Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2018 i BBC Music Magazine

Humphrey Burton Author and broadcaster  ‘A prized possession of mine is an album of three 78s: Bernstein playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G in 1946. The filler side features two Anniversaries, a striking taste of Lenny’s late-night personal world.’ Page 26 Paul Spicer Conductor and author  ‘One of my motivations as a conductor is searching out repertoire that few people perform today. This is especially true in my specialist area of 20th-century British choral music.’ Page 44 Claire Jackson Music journalist  ‘The story of the Mary Rose is one of suffering, intrigue – and serendipity: its unique collection of artefacts reveals much about Tudor music. It was a pleasure to visit the ship in her new Portsmouth home.’ Page 54…

Kerem Hasan conductor Born: London, England Career highlight: Conducting the LSO at the Barbican. I remember the first downbeat I gave in rehearsal and being stunned at the quality of the sound. Musical hero: Marion Blech, my very first piano teacher. The knowledge and wisdom she continues to pass on to me to this day is still an inspiration. Dream concert: Richard Strauss’s Elektra was one of the first operas I experienced live. I’m still obsessed with the music and would jump at the opportunity to conduct this extraordinary score. Raphaela Gromes cellist Born: Munich, Germany Career highlight: Any concert where I’ve been able to stop thinking and just feel the music, such as my debut at the Schleswig Holstein Festival with my duo partner Julian Riem. Musical…

3rd: Following a period of increasing acrimony between the US and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, exacerbated by the Caribbean country’s recent trade deal with the USSR, President Eisenhower formally severs diplomatic relations by closing down the American embassy in Havana. 11th: Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter become the first African-American students to enrol at the University of Georgia. Their admission becomes possible only after district judge William Bootle has ordered the university to allow racial integration. 17th: Arrested by army chief of staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu who accuses him of wishing to stage a coup d’état, Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo after the country’s independence from Belgium, is executed in the State of Katanga. Mobutu himself goes on to become the president. 21st: Commissioned by…

This month: SHARON BEZALY Flautist MY FINEST MOMENT Franck, Fauré and Prokofiev Flute sonatas and violin sonatas arr. for flute Sharon Bezaly (flute), Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano) BIS BIS2259 (2016) I think many recording artists would identify with my feeling that the finest moment of every recording is the last note of the last take! But if I have to pick one, then my finest moment is not so much because of me but because of the great artist, Vladimir Ashkenazy. I couldn’t believe my ears when he called up and asked if he could record with me. I was in tears. I grew up knowing his playing, and he was one of my mother’s favourite pianists. We agreed to meet and try out playing together. We met in a rehearsal…

Music can win friends in a way that a show of force or diplomatic bluster cannot It’s a strange (and, to some, indefensible) fact that the biggest employer of performing musicians in Britain is the Ministry of Defence. The Army alone has 22 bands. The RAF has three; the Royal Marines six. All told, over 1,000 full-time professional musicians are in the armed forces. Nor are they all playing the brass, woodwind and percussion instruments of the traditional marching bands – the ones you see outside Buckingham Palace or executing fiendish manoeuvres at the Edinburgh Tattoo. Three years ago the MoD founded the Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra. I heard them recently – providing a live soundtrack to that astounding silent movie, The Battle of the Somme – and was…

Ian Whyte (1946-60) Whyte founded the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 1935 when he was the head of BBC Music in Scotland, and went on to become its conductor 11 years later. Major landmarks of his time in charge included the orchestra’s appearance at the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. Norman Del Mar (1960-65) Del Mar (above) introduced the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to a lot of new music, and was a champion of Scottish composers such as Thea Musgrave. In 1961 the orchestra performed the UK premiere of Stockhausen’s Gruppen. Osmo Vänskä (1996-2002) Recruited from the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the Finn led the BBC SSO in various Nordic explorations that included a five-concert series called The Sibelius Experience and recordings of the complete Nielsen symphonies. Donald Runnicles (2009-16)…

PIPES The sound of an organ is built up in layers using different lengths of pipes, the most common being 32', 16', 8', 4' and 2', each an octave apart. Mixture and mutation stops provide harmonics for drama and spicy solo effects. There are three basic types of pipe: Principal: Also known as diapasons, these are traditionally-shaped metal pipes on the outside of an organ case – they provide the basic church organ ‘sound’. Flute: Wooden pipes with various names, including bourdon, claribel, Rohrflöte and, of course, flute. A soft, mellow, rounded tone. Reed: From posaunes in the pedals to oboes on the swell organ (see manuals), reed pipes incorporate a vibrating brass tongue, as opposed to flue pipes with no moving parts (see principal and flute). MANUALS Organs have…

‘Stepenice’ is a word you’ll hear regularly in Herceg Novi, usually uttered out-of-breath or with the eyes looking forlornly upwards. It means ‘steps’ in Serbian, and there are plenty of them here, interconnecting winding, wiggly streets and sunny church squares. Perched neatly on the side of a hill by the coast, this is one of those towns where getting from anywhere to anywhere involves some sort of climb or descent. Near the top of the town – 420 steps up from the seafront (yes, I’m counting) – is Kanli Kula. Meaning ‘bloody tower’, this 16th-century fort’s name is testimony to the gruesome ways that the various people who have ruled this part of the world have treated their opponents. The Turks, it seems, were particularly notorious in this respect. But…

Melody: Bizet demonstrates a melodic gift, incorporating oriental inflections to provide local colour in The Pearl Fishers (set in what is now Sri Lanka) and Djamileh (set in Cairo), and popular Spanish or Roma elements in Carmen. His vocal lines set French with immaculate skill. Harmony: Bizet’s more adventurous harmonies reflect the impact of Meyerbeer and of his older colleague and friend Gounod; but his sense of what makes an unusual effect – the final bars of Don José’s ‘Flower Song’ in Carmen, for instance – is as telling as any of his contemporaries. Orchestration: Bizet’s favourite composers included Mozart and Rossini, and there is a lightness to all of his orchestral writing that is Gallic in approach but carried off with unusual finesse. Drama: He concentrated on music for…

Few composers’ lives are as vividly documented by their music in the way Beethoven’s is, the traumas and triumphs of his existence spelt out in writing of matchless drama, emotion and invention. Take his 32 piano sonatas, written between 1795 and 1822. While the earliest are cast in the mould of Haydn and Mozart, from around 1801 he set his own course – his ‘Middle’ (Nos 12-27) and ‘Late’ (Nos 28-32) sonatas saw convention ripped apart and emotions pushed to the extremes, as masterpieces including the Moonlight (No. 14), Appassionata (No. 23) and Hammerklavier (No. 29) flowed from his pen.…

What are your musical listening resolutions for 2018? Last year I started a project to read a novel from every country in the world. It’s progressing – very slowly. But it has also made me want to listen along, to hear a significant piece of music from every country too. Will I have finished by 2019? Possibly. Will it be ear-opening? Without a doubt. I would love to hear what your resolutions are for the next year, too, whether it’s listening to Bach every day or finally getting to grips with all of Haydn’s symphonies. Of course, there are discoveries to be made about even the most familiar of composers. Our Recording of the Month is a wonderful example of how revelatory scholarship can be, casting fresh light on Tallis’s…

Balakirev Symphony No. 1; Tamara; Russia Alto ALC 1331 (1974/78) 75:09 mins Evgeny Svetlanov and his Moscow musicians are at their best in these red-blooded and characterful performances of three colourful scores, with Tamara – dramatic and luscious – the best available. ★★★★ Rimsky-Korsakov Sheherazade Borodin Polovtsian Dances Eloquence 482 5511 (1950/56) 54:09 mins An efficient Sheherazade from Eduard van Beinum and the LPO, but hardly persuasive story-telling. The Polovtsian Dances is adequate with a well-drilled, rather anaemic chorus. ★★ Rimsky-Korsakov Symphony No. 1 Stravinsky Symphony in E flat; Scherzo fantastique Praga Digitals PRD 250 341 (hybrid CD/SACD) (1961-66) 79:55 mins Affectionate though not flawless live performances of student first symphonies by Rimsky-Korsakov (conducted by Boris Khaikin) and his famous pupil, who conducts his own works. ★★★★ Tchaikovsky Symphony No.…

Leonid Kogan plays Russian Music Works by Prokofiev, Khachaturian & Denisov Praga Digitals PRD 250373 (1958-81) 152:96 mins (2 discs) Expert transfers of live and studio performances, which confirm Leonid Kogan’s status as one of the great Soviet masters – technically impregnable and smoulderingly cool. ★★★★ Russian Violin Concertos Works by Prokofiev, Glazunov & Khachaturian PentaTone PTC 5186 591 (hybrid CD/SACD) (2004) 79:24 mins Julia Fischer’s CD debut (she was only 20 at the time) with the Russian National Orchestra offers a dazzling combination of seamless technique, golden tone and soaring cantabile in demonstration sound. ★★★★★ Brahms • Beethoven Violin Concertos SWR Music SWR19018CD (1948-49) 84:26 mins (2 discs) These live performances capture Ginette Neveu’s sublime artistry and unmistakable sound at white heat, shortly before her tragic early death in…

Maria Callas – Live Remastered Recordings 1949-1964: operas by Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Donizetti, Bellini, Gluck, Giordano, Spontini, Cherubini and Rossini Warner Classics 9029584470 42 CDs plus 3 Blu-rays This magnificent set, very reasonably priced by Warner, complements the great set of all Maria Callas’s commercial recordings issued three years ago. In this huge new box we have complete ‘live’ opera performances from every year from 1949 at the start of her career, to 1959. The only year missing is 1956, when she was mainly occupied in the recording studio. After 1959 – and the fateful affair with Aristotle Onassis – she gave far fewer stage performances and more concerts, some of which were televised and are presented here on three Blu-ray discs (unfortunately not on DVDs). Before I get under…

Company Glass: String Quartet No. 2 (Company); Pärt: Summa Uçarsu: String Quartet No. 2 (The Untold); Vasks: String Quartet No. 4 Borusan Quartet Onyx ONYX 4171 63:46 mins This outstanding CD from the Istanbul-based Borusan Quartet explores a diverse collection of modern string quartets with tremendous spirit and poise. Arvo Pärt’s restless Summa (1977), an early example of the composer’s ‘tintinnabuli’ style, opens the disc. It is paired with Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 (1983), originally composed to accompany a staged adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s novel Company and here performed with apt intensity and precision. Written for the Kronos Quartet, Pēteris Vasks’s String Quartet No. 4 (1999) was dedicated to his mother on her 90th birthday and offers a moving reflection on the century she witnessed. Passing from the…

Chopin Nocturnes (complete) Nelson Goerner (piano) Alpha Classics ALPHA 359 108:07 mins (2 discs) From Claudio Arrau and Fou T’song to Ivan Moravec and Maria João Pires, the Chopin discography is rich in sets of the complete Nocturnes, any of which can stand as a ‘library choice’. But this outstanding new release from Nelson Goerner proves that there is always room for another. While listening to Goerner, no one could reasonably claim to be missing any of these greats, so complete is his grasp of Chopin’s style. Not just when positively relishing the central, B-section storms of the Nocturnes but in their most dreamy aspects too, Goerner reminds us that there is nothing sentimental about Chopin’s music. He focuses unerringly on musical content rather than pianistic effect. Right from the…

January round-up Nordic countries continue to be a source of superior modern jazz. The sparkling piano playing of classically trained Finn, Aki Rissanen, is grabbing attention now on the world stage. His trio’s latest album of nervy chamber jazz, Another North, reflects the leader’s leanings towards modern classical music – he’s conservatoire trained – as well as volatile bebop. Repetitive right-hand phrases give ‘Nature Of The Beast’ a minimalist energy whereas ‘Hubble Bubble’, the longest piece at seven minutes, has a Monkish mischief about it, the bass and drums making their own digressions. It’s an apt title for a disc that doesn’t conform to the Nordic jazz stereotype of gloomy introspection. (Edition EDN 1101 ★★★★ ) The 32-year-old Bergen-born saxist Marius Neset thinks big as a leader and composer. Last…

Mozart: A Biography Sacheverell Sitwell Bello ISBN 978-1-5098-6374-7 114pp (pb) £10.99 rrp Liszt: A Biography Sacheverell Sitwell Bello ISBN 978-1-5098-6376-1 412pp (pb) £14.99 rrp The well-heeled writer and arts critic Sacheverell Sitwell (1897-1988) enjoyed a rise to fame bordering on notoriety as part of his family clique (the three Sitwell siblings were once hailed as rivals to the Bloomsbury group). Among Sitwell’s musical contributions are two engrossing biographies of Mozart and Liszt, published in 1932 and 1934 respectively, with the former out of print since its initial production. Happily, Bello, Pan Macmillan’s imprint, has re-published both works with a view to bringing them to a new audience. The Liszt biography, the more sizeable of the two publications, falls at the first hurdle by misspelling ‘Lizst’ in the opening pages; the…

4. Saffron Hall Where: Essex Opened: 2013 Seats: 740 From hosting school assemblies in the day to world-class concerts in the evening, Saffron Hall has been a success story from the outset, with sell-out concerts and glowing reviews from the national press. Its first season made The Observer’s list of best classical music highlights in 2014. Built in the grounds of Saffron Walden County High School, the hall’s construction was the result of a £10m gift from an anonymous donor with a passion for music, making it the largest arts donation of its kind to a state school. ‘I wanted the school to compete with the private sector,’ the donor told BBC Music Magazine. The hall opened its doors in October 2013 and has state-of-the-art acoustics, birch-lined interiors and excellent…

Classical music doesn’t always get gender equality right – the acceptance of female conductors into the performing mainstream, for example, has been slow and arduous (and still is). Mind you, when you’ve got friends such as those on p17 (see Déjà Vu), who needs enemies? But the British Composer Awards (see p12) are happily leading the way. For the first time in the Awards’ history, there are more women prize-winners than men, a far cry from 2013 when men scooped all 13 on offer. It’s easy to suspect that this year’s awards are the result of BASCA, the foundation behind them, purposefully redressing the balance, but that’s simply not true. A couple of changes to procedure have been made in recent years that have helped democratise things considerably. Firstly, composers…

Following last issue’s ‘The 12 drinks of Christmas’ feature, we have been asking you online which classical music and drinks go well with each other. I’d go for Sibelius’s Finlandia & lingonberry vodka. I think it would invoke the essence of far northern expanses. Alice Stainer @AliceStainer Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 with a Boulard XO Auguste Calvados. He lived in Honfleur near the distillery and both the piece and spirit are warming. Lyle Bignon Juan Diego Flórez singing his 9 high Cs in ‘Ah mes Amis’ in Donizetti’s La fille du régiment with champagne. As he said himself – it’s a champagne aria! Jacky Tarleton @JackyTarleton Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture with Tobermory 15-year-old Scotch. The composer sketched out the idea for the overture in Tobermory, Isle of Mull, on 7 August…

Magnard Wind Quintet Laurent Wagschal (piano); Ensemble Initium Timpani 4C4228  Leon Botstein, music director of the Bard Music Festival, asked me if I would be willing to come to play the Magnard Wind Quintet. I had never heard of it, and crossing the ocean to play a piece you don’t love seemed weird, so I asked them to send me a recording. I will never forget when I received it on cassette. The opening chord is dissonant, like a knife in your heart. Magnard was influenced by Wagner and likely Debussy, but the closest music I can think of for the second movement is the Adagio religioso from Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Barber Piano Sonata Terence Judd (piano) Chandos CHAN9914H  The Barber Piano Sonata is not played often, and…

Beethoven sums up the entirety of human experience within his nine symphonies Joshua Bell Violinist & director For me, Beethoven’s symphonies are the greatest body of music ever produced – he sums up the entirety of human experience within them. I have several recordings of them always on hand on my phone, and I’m fascinated by comparing conductors. They all have something to offer, whether it’s Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Roger Norrington, Paavo Järvi, Wilhelm Furtwängler or Carlos Kleiber – each shines a different light on this incredible music. I found Steven Isserlis’s album The Cello in Wartime , in which he plays some of the pieces on the ‘trench cello’, fascinating. The trench cello is like a portable box that you can disassemble and put back together, and was played in…

‘‘The lack of public performance of these works in no way reflects their quality ’’ British music of the early 20th century has had a rough ride. Derided as ‘cowpat music’ by the composer Elisabeth Lutyens, it was seen almost as an irrelevance during the dark ages of William Glock’s tenure as controller of Radio 3 (1959-72) where, for all the excellent advances he made in promoting the avant-garde, he alienated many music-lovers. What Glock and many others seemed to fail to recognise was the quiet, very British revolution that the major composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries effected through the power house of Elgar, the roundedness of Parry, the composition teaching room of Stanford, and the real game-changer, Vaughan Williams. And while these names are beginning…

“ I love the idea that nobody had seen a still shawm for hundreds of years and that now we know what they look like” The fiddle sits in a large clear case, its bow positioned on an adjacent stand. A small white monitor peers from behind the instrument, dutifully gauging its temperature and humidity. After 437 years beneath the sea, the fiddle can be forgiven for this high maintenance. The piece is one of ten known musical instruments on board the Mary Rose when she sank in 1545. The Tudor ship, built in 1510, was discovered in 1971 and raised from the Solent in 1982. It has been undergoing extensive conservation and is now on display at a newly revamped, purpose-built dry dock in Portsmouth. The museum is marking…

Over the centuries, Montenegro has been occupied in whole or in parts by the Ottoman Empire and Venetian Republic, both of which left their architectural mark, and then the Austrian Empire. In 1922, it was incorporated into Yugoslavia, until the disintegration of the country in 1992 – independence from neighbouring Serbia didn’t come until 2006, however. Despite a population of just 600,000, Montegro has already won an Olympic silver medal in basketball and can boast a world-famous guitarist in Milo› Karadaglic, who hails from Podgorica, the capital.…

How did you make the connection between Thomas Tallis and Katherine Parr? After Alamire’s Anne Boleyn’s Songbook and Spy’s Choirbook projects I was looking for a third to complete the trilogy. At about the same time I was about to embark on a new Tallis edition, so I had to revisit his music anyway. This particular fragment had been discovered in 1978 but revisiting it I was struck at just how angry and warlike the words were. I realised it had something to do with Henry’s war years. I piled through printed editions of texts from the period, and landed on Katherine Parr’s words. I was completely gobsmacked. How important is this discovery? The very fact that Katherine Parr published a text – the first English Queen to do so,…

Born in Milan, Giuseppe Sammartini arrived in England sometime in 1727-29. He started as an oboist at the Opera in London, in which position he quickly distinguished himself; he later became musical director of chamber concerts to the Prince of Wales. He was also a celebrated composer, and began publishing his works not long after his arrival in London. These include eight overtures, 12 concerti grossi, concertos for violin and for harpsichord, trio sonatas, 12 sonatas for violin, six sonatas for two flutes, flute solos and duets. He died in London.…

Mozart Requiem (Süssmayr/Dutron completion) Sophie Karthäuser (soprano), Marie-Claude Chappuis (alto), Maximilian Schmitt (tenor), Johannes Weisser (bass); RIAS Kammerchor; Freiburger Barockorchester/ René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMM 902291 46:01 mins Bold, innovative and passionate, René Jacobs’s new reading of Mozart’s Requiem towers above the crowd. Pierre-Henri Dutron’s new completion of this famously unfinished score illuminates how Mozart was re-forging his musical language in the year he died to make it tauter and deeper, yet more transparent. So forceful are Mozart’s ideas that they regenerate themselves even in the completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr, which Dutron adapts to realise more fully Mozart’s new procedures. By the time of his death, Mozart had only completed the Introit of his Requiem. For the next seven movements we have Mozart’s particella score – vocal lines, partially…

Dvořák Piano Quartet No. 2 Suk Piano Quartet Josef Suk Piano Quartet Supraphon SU 4227-2 60:44 mins For Josef Suk (1874-1935), his Piano Quartet was truly a landmark work. When Dvořák told the 16-year-old budding composer he had done a ‘good job’ with the second movement, Suk was inspired to try to measure up to the great man for the rest of his life. As teacher, and later father-in-law, Dvořák was undoubtedly an inspiration and emotional touchstone for Suk, yet he never compromised his pupil’s individuality. There is a restless quality to the first movement of Suk’s Op. 1 Quartet in A minor that the Czech ensemble (named after the composer’s violinist grandson rather than the composer himself) here captures admirably. There are times when the developmental writing can seem…

Aho Concerto for Soprano Saxophone; Quintet Anders Paulsson (saxophone); Lapland CO/John Storgards BIS BIS-2216 Aho’s concerto combines dissonance with an elegant Nielsen-like sound-world. The Quintet disappoints, the performance lacking cohesion. (FP) ★★★ Albéniz Piano Concerto No. 1 Mignone Piano Concerto Clélia Iruzun (piano); RPO/Jac van Steen Somm SOMM265 Big-boned and unwieldy, Mignone’s Piano Concerto leans a little too heavily on Rachmaninov, but the sultry Albéniz is worth getting to know. Passionate performances of both. (JP) ★★★★ Bednall Magna voce cane et magno cum jubilo etc Paul Walton (organ) Regent REGCD498 Howells, Messiaen and Eben all inform Bednall’s thrilling, richly layered music. Paul Walton does him proud on Blackburn Cathedral’s Walker instrument (OC) ★★★★ Benjamin • Bainton Songs Susan Bickley (mezzo), Christopher Gillett (tenor), Wendy Hiscocks (piano) Naxos 8.571377 Susan Bickley and Christopher Gillett gamely…

Anouar Brahem Blue Maqams Anouar Brahem (oud), Dave Holland (bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums), Django Bates (piano) ECM 576 7265 77 mins Western jazz musicians were exploring Arabic music and maqams (modes) half a century ago, long before ‘world music’ became a scene. But Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem is one of a few Arabic classical players to reverse the creative flow, drawn to the freedoms offered by modern jazz. Twenty-five years on from his first jazz collaboration, this new album is a reminder of just how natural the combination of blue notes and taqsim (the traditional form of improvisation) can be in a master’s hands. The controlled flow of the sound in which the players’ solo parts are suspended, along with the oud’s mellow almost rumbling tone makes for a…

Born in Essex, Bramwell Tovey studied at the Royal Academy of Music and University of London. His early posts included those of music director of Scottish Ballet and principal conductor of Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet before, in 1989, he crossed the Atlantic to become music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and, from 2000, of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Also an established composer, he is the new principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, starting this month. My family were all musicians. My parents sang in local choral societies, and a lot of members of my family played in the Salvation Army band, including me – I started off on the baritone and then played pretty much all the instruments at one stage or another. I actually began piano lessons…

Hands-on Hans Further to your Timepiece article (Christmas) on Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, the conductor Hans Richter not only played trumpet for the Christmas morning performance (a whole 13 bars), but he also filled in second viola near the end. Standing halfway up the stairs, he also relayed Wagner’s beat to those players further down who could not see Wagner conducting. Richter had learnt the trumpet especially for this occasion – his main instrument was the French horn. Elgar paid tribute to Richter’s horn skills in both his symphonies, which have virtuoso parts for the horn section – his First Symphony is dedicated to Richter and the Second contains in its finale a theme labelled ‘Hans himself!’ in Elgar’s sketches. Duncan Eves, Winchester Meaty thoughts I absolutely loved the advertisement for…

Broken chords The world premiere has taken place in Philadelphia of an orchestral work specifically written to be played on instruments in need of repair. All of the instruments used in David Lang’s symphony for a broken orchestra, written to bring attention to the sorry state of school music resources, were then taken away to be fixed for future use. Military disbanded The UK Ministry of Defence has decreed that many of the bands of the armed forces will be merged into fewer, larger ensembles to save money. Although the seven bands that perform ceremonial duties for the Queen and the royal family will not be affected, the two-centuries-old Royal Artillery Band, the Band of the Parachute Regiment and 12 others are facing drastic changes. See Comment, p25 Levine suspended…

Pleasure is enhanced with every repetition of tunes you love Steve Reich sets these lines by the poet William Carlos Williams in The Desert Music : ‘It is a principle of music to repeat the theme. Repeat and repeat again as the pace mounts’. And while that quote is an especially apposite description of Reich’s minimalist processes, that essential idea – repetition, repetition, repetition – is at the heart of the vast majority of music that has ever been made. …music that has ever been made… Weird, isn’t it, that if I repeat a phrase in an article, you’re probably going to question the sub-editor’s skills for not erasing this howler, but if you do the same thing in music, your musical pleasure is enhanced with every repetition of tunes…

Oliver Condy Editor The European Broadcasting Union celebrated its 50th anniversary at LSO St Luke’s with a programme featuring Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante , a work that appeared in the first EBU live music broadcast – violinist Esther Yoo (right) and violist Eivind Holtsmark Ringstad brought joy and spontaneity to each and every phrase. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor For me, January evokes memories of the cold dormitories, joyless teachers and arduous choir practices that marked my time as a chorister at New College, Oxford in the 1980s. To complete the picture, I stick on the choir’s disc of Tye’s Western Wind Mass , recorded when I was there. Far from plunging me further into misery, those glorious vocal arches and spare textures bring a big smile to my face.…

Leann Osterkamp The Anniversaries show a composer searching for a way to define what American music is or was; he was trying to find some kind of folk music for America, which he sort of found in jazz. Not in the sense of jazz that we think of, but rather jazz infused into a classical art form. What I found when learning his piano music was that, as a classically trained musician, the experience was very different – I had to start thinking in the mind-set of a jazz pianist and a pop musician because there are a lot of implied rhythms, feelings and styles in the music; as a pianist it engages your mind in a way that is unique because you have to be simultaneously in the shoes…

‘‘ The familiarity of music can numb our senses, and I’m always keen that they are awakened ’’ You’ll learn more about Thomas Dausgaard from his programmes than by trying to catch his moments of flamboyance which, at least on the surface, are few and far between. There is a terrible temptation to reach for a stereotype and to think of Danes as a sombre, quiet and deliberately low-key. With Dausgaard this would be (apart from the national insult) not only misleading, but about as far from the truth as you could get. Talking quietly and politely, without extravagance and gesture, he’s nonetheless brimming with passion. ‘I want to find other ways into the repertoire,’ he tells me; ‘other ways of making it come alive in our imagination, every time.…

‘‘It can’t be denied that some of the most glorious music has been written for the organ ’’ It’s certainly the loudest, arguably the quietest and undoubtedly the most complicated instrument ever built. And at almost 2,500 years of age, it’s among the oldest. But it’s also perhaps the least understood of instruments – even among the greatest artistic figures of our time the organ has split opinion. Stravinsky once complained that ‘the monster never breathes’, no doubt referring to the fact that when a key is depressed, the sound continues until it’s released. And conductor Thomas Beecham (who had snippy remarks for everything) spluttered that it was a ‘mechanical box of whistles’. Poet John Dryden, however, thought it a ‘wond’rous machine’, Mozart considered it the king of instruments, and…

On 11 October 1982, the Mary Rose saw daylight once more after 437 years on the Solent seabed. The rescue mission, one of the most expensive ever attempted at £4m, was fraught with difficulties. The ship’s skeletal remains, originally discovered in 1971 by diver Percy Ackland, were caked in heavy mud, so excavation was a lengthy process. After an intense three seasons of archaeological underwater work and 11 years of planning, the operation was finally underway, and with only a third of the ship still intact, the procedure was complex. It was achieved with cables slung under the hull, and was gradually raised, aided by a custom-built steel lifting frame. Prince Charles was on site for the operation, as president of the Mary Rose Trust, alongside the project’s leader, archaeologist…

Carmen’s violent subject matter and dubious morality ran counter to the theatre’s traditions Georges Bizet packed a great deal of activity into less than 37 years. Yet, while he was one of the most gifted French composers of his generation, success eluded him during his lifetime and his wider fame was posthumous. Though he was also drawn to instrumental music – witness the highly attractive Symphony in C, dating from his conservatoire years, and the suite Jeux d’enfants (1871), originally written for piano duet – Bizet concentrated on theatrical success throughout his career. His catalogue of works lists a dozen operas and operettas, some incomplete, some lost, and only five of them performed in his lifetime. If things did not always go well for the adult Bizet, his childhood and…

Tallis Gaude gloriosa Dei mater; When Jesus Went: O Lord, give thy holy spirit; Hear the voice and prayer; Purge me, O Lord; A Solfinge Song; Verily, verily I say unto you; If ye love me; O Lord, in thee is all my trust; Libera (nos, salva nos); Litany; O sacrum convivium; See, Lord, and behold Alamire; Fretwork/ David Skinner Obsidian CD 716 75:36 mins Those of a cynical disposition might be inclined to suspect that Alamire’s tribute to Thomas Tallis runs the risk of shortchanging its listeners: the epic Gaude gloriosa Dei mater is repeated at the end of the CD – albeit sporting the respray of freshly-conceived English words by Queen Katherine Parr – and nearly 17 minutes are given over to a Litany alternating chanted declamation with…

Sibelius Tapiola; En Saga; Eight Songs Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano); Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu Ondine ODE 1289-5 (hybrid CD/SACD) 54:58 mins The word ‘sacred’ can also mean ‘set apart’, which may explain the strange fate of Sibelius’s Tapiola. Routinely it’s listed among the composer’s supreme achievements, yet it’s hardly ever heard in concert. When it appears on record it’s usually as a coupling, and even then conductors seem disinclined to take any risks with it. It’s marvellous then to find a conductor taking a genuinely fresh approach. Hannu Lintu’s Tapiola isn’t the grey, remote expanse so many make of it. Like Caliban’s isle in The Tempest this forest is ‘full of noises’: strange cries, impish chuckles, the kind of sudden creaks and cracks that might make a solitary…

Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2; Solo Violin Sonata in D; Five Melodies; The Love for Three Oranges – March; Andante Rosanne Philippens (violin), Julien Quentin (piano); St Gallen Symphony Orchestra/Otto Tausk Channel Classics CCS 39517 65:23 mins Quite a double whammy this. Not only is the programme as a whole both satisfying and unusual, but also Rosanne Philippens’s startling partnership with the excellent St Gallen Symphony Orchestra and Otto Tausk puts her Prokofiev Second Violin Concerto right at the top of the many recent recordings – her (Dutch) compatriot Janine Jansen’s included. This most natural of concerto recordings was made in St Gallen’s Tonhalle, which must be very fine on this evidence. Orchestra and conductor extend their remarkable probing of Prokofiev’s sparer, mostly lower-end sonorities with a lugubrious envoi, the…

Mirages Arias & songs by Messager, Debussy, Delibes, Delage, Stravinsky, Thomas, Berlioz & Koechlin Sabine Devieilhe, Jodie Devos (soprano), Marianne Crebassa (mezzo-soprano), Alexandre Tharaud (piano); Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth Warner 9029576772 63:34 mins The concept of cultural appropriation was mercifully unknown to the composers of 19th-century France. We can therefore sit back and enjoy their daydreams in Mirages, compiled around visions of faraway or imaginary lands and people, dominated by Oriental exoticism. Sabine Devieilhe’s voice is shown off to stunning effect as she and her colleagues bring together the (sometimes) kitschier side of eastern longings and the lingering influence of such sounds on more intriguing music. For the former strand there’s Messager and Delage, Massenet and Delibes: despite moments of sugary pastiche, some of the music has an exquisite gorgeousness, such…

The Clerkes of Oxenford Works by Taverner, Pygott, Berkeley, Sheppard et al Griffin GCCD 4083 (1961) 53:57 mins A timely CD tribute to founder David Wulstan who died just recently, the Clerkes of Oxenford’s Byzantium-to-Berkeley programme exudes sublime blend, trademark poise, and in places a surfeit of politeness. ★★★ Mr Bach at Vauxhall Gardens JC Bach & A Scarlatti Eloquence 482 5387 (1956) 79:31 mins In a deal of pastoral frolicking, Bach’s Sei Canzonette and two cantatas by Scarlatti are the stand-outs as sopranos Jennifer Vyvyan and Elsie Morrison sample the delights of alfresco London. ★★★★ Songs of England Works by Purcell, Morley, Arne, Howells, Quilter et al Decca Eloquence 482 5045 (1953/55) 60:00 mins Vyvyan’s vivacity and Norma Procter’s crushed velvet contralto mine a rich seam of song from…

Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 3 Schumann String Quartet No. 1; Piano Quintet Praga Digitals PRD 250 391 (1959-61) 82:29 mins Recorded live at Washington’s Library of Congress, the highlight here is Rudolf Serkin’s exhilarating contribution to Schumann’s Piano Quintet. Elsewhere dry acoustics expose some roughness in the Budapest Quartet’s playing. ★★★ Schubert Violin Sonata No. 4; Fantasy in C Schumann Violin Sonata No. 2 King Records KKC 4009/10 (1998) 98:06 mins (2 discs) Kyung-Wha Chung and Itamar Golan relish the virtuosity of Schubert’s sprawling Fantasy. But the compressed recording perspective and closely-miked piano make Schumann’s Second Violin Sonata sound unnecessarily congested. ★★★ Brahms Cello Sonatas Alto ALC 1352 (1989-90) 75:14 mins Emotionally committed and musically astute accounts. Rostropovich pupil Karine Georgian and pianist Pavel Gililov bring freshness and insight to…

And so the calendar turns and we wave off 2017, with its impressive crop of jazz anniversaries. The only exception – in this as in so much else – is Thelonious Monk, whose backlog of centenary reissues continues apace. Which may be fitting, since of all the stars who were feted last year, Monk seems to me the one who most outshone his anniversary occasion. The celebration of Monk’s work didn’t simply acknowledge his place in the jazz pantheon, but demonstrated his unique musical achievement, a creative voice unlike any other. Perhaps the purest way to appreciate the Monkish essence is to hear him on his own, at the piano, and an ideal introduction to that aspect of his art is provided in a two-disc set of Complete 1954-62 Studio…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this January New Year, New Music Radio 3’s year begins by looking at how contemporary composers are inspired by music from the past. In Concert features two programmes from the Barbican that explore the influences on Finnish composer (and conductor) Esa-Pekka Salonen, not least his teacher Rautavaara. Performances come from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo and the BBC Singers. New Year, New Music; In Concert; 2-5 January Select-Copy-Paste In a three-part Sunday Feature entitled Select-Copy-Paste, Clemency Burton-Hill explores the impact of technology on musical creativity. The programmes include composer Suzanne Ciani discussing using an instrument built by a former NASA scientist. Sunday Feature; 7, 14 & 21 January, 7.30pm Leonard Bernstein…