Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i BBC Music Magazine

David Nice Writer and critic ‘Bernard Haitink’s Mahler Three is a worthy Recording of the Year. He was glowing about the disc and the unique qualities of the work when I met him at his Lucerne conducting masterclasses in March.’ Page 26 Clemency Burton-Hill Broadcaster and writer  ‘There was a carnival atmosphere at Broadcasting House recently when four winners of BBC Young Musician gathered to share hair-raising tales, compelling insights and belly-laughs aplenty.’ Page 44 Stephen Johnson Author, writer and broadcaster  ‘Why does the enigmatic, troubling drama of Wagner’s early operatic masterpiece The Flying Dutchman stir so deeply? It’s that powerful, probing music that swings it. And what splendid tunes!’ Page 68…

We’re all individuals ‘Every orchestra in the world has its own sound,’ an eminent London orchestral player wrote in a recent issue of BBC Music Magazine – a trope that is often reflected in your reviewers’ comments. I remain sceptical. French and Russian orchestras sometimes used to be recognisable from their distinctive woodwind or brass timbres, but today does each of the leading orchestras of, say, Berlin New York or Vienna really have its ‘own sound’, transcending individual conductors’ interpretations? If so, then it should be possible to identify them from recordings of the same works, in a kind of aural ‘blind tasting’. How about it, reviewers – are you up for it? Derek Robinson, Wirksworth The editor replies: Back in April 2008, we invited five leading opera critics to…

Next stop: Claude As the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra marked the centenary of Debussy’s death with a week-long festival in March, no effort was spared in making sure that the good people of Brum had a chance to sample the French composer’s genius. As well as concerts galore at Symphony Hall and a 24-hour ‘pianothon’ at New Street Station, Debussy duo recitals were staged in various locations… including a local tram. A fine challenge The BBC Ten Pieces project is inviting children to take part in its No Place Like Challenge. In short, said challenge involves performing a version of Kerry Andrews’s piece No Place Like in a way that reflects the sounds and sights of the children’s own environments. An online presentation of performances will then be put…

Madeleine Mitchell is premiering Grace Williams’s Violin Sonata on disc, as part of an album dedicated to the Welsh composer’s chamber music for Naxos. She’s joined by pianist Konstantin Lapshin. Williams wrote the sonata in 1930, after studying with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College. ‘The work has a personal voice, gutsy in the fast outer movements, showing some influence of Bartók and perhaps Shostakovich,’ says Mitchell, ‘with a soulful slow movement echoing Vaughan Williams’s use of folk song.’ Berlin is where it’s at for Daniel Barenboim, who has signed a new contract with DG. The pianist and conductor will record a run of titles at the city’s year-old Pierre Boulez Saal – also the home of the Barenboim-Said Akademie. The label’s plans with Barenboim are wide-ranging. Coming soon…

Did John Williams steal it from Antonín Dvořák? I mean did he nick that semitone, the most famous musical interval in film music: you know the one, the repeated churn of those two notes, the embodiment of subaqueous and subconscious fear made into musical fish-flesh in Jaws? Compare that to the start of the final movement of Dvořák’s New World Symphony, and what you do hear? The very same idea – alright, it’s louder in the Dvořák, but it’s the same oscillating semitone turned into a thematic idea, used as an expressive harbinger of foreboding. And composers have been mining the unique expressive potential of the semitone for centuries. That’s because of the semitone’s special place in the harmonic system of so much Western music. The semitone is the distance…

Oliver Condy Editor On New York’s West 155th Street sits a new – and hip – recital venue: a tiny crypt in the Church of the Intercession. As part of the Crypt Sessions series, violinist Lara St John and pianist Matt Herskowitz took us on a remarkable tour of folk music from Russia, Iran, Armenia and more, in dazzling, virtuosic arrangements. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor A recent concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thomas Søndergård reminded me of the various thrills and spills of Dvo ÿ ák’s The Golden Spinning Wheel, a work I’ve not heard in a while. Complete with hero on horseback and evil stepmother, it has everything one could want from a symphonic fairytale, all woven together by Dvorák’s brilliant melodic craftsmanship.…

Four Piers Lane rarities Moszkowski & Paderewski Piano Concertos BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Jerzy Maksymiuk Hyperion CDA 66452 In this, the first of Hyperion’s critically acclaimed Romantic Piano Concerto series, Piers Lane’s playing has been praised for its ‘exceptional poetry and virtuosity’. Alnaes & Sinding Piano Concertos Bergen Philharmonic/Andrew Litton Hyperion CDA 67555 No. 42 in the Romantic Piano Concerto series, and Lane’s premiere recording of Norwegian Eyvind Alnaes’s luscious Concerto is a real winner. Strauss Waltz Transcriptions Hyperion CDH 55238 Lane plays a charming and entertaining collection of arrangements by Friedman, Tausig, Godowsky, and the Schulz-Evler which first caught Hyperion’s attention. Henselt Études Opp 2 & 5 Hyperion CDA 67495 Lane’s mastery of these stunningly virtuosic works by Liszt’s forebear is such that their attractive lyricism shines in his superlative…

London enjoyed much great music making thanks to the enterprise of several remarkable people. Violinist, composer and conductor Johann Peter Salomon (pictured above) persuaded Haydn to make two lucrative visits to the capital in the 1790s. In 1813 Salomon co-founded the Philharmonic Society (eventually the Royal Philharmonic Society), which commissioned new works from Cherubini and, in 1822, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. The American-born financier Edgar Speyer, a British subject from 1892, befriended such musicians as Joachim, Richard Strauss, Elgar and Debussy, all of whom regularly stayed at his home at 46 Grosvenor Square. From 1902 till 1914, Speyer supported the Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts to the tune of £2,000 per year (equivalent of £200,000 today), and paid for extra rehearsals for the British premieres of Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces and Strauss’s…

The Czech composer Bedřich Smetana certainly did not lack self-belief. Writing in his diary in January 1843, he boldly predicted that ‘by the grace of God and with His help, I shall one day be a Liszt in technique and a Mozart in composition’. Although the teenage Smetana had already demonstrated considerable prowess as a pianist, such confidence in his potential as a composer was all the more extraordinary given that at the time he had only written small salon pieces and dances for piano, and had not yet benefited from any formal training. The son of a brewer, he was born in the small visited Prague to conduct his Symphonie fantastique and Roméo et Juliette. Smetana was overwhelmed by the revolutionary quality of both works, and from then on…

1824 LIFE: Bedÿich Smetana is born on 2 March in the Bohemian town of Litomysl. His father, a master brewer, introduces him to music at a young age. TIMES: Théodore Géricault, the French painter whose most famous works include The Charging Chasseur and the satirical The Raft of the Medusa, dies aged just 32. 1862 LIFE: Having returned to Prague in 1860, Smetana organises two concerts at the city’s largest concert hall, the second of which features the premieres of his symphonic poems Richard III and Wallensteins Lager. TIMES: Recently appointed Prussia’s prime minister, Otto von Bismarck delivers his ‘blood and iron’ speech, saying the country needs to use force to achieve its goals. 1876 LIFE: Though he is now completely deaf, Smetana composes the first two movements of his…

Anja Silja forces us to consider the case of this tortured young woman Otto Klemperer (conductor) Theo Adam, Anja Silja, Martti Talvela, et al; BBC Chorus; New Philharmonia Orchestra (1968) Warner 9029581744 In the teeth of Bayreuth orthodoxy, and at one point to the fury of Nazi ideologues, conductor Otto Klemperer made a point of preferring Wagner’s original score of The Flying Dutchman to the familiar revision of 1860 (the ‘Paris’ version). That means a less polished but undeniably forceful orchestral sound, and more sparing use of Senta’s ‘redemption’ motif – strikingly absent from the end of the Overture and of the opera itself. Klemperer’s approach is relatively spacious, but that doesn’t mean that this Flying Dutchman feels any less ‘stormswept’: I’ve rarely heard a performance of the Overture that…

It’s the May issue, which can mean only one thing: the BBC Music Magazine Awards. Congratulations to all of this year’s winners (see p26). And, of course, this year we’ve already reviewed some wonderful recordings that will be in the running for the, gulp, 2019 Awards. I have one or two personal favourites, and I’m sure you do too. Let us know what you’ve been listening to recently by dropping a line to music@classical-music.com. While I’m on the subject of interesting new discs, have you listened to the relaunched BBC Music Magazine podcast? Each month, editorial team members gather together to chat about the latest classical news and share the new recordings we’ve been enjoying. You can find out all about it at www.classical-music.com or download it from iTunes. Rebecca…

Adam Fischer magnificently marshals the finale Mahler Symphony No. 1 (Titan) Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra/ Adam Fischer Avi Music AVI 8553390 53:01 mins A hero in his native Hungary, where he is acknowledged as the greatest of Wagnerians by most who have been lucky enough to hear his regular Budapest Ring cycles, Adam Fischer is less known to the rest of the world than his often-touring brother Iván. That he’s capable of equally great Mahler is evidenced by this third instalment – and the first I’ve come across – in his cycle with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, not an ensemble with which many of us will be familiar. Well, this should make us grateful for the elder Fischer’s presence there. It’s the most lightly, as in ineffably, characterised Mahler One I’ve…

The Concertgebouw relishes the opera’s dark and amazing colours Tchaikovsky Pique Dame (DVD) Misha Didyk, Alexey Markov, Vladimir Stoyanov, Svetlana Aksenova, Larissa Diadkova; New Amsterdam Children’s Choir; Chorus of Dutch National Opera; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Mariss Jansons; dir. Stefan Herheim (Amsterdam, 2016) C Major DVD: 743908; Blu-ray: 744004 181 mins You sign up for the role of Prince Yeletsky in The Queen of Spades, a character betrayed by his prospective wife Lisa, just as she is driven to suicidal despair by the obsessive Hermann in his quest for the mysterious secret of three cards. Nice work, you may think: not much time onstage, plus one of Tchaikovsky’s most beautiful arias – superlatively delivered here by Vladimir Stoyanov. Director Stefan Herheim’s Yeletsky, though, means a full time job – here he’s Tchaikovsky…

Patrick Allies ferments vigour, urgency and narrative sweep Hieronymus Praetorius Missa Tulerunt Dominum meum; O vos omnes; Tulerunt Dominum meum; Surrexit pastor bonus; plus works by Gabrieli, Handl, Hassler & Lassus Siglo de Oro/Patrick Allies Delphian DCD 34208 59:27 mins Although he met Michael, the most famous Praetorius of the age, Hieronymous was no relation, and worked for the most part in his home city of Hamburg where, in 1586, he eventually succeeded his father as organist of the illustrious Jacobikirche. Among the surviving Mass settings, the Holy Week Missa Tulerunt Dominum meum – and the motet on which it’s based – have thus far evaded the microphones, and Siglo de Oro rides to the rescue, swaddling the work in Passiontide motets culled from Florilegium Portense. This 1618 collection of…

Alfredo Campoli: The Bel Canto Violin, Vol. 1 Works by JS Bach, Tartini and Handel Eloquence 482 5175 (1948-55) 109:22 mins (2 CDs) Derided during his lifetime due to his ‘palm court’ associations, Alfredo Campoli was a master of the ‘long line’, as witness his beguiling espressivo purity in these stunning transfers. ★★★★ Alfredo Campoli: The Bel Canto Violin, Vol. 3 Works by Kreisler, Dohnanyi, Paganini, Schubert et al Eloquence 482 5159 (1953-6) 113:00 mins (2 CDs) Treasurable performances, brimming with personality, tonally immaculate and powered by a sensitivity to emotional narrative to have the listener hanging onto Alfredo Campoli’s every phrase. ★★★★★ Alfredo Campoli: The Bel Canto Violin, Vol. 6 Works by Sarasate, Albéniz, Brahms, et al Eloquence 482 5135 (1972-80) 152:17 mins (2 CDs) Recorded when Alfredo Campoli…

This German musician was the most famous lutenist of the Baroque era, and his powers of improvisation were mentioned in the same breath as those of JS Bach. Born into a lute-playing family, Weiss made his professional debut in 1706, before embarking on a period working in different cities, including Düsseldorf, Rome and Prague. In 1718 he settled for life in Dresden, at the court of August the Strong. A prolific composer, with almost 600 pieces to his name, mostly for lute, Weiss’s music began to be rediscovered in the 20th century.…

One of the pleasures of quarrying the jazz archive is simply rediscovering – or discovering – the living presence of the past, of having new music from old masters pour out of your speakers with its vintage vitality intact. A double-dose of that uplifting experience comes from the Fondamenta/Devialet label in the latest editions of their Lost Recordings series, each devoted to one of last year’s centenary giants. Thelonious Monk, Live at Rotterdam (Fondamenta/Devialet FON-1704029), captures the nonpareil pianist-composer in 1967 at the helm of his regular quartet with tenorist Charlie Rouse. While that may seem familiar territory, the Rotterdam concert goes intriguingly off-piste in its guest list: after opening on its own, the Monk foursome welcomes an evolving line-up of trumpeter Ray Copeland, tenor man Johnny Griffin, altoist Phil…

Born in Glasgow, Douglas Boyd studied the oboe at the Royal Academy of Music and in Paris. In 1981, he was a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, for whom he played as principal oboe until 2002. His career as a conductor began in earnest when, in 2001, he was appointed music director of the Manchester Camerata, a position he held for ten years. Among other conducting posts, he is currently artistic director of Garsington Opera. I was brought up at a very lucky time, when music was free in schools. We had this fantastic system of youth orchestras in Glasgow – at nine you were in the third orchestra and when you were about 14-16 you were playing in the first orchestra. The summer course at Castle…

It’s hard to believe that BBC Young Musician is 40 years old – a TV phenomenon that has not only spawned the careers of dozens of fine talents, but has proved time and time again that competitions make for compulsive viewing. Who wasn’t quite literally on the edge of their seats when cellist Guy Johnston’s A-string went ping in 2000? Or, in 1990, when the then 16-year-old Leon McCawley battled heroically through Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto? There’s little doubt that BBC Young Musician presents the ultimate challenge to any performer, let alone teenagers. Cameras, lights, live audiences by the millions, presenters, post-performance interviews – it’s enough to send a shiver down the spine of any mortal. To celebrate BBCYM’s milestone, we gathered four past winners together in a room at…

Early in 1890, Arthur Sullivan, while taking a much needed holiday in the south of France, received a letter from WS Gilbert. It read: ‘I was appalled to learn from [the impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte] that the preliminary expenses of The Gondoliers amounted to the stupendous total of £4,500!! This seemed so utterly unaccountable that I asked to see the details, and last night I received a resumé of them… But the most surprising item was £500 for new carpets for the front of the house!’ Gilbert had protested at this expense whereupon, he reported, Carte replied, ‘“Very well, then; you write no more for the Savoy – that’s understood” – or words to that effect. I left him with the remark that it was a mistake to kick down…

It seems being an accomplished harpist isn’t Nina Mishchenko’s only talent – the 30-year-old Russian (left) has been revealed as one of 23 diplomats to be expelled by the UK on suspicion of spying in the wake of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Mishchenko, who has given a number of recitals in London, is by no means the first musician to have been accused of partaking in a spot of espionage… Back in Tudor times, Queen Elizabeth I employed the services of not one but two composers to keep her abreast of foreign goings-on. Both John Dowland and Alfonso Ferrabosco are said to have provided Her Majesty with pertinent information whilst on their travels, the life of a multilingual musician-traveller lending itself nicely to such royal snooping. Ferrabosco…

The most fascinating aspect of the suffragette movement, I think, was not the great victory of getting women the vote 100 years ago. Rather it was the little, morale-boosting victories along the way. One, oddly, was in home furnishings. Incredible as it may seem, middle-class Victorian men didn’t just want to govern the country, own all the property and control the businesses. They also expected to dictate what colour the curtains and wallpaper would be in the family home. The suffragettes decided that women wouldn’t have a hope of getting a say in running the country if they didn’t first get a say in running their own households. So, stealthily but steadily, Victorian and Edwardian women began to impose their own tastes in interior decoration. Cultural emancipation was seen as…

Recording of the Year and Orchestral Award Mahler Symphony No. 3 Gerhild Romberger (mezzo-soprano); Augsburger Domsingknaben, Bavarian Radio Women’s Choir, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Bernard Haitink BR Klassik 900149 Concerto Award Fagerlund and Aho Bassoon Concertos Bram van Sambeek (bassoon); Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Dima Slobodeniouk and Okko Kamu BIS BIS2206 Opera Award Berlioz Les Troyens Joyce DiDonato, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Michael Spyres et al; Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Badischer Staatsopernchor; Chorus of the Opéra du Rhin/John Nelson Erato 9029576220 Choral Award Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott Luther and the Music of the Reformation Vox Luminis/Lionel Meunier; Bart Jacobs (organ) Ricercar RIC153 Vocal Award All Who Wander Songs by Mahler, Sibelius and Dvorák Jamie Barton (mezzo), Brian Zeger (piano) Delos DE3494 Chamber Award Debussy Sonatas and Trio Renaud Capuçon (violin), Bertrand Chamayou (piano),…

Take a brief browse at social media today, and you might believe we live in an unrivalled age for sharp tongues and poison pens. Think again. History is full of those who were masters of the withering put-down, not least the great composers. What’s more, rather than hide behind a pen name as today’s trolls do, they were only too happy to claim authorship. Take this little gem by Tchaikovsky: ‘Brahms is just some chaotic and utterly empty wasteland.’ How do you come back from that? Perhaps composers’ enthusiasm for verbal blows flowed from the fact that they cared so much about music; enough to slug it out publicly, like boxers in a ring. And the abuse didn’t stop at the occasional one-liner. It could go on for years, drawing…

Programme music: Though Smetana followed Liszt in his commitment to writing programme music, he went one step further by applying programmatic imagery to the normally abstract medium of chamber music, thereby influencing a later generation of composers including Schoenberg and Janáÿcek. Czech nationalism: Rather than directly quoting folksong, Smetana made skilful use of recognisable national symbols such as the stirring quotation of the Hussite chorale in the last two symphonic poems of Má Vlast and frequent allusion to rhythmically vibrant dances such as the Polka (pictured above). Harmonic audacity: Smetana used daring chromatic harmonies in his symphonic poems and operas at dramatically appropriate moments. His detractors however rejected the operas Dalibor and Libuše erroneously accusing Smetana of succumbing to Wagnerian influence. Melody and form: A naturally gifted melodist, Smetana’s major…

Wagner was stirred by the sound of sailors’ cries echoing back from the granite cliffs The work The story starts in March 1839, with Richard Wagner on the run – again. During his brief tenure as musical director at the theatre in the Baltic city of Riga, Wagner had antagonised so many people and run up so many debts that his passport had been confiscated. A plot was hatched to smuggle him, his wife Minna and their Newfoundland dog across the border to an East Prussia port, and thus onto a boat. After a few scrapes they got safely away, then the ship hit a storm and had to seek shelter in a Norwegian fjord. Here, Wagner tells us, he experienced ‘one of the most wonderful impressions of my life’.…

Ferenc Fricsay (conductor) When this first appeared in 1952, Fricsay’s approach was seen by some as provocatively anti-Romantic: taut, driven, with sharp rhythmic focus, it’s a performance that always seems on the move. It’s far from relentless, however. Each important dramatic detail tells, and Fricsay knows how to bring out the best in his excellent cast, especially Josef Metternich’s warmly human Dutchman and Annelies Kupper’s beautiful but unsettling Senta. And full marks to the young Wolfgang Windgassen for an unusually plausible Erik. ( DG 480 7199 ) Herbert von Karajan (conductor) The opposite view from Klemperer. Karajan conducts as though he believes in every bar of the revised Dutchman, relishing the more luxurious orchestral sound and making the final transfiguration of the ‘redemption’ motif into a Tristan-esque apotheosis. Dunja Vejzovic’s…

Brahms Symphonies Nos 1-4 Scottish Chamber Orchestra/ Robin Ticciati Linn CKD 601 152.16 mins (2 discs) These wonderfully fluid performances are a fitting testament to the highly productive nine-year partnership between conductor Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and they also draw our attention to the beauty and resourceful imagination of Brahms’s orchestration. Eyebrows are no longer raised at the prospect of hearing Brahms performed by modestly-sized orchestras. After all, the composer specifically conceived his Third and Fourth Symphonies for the small forces of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, and the orchestra that premiered the First Symphony in Karlsruhe was made up of only 49 players. Even if you discount historical precedence, there are numerous musical reasons for justifying this approach. The most obvious is the resultant reduction in the…

Widmann’s concerto is wonderfully rich and rewarding Widmann Viola Concerto; 24 Duos; String Quartet No. 3 (Jagdquartett) Antoine Tamestit (viola), Bruno Philippe (cello); Signum Quartet; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Daniel Harding Harmonia Mundi HMM 902268 49:02 mins The cover is eye-catching: viola player Antoine Tamestit caught mid-scream, mouth wide open. There is a musical point to the image too. In Jörg Widmann’s 2015 Viola Concerto, written for Tamestit, the soloist becomes a theatrical figure who roams around the orchestra, leaving the usual spot near the conductor. And Widmann, actually a clarinettist by training, fully exploits the viola’s capabilities. Extended techniques – waving the bow through the air, tapping the wood, and yes, even shouting – turn the viola into a one-man-band. This is a wonderfully rich and rewarding concerto, packed…

A graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles, Heggie began his career as a pianist, accompanying singers and giving duo piano concerts with his former teacher and subsequent wife Johana Harris, who also encouraged him as a composer. His first great success as a vocal composer was with the cycle Encountertenor (1995), commissioned by the countertenor Brian Asawa; this was followed by the cycles Paper Wings and Songs to the Moon, both written for Frederica von Stade. Appointed composer in residence at the San Francisco Opera, his Dead Man Walking was premiered there in 2000.…

Born in Bergen op Zoom, Obrecht held several of the top posts in the Netherlands including Kapellmeister in Utrecht, and choir master in Bruges. Seen as a forerunner of Josquin des Prez, Obrecht has been admired for the ‘boundless exuberance’ of his music, and is noted for using secular melodies as the cantus firmus in his masses, such as the Missa super Maria Zart. He also ‘borrowed’ (or ‘literally quoted’) from music by other composers, helping himself liberally from the works of Walter Frye.…

Born in Russia, Auerbach defected to the US while on tour in New York as a pianist in 1991. She studied composition at the Juilliard School, then took a post-graduate degree in piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2002, performing her own Suite for Violin, Piano and Orchestra with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. Her many works for orchestra have been conducted several festivals by such musicians as Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons and Osmo Vänskä. Auerbach has been equally creative as an artist (sculpture and painting) and as a poet.…

Messiaen Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus Piano Classics PCL10134 (1976) 126.68 mins (2 discs) Recorded live in Amsterdam, Jean-Rodolphe Kars presents a concentrated, hypnotic yet slightly careful account of Messiaen’s mighty piano cycle. The highlights are the meditative pieces. ★★★ Richter in Brooklyn Works by Beethoven, Gershwin and Prokofiev Parnassus PACD 96061/2 (1965, 1993) 137.82 mins Don’t hold your breath. The Brooklyn recital includes some impressive playing, but not Sviatoslav Richter at his finest and the sound quality is almost unlistenable. The Gershwin, from France, is flat-footed. ★★ Tchaikovsky Nocturne, Valse-scherzo, Humoresque, Capriccioso, Chanson triste etc Alto ALC 1393 (1983) 79.50 mins A beautiful recital showing the intimate side of Tchaikovsky: short pieces that are full of affection, often capturing poetic, reflective soundworlds, but that in Sviatoslav Richter’s hands remain unsentimental.…

May round-up ‘Americana’ – essentially a refreshed presentation of American roots music – is currently a trend, yet attempts to merge it with jazz are rare, possibly because the wellsprings of the two genres, in European folk and salon music and the music of the African diaspora respectively, are so disparate. That said, Heritage: The American Roots Project, created by baritone saxophonist Owen Broder with the assistance of 15 or so other musicians and composers, is an enjoyable and imaginative move in that direction, mixing pretty-much-jazz arrangements of tunes such as ‘Jambalaya’ and ‘Cripple Creek’ with well-crafted originals written in this unusual style. The performances are excellent throughout and the whole is well worth hearing as an intriguing example of music-that-might-have-been. ( ArtistShare AS 0158 ★★★★ ) Guitarist Bill Frisell…

The Final Retreat Stephen Hough  Sylph Editions ISBN 978-1-909631-28-1 188pp £14 Stephen Hough is best known as a pianist, but he’s also an accomplished composer, painter and writer, too. His first novel, The Final Retreat, is a fictional memoir penned by Father Joseph, a parish priest who is struggling with his faith and sex addiction. As Joseph reaches breaking point – having been blackmailed and raped by a male prostitute – he goes on an eight-day silent retreat. The story is told through a diary that the priest keeps during this period, bookended with a news cutting and emails that hint at the tragic conclusion. The text is littered with musical references: one sex worker plays melancholic Chopin waltzes; a priest has a taste for operatic divas. Hough describes the…

8. Bridgewater Hall Where: Manchester Opened: 1996 Seats: 2,341 The first thing that greets you as approach Bridgewater Hall’s main entrance is the bust of one of Manchester’s favourite musical sons: Sir John Barbirolli, conductor of the Hallé orchestra from 1943 until his death in 1970. Sir John would have been hugely impressed by the building, though he would scarcely recognise the area in which it stands. Until a major regeneration in the 1990s, the Rochdale Canal and its surrounds were desperately run down, but now those once-derelict former cotton mills house plush apartments and smart shops. Bridgewater Hall itself crowned that regeneration when it opened its doors in September 1996. Inside, the venue’s light wooden-clad main auditorium feels spacious and airy and, while its capacity is one of the…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this May BBC Young Musician Final Now in its 40th year, BBC Young Musician will conclude its series of weekly category finals with a grand final at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, presented by Kate Molleson. The finalists will be accompanied by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Mark Wigglesworth. Radio 3 Live in Concert; 13 May, 7.30pm BBC Biggest Weekend To celebrate the breadth and diversity of music on the BBC, the Biggest Weekend will take places on the late May bank holiday weekend in Coventry, Perth, Swansea and Belfast. Radio 3 will cover the orchestral highlights, with performances by Evelyn Glennie, Nigel Kennedy and Danielle de Niese. BBC Biggest…

Poulenc at large David Owen Norris makes no reference to the orchestrated version of Poulenc’s Flute Sonata in his Building a Library feature (April). James Galway once suggested to Robin Boyle, the then-MD of Chester Music, that the Sonata should be made into a quasi-concerto and I was sent along to the Berkeley residence to attend a meeting between composer Lennox Berkeley and Galway himself. Berkeley was reluctant at first to accept the commission as he felt that the pianistic nature of the writing would not translate into orchestral sound. Galway exercised his Irish charm and knowledge of orchestration so that eventually Berkeley relented and produced a transcription which captures the spirit of the piece with sensual orchestration for the middle movement and Stravinsky-like precision in the last. Galway recorded…

Layale Chaker Violinist and composer Born: Paris, France Career highlight: The commission for a work for violin and orchestra I received from Bayreuther Philharmoniker. I’m looking forward to its first performances! Musical hero: Composer Nadia Boulanger, as her legacy lives not only in her creations but in the countless musical souls she has taught, influenced and guided. Dream concert: I’m not worried where it is held, but I would want a genuine connection with an audience, strong enough for it to live beyond the concert and make it into the hall of fame of memorable musical moments! Tamás Pálfalvi Trumpeter Born: Salgótarján, Hungary Career highlight: Performing last year with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko at Hollywood Bowl in front of over 10,000 people was unforgettable. Musical…

10th: William Kemmler, a Philadelphia peddler with a history of binge-drinking, is tried and convicted of murdering his wife Matilda with a hatchet. Sentenced to death three days later, he goes on to become the first person in the world to be executed using an electric chair. 12th: The first ever official English county cricket match takes place in Bristol. Despite a century from their batsman James Cranston, Gloucestershire lose to Yorkshire by eight wickets. At the end of the inaugural season, Surrey finish top of the eight-team championship table. 17th: Submitted as an entry to a competition for young composers, Mascagni’s one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana receives its first ever performance at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. The premiere proves a huge success, earning Mascagni several curtain calls, first prize…

Soprano Joyce El-Khoury on three musical rarities from her record collection Picker Emmeline Patricia Racette, Herbert Perry, Wright Moore et al; Santa Fe Opera/ George Manahan Albany Records TROY284/85 Performing the revival of Emmeline (1996) was a life-changing gift for me. Picker’s ability to delve so deeply into this real human experience is stunning. Based on a true story, the opera is real, dark, raw and haunting. It’s impossible not to be moved by the original cast’s portrayals – especially Patricia Racette as she seizes the emotional moments and embodies Emmeline. Spontini La Vestale Maria Callas, Franco Corelli, Ebe Stigani; Teatro all Scala/Antonio Votto Warner Classics 9029584452 When Callas opened La Scala’s 1954/55 season in the title role of Spontini’s La vestale (1807), the role never left her – her interpretation…

 Jerusalem Quartet Alexander Pavlovsky First Violin: Of the many fine recordings of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, I’d particularly recommend the 1960 one by David Oistrakh with Orchestre National De La Radiodiffusion Française under Otto Klemperer. It has a special combination of fantastically warm, intense and long-phrase violin playing, accompanied by a superb orchestra with deep European traditions. No other concerto explores the heroic power and poetic potential of the violin as this does. It demands endless artistic vision from the soloist, as well as great virtuosity. Every Antonio Carlos Jobim song bears the stamp of romance, sensuality and love Sergei Bresler Second Violin: I love listening to music in the car. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Haydn and Mendelssohn. With each passing year I understand these two composers…

 Piers Lane “ Young players today think they’ve got to have everything perfect, but when I was young I took appalling risks” BBC Radio 4’s James Naughtie meets the Australian pianist, whose sense of exploration and willingness to take the occasional gamble has led to worldwide success Piers Lane has some good advice for young pianists at the start of their careers: ‘Expand your repertoire. Take risks.’ He’s convinced too many of them are striving too consciously for perfection, with the result that they’re scared to take a leap. ‘I meet a lot of young pianists who are fantastic players, but they’re very cautious already,’ the Australian tells me. ‘They’re middle-aged when they’re 22. It’s so competitive these days that they think they’ve got to have everything perfect all the…

On a crisp, sunny January morning, my train arrives at Marylebone Station. A great day for ghost-hunting – for re-imagining the long-lost London venues which developed public concert-going from the late-17th century on. Venue after venue came and went, falling victim to fire and fashion, and the predations of developers. What stands now where carriages once pulled up, audiences clamoured and music sounded into space after magical space? That’s my challenge: to whisk round nine locations in a day and see what occupies each spot now, halting for a moment to recall former glories and strain the ear for any music still wafting in the air. Beethoven’s Ode for London First, the Bakerloo Line to Oxford Circus, then a short walk to Little Argyll Street’s junction with Lower Regent Street.…

town of Litomyšl, but against the wishes of his father moved to Prague, determined to become a professional musician. Living in dire poverty, he eked out a meagre living as a piano teacher to the family of a wealthy German nobleman. At the age of 20, he enrolled as a private pupil of the blind pianist and composer Joseph Proksch. Learning the fundamentals of composing essentially from scratch, he diligently absorbed Proksch’s teaching while at the same time refining his piano technique and expanding his musical horizons. He continued to focus his creative energies on writing piano music using Schumann and Chopin as models, the latter inspiring him to stylise Czech dances such as the Polka much in the same manner as the Polish composer’s Mazurkas and Polonaises. Two other…

From Die Feen, written in his early 20s, to Parsifal, premiered at Bayreuth less than a year before his death in 1883, Wagner’s completed operas span a period of nearly half a century. His own life within those years was scarcely less dramatic than anything he wrote for the stage – political activism, exile, penury and affairs all form part of the narrative. Premiered in 1843, The Flying Dutchman was the first of his operas to be performed regularly today – even by that stage, the skint 29-year-old firebrand had set his life firmly on the most tumultuous of paths.…

What led you to Brahms for this recording with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra? It seemed the most natural thing after our work on Berlioz and Schumann. I have a philosophy that you should only record something if you have something to say. I’ve been working so much with pianist Lars Vogt and violinist Christian Tetzlaff in these last years, discovering Brahms’s chamber music with them and the way they live with 19th-century style. Recording Brahms felt completely right. Does that chamber-music spirit inform the symphonies? One of the criticisms in Brahms’s time was that these weren’t symphonies, that they were enlarged chamber music works. That’s one of the things that was so beautiful to embrace in the recording: to try and get a symphonic feel but at the same time…

If all you know of Australian pianist Eileen Joyce is that she played the Rachmaninov concerto for David Lean’s 1945 film Brief Encounter, then you need to explore this set (Decca Eloquence 482 6291; 10 CDs). You will find a pianist whose quality, virtuosity and musical width is astonishing given how little we hear of her today. Born in Tasmania in 1908, Joyce was brought up in the goldfields of Western Australia and hailed by Percy Grainger as ‘transcendentally gifted’. She was spotted by Wilhelm Backhaus, who helped her relocate to Leipzig and then London, where she became a Proms favourite and a pioneering pianist in the early days of BBC radio and television. Joyce had to pay for a pilot recording in 1933, and when you hear it (Liszt’s…

Rimsky-Korsakov Le coq d’or Melodiya MELCD 1002331 (1962/68) 117:11 mins (2 CDs) This is a Russian radio broadcast apparently abandoned by conductor Alexei Kovalyov in 1962 and patched up by Yevgeny Akulov in 1968. Decently sung but marred by crudely in-your-face recording. ★★★ Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin Melodiya MELCD 1002418 (1979) 139:95 mins (2 CDs) An idiomatic Bolshoi production robustly conducted by Mark Ermler but with a decidedly veteran cast, especially Yuti Mazurok’s Onegin and Tamara Milashkina’s Tatiana, and Vladimir Atlantov’s beefy Lensky. ★★★ Tchaikovsky Pique Dame Sony 88985470382 (1988) 158:33 mins (3 CDs) Strongly cast and dramatically conducted by Emil Tchakarov, this Queen of Spades features Wieslaw Ochmann and Stefka Evstatieva’s particularly striking Hermann and Pauline. ★★★★ Ostrčil Jack’s Kingdom Supraphon SU 4224-2 (1950s) 137:33 mins (2 discs) Rare works…

They voice the young genius’s inspiration with a poetic radiance Mozart Violin Sonatas, Vol. 5: K 11, 12, 302, 380 & 526; Variations in G, K539; Piano Sonata in B flat, K570 Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano) Hyperion CDA 68175 120:48 mins (2 discs) This revelatory series from Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien benefits from offsetting works of Mozart’s middle-period and maturity with some of his earliest compositions. One of the joys of this set, expertly played and annotated (by Misha Donat), is the way these outstanding artists subtly shade the two early sonatas of 1764, fully endorsing Mozart’s original instruction that they ‘can be played with the accompaniment of a violin or transverse flute’. Accordingly, Ibragimova moves in and out of the textures as though applying deft touches…

The Adagio becomes an exquisitely serene meditation Beethoven ‘Hammerklavier’ and ‘Moonlight’ Sonatas Murray Perahia (piano) Deutsche Grammophon 479 8353 55:00 mins Murray Perahia is currently editing a new Urtext edition of Beethoven’s sonatas, and it looks as if this work has influenced his playing. When I heard his Hammerklavier at the Barbican two years ago, it seemed to me that he wanted to suggest how this craggy masterpiece might have sounded on an instrument of the period, whose dynamic range would have been much narrower than that of a modern Steinway. His approach seemed too cerebral; the contrasts, which should have seemed so gigantic as to be barely containable on one single instrument, felt tamed and domesticated. Listening to this new recording, and seeing how he talks about the work…

Alfvén Symphony No. 1; Drapa; Midsommarvaka Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Lukasz Borowicz CPO 555 043-2 Swedish composer Alfvén’s symphonic works are rather reminiscent of Dvořák. Inspired by folk music, these pieces are vibrant, fun and worth hearing. (FP) ★★★★ Beethoven Op. 18 Nos 1 -3 Eybler Quartet Coro COR16164 Fresh playing by this Canadian quartet of Beethoven’s pivotal string quartets. Not every detail of tempo and phrasing convinces, but these are still pleasurable recordings in nice sound. (RF) ★★★ Brahms Symphony No. 4; Overtures WDR Sinfonieorchester/Jukka-Pekka Saraste Profil Hänssler PH17085 There’s a thrilling urgency in the Symphony’s first movement and finale, as Saraste drives things forward. The gorgeous second movement occasionally sounds functional. (JP) ★★★★ Debussy Etudes Elodie Vignon (piano) Cypres CYP1678 Debussy wrote his 12 Etudes as ‘a warning’ to pianists.…

Keith Jarrett After The Fall Keith Jarrett (piano), Gary Peacock (double bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums) ECM 671 6506 105:45 mins (2 discs) In 1996 pianist Keith Jarrett became afflicted with a debilitating health problem that caused him to abandon playing in public for two years, with this 1998 standards concert marking a conscious effort on his part to return to live performance. On this occasion he made the decision to confine his style to more-or-less traditional bebop, reasoning that his recovery was not yet complete and that the restrictions of the form would require less stamina than his usual idiosyncratic, mercurial approach. Even allowing for the fact that it takes a Keith Jarrett to choose the intricacies of bebop as an aid to convalescence, the ebullient results are fired with…