Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i BBC Music Magazine

Jeremy Pound Deputy editor ‘Driving up to meet the brilliant saxophonist Jess Gillam in Ulverston was a day to remember: a lovely setting, a warm welcome and an interviewee who talks as eloquently as she plays.’ Page 24 Robin Wallace Musicologist  ‘I’ve studied Beethoven all my life, but gained new insights into his creative process when my late wife Barbara became deaf. I share some of those insights this month and in my upcoming book, Hearing Beethoven.’ Page 40 Alexandra Wilson Academic and writer  ‘During the course of writing a book about Puccini, I encountered a huge amount of snobbery about him. Here I consider the ways in which his operas are more innovative than we might at first think.’ Page 50…

The art of the recorder I agree with your correspondent John Rogers (Letters, August) that it is a fine thing to get young children started in music by giving them recorders when they enter infant school. But he perpetuates a misconception by saying: ‘if they showed any ability whatsoever they were then encouraged to take up a more demanding instrument…’. The recorder is indeed good for beginners, but it does not follow that it is somehow a lesser instrument than others. My son also began playing the recorder at an early age. He showed some ability, so he stuck with it. Now, some years on, he has passed Grade 8 and is enjoying exploring its rich and varied repertoire. Anyone who has heard virtuosos like Piers Adams (to name but…

Yes, OK, we know that Sandbach is, in fact, a town in Cheshire. This particular sand Bach, however, recently made his appearance on the beach in Fife, Scotland, as part of the East Neuk Festival. Since it was founded in 2004, the five-day festival has regularly taken advantage of its coastal position with some aptly commissioned pieces of visual art. In the past, these have included a sand sculpture of Beethoven (2011) and a beach portrait of Schubert (2014). With this year’s programme having a Bach theme to it, it was, of course, JSB who got the nod. Though the great man’s music is here to stay, this particular portrait enjoyed, alas, only the most fleeting of existences. Time and tide, they say, wait for no man, not even the…

Comedic gift The fundraising for an extension to the Hallé orchestra’s rehearsal space, Hallé St Peter’s, has been completed thanks to an undisclosed gift from the Victoria Wood Foundation, a charity set up with a bequest from the late comedian, actress and writer. The annex will house new facilities including a new rehearsal space that will be named Victoria Wood Hall. Wood, who died of cancer in 2016, worked a couple of times with the orchestra and in 2014 became the first Patron of the Hallé Children’s Choir. Future Generations BBC Radio 3 has announced the latest additions to its prestigious New Generation Artists scheme. Tenor Alessandro Fisher, cellist Anastasia Kobekina, the Aris Quartet, pianist Elisabeth Brauss, baritone James Newby and soprano Katharina Konradi will be joining the scheme which,…

We reveal who’s recording what, and where… All eyes are on Leeds in September as the International Piano Competition crowns a new champion. Even more people will be able to hear the winner now, thanks to a major new partnership with Warner Classics. The label will release an album of the winner’s final concerto performance – and recital repertoire from other rounds – shortly after the competition. The recording is a key part of the winner’s prize alongside live engagements and mentoring opportunities. Leeds isn’t the only new deal for Warner, with the recent announcement of its deal with Opera Rara. The label will begin distributing the company’s new releases in September as well as select titles from its back catalogue. The first new release will be Rossini’s Semiramide, recorded…

What are they doing up there? It is a combination of arcane musical wizardry and hubristic chicanery: I’m talking about those men and women who stand on little boxes and conjure sounds from thin air through the medium of digital tremulation and baton-based choreography – conductors! It’s a question that has long perplexed audiences and quite a lot of orchestral musicians, which is why orchestras from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in the US to Persimfans in Soviet Russia have made do without these much-vaunted ‘maestros’, who apparently wield power over musical life and death. But let’s rewind a bit: the origins of leading people to make music with a big stick go back to eighth-century BC Greece, when Pherekydes of Patrae, ‘giver of Rhythm’, waved a golden staff so that…

Richard Conway, Liverpool De-de-de-derrr… De-de-de-derrr… Perhaps the most recognisable opening bars in classical music. After a tiring day at work, I was immediately swept along by the magnificent Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of as Beethoven’s Fifth. I marvelled at one of the country’s finest orchestras playing in the beautiful Philharmonic Hall (pictured below), making one of music’s most played pieces sound as fresh as the day it was composed.…

“If you can help it, you should avoid spending years doing something that you don’t want to do” Roxanna Panufnik’s house is piled high with birthday cards. She offers me a slice of a once-enormous cake, the remnants of ‘130’ still visible in the icing: a joint celebration for her 50th and her mother’s 80th. Through an airy kitchen and into the leafy West London garden, she directs me to a wooden love seat which we share for the next couple of hours, undoubtedly the most romantic setting in which I’ve ever done an interview. The whole scene radiates domestic snugness. The seat was her gift to her husband for their tenth wedding anniversary. Panufnik’s eldest daughter is at the kitchen table studying for a maths exam. The middle child…

“ Beethoven’s deafness is often spoken of as a struggle from which he emerged triumphant ” Ludwig van Beethoven’s deafness is probably the best-known physical ailment of any composer in history. Because it caused him untold suffering and affected his work, it has become an unshakeable part of the legend surrounding the man and his music. It’s often presented as an obstacle he had to overcome, while his reaction to hearing loss is spoken of as a struggle or battle from which he emerged heroically, having triumphed over a threatening enemy. It has even been said that after Beethoven could no longer hear, he retreated into the privacy of his imagination, heard music in his head, then wrote it down. Yet as our understanding of disability has been reshaped over…

The gallery and museum landscape is especially vibrant, spurred on by Art Basel Miami Beach and the emergence of the Design District and the Wynwood Art District in the early 2000s. In North Miami, the Museum of Contemporary Art draws serious art lovers with mixed-media pieces, video art and sculpture, plus a Friday night jazz series. Miami Beach is home to the Bass, a newly-renovated contemporary art museum with a terrific café. Across Biscayne Bay is the Pérez Art Museum, which opened in 2013 and houses rotating exhibits in a striking, 120,000-square-foot building. Next door is the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, a sprawling, three-theatre complex whose resident companies include the Miami City Ballet and the Florida Grand Opera. The Arsht Center also hosts the Cleveland Orchestra for…

How hard the history books have been on Puccini. ‘Moderately interesting in the history of opera; a mere footnote in the development of western music’ is essentially how the story goes. Countless writers have argued that Puccini was a composer who knew his limits: capable of pleasing a crowd but with nothing more interesting to say. And there has even been considerable reluctance to accept him as a 20th-century composer, despite the fact that he was compositionally active for almost the full first quarter of that century. Huge pressure was placed upon Puccini to step into the shoes of the ageing Verdi In actual fact, Puccini was a composer who was both forward-looking and outward-looking. Having developed a successful formula for writing a box-office hit by the 1890s, he might…

The work Souls in torment were food and drink to the Romantic poets. And no soul was more tormented than Lord Byron’s outcast necromancer Manfred, the eponymous anti-hero of his dramatic poem written from 1816-17 – a semi-autobiographical figure, Manfred is doomed by his incestuous relationship with his sister Astarte to wander in search of redemption following her death. That Byron’s Gothic, ghostly invention should have sparked Tchaikovsky’s creative fuse is no great surprise – his own existence was, after all, hardly free of demons – though the fire took some while to start burning. Tchaikovsky wrote to his benefactor declaring Manfred his finest orchestral work A Moscow performance in 1867 of Berlioz’s Byron-inspired Harold in Italy, conducted by the composer, so impressed Vladimir Stasov, critic and mentor to the…

Semyon Bychkov (conductor) The most beautiful orchestral playing imaginable can be heard on Semyon Bychkov’s 2017 recording with the Czech Philharmonic, in which Decca’s state-of-the art recording captures every detail. It beggars belief that the orchestra’s musicians had not previously encountered the Manfred until Bychkov introduced them to it, but initial scepticism from them clearly became a labour of love. Choosing between Bychkov and Petrenko proved a headache: a model of restraint, Bychkov’s is the more measured and has the finest sound of all recordings; Petrenko’s is the more volatile and viscerally exciting. (Decca 483 2320) Vladimir Jurowski (conductor) By 2006, when this recording was made, Vladimir Jurowski had established a great rapport with the London Philharmonic Orchestra – it shows in a live recording that is magnificent in all…

Life Force Music by Fauré, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Gräfe, Bruch, Brahms, Mahler and Pryor Peter Moore (trombone), James Baillieu (piano) Rubicon RCD 1028 66:31 mins Those who have yet to encounter the captivating playing of 2008 BBC Young Musician of the Year Peter Moore may initially blanche at the sight of some of the repertoire featured here – Fauré’s Après une rêve, Bruch’s Kol Nidrei and Brahms’s Vier ernste Gesänge performed on the trombone? Really? Well emphatically yes, when played with such intuitive phrasal sensitivity, intonational security and tonal lustrousness. Indeed, the Fauré is one of the star items here, coloured gently with a distinctly French-style vibrato that appears to carry with it the aroma of Gauloises and Absinthe in the manner of Marcel Galiègue. This music cries out for a…

Bruckner Symphony No. 8 (1890 version) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Mariss Jansons BR Klassik 900165 80:07 mins Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony is for me the greatest of all orchestral works, symphonic or otherwise; one of the pinnacles of artistic expression, perpetually astonishing in its perfection and its completeness. Claims of this sort are usually taken to be ridiculous, but I challenge anyone, listening to a performance/recording of the Eighth as fine as this new one, to deny that such an immense synthesis of mood, structure, depth and splendour has one marvelling at what one person, however impressive the tradition in which he is working, can achieve. Mariss Jansons’s eye for balance and detail is prodigious Reading the excellent notes to this recording is to be reminded that this symphony, almost as…

Bartók • Kodály Concertos for Orchestra Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Jakub Hrůša Pentatone PTC 5186 626 (hybrid CD/ SACD) 55:30 mins To pair Kodály and Bartók’s Concertos for Orchestra seems such an obvious idea that you may wonder why it is so seldom done. The reason isn’t far to seek: Kodály’s neoclassical single-movement piece is vastly inferior to his compatriot’s large-scale masterpiece. It consists of quick and slow sections arranged in a rondo-like pattern; while the lively sections include some neat jazzy writing, the slow music is rather flat and uninspired. Hruša takes a decidedly serious view of the Bartók, giving a finely judged account of its slow introduction, and in the ‘Elegy’ third movement eliciting some superbly atmospheric playing from the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. One may wish, though,…

Berta Joncus thrills to the visceral power of England’s great baritone as he conjures some strange characters Handel Nell’Africane Selve, HWV 136a; Concerto Grosso in F, HWV 315; plus arias from Athalia; Belshazzar; Catone; Esther; Joshua; Rinaldo; Siroe, Re Di Persia; Tolomeo, Re Di Egitto Christopher Purves (baritone); Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen Hyperion CDA 68152 77:11 mins Few singers can match Purves’s colours, plush timbres and muscle Which singer, active today, has blazed forth in Baroque, Romantic, and contemporary repertoires, including experimental rock? It’s hard to think of anyone but baritone Christopher Purves, who scores another triumph in this recital of solo Handel arias. It’s the second of a two-volume set and follows the first volume’s format. Numbers come from lesser-known works – cantatas, oratorios and opera seria – and are…

JS Bach • Telemann JS Bach: Cantata, BWV 56; JF Fasch: Overture in G minor, FWVK:g2; Handel: Concerto grosso in A minor, Op. 6 No. 4, HWV322 – Larghetto affetuoso; Telemann: Was gibst du den, o meine Seele; Jesus liegt in letzten Zuegen; Overture in D minor Christoph Prégardien (baritone); Vox Orchestra/Lorenzo Ghirlanda Deutches Harmonia Mundi 19075834122 63:05 mins Recorded live in a Swiss church last year, this CD opens with a slightly humdrum overture by Bach’s contemporary Johann Friedrich Fasch, enlivened considerably by Lorenzo Ghirlanda’s dance-inspired approach. The substance of the recording is two cantatas by Telemann, Bach’s much-loved cantata Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, plus two further orchestral movements by Telemann and Handel. The Vox Orchestra, a recently formed international group of Baroque musicians, delivers with terrific…

Beethoven Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin, Op. 12, Nos 1-3 Susanna Ogata (violin), Ian Watson (fortepiano) Coro COR16161 56:32 mins Few of Beethoven’s early works were more defiantly original and provocative than his first three violin sonatas, Op. 12, with their sudden switches of key and their bold gestures sweeping across the keyboard. In a famous piece of invective, the leading music journal of the day was duly provoked: ‘Undeniably, Herr Beethoven goes his own way, but what a bizarre, arduous way it is! Learned, learned and constantly learned, and nothing natural, no melody!’ As always when publishing three works together, Beethoven made sure they were as different as possible in character. Thus, the first sonata, with its jagged fanfares, is swaggering and self-confident, the middle work witty and gracious,…

JS Bach Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001-1006 Thomas Bowes (violin) Navona Records NV 6159 157:43 mins (3 discs) Bach’s music for solo violin occupies both technically and expressively the most elevated position on the Parnassian slopes. According to CPE Bach, his father understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments and this understanding illuminates each and every bar of these exalted pieces. Every violinist brings his or her own personal stamp to the music and the range of possibilities is unlimited. This recording is a spin-off from Thomas Bowes’s 2012-13 ‘Bach Pilgrimage’ concert tour of UK churches. Bowes pursues a mainly convincing path between historically-minded practice and more traditionally anchored performance. As he himself attests, his approach to playing style is to acknowledge historical context but to…

Artyomov The Way to Olympus USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra/Timur Mynbayev, et al Divine Art dda 25171 Vyacheslav Artyomov’s one-movement symphony is the atmospheric centrepiece of this disc – the layering of sounds is hypnotic and the effect is powerful. (FP) ★★★★ JS Bach • Adès • Chopin Piano Works Ashley Fripp (piano) Willowhayne Records WHR053 The young pianist’s Bach sparkles with finely-wrought phrasing and articulation while the Adès paraphrase is an exciting revelation. His Chopin breathes and dances, but the recorded sound lets him down a little. (OC) ★★★ JS Bach Organ Works David Goode (organ) Signum SIGCD808 Goode powers ahead with his Bach series on the organ of Trinity College, Cambridge. Vol. 8 contains a thrilling performance of the great ‘Wedge’ Prelude and Fugue, BWV 548. (OC) ★★★★★ JS Bach Violin…

Elgar’s Cello Concerto Jean-Guihen Queyras takes to the Proms stage in Elgar’s sublime Cello Concerto, accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and led by Edward Gardner. Elgar wrote this piece in the wake of World War One, the conflict that inspired the other pieces in this programme: Lili Boulanger’s choral miniature, ‘Pour les funérailles d’un soldat’, and Vaughan Williams’s cantata, Dona nobis pacem. Soprano Sophie Bevan and bass-baritone Neal Davies feature as soloists. BBC Four; 2 September Tango Prom The Britten Sinfonia join forces with pianist Pablo Zieger, as well as singers, dancers and other instrumentalists from Europe, the USA and Argentina for a celebration of Latin American tango. The programme also explores the 20th-century Finnish tango tradition, with melancholic bandoneon melodies and vibrant full-scale orchestral hits. BBC Four; 7…

Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf David Bowie (narrator); Philadelphia Orch/ Eugene Ormandy Sony 88883765802 Schubert The Trout Borodin Quartet, Sviatoslav Richter (piano) Warner Classics 631 8102 Prokofiev Dance of the Knights St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov RCA Red Seal G010000344945O Mozart Horn Concerto No. 4 Dennis Brain (horn); Philharmonia/Herbert von Karajan Warner Classics 965 9362 Saint-Saëns Danse macabre Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy Sony G010003026683W…

This issue features two contrasting tales of community music-making – one funded by colossal sums of money, the other born from the considerably poorer, dustier streets of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Kinshasa, a group of women, with the help of a dynamic Japanese flautist, has formed a chamber ensemble, and is touring and inspiring local townships with performances on instruments they maintain and repair themselves, often using sundry bits of plastic and wood. Jessica Jane Hart’s uplifting photo story on p36 shows what can be done with a combination of determination, passion and necessity – and, if the photographs are to go by, a great deal of joy. Meanwhile, 6,500 miles away in the US, where money is no object, equally staggering things…

My favourite English song is John Ireland’s (left) setting of the John Masefield poem Sea Fever. Although I live in landlocked Hertfordshire, I’m happiest when strolling along the Dorset coastline and when I do, I always find this song rippling through my mind. Ryan Hill, Hertfordshire My favourite English song was a result of a good review I read in BBC Music Magazine: mezzo Patricia Bardon and pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen in the title track of Jonathan Dove’s cabaret cycle All You Who Sleep Tonight. It’s a song that pulses gently with confident hope. John Williams, via email Choosing a favourite English song is difficult because there are so many that I could not do without, mainly thanks to hearing Dame Janet Baker sing them. Perhaps I’ll settle for Youth and…

54 …violins smashed to smithereens. Qin Yue, the former wife of a violin maker, broke into his house in Nagoya and destroyed his collection of instruments and bows. She has been jailed for two years. 100,000 …pounds for Riccardo Muti. The conductor has won the Praemium Imperiale Award, worth 15m yen. He can now buy himself a lot of crotchets. 2…new King’s Singers. Baritone Nick Ashby and countertenor Edward Button are to join the famous sextet. They replace Tim Wayne-Wright and Chris Gabbitas. 6 …more years in Munich. Conductor Mariss Jansons has signed a contract to stay with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra until 2024.…

A manuscript of Elgar’s Enigma Variations that went missing from Worcestershire’s Elgar Birthplace Museum in 1994 has unexpectedly turned up on Antiques Roadshow. The draft score was signed by the composer and dated 1899, the year the piece was premiered. During the TV programme, the score was valued at around £100,000, and a row has now broken out about who is the rightful owner of the item, which was bequeathed to the Elgar Foundation by his daughter Carice. It’s not, however, the first time that a lost manuscript has turned up in unusual circumstances… Dusty cupboards are a favourite hiding place for lost scores. Take the case of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. An 80-page piano version was found when someone cleaned out a cabinet in a US seminary – the score…

Oliver Condy Editor Just before going to press, a new Warner recording of Bernstein’s symphonies performed by the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Antonio Pappano landed on my desk. It’s been on my player for a few days now as I marvel at superbly crafted and orchestrated, not to mention utterly thrilling, works that to my mind place Bernstein at the forefront of 20th-century orchestral composers. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Given the lengthy period of warm weather we’ve had over summer, it was uncannily prescient of July’s Buxton International Festival to programme Iain Farrington’s wonderful Heatwave for flute, oboe and piano, played by Juliette Bausor, Daniel Bates and Simon Lepper. Over three movements, Farrington explores the various moods created by a hot, sticky day in a…

Marcel Mule (1901-2001) The second professor of saxophone at the Paris Conservatoire, a post that was re-established 74 years after Sax himself had left it in 1870, Mule’s teaching involved emphasis on sound quality. As a performer he premiered much new repertoire. Sigurd Raschèr (1907-2001) In an age when the saxophone was trending towards a sharper, more penetrating tone, the German-born Rachèr insisted the classical instrument should revert to mouthpieces that produced a round, warm sound. The many works he premiered included Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto. John Harle (b1956) The classical saxophone superstar of his generation, Harle (see p7) has done as much as anyone to popularise it. Highly regarded as an authority on the instrument, he is also an acclaimed composer. Claude Delangle (b1957) A regular player with the Ensemble…

A few years ago piano-maker Chris Maene came up with the idea of recreating Beethoven’s 1818 Broadwood and also attempting to copy the resonator built for it by the Viennese maker Matthäus Andreas (André) Stein. Musicologist Tilman Skowroneck’s study of the conversation books Beethoven’s peers used to communicate with him revealed more information about the device than was previously known. Acoustician Thomas Wolfrank designed a series of working models that approximated the sound environment in which Beethoven composed his late works. Pianist Tom Beghin then recorded the last three Beethoven piano sonatas on the instrument, with a carefully calibrated recording set-up (Inside the Hearing Machine, Evil Penguin EPRC0025).…

Drama: Puccini saw himself above all as a ‘man of the theatre’. He researched the locations and background for his works scrupulously, created believable characters and situations, and supplied copious stage directions. Politics: Unlike Verdi, Puccini was not interested in public duty, but his operas deal with political issues. Tosca takes place against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars; Madam Butterfly deals with questions about imperialism. Contrasts: Puccini employed them brilliantly: think of La bohème’s alternating comic and sentimental episodes. In late works like Gianni Schicchi and Turandot, the ‘big tunes’ stand out from the more dissonant music, intensifying their impact. Nostalgia: The tragic moments in Puccini’s operas are suffused with nostalgia for happier times, with memories often prompted by seemingly insignificant objects like Mimì’s bonnet. The composer intensifies the…

The years leading up to the premiere of the Manfred Symphony in 1886 saw Tchaikovsky enjoying a nomadic existence. Freed from the shackles of his disastrous marriage and, in October 1878, from the post of professor at the Moscow Conservatory, he divided his life between Russia and western Europe, funded by the deep pockets of his long-term patron Nadezhda von Meck. Compositions from this era include his Orchestral Suites Nos 1-3, the Serenade for Strings, the Piano Trio and his famous 1812 Overture .…

A debut album ten years after winning BBC Young Musician; why the wait? It’s something I always wanted to do, but I got caught up in other things. I think at 12 I was a little bit green; you’ve so much more to learn and pick up. A couple of years after the competition I had a lot of opportunities, I was travelling about all over the place and did it without thinking about it. Then all of a sudden I was 14/15 and I retreated for about a year and a half, got my head down and started working quite hard again, and that was good for me I think. Tell us about your programme. I couldn’t come up with a list of works that really slotted in a…

Bax Symphony No. 2, Winter Legends Lyrita REAM 1137 (1956/78) 79:41 mins Bax’s sophisticated scoring needs modern recording to do it justice. Still, Eugene Goossens’s powerful 1950s reading of the Second Symphony impresses, and John McCabe is a fine soloist in Winter Legends. ★★★★ Handel Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 Harmonia Mundi HMG 507228.29 (1998) 156:27 mins Widely considered state-of-the-art on their first release, these recordings by the Academy of Ancient Music combine hyper-vivid articulation with wonderful poise and panache, plus a lovely soulfulness in the slow movements. ★★★★★ Daniel Jones Symphonies Nos 1 & 10 Lyrita SRCD 358 (1990) 69:44 mins The clear and personable musical voice of Wales’s outstanding symphonist recalls another neglected master, New Zealand’s Douglas Lilburn. Pleasing performances by the BBC Welsh Symphony. ★★★★ Elgar • Mozart…

Korngold • Nielsen Korngold: Violin Concerto in D; Nielsen: Violin Concerto Jiyoon Lee (violin); Odense Symphony Orchestra/ Kristiina Poska Orchid Classics ORC100079 64:40 mins There seems to be an explosion taking place over in the Korngold Violin Concerto department at present. Honestly, you wait for decades and then suddenly the floodgates open… The fact that violinists are finally taking in their droves to this heartfelt, colourful, melodic piece of 20th-century music speaks volumes in itself and this latest recording from Jiyoon Lee with the Odense Symphony Orchestra under Kristiina Poska is a fine addition to the growing roster. Jiyoon Lee’s playing is full-toned, consistent and energetic Lee’s playing is full-toned, consistent and energetic, besides technically spot-on, and she brings out to excellent effect the first movement’s yearning character, and the…

Delibes Lakmé Erato 9029573486 (1971) 149:44 mins (2 discs)  Alain Lombard conducts a properly Gallic Lakmé with Mady Mesplé as a winningly lyric heroine and for once the Bell Song is more than a showstopper. Then there’s Charles Burles’s Gerald – truly a tenor worth dying for. ★★★★ Lalo Le Roi d’Ys Erato 9029573485 (1957) 105:36 mins (2 discs) Lalo could only have dreamed of this cast. The sound may be boxy and the chorus muffled but Janine Micheau is sweet toned as the nice girl and Rita Gorr supreme as the wicked Margared. ★★★★ Marais Sémélé Glossa GCD 921631 (2007) 137:26 mins (2 discs) This may not be Marais’s masterpiece but it’s lovingly coaxed back to life by Hervé Niquet. And if there’s more drama in the music than…

Chimère Debussy: Fêtes galantes (Book I); Poulenc: Banalités; Métamorphoses – ‘C’est ainsi que tu es’; Previn: Three Dickinson Songs; R Schumann: ‘Mignon’; ‘Dein Angesicht’; ‘Die Lotosblume’; Wolf: Eichendorff-Lieder – ‘Verschwiegene Liebe’; Mörike-Lieder – ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’; ‘Lied vom Winde’; ‘Nixe Binsefuss’; plus songs by Baksa (‘Heart! We will forget him’), Barber (‘Despite and Still’), Gurney (‘Sleep’), and Loewe (‘Ach neige, du Schmerzenreiche’) Sandrine Piau (soprano), Susan Manoff (piano) Piau sings these songs with elegant, unforced expressiveness Alpha Classics ALPHA 397 58:27 mins The persistent ‘Baroque specialist’ label hardly sums up this distinguished French soprano. With her distinctively radiant, secure tone and cut-crystal upper range, her repertoire has always been much wider, not least in her Lieder recordings. This latest is somewhat over-packaged, a miniature coffee-table book padded out with medieval…

Debussy • Ravel Debussy: String Quartet in G minor; Ravel: String Quartet in F Jerusalem Quartet Harmonia Mundi HMM 902304 53:38 mins Their performance emphasises Debussy’s individuality In advance, I wondered whether there was anything new to be said about these two incessantly recorded works. Happily the answer is ‘yes’. Nor is it due to anything imposed – the novelty comes quite simply from doing what it says on the tin. From the point of view of colour, the ensemble is notable for its warmth and richness, but also for a willingness to drop to the most intimate levels of pianissimo. As a result we are given a dramatic reading of both works: not wayward or hysterical, but one that casts serious doubt on their character as ‘impressionist’ in the…

JS Bach Partitas Nos. 1-6, BWV825-830 Menno van Delft (clavichord) Resonus RES 10212 133:32 mins (2 discs) There is nothing routine in Van Delft’s inflective dialogue with Bach Here are performances of Bach’s six keyboard Partitas with a difference, for Menno van Delft plays neither harpsichord nor any manifestation of piano but the softly spoken clavichord. Bach’s earliest biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel asserted that the clavichord was the composer’s favourite keyboard instrument. Be that as it may, the composer has left us with no music specifically composed for it. Nevertheless, this percussive instrument is well-suited to some of Bach’s pieces as well as enabling a performer to communicate with greater expressive intimacy and individuality than on a harpsichord. For the most part, I find Menno van Delft’s case for the…

12. West Road Concert Hall Where: Cambridge Opened: 1978 Seats: 499 Cambridge isn’t short of venues for choral music, thanks to the University’s many college chapels. But when it comes to purpose-built concert halls, West Road is the place to go. Built in 1978 by Sir Leslie Martin, the streamline auditorium is at the heart of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Music. It’s as much a home for student musicians as professionals. During termtime, you can enjoy a variety of groups, from the superb, small-scale Chamber Orchestra right up to fully-staged productions by the Opera Society. West Road also boasts four resident ensembles. For early-music lovers, there’s the Academy of Ancient Music, while if your tastes tend to the contemporary, there’s the Britten Sinfonia. The Endellion String Quartet has…

The colour of music It was good to read Tom Service’s Symphony of colours (August) in which he talks of the widespread automatic reflex of seeing colours when we hear music. As a visual artist/musician myself, the palette of tone colours certainly helps me to memorise a score. The Lithuanian artist/ composer MK Ciurlionis made hundreds of paintings that reflex his synaesthesia. Had he not tragically died young, he would probably have become one of the early film composers. In February, with conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla and the CBSO, I hope to show the audience how natural it is for us to marry colours with music, by painting my own fluid kinetic images live to his symphonic poem The Sea (1907). It starts in E major, which always sounds to me…

Kiandra Howarth soprano Born: Queensland, Australia Career highlight: Joining the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House then making my debut as Adina in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore with less than 24 hours’ notice. It was incredible to be performing a lead role at one of the most prominent opera houses in the world, and sharing the stage with a musical idol of mine, Bryn Terfel. Musical hero: The conductor Antonio Pappano stands out. His generous support both in rehearsals and in one-on-one coaching sessions during these early stages of my career have been a source of inspiration. Dream concert: That’s very easy – making my debut at the BBC Proms! Elicia Silverstein violinist Born: New York, US Career highlight: Recording my debut solo album this…

7th: The Allied forces of Russia, America, the UK and France take part in the Berlin Victory Parade, nearby the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate. It is the first public exhibition of the Red Army’s IS-3 heavy tank, with 52 on display. Russian sources soon refer to this as the ‘forgotten parade’, marking the start of Cold War tensions. 12th: Japan’s Field Marshal Hajime Sugiyama commits suicide, ten days after his country’s official surrender ceremony to the Allied powers at Tokyo Bay. He shoots himself in the chest four times with a revolver as he sits at his office desk. His wife also kills herself. 19th: Prime Minister Clement Attlee makes a worldwide broadcast regarding Indian independence. Although the Labour party election manifesto pledged the ‘advancement of India to responsible…

Sibelius Symphony No. 4 Lahti Symphony Orchestra/ Osmo Vänskä BIS BISCD861 I was familiar with the Second and Fifth Symphonies, which I think are the ones most people tend to know. When I listened to the Fourth for the first time, I remember it taking my breath away. It’s dark, brooding, almost depressing in a way – it had been a difficult time for Sibelius just before he wrote it. There’s something very particular about the third movement; a glimmer of light somehow comes through, and I think that’s what I found so beautiful. Weill Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, Op. 12 Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin); Berlin Philharmonic/Mariss Jansons Warner Classics 678 4342 I came to Weill through his songs and I wanted to delve a little more. I…

Howard Goodall Composer One recording that has a particular resonance for me is Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, with Simon Preston conducting the Choir of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Philip Jones Ensemble in 1975 – it had a huge impact on me as a teenager, shortly before I joined the choir as a student. There’s a muscularity to the singing which in those days was very unusual. Simon developed this much tougher, edgier sound at Christ Church, which, for me, works incredibly well in Stravinsky. Hamilton is a huge throwing down of the gauntlet to all of us to reassess how we write The genius of Richard Strauss is something I’ve come to appreciate more and more as I’ve got older. Normally as a composer, when you hear someone else’s…

Vasily Petrenko has shown he can forge a rapport with audiences and youngsters Iwouldn’t say all classical music critics are snobs. Perish the thought! But I have been startled by the disdain some colleagues have shown following the appointment, from 2021, of Vasily Petrenko as music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO). ‘Appropriate: a conductor going nowhere leading an orchestra going nowhere,’ one sneered on Twitter. Let’s unpick the dark subtext to that remark later. For the moment, the facts. Petrenko, still only 42, has had a terrific time on Merseyside. He has lifted the quality of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, left a string of highly-praised recordings and – perhaps most important of all – reconnected the people of the city with classical music, not least by immersing himself…

The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian luthier and musician. He spent his childhood experimenting in the workshop of his father’s musical instrument shop, before studying the flute and clarinet at the Brussels Conservatory. Examining the balance between brass and woodwind in musical arrangement, he identified a range that no instrument covered. Although it wasn’t patented until 1846, the early saxophone sprung to prominence in the 1840s. When Berlioz was shown the new instrument, he showered Sax in praise, featuring it prominently in his Chant sacré . Sax publicised his creation at the 1844 Paris Industrial Exhibition, and the following year French military bands replaced their horns and bassoons with E flat and B flat saxes. Once the original patent expired in 1866, other instrument makers began to…

With the theme ‘Entering the 21st – Dawn of a New Era’, the festival will host 21 performances across three weeks (12-26 Oct). It opens in style, with a reimagining of a Peking Opera classic titled Farewell my Concubine. Bernstein’s centenary is celebrated over two nights. His Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, will feature pianist Krystian Zimerman and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen (16 October), while the China Philharmonic will give a concert performance of West Side Story on 25 October. Other highlights include the premiere of Orfeo, an opera by Fay Kueen Wang (19-21 Oct), Mozart and Mendelssohn performed by clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer and the Shanghai and HK Phil Quartets (13 Oct), and a programme of Chinese composers played by the Beijing Symphony (15 Oct).…

1858 LIFE: Giacomo Puccini is born on 22 December in Lucca , Italy. The previous four generations of his family have all been notable musicians in the city. TIMES: Named after Giovanni Battista Donati, the Florentine astronomer who discovered it, Donati’s Comet is the first of its type ever to be photographed. 1909 LIFE: Puccini’s wife, Elvira , accuses him of having an affair with Doria Manfredi, who then commits suicide. Manfredi’s autopsy proves the accusations to be false. TIMES: Guglielmo Marconi, widely credited with the invention of the radio, shares the Nobel Prize in Physics with the German Karl Ferdinand Braun. 1878 LIFE: He is educated in Lucca, where the first performance of his motet Plaudite populi draws attention to his talent. He is sent to Milan to study.…

Vasily Petrenko (conductor) Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Naxos 8.570568 (2008) Though live performances are relatively rare, many fine recordings of the Manfred Symphony are available. Arturo Toscanini’s trail-blazing 1949 recording (RCA), for instance, demands to be heard, despite the savage cuts to the score and lo-fi sound. Gennady Rozhdestvensky, meanwhile, wears his Russian heart on his sleeve in a white-hot reading (Melodyia), and Vladimir Ashkenazy’s debut recording as a conductor with the New Philharmonia (Decca) is another strong candidate. I have a fondness for Constantin Silvestri’s idiosyncratic view with the Bournemouth Symphony (BBC Legends) despite the wheezy organ, and Lorin Maazel’s heady performance with the Vienna Philharmonic (Decca) is easily the best of his Tchaikovsky Symphony cycle. Petrenko never fails to remind us that this is no comfortable work And…

Judging a book, or indeed a disc, by its cover is not a great way forward. I’m not talking about actual CD covers, although I’ve seen some stinkers in my time; I’m talking about presumptions. Take our Recording of the Month, for example; who would have thought an album of trombone music would be quite so beautiful? But it is, and I’m now a convert. Further surprises await in this month’s reviews pages… There’s Gilbert without Sullivan, Bach partitas on the captivating clavichord and a Brahms quartet arranged for symphony orchestra. It’s somehow reassuring that you can be caught off-guard by music, or instruments you think you know. It goes to show there is still so much more for composers, musicians and arrangers to say, and that’s a thrilling prospect.…

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 (Choral) Rebecca Evans (soprano), Patricia Bardon (mezzo-soprano), Robert Murray (tenor), Derek Welton (bass-baritone); Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra/ Benjamin Zander Brattle Media 610877733781 218 mins (3 discs) Aside from conducting, there’s nothing Benjamin Zander likes better than talking. On disc 2 and 3 of this set he holds forth compellingly about the more controversial aspects of his performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. The main thrust of his argument is that the Symphony’s often contested metronome markings must be scrupulously observed. Those markings were written in a notebook by Karl van Beethoven, while his deaf uncle either wrestled with the metronome or pounded away on the piano. The potential for mishaps was considerable, and for the scherzo’s trio Karl jotted down a figure for each half-bar that is impossibly…

The Swedish composer’s international breakthrough came with the 1999 premiere of his trumpet concerto Bridge, composed for Håkan Hardenberger. Martinsson has written for leading solo performers including Martin Fröst, Anne Sofie von Otter and Christian Lindberg. Since 2011 he has enjoyed a particularly close association with the soprano Lisa Larsson, for whom he devised a soprano version of Orchestral Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson (originally written for mezzo-soprano): Larsson has performed Martinsson’s music at more than a hundred concerts to date.…

Alfred Cellier The Mountebanks; Suite Symphonique Soraya Mafi, Thomas Elwin, James Cleverton, Sharon Carty, John-Colyn Gyeantey, Catherine Carby, John Savournin, Geoffrey Dolton; BBC Singers; BBC Concert Orchestra/ John Andrews Dutton 2CDLX 7349 (hybrid CD/SACD) 138:07 mins (2 discs) Gilbert and… Cellier? But The Mountebanks is as much a Savoy operetta as any of Sullivan’s. Alfred Cellier (1844-91), English-born but half-French, was D’Oyly Carte’s music director, so it’s no surprise that he maintains the same general style. Nevertheless he has his own distinctive voice, flowingly melodic, orchestral writing more elegant and modern-sounding, looking forward to Edwardian operetta. What he rather lacks is Sullivan’s comic quirkiness; when two characters turn into clockwork figurines, Cellier raises a smile – no more. Gilbert’s libretto is partly to blame. Aficionados will recognise his infamous ‘lozenge’…

Grandson of the founder of Italy’s renowned music publishing house, Giulio Ricordi was musically the most gifted of his family. Under the pseudonym Jules Burgmein (and occasionally Grubmeni) he composed piano pieces and songs as well as orchestral and stage works. He worked for the firm under his father for a short time in 1856, then permanently from 1863. From the mid-1870s he was Verdi’s main contact at Ricordi, and inspired him to compose Otello . Giulio ran the firm from 1888 and nurtured Puccini, to whom he became a respected father figure.…

JS Bach Cantatas Eloquence 482 7642 (1951/52) 226:03 mins (3 discs)  Fritz Lehmann’s tempos range from dignified to plodding. Coupled with nonstop string and vocal vibrato, this makes for a laborious listen. ★★ Keiser Markus-Passion Christophorus CHR 77421 (1994) 62:57 mins A somewhat laconic rendition of this little-known but fascinating Mark-Passion by JS Bach’s 18th-century Hamburg-based contemporary. Variable soloists from Parthenia , no English translations, but some sparkling and lyrical orchestral playing. ★★★ Elisabeth Grümmer Arias and songs by Brahms, Mozart, Schubert and Wolf SWR Music SWR19415CD (1956/58) 67:58 mins Moments of great tenderness and beauty from soprano Elisabeth Grümmer (1911–86) are marred by the unreliable intonation, uneven sound and poor ensemble in this recital. ★★ Fritz Wunderlich Music Before Bach SWR SWR19051CD (1954-57) 135:13 mins (2 discs)  Fritz Wunderlich…

In the summer of 1670 Biber was sent by his employer, Karl II of Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, to Absam to obtain instruments from a renowned luthier. Biber never returned but instead gained employment under the Archbishop of Salzburg; he remained in that city, where he composed and published virtually all his music. A virtuosic violinist, much of Biber’s music involves scordatura (nonstandard tuning); he also composed one of the earliest masterpieces for unaccompanied violin in the final passacaglia of his Mystery Sonatas.…

The cellist Leonard Rose is perhaps best known for his recordings with violinist Isaac Stern and pianist Eugene Istomin – the famous Istomin-Stern-Rose Trio. But for Rose’s centenary, Sony steers us towards his solo career, The Complete Concerto and Sonata Recordings (Sony 88985490172; 14 CDs). An unexpected beginning – Rose accompanying tenor Christopher Lynch in arrangements of Irish songs in 1948 – emphasises right away the sweet, lyrical, song-like sound of his cello playing. Rose found Bruno Walter an inspirational conductor, and their 1954 recording of Brahms’s Double Concerto with Isaac Stern has wonderful grace and fluidity – better than the later recording with Ormandy (also included). There are also two recordings of Bloch’s Schelomo, played with searing immediacy – this time the later Ormandy recording seems preferable for its…

September round-up Open Land – Meeting John Abercrombie is a biopic on DVD of one of modern jazz music’s understated heroes. Made shortly before the electric guitarist died in 2017, it captures the man and his music beautifully. With straight to camera narrative from John Abercrombie and fellow musicians, we follow his rise from a Chuck Berry-loving kid to a musician revered around the world for his impressionistic composing and playing style. Open minded by even jazz standards, Abercrombie appeared in all kinds of settings. But it was with ECM that he found his spiritual home, being by nature ‘a little sad and also mysterious’ as the music featured in the film reveals. Directed by Arno Oehri with atmospheric cinematography. (ECM DVD 675 1136 ★★★★ ) Compared to the…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to listen out for in September Centenary of The Planets To celebrate 100 years since Holst completed his legendary orchestral suite, the BBC Symphony Orchestra is joining forces with Brian Cox to perform an updated version influenced by new scientific research. Venus, described by Holst as the ‘Bringer of Peace’, will acknowledge the recent discovery that it is actually an icy, hostile planet. Radio 3 in Concert; 29 Sep, 7.30pm Leeds International Piano Competition Now in its 55th year, ‘The Leeds’ returns, with highlights from the semi finals featured throughout the week, and concerto finals broadcast live at the weekend. The pianists will perform with the Hallé. Lunchtime Concerts; 11-14 Sep, 1pm Radio 3 in Concert;…

English Chamber Orchestra London Series 2018/2019  ECO opens its London Season at QEH on 29 October with pianist/conductor Christian Zacharias in a programme including Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto and Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht. On 2 December ECO is at Cadogan Hall with a festive feast of Vivaldi concertos featuring ECO soloists and Michael Collins conducting Vivaldi’s Gloria. 020 3879 9555 (box office for QEH) www.englishchamberorchestra.co.uk Leeds International Orchestral Season 2018/19 Season at Leeds Town Hall  Leeds International Concert Season, one of the finest orchestral programmes in the country, continues to bring remarkable orchestras and astounding soloists to Leeds. Highlights of the 2018/19 season include the BBC Philharmonic, Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra plus many more talented musicians. 0113 376 0318 www.leedsconcertseason.co.uk Academy of Ancient Music 2018-2019…

Keyboardist Rick Wakeman studied at the Royal College of Music before embarking on his hugely successful career as a rock musician. He played with the bands Strawbs and Yes before launching his solo career in 1973, writing and performing his own music. His first solo studio album was The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and he has since released dozens of solo projects, many accompanied by spectacular live shows. This September Sony Classical releases Piano Odyssey featuring Wakeman playing solo works by Liszt and Handel plus his own arrangements of music by Queen and David Bowie. My first musical memories are of my father playing the piano. He played with my mother, Aunt Esther and Aunt Olive, who all sang. My Uncle Stan played the banjo, and Uncle Laurie was…