are closely associated with Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. JS Bach’s opulent orchestration for each piece includes three trumpets, drums, flutes, oboes, oboes d’amore, strings and continuo. Schleicht, spielende Wellen is anchored to a somewhat inconsequential dispute between the four principal rivers of the countries under Augustus’s rule. Each tries to outdo the other in obsequious praise of the monarch. Poland’s River Vistula gets my vote…

CPE Bach Violin Sonatas in D, Wq71 & D minor, Wq72; Sonata for harpsichord obbligato and flute, Wq73; Sinfonia in D, Wq74; Sonata in B minor, Wq76; Sonata in B flat; Arioso con variazioni, Wq79; Sonata in C minor; Trio Sonata for flute, violin and continuo, Wq151 Rie Kimura (violin), Pieter-Jan Belder (harpsichord, fortepiano) Resonus RES10192 131:83 mins (2 discs) This pair of discs embraces the complete output for keyboard and violin by CPE Bach – infinitely varied works offering a snapshot of his entire career. Graceful melodies, breezy textures and dancing rhythms characterise the early sonatas, Wq 71-73: originating from his student years in Leipzig, they were revised in 1746 to reflect the courtly, style galant favoured by Bach’s music-loving patron, Frederick the Great. The later works, by contrast,…

JS Bach Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin, BWV 1001-1006 Christian Tetzlaff (violin) Ondine ODE 1299-2D 130.5 mins (2 discs) This is Christian Tetzlaff’s third recording of JS Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas: the first dates back to the mid 1990s; the second to 2007. With greater maturity comes greater introspection, and these thoughtfully nuanced new accounts take a quasi-metaphysical journey through some of Bach’s most challenging – yet rewarding – works, plumbing their spiritual and intellectual deaths. One also senses greater freedom and pliancy here, no doubt due to his long familiarity with the music. Tetzlaff spans the gamut of technique and expression, from the fiery virtuosity of the G minor Sonata’s Presto to the meditative Sarabande of the D minor Partita, uttered here as a quiet interior monologue. He…

LONDON Spitalfields Winter Festival Various venues, Spitalfields, 2-10 Dec Tel: +44 (0)20 7377 1362 Web: www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk Conductor André de Ridder is the first curator of the new-look Spitalfields Winter Festival, whose feisty commitment to musics early and contemporary remains undimmed. ‘House of Monteverdi’ in Shoreditch Church mixes madrigals of love and war with new and recent works by Josephine Stephenson, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir and Qasim Naqvi, while across the Festival, performers include La Nuova Musica, London Contemporary Orchestra and the orchestral collective Stargaze. David Titterington St John’s Smith Square, 3-21 Dec Tel: +44 (0)20 7222 1061 Web: www.sjss.org.uk ‘Bach in Advent’ promises a 19-recital odyssey through the organ works of Leipzig’s Thomaskantor performed by David Titterington on the magnificent Klais instrument of St John’s. All the concerts except the final one…

Looking good I have enjoyed BBC Music Magazine since its very first edition, especially the articles on composers and the reviews. Opening my copy this morning to see what gems were to be revealed, I was amazed and delighted at the improved format – the new font is much clearer and easier to read. I have always liked the Composer of the Month article and, again, the new layout is easier to read and I also like the shortened chronology. You have also improved the information on the cover disc, reverting to the original format that I enjoyed. Well done and thank you. Michael Shaw, via email Past glories Your new look is a huge success. I really admire the much clearer layout, the attractive new typeface and the clarity…

A short work for viola and piano by Shostakovich has been discovered in the Moscow State Archives. The impromptu Op. 33 was unveiled on what would have been the composer’s 111th birthday, amid the events to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. The score itself comprises just three pages: a title sheet, a one-page viola part and a one-page piano part. The title page reveals that the work was composed on 2 May 1931 in Leningrad and was dedicated ‘in memory of our meeting’ to Alexander Mikhailovich, believed by scholars to be Alexander Mikhailovich Ryvkin, the violist and founder member of the Glazunov Quartet. Shostakovich was 24 when he composed the Impromptu; the work followed on from his deeply ironic ballet The Bolt, which had been…

Owain Park Composer and conductor Born: Bristol, UK Career highlight: As a composer, I had a great time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with a group of 20 musicians performing my chamber opera, The Snow Child, and I was delighted to be asked by Nigel Short to write Footsteps, a piece for Tenebrae. Musical hero: My writing is often influenced by what I have been listening to, but I often refer to Britten as I love his musical ideas. I also admire the way James MacMillan has shaped his career. Dream concert: I’d like to bring together the wonderful musicians I work with now with some of the world’s most established artists, rehearsing until the final performance – and then take it around the world! Lucienne Renaudin Trumpeter…

1st: Following the Russian Empire’s invasion of Finland in February, and its subsequent victory over the occupying Kingdom of Sweden, Tsar Alexander I announces that he will take direct control of government. As if to rubber stamp the decision, he adds ‘Grand Duke of Finland’ to his long list of titles. 7th: In the United States presidential election, James Madison , the Democratic-Republican candidate, decisively defeats the Federalists’ Charles C Pinckney, winning 122 electoral votes to Pinckney’s 47. Also standing for election is George Clinton, the current vice president, who wins six electoral votes as an independent. Clinton continues to serve as vice president when Madison takes office the following March. 21st: Having reached Salamanca in its bid to support the Spanish against Napoleon’s forces in the Peninsular War, the…

Rossini ‘Pensa alla Patria’ Guerrina Fabbri (contralto) Symposium SYMPCD1065 Fabbri was one of the first contraltos ever recorded – she was born in 1866 when Rossini was still alive, and she made this recording for Gramophone & Typewriter in 1903. It’s fascinating to see what singers sounded like at the time – you can hear how her voice changes completely to be very resonant in the lower notes, and again for the soprano register when the music requires it. Singers today try to have the same colour and timbre in all ranges – Fabbri’s style wouldn’t be accepted today. Rossini Péchés de Vieillesse Dino Ciani (piano) Fonit Cetra LAR 34 The Italian Dino Ciani, who died in 1974 at just 32 in a car accident, was one of the first…

‘I can enjoy Mozart’s Gran Partita without feeling I have to listen to it critically’ Simon Halsey Conductor A recording I constantly come back to is Gibbons’s Almighty and Everlasting God, sung by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge under Boris Ord in the 1950s. It’s so slow and ethereal and the boys are allowed to sing with a little bit of vibrato – that style of singing and the feeling of not being in a hurry seems to belong in a different world from what we know today. When I myself was a student at King’s, I sang in a performance of Britten’s Curlew River soon after he had died. We felt very in touch with the composer, as we had sung a concert at Snape Maltings in his…

‘Tonight’s concert is cancelled’. It’s the dreaded notice that can spell the end of a much anticipated evening. Often, no reason is given beyond the fact that the artist is ‘indisposed’. At least the guitarist Milos Karadaglic had the grace to plead his fans’ forgiveness when he cancelled his concert at Bristol’s Colston Hall in October 2016. ‘It saddens me deeply to need to write these lines,’ he wrote. ‘Performing is all I live for. I would do anything to make the situation different. I am totally and utterly bereft by such news. I am unbending and adamant in my promise that I WILL be back on a stage near you.’ His problem was a long-standing thumb injury and, to be fair to musicians, aches and pains, as much as…

The singing Allegro: JC Bach’s music departs completely from his older brothers, being primarily melodic and in the galant style with balanced phrases, emphasis on melody and accompaniment, and less contrapuntal complexity. Bach’s appeal: In 1777, Leopold Mozart writes to his son, referring to the popular characteristics of JC Bach’s art: ‘Good compositions, sound construction, il fiol [the thread] – these distinguish the master from the bungler, even in trifles.’ Bach’s travels: Like Handel before him, Bach moved from Germany to Italy and then England. After studies in Berlin and an operatic grounding in Milan, Turin and Naples, from 1762 he settled in London, though he also made visits to Paris and Mannheim. Bach and the piano: Bach made his mark on the development of the piano. According to the…

Giulini navigates the journey with an unerring command of tempo Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/ Carlo Maria Giulini (1988) Deutsche Grammophon E427 3452 For many listeners, Bruckner’s Ninth is the most visionary of all symphonies. I first heard it as a teenager in Bruno Walter’s classic 1959 recording with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, and have been under its spell ever since. The list of great recordings is a long one, and still growing. The fact that even legendary Brucknerians such as Sergiu Celibidache, Otto Klemperer, Eugen Jochum, Herbert von Karajan, Bernard Haitink, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Günter Wand – all superb in their different ways – don’t make the shortlist here is testimony to the Ninth’s continuing fascination. There is a handful more that are all worth considering, and it is very difficult…

Crazy Girl Crazy Berio: Sequenza III; Berg: Lulu Suite; Gershwin: Girl Crazy Suite Ludwig Orchestra/Barbara Hannigan (conductor and soprano); plus film by Mathieu Amalric Alpha Classics: Alpha 293 57:28 mins (CD); 20 mins (DVD) Crazy Girl Crazy is an album that – just like its muse and protagonist – flouts the rules. Berio, Berg and Gershwin aren’t ‘meant’ to be jointly programmable; disturbingly semiotic solo vocal music isn’t ‘meant’ to work alongside lush, jazzy orchestral scores; orchestral players aren’t ‘meant’ to break into chorus; and, above all, soprano soloists aren’t ‘meant’ to turn about-face to conduct the orchestra – while delivering with aching beauty one of the most challenging arias in the repertoire. All this Barbara Hannigan achieves with artless poise and musical intelligence in her debut recording as conductor-soprano,…

Mahler Symphony No. 4 Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra/ Adam Fischer Avi-Music 8553378 Iván is not the only Fischer with impressive Mahler recordings to his name. While Iván is now nearing the end of his version of the symphony cycle –the Hungarian conductor says he no interest in recording the Eighth – his brother Adam is just embarking on his Mahler series with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra. The Seventh came out last year, and now he’s turned to what he describes as ‘Mahler’s Pastoral Symphony’ – the chamber-like Fourth. And it’s a fascinating, detailed account. After those opening sleigh bells sprinkle their fairy dust, you immediately hear one of the most distinctive features of this performance – how the strings play the glissandos, which pepper the score. As Fischer explains in his…

These two slim sets together tell the story of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) as a modern recording orchestra, now so well established it’s strange to think that it made its first LP in 1966. So when Louis Frémaux became principal conductor in 1969 he set about creating the orchestra’s discography, beginning with an LP of favourite arias from David Hughes. The Birmingham-born tenor died tragically young, otherwise, from the sound here, we would be a lot more familiar with his voice. Frémaux started exploring French repertoire: Massenet ballet suites in 1971 sparkle and impress with their Gallic poise. That was a best-seller, and so a year later was Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony. Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts was a sonic spectacular featuring the newly-formed CBSO Chorus, and still…

Born in Tel Aviv and raised in France, Borenstein has evolved his style from such 20th-century techniques as serialism and ‘sound clusters’ to his own approach to traditional systems of tonality. He was originally trained as a violinist – after studying in Paris, he came to London to further his studies under Itzhak Rashkovsky at the Royal College of Music before choosing to devote himself to composition – and so has a particular empathy with the violin’s expressive potential. His orchestral work has long been championed by Vladimir Ashkenazy in particular.…

All the arias offer moments of genuine Mozart dramatic spark Mozart Il sogno di Scipione Stuart Jackson, Klara Ek, Soraya Mafi, Krystian Adam, Robert Murray, Chiara Skerath; Choir and Orchestra of Classical Opera/Ian Page Signum SIGCD 499 108:14 mins (2 discs) Scipio’s Dream, Mozart’s sixth opera, is also Classical Opera’s sixth complete Mozart opera recording for Signum Classics under its conductor, Ian Page. The company’s devotion to the very young composer’s theatrical creations – the list so far, leaning heavily on the earliest, reaches no further than Zaide (1779) – has already paid off handsomely. Evidence of Mozart’s extraordinary youthful accomplishment has been piled up in a way that cumulatively makes nonsense of past dismissal of these works as immature parrotings of contemporary operatic fashion. This one-act serenata for a…

Blow’s exquisitely crafted Purcell Ode is the disc’s centrepiece Blow Begin the Song!; Chaconne a 4 in G; An Ode on the Death of Mr Henry Purcell; Ground in F minor; The Nymphs of the Wells; Sonata in A; Dread Sir, the Prince of Light Zoë Brookshaw, Emma Walshe (soprano), Samuel Boden, Thomas Walker (tenor), Callum Thorpe, William Gaunt (bass); Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen Hyperion CDA 68149 76:36 mins Not only did John Blow vacate the organ loft of Westminster Abbey to make way for Purcell. Outliving his pupil by over a decade, he compounded the compliment with an exquisitely crafted, recorders-enriched Ode on the Death of My Henry Purcell. This supplies the centrepiece of Arcangelo’s new disc, which interleaves four odes with chamber music including an affable sonata and two works…

Rachel Podger’s playing is intoxicated and intoxicating Grandissima Gravita Pisendel: Violin Sonata in C; Tartini: Violin Sonata in A minor, Op. 2 No. 5; Veracini: Violin Sonata in G minor, Op. 2 No. 5; Sonata accademica in D minor, Op. 2 No. 12; Vivaldi: Violin Sonata in A, Op. 2 No. 2 (RV 31) Rachel Podger (violin); Brecon Baroque Channel Classics CCS SA 39217 (hybrid CD/SACD) 69:08 mins Rachel Podger’s new disc opens with an incomparably fluid violin fantasy, the flurry of agitated continuo… what could it be? Some unfamiliar masterpiece of the stylus phantasticus perhaps? It’s only when the cello initiates a purposeful break in the clouds that the Red Priest makes himself known. Podger was ever the free spirit, and her playing is intoxicated and intoxicating in equal…

His sound is pearly, highlighting the Goldbergs’ lyricism JS Bach Goldberg Variations; plus Bull: Walsingham; Byrd: Hughe Ashton’s Ground; Sweelinck: Mein junges Leben hat ein End – variations; Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott (DVD) Kit Armstrong (piano) C Major DVD: 741608; Blu-ray: 741704 126 mins American-born Wunderkind Kit Armstrong – mathematician, linguist, juggler, origamist, composer, pianist, to name but a few of his talents – is without doubt one of the most prodigiously gifted polymaths of our day. This thoughtfully planned recital, given last year, before a rapt and silent audience at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, sets Bach’s Goldbergs in the context of the keyboard school that preceded it. Armstrong reveals a subtle web of connections between Bach, the Dutch organist Jan Sweelinck and the English Virginalists John Bull and William…

December round-up Two recent albums share a cinematic connection and a strong element of personal and political narrative. The first is from trumpeter and producer Keyon Harrold , who has spent a lot of his career to date making other people sound good, including providing the trumpet performance for actor Don Cheadle in the Miles Davis quasi-biopic Miles Ahead. If his current solo album The Mugician feels a little overstuffed it may just be an instance of an in-demand creative musician wanting to get the most out of (and indeed into) the rare luxury of a personal project. Essentially a sextet recording with some studio-based elements and occasional guests (including Robert Glasper), the music energetically weaves in and out of jazz, hip-hop, downtempo and related areas; but rising above it…

Year of Wonder Clemency Burton-Hill Headline Home ISBN 978-1-4722-5182-4 442pp (hb) £20 Such is the current pace of technological advance that those of us of a certain age (ahem!) occasionally struggle to keep pace with the latest trends. Fully embracing the modern age of internet streaming and music portability, Clemency Burton-Hill aims to shatter cosy preconceptions about classical music elitism and bring as many people to the ‘party’ as possible. As she points out in her impassioned introduction, her bracingly eclectic selection of 366 pieces by 240 composers (one for each day of the year) is neither encyclopaedic nor intended as a formal historical guide. Her intention is rather to ‘demystify both the music itself and the context in which it was written.’ Eschewing technical jargon and demonstrating an infectious…

2. Holywell Music Room Where: Holywell St, Oxford Opened: 1748 Seats: c.190 Situated in the heart of Oxford – close to the Bodleian Library and Sheldonian Theatre and a short stumble away from the King’s Arms pub – the Holywell Music Room has a claim to fame as the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Europe. Funded by public subscription, it was designed by Thomas Camplin, the vice-president of St Edmund Hall, and opened its doors for its first concert in 1748. Handel is known to have performed here late in his life, but Haydn, alas, was unable to fulfil his much anticipated appearance here when he visited the city in 1791. Grade II listed in 1954 and refurbished soon after, Holywell Music Room is appreciated by musicians and audiences as…

St John’s College advent carol service Establishing itself firmly in Radio 3’s festive offerings is the Advent service from St John’s College, Cambridge. Expect the unexpected, as music director Andrew Nethsingha delights us with a deftly chosen mix of the familiar and the new. Choral Evensong; 3 December; 3-4.30pm Nico Muhly’s Marnie We head to London’s Coliseum for English National Opera’s premiere production of Nico Muhly’s much-anticipated new opera, set in the 1950s. The superb US mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke is in the title role. Opera on 3; 9 December; 6.30-9pm 21St-Century Opera In Composer of the Week we are looking at the wonderful work of today’s leading opera composers, with the hope of encouraging listeners to explore new productions at local opera houses. Donald Macleod is joined by librettist Paul…