Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2018 i BBC Music Magazine

Julian Haylock Editor and writer ‘Although we have no sound recordings or film of Paganini in action, awestruck contemporary descriptions of him are so vivid that he feels as alive today as when he first dazzled audiences two centuries ago.’ Kate Kennedy Academic and writer ‘In this year of celebration of the female vote, I look at the indomitable composer Dame Ethel Smyth, her musical prowess and her important contribution to the suffrage movement.’ Nick van Bloss Pianist ‘Based on my own recent experiences as a concert pianist with Tourette’s, I take a look at how some parts of the profession are perhaps not as diversity-aware as they might have you believe.’…

Magical maestros Tom Service’s witty and entertaining column on ‘the conductor conundrum’ (September) describes a phenomenon I had been waiting to read about for some time. I had just seen Daniel Barenboim conduct his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the BBC Proms and found myself fixated on watching him work his magic. There were times where the animated Barenboim seemed to expel musical colour onto the orchestra and others where he was completely still, allowing the musicians to lead themselves. Complete wizardry! Some time ago I attended an open rehearsal with Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO which opened my eyes to the detail and precision with which a conductor can attune the sound. I agree with Service when he says conductors today have more responsibility, both in shaping the orchestral…

‘As he did live, so also did he die, in mild and quiet sort (O happy man!); To God full oft for mercy did he cry, wherefore he lives, let death do what it can.’ So read the epitaph of Thomas Tallis, arguably the most influential and important English composer of his era. That peaceful demeanour described on his gravestone, though, was in stark contrast to the turbulent era in which he had lived. It was on a late-Autumn day in 1585 that Tallis died at home in Greenwich – either 20 or 23 November, depending on which of the Bodleian Register or the Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal you choose to believe. No one felt his passing more keenly than his fellow composer, business partner and friend William…

Plans to play atonal music at Berlin’s S-Bahn stations in a bid to scare away homeless people and drug-users have been scrapped, thanks to a protest from musicians. Worried that such a deterrent would send out all the wrong messages about their favoured artform, a group of leading contemporary music performers staged a concert outside Hermanstrasse station, which happened to be attended by S-Bahn boss Friedemann Kessler. Twigging that his idea might indeed be a touch misguided, Kessler soon decided on a rethink. Good news, though he’s by no means the first person to have gone down this track… The notion of using classical music as a means to curb yobbish behaviour or drive people out of an area is thought to have first appeared in Canada in the 1980s,…

This month: BARRY DOUGLAS Pianist MY FINEST MOMENT Brahms Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 1 Barry Douglas (piano) Chandos CHAN10716 (2012) When I was a student I was playing a lot of late Brahms – not performing it but playing it for myself. When I learnt the First Piano Concerto, I felt very comfortable with his music and that I could be more successful with him. It was always an ambition of mine to record all Brahms’s solo works and the concertos, but I never did anything about it. When I started with RCA in the mid-’80s it was all about Russian things, because I’d just won the competition in Moscow. But there was always this thing at the back of my mind about Brahms, and then I had a…

Wouter de Moor, Amsterdam, Holland Richard Wagner’s music is my doorstep to classical music and it is from there that other composers in the Austro-German repertoire, such as Richard Strauss and Mahler, have made their way onto my CD player. My latest discovery in the field of late-Romantics is the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck, and especially his songs with orchestra. In his Elegie Op. 36, as recorded by baritone Andreas Schmidt, the essence of the songs is complemented by the beautiful, multicoloured sounds of the orchestra. A revelation!…

Imagine an international superstar such as Chinese pianist Lang Lang – or, say, Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu – signing up for concerts not just in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, but also Chichester, Lincoln, Shrewsbury, Kilmarnock and Uxbridge. With all due respect to these fine cities and towns, you wouldn’t think it likely. Yet these and many other less musically celebrated locations were on the itinerary of arguably the greatest violinist of them all, Niccolò Paganini, during his cluster of visits to Britain in the early 1830s. Yes, the genius who defined the very idea of the modern virtuoso travelled far and wide on those trips, including to Ireland – and at a time when the railway age was barely under way. But why this criss-crossing of the nation? Money, of…

In amongst the more conservative fare, Jaap van Zweden’s first season at David Geffen Hall will feature some intriguing world premieres, many of them New York Philharmonic commissions. Just before this issue went on sale, Van Zweden conducted the first performances of experimental composer Ashley Fure’s Filament and Conrad Tao’s Everything Must Go. Louis Andriessen’s Iliad-inspired Agamemnon gets its first outing at the start of October, and at the end of January, Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my Mouth explores the clothing industry in New York City at the turn of the century, including the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 workers. A world premiere by David Lang will round out the 2018/19 season. prisoner of the state is billed as a contemporary take on Beethoven’s Fidelio – ‘Lang…

One of the first Armenians to receive a Western music education, Komitas (born 1869) was instrumental in setting up Armenia’s national music school. He was ordained in 1894 and mastered Armenian liturgical chanting before turning his attention to the traditional songs of Ararat valley peasants and other indigenous groups. After studies in Berlin, Komitas returned to Armenia, amassing several thousand folksongs. He brought polyphony to Armenian music, paving the way for a new wave of home-grown composing talent. Arrested during the Armenian genocide, Komitas never recovered and died in 1919 in a Paris mental asylum.…

André Previn (conductor) London Symphony Orchestra RCA 88875126952 André Previn was principal conductor of the LSO for most of the 1970s, and during that period they made many wonderful recordings together. This A Pastoral Symphony was among the best of them, and it continues to set a high bar for other interpretations to aspire to. The LSO was packed with outstanding section leaders at the time, and the quality of the solo playing eclipses that on any other recording. Violinist John Georgiadis, clarinettist Gervase de Peyer and flautist William Bennett all make telling contributions, as do the oboe and viola soloists, while the important horn and trumpet solos in the second movement are plangently expressive. The inherent sadness is mitigated by the dignified beauty of the LSO’s playing Previn’s shaping…

There’s an abundance of great talent peppered throughout this month’s reviewed releases. Yo-Yo Ma reveals his final recording of Bach’s Cello Suites and pianist Dénes Várjon appears on not one but two five-star recordings, including this month’s Recording of the Month. And the rest? Daniel Barenboim, Steven Isserlis, Joyce DiDonato… the list goes on. And what of the composers? Discoveries for me this month include British composer Ruth Gipps (1921-99), who played the cor anglais in the premiere performance of her own symphony in 1945, and Behzad Abdi (b1973), the Tehran-born composer whose talents include composing for the modern opera stage. Then there’s Owain Park (b1993); might he be the youngest composer to take a top spot in these pages?…

What was your inspiration for this recording? I like making programmes that have a theme but at the same time can be very contrasting. I did some recitals where I played Gaspard de la nuit and the Bartók in the second half, and the first half was sometimes Schumann Fantasiestücke. felt that it could be a nice I combination for a recording. I think a programme should always have links and stories behind them. It can be very subjective and personal, actually, in a way I think it has to be. Gaspard de la nuit is a challenge. Is that its appeal? It is extremely difficult, of course, but it’s not the pianistic challenges that are attractive to me. It’s an incredibly brave piece and it brings an…

Beethoven Symphony No. 5; Shostakovich Symphony No. 10 Praga Digitals PRD 250 394 (1961/66) 82:08 mins This Beethoven No. 5 from Herbert von Karajan is tight-reined and thrillingly exciting, as is his superb command of the huge spans of Shostakovich’s Tenth. Lustrous Berlin Phil playing. ★★★★ Bizet Symphony in C; Haydn Symphony No. 101 Eloquence 482 4979 (1949-54) 64:13 mins Aided by remarkably clear Decca sound for 1949, Ernest Ansermet’s Haydn is fresh and likeable. So are these early-1950s recordings of Bizet’s effervescent Symphony and his overture Patrie. ★★★ Mozart Symphonies No. 35, 36, 38 & 41, etc Eloquence 482 8414 (1956-61) 144:22 mins (2 CDs) Eugen Jochum’s classy way with Mozart – well-rounded phrasing, spacious tempos – typifies a now distant performance era. Eduard Van Beinum’s Posthorn Serenade (unfortunately…

Finzi Cello Concerto; Eclogue; Nocturne (New Year Music); Grand Fantasia and Toccata Paul Watkins (cello), Louis Lortie (piano); BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA 5214 (hybrid CD/SACD) 70:40 mins In the grand sweep of things, Gerald Finzi (1901-56) might have to be classed as a relatively minor English composer, yet his thoughtful music regularly gives listeners not only pleasure, but much to chew over as well. His 37-minute Cello Concerto, begun in 1951 under the shadow of the diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma (the shadow of Elgar too), is the work with most passion and ambition on this CD, with a slow movement whose lyrical phrases touch the heart. It’s equally hard to shake off the restless baroque figurations of the Grand Fantasia and Toccata, or the unruffled Bachian calm dominating…

Purcell Dido and Aeneas Harmonia Mundi HMG 501683 (2001) 59:33 mins René Jacobs directs a powerful cast in a scrupulous reading. Never sentimental, Lynne Dawson is a noble Dido, but the vocal honours belong to Susan Bickley’s Sorceress and Rosemary Joshua’s Belinda. ★★★★ Purcell The Fairy Queen Eloquence 482 7449 (1957) 129:02 mins (2 discs) A happy return for Anthony Lewis’s painstaking reconstruction of this masterpiece. Boxy mono sound without period instruments, but with a full-voiced English cast and a magnificent Elsie Morris. ★★★★ Wagner Der fliegende Holländer Orfeo C 936 1821 (1959) 126:52 mins (2 discs) A blistering mono performance live from Bayreuth. Wolfgang Sawallisch takes no musical prisoners as Leonie Rysanek tears through Senta, all but incinerating George London’s Dutchman. ★★★★ Wagner Tannhäuser Decca 483 2507 (1970) 186:59…

Grieg Songs Somm ARIADNE 5001 (1998) 63:54 mins Grieg’s lush, exquisitely crafted songs are steeped in nature. Carole Farley offers thrilling moments of brilliance in the upper range but is uneven lower down, with an occasionally unclear text. ★★ Handel Clori, Tirsi e Fileno Glossa Cabinet GCDC 81525 (2008) 75:02 mins An elegant account of Handel’s early pastoral cantata, with persuasive characterisation, crisp instrumental playing by La Risonanza, a confident sense of drama, and crystal clear recorded sound. No translations, but a helpful liner note. ★★★★ Handel Music for Queen Caroline Harmonia Mundi HAF 8905298 (2014) 72:17 mins Les Arts Florissants offers full-blooded grandeur as well as profound pathos in this showcase of Handel’s unsurpassed gift for ceremonial music associated with Queen Caroline, George II’s consort. ★★★★ Mendelssohn Choral Works…

JS Bach Cello Suites Nos 1-6 Yo-Yo Ma (cello) Sony Classical 19075854652 133:05 mins (2 discs) Yo-Yo Ma is a well-travelled musician, in every sense. The Silk Road project not only widened his cultural perspective, but also opened up his playing and musicianship. Now he returns to the Bach Suites, as a prelude to a world-wide tour. As a cellist-communicator he is second to none: few who witnessed his magisterial survey of the suites at the 2015 BBC Proms will forget it – not so much for the actual performances, which were self-effacing to a fault, but for the extraordinary sense of communal engagement he generated. Remove that electric frisson of live relationship and what remains? This, his third complete recording, has a Zen-like serenity, a lightness of being, in…

JS Bach Cantatas for Luther Montreal Baroque/Eric Milnes, et al ATMA Classique ACD2 2407 A quartet of soloists make up the entirety of the chorus in these surprisingly full-bodied performances of joyful, often winsome cantatas written to celebrate the Lutheran Reformation. (OC) ★★★★ Jeff Beal House of Cards Symphony, etc Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/Jeff Beal, et al BIS BIS-2299 Beal’s symphonic take on his popular TV tunes is a thriller, but the delightful shorter works featuring flautist Sharon Bezaly ultimately steal the show. (MB) ★★★★ Beethoven Piano Trios Van Baerle Trio Challenge Classics CC72778 Despite the lively playing of the Van Baerle Trio, this trio transcription – reputedly by the composer himself and his student Ferdinand Ries – clips the wings of his Second Symphony. (RF) ★★★ Braga Santos Piano Concerto,…

14. The Anvil Where: Basingstoke Opened: 1994 Seats: 1,400 For some of the best concert hall acoustics in the country, turn your back on the capital and head to Basingstoke. When The Anvil was built in the early 1990s, the prime concern was how to make the sound in the auditorium world class. Architects Renton Howard Wood Levin worked with Arup Acoustics to come up with a design that would envelop the listener in a sound that ‘combines clarity with warmth and reverberance.’ The common consensus is that it was a job well done. ‘It boasts acoustics as warm as an Italian courtyard,’ wrote The Times. Situated in the centre of the Hampshire town just a short walk from the railway station, the concert hall is shaped, as the name…

NOVEMBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 THURSDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12 noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Rachmaninov 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Afternoon Concert 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm In Tune Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert from St George’s Church, Brighton. Brighton Early Music Festival: La Contenance Angloise. Sollazzo Ensemble 10-10.45pm Free Thinking 10.45-11pm The Essay A Body of Essays (Series 3) 11pm-12.30am Late Junction 2 FRIDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Rachmaninov 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Afternoon Concert 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm In Tune Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert live from the Barbican Hall, London. Elgar Polonia, Paderewski Piano Concerto, Szymanski new work, Lutos¯awski Symphony No. 1. Janina Fialkowska…

Pianist Alice Sara Ott was born in Munich to a German father and Japanese mother. Her performances on the world’s great stages of solo and concerto repertoire have been met with acclaim, and she is rapidly carving out a reputation for imaginative, insightful programmes. Ott’s Deutsche Grammophon album Nightfall, featuring music by Debussy, Satie and Ravel, marks ten years since her signing to the Yellow Label, and is out now. My parents took me to a concert when I was three that made me want to become a pianist. My mother was a pianist herself and wasn’t very fond of the idea, so I had to beg her for about a year. When I turned four my parents gave in and I started lessons with a Hungarian piano teacher. He…

The concert stage is a much more open and diverse place than it was even five years ago. Concert managers are, albeit belatedly, waking up to the idea of booking more female musicians as well as those from a broader racial background. And, shock, horror, the standard remains just as high. This quiet revolution is to be celebrated by all – except the disabled fraternity. This month, Nick van Bloss, a pianist who suffers from a debilitating physical form of Tourette’s Syndrome, argues on p50 that classical music’s leaders and managers have been neglecting some superb musicians through their blinkered programming. Diversity, he implies, means a lot more than simply balancing gender and race. It makes for fascinating and thoughtful reading, and will hopefully prick a few consciences. It’s also…

12 …per cent more dosh. According to a study, people who experience goosebumps when listening to music earn more than those who don’t. 6 …young composers. The lucky half dozen have joined the LSO’s Jerwood Composer+ and LSO Soundhub programmes. 1,400 …pounds. A couple who paid to see Andrea Bocelli in Tuscany complained when his ‘show’ turned out to be a bit part in Giordano’s Andrea Chénier 69 …degrees north. Christian Cluxen has been named the chief conductor of the Norwegian Arctic Philharmonic (Tromsø pictured) which, as the name implies, makes him the most northerly maestro in the world.…

Hans Otte The Book of Sounds Hans Otte (piano) Kuckuck KUCK 069/070  Hans Otte was a composer and pianist, and wrote some really stunning music. Book of Sounds is a difficult piece to describe; it’s very contemplative and there’s a lot of repetition of chords and arpeggios. Essentially the performer decides how many times they will repeat the sequences. Although Otte was a pianist, his pianistic means are limited, but he’s so engaged in what he’s playing. It’s just a very beautiful piece. Brahms Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 21 Bálint Vázsonyi (piano) PYE 5425049 Bálint Vázsonyi was a Hungarian pianist, and what I really appreciate about this recording is that it’s got this really natural feeling. It doesn’t sound like it has been manipulated in the studio –…

Federico Colli pianist Conductor Valery Gergiev is probably the best interpreter of Russian epic works. In his performance of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony with the Mariinsky Orchestra, which I heard live in Ravello in August, I was able to see all the images that this music can evoke. Every instrument had its role, and all had equal importance. The desperation that is so vital in this music was always noble and proud in his interpretation, and the hope which always rises from the abyss in all Tchaikovsky works was so tender and moving here. I’m practising Grieg’s Piano Concerto for the 2018/2019 season, and I was extremely surprised by the live recording made by Mikhail Pletnev with the Danish National Radio Orchestra. As always, Pletnev shows us some unique and unexpected…

Oliver Condy Editor Arrangements can shed an entirely new light on a piece of music. I recently listened to the Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson’s (pictured below) new disc, including August Stradal’s transcription of the Adagio from JS Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 4. It had me scrabbling around for the organ original and I’m now happily spending my mornings – bowl of cereal and cup of tea on the bench next to me – learning to play this very beautiful movement myself. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Leonard Bernstein’s song ‘One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man’ has long been a favourite in my family (I really hope they’re not try to tell me something…), so we’ve all enjoyed hearing the new recording by the London Symphony Orchestra and…

Britain undoubtedly thrilled to the sight and sound of instrumental virtuosos in the early 19th century. But while Paganini visited Britain to fill his coffers comparatively late in his career, Franz Liszt made his first visits while only just out of short trousers. Even at the age of 13, the extraordinarily talented pianist was enthralling and amazing audiences, as the Manchester Guardian reported in June 1825: ‘No one could possibly hear him without being delighted; it did not need an acquaintance with music to feel that he was a most extraordinary performer; and it is not necessary, in estimating his powers, to make any allowance on account of his youth; for his performance would be most extraordinary in a person of any age… As far as delicacy of tone, and…

“Smyth’s dramatic Violin Sonata fell foul of the critics for being 'deficient in the feminine charm expected of a woman’” On a cold morning in 1911, thousands of women assembled, snaking slowly through the main streets of London with mounted police poised threateningly at the sides of the road. It was a scene typical of the huge, carefully choreographed demonstrations organised by Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, or WSPU. These were suffragettes and their supporters. Banners in every colour flapped past, representing unions and societies, newly formed to represent women’s interests in the professional world. Many of the women marching wore white dresses with sashes of coloured ribbon: green for hope, white for purity and violet for dignity. Placards were waved: ‘who would be free must strike the…

From unadorned stones set in the grass to abstract artworks, composers’ graves range from the simple to the sublime. Their memorials and tombs have become sites of pilgrimage, where listeners flock to pay their respects to their heroes. Many of the greats, especially those such as Schubert or Beethoven who lived in the European capitals, have been buried in vast public cemeteries, while others have been interred within more private, sometimes quite eccentric surroundings. Here, then, is a collection of 11 of the most memorable places where our finest composers have been laid to eternal rest.…

Few composers offer such a vibrantly pictorial vision of their world as François Couperin, whose music is a gallery of portraits, landscapes, cameos and miniatures – as mysterious and luminous as the paintings of Claude Lorraine, as sensuous and subtly coloured as Watteau’s fêtes galantes. Through flickering sounds, we glimpse the Sun King and the Versailles courtiers in their gilded salons; we see street performers and parades, military marches, religious processions; we inhabit an Arcadian world populated by satyrs and fauns, or a pastoral idyll of sheep and nightingales and peasants dancing to droning musettes. The Couperins were one of the most distinguished of the Baroque dynasties We meet Couperin’s musical colleagues, his aristocratic pupils, and the coterie of friends and family who inspired his endlessly affectionate portraits. Along with…

The work What did Vaughan Williams mean when he entitled his Third Symphony ‘Pastoral’? Pleasant, soothing, idyllically peaceful? With that title, the 49-year-old English composer certainly presented an easy target for his detractors, who viewed him as a fusty musical conservative. ‘Like a cow looking over a gate’ was fellow composer Peter Warlock’s withering verdict on the Third. ‘Staring at a cow for a long time’ opined Stravinsky, adopting the same bovine imagery. Is A Pastoral Symphony really just another tired example of what Elisabeth Lutyens referred to as the ‘cowpat school’ of English music, full of ‘folky-wolky melodies on the cor anglais’? Vaughan Williams thought that it was more than that, and he met the ‘cowpat’ critics head-on in his own comments on the symphony. ‘It’s not really lambkins…

Kees Bakels (conductor) The Dutchman Kees Bakels was principal guest conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony when he made a near-complete cycle of the Vaughan Williams symphonies with the orchestra. Recorded in 1992, his Pastoral is a particularly fine interpretation, one of the most naturally flowing on disc. The recorded sound is a touch misty in tutti sections, but bass lines have a satisfying presence, and Patricia Rozario is a particularly evocative soprano soloist. (Naxos 8.550733) Roger Norrington (conductor) Roger Norrington’s 1997 Pastoral is among the quickest versions you’ll come across, bringing an added edginess to the opening movement in particular. Nowhere, though, is it superficial – both the second and fourth movements are full of expressivity and emotion, and the London Philharmonic’s excellent playing is captured in a resonant, rangy…

John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Terry Blain, Geoff Brown, Anthony Burton, Michael Church, Christopher Cook, Martin Cotton, Christopher Dingle, Misha Donat, Jessica Duchen, Rebecca Franks, George Hall, Malcolm Hayes, Julian Haylock, Claire Jackson, Daniel Jaffé, Berta Joncus, Erik Levi, Natasha Loges, Jon Lusk, Andrew McGregor, David Nice, Roger Nichols, Bayan Northcott, Jeremy Pound, Paul Riley, Jan Smaczny, Michael Tanner, Roger Thomas, Kate Wakeling, Helen Wallace KEY TO STAR RATINGS ★★★★★ Outstanding ★★★★ Excellent ★★★ Good ★★ Disappointing ★ Poor…

Bernstein Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety) Krystian Zimerman (piano); Berlin Philharmonic/Simon Rattle DG 483 5539 39:39 mins When Krystian Zimerman played ‘The Age of Anxiety’ with Leonard Bernstein 30 years ago, the composer half-jokingly asked whether Zimerman would perform it with him again on Bernstein’s 100th birthday. This CD is a partial fulfilment of Zimerman’s promise to do just that. It comes from live performances given this past June with the Berlin Philharmonic, among the last that Simon Rattle gave as the orchestra’s chief conductor. The sound is rich and full-bodied, if not ideally transparent. The performance itself is exceptional, not least because the Berlin Philharmonic brings so much expressive capability to the table. The clarinet duet which opens the ‘Prologue’ is exquisitely nuanced and grippingly introspective. So…

Behzad Abdi Rumi Mohammad Motamedi, Homayoun Shajarian, Sulmaz Badri, Sara Rezazadeh, Maliheh Moradi, Mostafa Mahmoudi, Sadjad Pourghanad, Kayvan Farzin, Ali Yari, Reza Najafi, Ali Khodaei, Hossein Alishapour, Mohammadreza Sadeghi, Ali Najafi , Ehsan Nasiri, Mehdi Emami, Es’haq Anvar, Mehdi Javar, Amer Shadman; Credo Chamber Choir; National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine/ Vladimir Sirenko Naxos 8.660424-25 104:19 mins (2 discs) Thirteenth-century poet, mystic, theologian and scholar Jalal al-Din Rumi, otherwise known simply as Rumi, is now revered around the globe. His mysterious and compassionate writings frequently explored the power of music and poetry to make sense of a complex, conflict-stricken world, and this intriguing and timely collaboration between Iranian composer Behzad Abdi and librettist Behrouz Gharibpour celebrates the great poet’s life in a striking new operatic work. The opera relates a series…

Allain Videte miraculum; The Norwich Service; Cana’s Guest; The Magi’s Gifts; The Beloved, etc Choir of Merton College, Oxford/ Benjamin Nicholas; Alexander Little (organ) Delphian DCD 34207 64:08 mins Richard Allain (b1965) is admired for his choral music, much of it for church or cathedral. Working in a broadly traditional style, he explores a harmonic world of blurred but euphonious richness, the writing skilled and unfailingly effective. The biggest piece here, Videte miraculum, pays homage to Thomas Tallis and in particular to his motet of the same name: its noble structure is in no way discountenanced by comparison with the original. The antiphon O Day-spring makes telling use of a soprano saxophone (played by Finn McEwan). Equally effective are the solo interventions by soprano (Francesca Miller) and bass (Patrick Keefe)…

Beethoven Piano Trio in B flat, Op. 11 (Gassenhauer); Clarinet Trio, Op. 38 Eric Le Sage (piano), Paul Meyer (clarinet), Claudio Bohórquez (cello) Alpha Classics ALPHA 405 58:07 mins You can’t have too many recorded versions of Beethoven’s core creations, but there are times when it feels as though we have enough. This may explain the current vogue for exhuming his more peripheral works: Pavel Kolesnikov’s Hyperion recording of some early piano pieces without opus numbers, for example, and now these trios for piano, clarinet, and cello. The new popularity of woodwind instruments may have stimulated the composition of Op. 11 in 1797; the resulting combination may be unusual, but it works. Op. 11 has the bracing spareness and raw muscular energy of the early piano sonatas, and its first…

SoftLOUD Music for Acoustic & Electric Guitars Anon: Pieces from Scottish lute manuscripts; D Lang: killer; MacMillan: From Galloway; Motet I; James Oswald: Divertimento I; Reich: Electric Counterpoint; Wolfe: LAD Sean Shibe (acoustic guitar, electric guitar) Delphian DCD34213 56:18 mins Sean Shibe plays Electric Counterpoint with brio and funky relish ‘Have we today forgotten how to speak quietly and with grace; or is the real danger that we aren’t screaming loudly enough?’ asks Sean Shibe apropos this calculatedly provocative programme trading in bold juxtapositions. (Bolder, perhaps, had its elements been interleaved rather than corralled into distinct halves for acoustic and electric guitars.) Conceived for a world facing seismic political upheaval back in 2016, there’s no doubting that he himself is an artist blessed with grace to spare, and a roar…

Carter David Schiff Oxford University Press 978-01-90259-15-0; 266pp (hb) £22.99 The second edition of David Schiff’s previous book on Elliott Carter came out in 1998, and took us up to his large-scale Symphonia, completed the previous year. Carter was in his mid-eighties, but he went on writing music faster than Schiff could write about it until he was well past his 100th birthday, so the portion of this new book that deals with what Schiff calls ‘late late Carter’ is particularly welcome. He is uniquely placed to write about the composer, having known him for several decades, and he presents his credentials at length in a chapter that might better have been condensed into a foreword; but the bulk of the book is full of insight, presented in an elegant…

LONDON Vox Luminis Wigmore Hall, 8 November Tel: +44 (0)20 7935 2141 Web: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk Lionel Meunier’s Belgian vocal ensemble inaugurates a season-long residency with a time-honoured calling card: Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien. The Requiem is presented alongside funeral music by four of JS Bach’s forebears plus works by Selle and Scheidt (see right, ‘Backstage with…’). London Philharmonic Orchestra Royal Festival Hall, 10 November Tel: +44 (0)20 3879 9555 Web: www.southbankcentre.co.uk After The Rake’s Progress (3 Nov) that’s part of their ongoing Stravinsky odyssey, conductor Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO turn to the Requiem Canticles. The programme incorporates the premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Triumph to Exist, setting wartime words by Finnish poet Edith Södergran, and is partnered by Debussy and rare Janácÿek. BBC Symphony Orchestra Barbican, 10 November Tel: +44 (0)20 7638…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to listen out for in November Remembrance Weekend An undoubted highlight of our weekend of commemoration will be the live performance of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s pacifist opera The Silver Tassie in its first revival since its 2000 premiere. Interspersed between programmes and concerts marking the centenary of the end of WWI will be ‘sonic memorials’: sounds of battlefields, providing moments of contemplation. Sat 10-Sun 11 Nov The Royal Opera’s Ring Cycle The Royal Opera House is hosting the first three operas of Wagner’s magnificent Der Ring des Nibelungen this month. The cycle will be brought to its fiery close in December with Götterdämmerung. Radio 3 in Concert; 3 Nov, 6.30pm; 17, 24 Nov, 5pm London Jazz Festival…

Czech hero I enjoyed Erik Levi’s article (October) discussing the ways in which the centenary of Dvorák’s birth in 1941 was used for political propaganda purposes by the Nazis in control of Czechoslovakia and by the Western Allies. However, the picture on p39 titled ‘a Czech woman is in tears as she’s forced to salute a triumphant Hitler’ could just as easily be a Sudeten German, overwhelmed with emotion, and welcoming in the Nazis – the picture is a mystery in that respect. From a musical point of view I’ve always been a great admirer of the Czech composer Vitezslav Novák (1870-1949) whose doom-laden, though ultimately redemptive, De profundis (symphonic poem for large orchestra and organ) was composed while the composer lived under the Nazi occupation of his homeland: a…

Yaritza Véliz soprano Born: Coquimbo, Chile Career highlight: Either being accepted onto the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House or singing the role of Musetta in La bohème with the Municipal de Santiago Opera. Musical hero: I have two heroines: soprano Mirella Freni, who has been an inspiration of mine since I was 17, and mezzo Joyce DiDonato, from whom I have also learnt so much thanks to her YouTube masterclasses. Dream concert: Singing in either Mozart’s Requiem or Haydn’s Creation with John Eliot Gardiner. The venue wouldn’t matter – just to sing those works would be a dream come true. Stephen Waarts violinist Born: Fremont, California Career highlight: Every time I’ve been given the opportunity to play with someone I’ve admired for years…

Cathedral cuts Gloomy news from St Asaph Cathedral in North Wales, where cost-cutting measures have led to director music Alan McGuinness and his asistant John Hosking being made redundant. Explaining that alternative provisions will now be made for running the choir, a cathedral statement explained that ‘following a reduction in the budget, we have had to review the provision of music.’ Georgian glory Nicolas Namoradze from Georgia has won the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada. As well as a substantial cash prize, his success in the prestigious event wins him a three-year artist development programme that includes concert engagements and recordings. Popular Proms Audience numbers at the BBC Proms have risen for the second year running. Ninety-one per cent of seats at the Royal Albert Hall were…

We reveal who’s recording what, and where… The Doric Quartet heads to Snape Maltings to record the complete Britten string quartets ahead of its performances as part of the venue’s annual Britten Weekend. The recordings, which will be released by Chandos, are to feature Britten’s own 1843 viola given to him by Frank Bridge in 1939. Another quartet heading to the studio is New York’s innovative PUBLIQuartet, an ensemble that blazes trails with mostly contemporary music and improvisation. Its next project, however, sees it highlighting the work of women composers, including Hildegard von Bingen, Jessica Meyer and Shelley Washington. Decca Records is celebrating 30 years working with Cecilia Bartoli with new Vivaldi recordings and a comprehensive box set of Rossini. Not only that, an imprint label called ‘Mentored by Bartoli’…

What is it about bovines and criticism of early 20th-century British music? There’s a strange symbiosis between insults thrown at the music of everyone from Vaughan Williams to Delius, from Bax to Finzi – and cows. Their music embodies the vacant gaze of ‘a cow looking over a gate’ – that’s Philip Heseltine (aka Peter Warlock) on Vaughan Williams’s style (see p70). An entire swathe of musical history amounted to nothing more than a ‘cowpat school’ for Elisabeth Lutyens. Sixty years and more after cowpat-gate, I think it’s possible both to understand why a British modernist like Lutyens wanted and needed to distinguish her music from her predecessors, and to rehabilitate the composers and repertoires that she disparages so flatly. For Lutyens and the mid-20th-century modernists, the pastoralism of Vaughan…

Nicholas Hely-Hutchinson Four Elms At the moment I am addicted to the ‘Mondschein’ music from Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio. It is an exquisite piece, reminding us of two things: firstly, that Strauss knew a thing or two about the French horn, being the son of a horn player; and secondly, that he was a master orchestrator. My choice of recording is that by the Royal Opera House orchestra under Antonio Pappano. Close your eyes and wallow in what is a glorious passage of music.…

Some words produce such violently contradictory reactions that they ought to come with a safety warning. Brexit is clearly one, Marmite another, Trump a third. But I can think of a fourth that predates the first three by centuries, and still hasn’t lost its divisive potency. It’s virtuoso. Are you pro or con virtuosos? What a daft question, you reply. Virtuosity is simply the highest possible conjunction of technique and talent. What’s not to like? It’s ‘not an outgrowth, but an indispensable element of music’, as Franz Liszt put it – though admittedly, as the defining virtuoso of his age, he might have been a touch biased. But I’m often struck by how paradoxical or indeed blatantly hypocritical our attitude to virtuosity has become. On the one hand, we expect…

24 Caprices for solo violin, Op. 1 James Ehnes (violin) ‘Ehnes has returned to these coruscating “finger-breakers”, playing with the same glowing tonal finesse as before, but with a new lyrical intensity’ (December 2009) Onyx ONYX4044 Violin Concerto No. 1 Hilary Hahn (violin); Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Eiji Oue ‘Hilary Hahn plays the concerto with such effortless command that the listener might be fooled...’ (November 2006) DG 477 6485 Moses Fantasy Nemanja Radulovic (violin); Les Trilles du Diable, Orchestre Symphonique de la Raï/Eiji Oue ‘Radulovic makes even the virtuoso-in-meltdown Moses Fantasy sound like minted gold.’ (November 2014) DG 481 0655 Paganini: Arrangements Arrangements by Fritz Kreisler for Violin and Piano Philippe Quint (violin), Dmitriy Cogan (piano) ‘Quint possesses the ideal combination of tonal allure, technical finesse and expressive intensity to bring…

‘A musician has to wake up every morning and ask a question. What can I learn today? Not what can I do better, but what can I learn?’ I meet Jaap van Zweden in Hong Kong, the morning after Götterdämmerung, the conclusion of his Wagner Ring cycle recorded by Naxos in concert performances by the Hong Kong Philharmonic. And he appears restless. “Music is food for the soul, and that’s more important now than ever” In fact, restlessness is his signature as a conductor. It’s probably why he’s renowned as a hard taskmaster by his musicians, but perhaps also explains why he’s starting his first season as music director of the New York Philharmonic while keeping one foot in Hong Kong, an orchestra that, over the last eight years, he’s…

Serenade in D (1890) Written after she returned to England from Germany, this striking four-movement orchestral Serenade is influenced by Brahms. Premiered at the Crystal Palace, the work brought Smyth public success. Mass in D (1893) This substantial six-part Mass was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall and was, George Bernard Shaw came to believe, ‘magnificent’. Yet after writing it, Smyth lost her religious (High Anglican) faith. The Wreckers (1902) Thomas Beecham conducted the English premiere of Smyth’s salty Cornish opera in 1909, after the opera’s earlier turbulent start in Leipzig. It went on to be staged at Covent Garden in 1910. The Boatswain’s Mate (1914) This comic two-acter was Smyth’s most successful opera in her lifetime. The sparkling score features the tune that became The March of the Women.…

Ornamental There’s an intricately ornamental quality to Couperin’s music, fitting for the highly embellished chambers and salons in which it was performed. If his trills and mordents, appoggiaturas and tremblements are followed to the letter (as he insisted they should be), his music quivers and trembles, sighs and yearns. Poetic Many have reflected on the poetic qualities of Couperin, whose music has all the imagery and condensed expressivity of poetry. Period instrument specialist Jordi Savall described him as a ‘poet musician par excellence’ while others have likened his pièces to tone poems – Richard Strauss even orchestrated some as such. Playful With a spirited burlesque style, Couperin sketches affectionate caricatures of street performers (below), tumblers, buffoons and comedians using a mix of piping melodies, plodding rhythms, acrobatic dances, lolloping, misplaced…

Vaughan Williams began writing symphonies comparatively late – it was on his 38th birthday that his first of them, A Sea Symphony, was premiered at the Leeds Festival in 1910. A further eight would follow, hugely wide-ranging in style and content, from the vivid cityscape depiction of A London Symphony (1913) to the violent foreboding of the dissonant Fourth (1935) and cautious optimism of the Fifth, composed during the darkest days of World War II. His final symphony, the Ninth, was premiered in April 1958, four months before his death at the age of 85.…

Schumann • Ravel • Bartók Schumann: Fantasiestücke; Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit; Bartók: Im Freien Dénes Várjon (piano) ECM 2521 63.17 mins Dénes Várjon is the latest Apollo among pianists, sharing a place in the pantheon with the similarly oriented Nikolai Lugansky. Both play with shining space and grace, favouring an objectivity that’s never detachment. Lugansky’s special transformations have largely been reserved for Rachmaninov; Várjon sets the seal at the start here on similar credentials in Schumann. He impressed in the composer’s violin sonatas with Carolin Widmann on an earlier release, but now he has the imaginative stage for himself. And how mysteriously that imagination can shine in the Hoffmanninspired Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), where feeling needs to be ever-present but transcendent, the constant shifts of mood apparent without any obvious…

Schubert Symphony No. 9 in C (The Great) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Mariss Jansons BR Klassik 900169 60:22 mins A recording to renew one’s admiration for this wonderful work Composed in 1825-26 and usually catalogued in the UK as No. 9 (though numbered 8 on this CD, as is usual in Germany), Schubert’s so-called ‘Great C major’ was his expressed attempt to achieve a ‘Grand Symphony’ to measure up to his great hero Beethoven. Its forms are, in outline, more Classical in style than those of the incipiently Romantic ‘Unfinished’ Symphony of 1822: the opening movement and finale are both sonata forms; the slow movement a kind of developing rondo. Yet, in their unprecedented length, harmonic daring and innovatory orchestration they seem to open up a whole new symphonic space…

Brahms • Saint-Saëns • R Strauss R Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel; Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1; Brahms: Violin Concerto Endre Wolf (violin); Paul Tortelier (cello); LSO/Norman Del Mar, Walter Goehr; Philharmonia Orchestra/Herbert Menges First Hand Records FHR 058 74:19 mins The early stereo era of the mid-1950s seems to have reaped a rich harvest of recordings that for various reasons were either not commercially released at the time, or appeared on very obscure labels in mono sound. Their first appearance on CD therefore is of considerable historical interest, and it’s particularly pleasing to report that most of the transfers have great immediacy and warmth. There seems to be no obvious reason why a July 1954 recording of Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel with the LSO under Norman Del Mar never made it to…

Mozart La clemenza di Tito Rolando Villazón, Joyce DiDonato, Marina Rebeka, Regula Mühlemann, Tara Erraught, Adam Plachetka; RIAS Kammerchor; Chamber Orchestra of Europe/ Yannick Nézet-Séguin DG 483 5210 140:10 mins (2 discs) Joyce DiDonato in her final aria soars to expressive heights Since 2011, tenor Rolando Villazón has arranged for fellow singers to join him each summer for a Mozart opera in concert conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Besides assembling stars, the project gives Villazón a chance to sing a Mozart role outside his vocal type. Last summer’s project was a Clemenza di Tito production whose risk-taking paid off. The action of Clemenza, devised to celebrate the Emperor Leopold II’s ascension, militates against audience empathy: the ambitious Vitellia plots to marry Roman Emperor Tito but, discovering his desire for another, persuades…

Owain Park The wings of the wind; Upheld by stillness; Trinity Fauxbourdons; Phos hilaron; Judas mercator pessimus; The Lord’s Prayer; The spirit breathes*; etc. Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge/Stephen Layton; *Alexander Hamilton (organ) Hyperion CDA 68191 76:00 mins Owain Park has a special gift for radiant choral ‘orchestration’ Owain Park, born in Bristol in 1993, is already well established in a double career as composer and choral conductor (notably as director of the up-and-coming Gesualdo Six). He’ll have felt very much at home here: familiar, as a former organ scholar of Trinity, Cambridge, with the college’s outstanding choir and its inspiring director Stephen Layton, and with the chapel where the warm but clear recording was made. And in the list of singers on the sessions, there he is among the…

Mozart Piano Quartets: No. 1 in G minor, K478; No. 2 in E flat, K493 Michael Barenboim (violin), Yulia Deyneka (viola), Kian Soltani (cello), Daniel Barenboim (piano) DG 483 5255 66:49 mins Barenboim’s players recognise the intimate nature of these works Mozart’s Piano Quartets are among the finest of his less-played works, and on this disc, recorded ‘live’ last year in the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, they receive something as close as possible to a definitive performance. The performers are, or were, all members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra which Daniel Barenboim founded in 1999. His son Michael, who has led the orchestra since 2003, is the violinist here, the violist is Yulia Deyneka, who was also a member of the orchestra, and the cellist is the already-great Kian…

Rachmaninov Final Edison and First Victor Recordings Naxos 8.111408 (1919-23) 78:37 mins Miraculous playing by Rachmaninov , including a tender Tchaikovsky ‘Troika’, a smoky account of his C sharp minor Prelude, graceful Chopin and a breakneck Mendelssohn ‘Spinning Song’. Sound is amazing at nearly 100 years old. ★★★★★ Schubert Piano Sonatas; Wanderer Fantasie Harmonia Mundi Gold HMG 501789-90 (1998) 147:20 mins (2 discs) Alain Planès combines intellect and poetry and makes a persuasive case for a tricky work in D537, plenty of virtuoso magic in the Wanderer Fantasy and uncompromising darkness of soul in D784. ★★★★ The Great Danish Pianist Victor Schiøler Danacord DACOCD 781/782 (1942-57) 155:53 mins Victor Schiøler’s playing is beautifully imagined yet down-to-earth. In Beethoven’s Kreutzer his partnership with Telmányi is a joy. Variable transfers. ★★★★ Villa-Lobos…

November round-up The piano trio is something of a theme in this month’s selection of discs. Phronesis (see Jazz Choice) is certainly a distinctive and unique example, but there are many other instances of this traditional workhorse being repurposed as something other than a showcase. The Tord Gustavson Trio comes to mind. Tord Gustavson’s subtle piano grooves continue to demonstrate his gently provocative approach, artfully juxtaposing elasticated treatments of Bach and a few traditional tunes with a selection of the pianist’s originals on The Other Side. The group makes all the music their own, but another notable attraction of this disc is actually the programming sequence; this feels unusually central to the overall package, so prod the shuffle button at your peril. (ECM 2608 ★★★★ ) Piano trios are also…

November round-up Also singing in Arabic (see World Choice) is Paris-based Lebanese singer and song-writer Yasmine Hamdan, whose Jamilat Reprise is a less than obvious, often inspired remix/ reconstruction of her 2017 album Al Jamilat (The Beautiful Ones). It has numerous influences courtesy of nine well- known artists, from Acid Arab to Berlin techno artist Shed. Hamdan herself is renowned for her work with Beirut-based indie/electronic band Soap Kills. (Crammed Discs CRAM 284p: ★★★★★ ) Another engaging multi-cultural album with a Middle-Eastern focus is One Sky by the Rahim AlHaj Trio, featuring Iranian santour (hammered dulcimer) player Sourena Sefati, Iraqi oud maestro Rahim AlHaj and Palestinian-American percussionist Issa Malluf. The leader’s original compositions are based on Iraqi maqams or scales. The players have a lovely, easy rapport, the music fluid…

In one of the first major pan-BBC seasons to explore classical music, Our Classical Century is led by a series on BBC Four with accompanying programming on Radio 3’s Essential Classics. The four-part television series looks at the greatest musical moments of the last 100 years, exploring the impact they had on audiences. The series begins on BBC Four on 15 November, with a programme presented by actor and comedian Lenny Henry. On Radio 3, Essential Classics will be highlighting 100 significant moments in classical music over the last century. The BBC choirs and orchestras will be featured, illustrating some of the key works to come out of the television series. ‘We’ve covered everything from the premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring to the founding of the Chineke! Orchestra,’…