Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2019 i BBC Music Magazine

Freya Parr Editorial assistant, BBC Music ‘Milein Cosman’s portraits of 20th-century musical figures are a rare snapshot into their personalities. Her vast collection is a treat and an exciting acquisition for the Royal College of Music.’ Page 48 Mark Valencia Critic and writer ‘I had loved the music of Mozart’s operas for many years before I learnt to appreciate their dramatic brilliance too. Three viewings of Peter Brook’s stripped-back Don Giovanni in the ’90s proved revelatory.’ Page 66 Francis Pott Composer and pianist ‘You grow out of some composers, but into others. My awakening to Nielsen’s Fourth was Martinon’s 1974 recording. I’ve loved it ever since and Nielsen has been a major influence on my own composing.’ Page 72…

A very American year In the editor’s Welcome letter in the January issue, you asked readers for their musical highlights of 2018. American music featured strongly for me. Almost all of the five BBC Proms I attended included music by Leonard Bernstein, and the performance of West Side Story was outstanding. Hearing his music spurred me into digging out from my CD collection – and enjoying again – some fine recordings of other American composers music which Bernstein recorded with the New York Philharmonic, not least Schuman’s Third Symphony, Diamond’s Fourth Symphony and Roy Harris’s Third, which has long been a great favourite of mine. Harris’s Violin Concerto has recently been recorded by Tamsin Waley-Cohen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton. It is a hypnotic and beautiful work…

88 …luxurious keys, viewed by 6.3m people. A ‘golden’ 1856 Erard piano appeared in the Queen’s Christmas Message, generating much comment. 33 …days in which to have your say. Voting for the BBC Music Magazine Awards is open from 17 Jan to 19 Feb. See p40 for details! 2,500,000 …red spruce trees lost in winter storms in Italy. Urgent action is now being taken to salvage the wood, which is of great importance to the violin-making industry. 5,500 …free balcony tickets for teenagers. English National Opera will be inviting under-18s in gratis to Saturday evening performances in its upcoming Spring 2019 season.…

The highlight of the 1902-03 concert season in Vienna was undoubtedly the eagerly awaited premiere of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony which took place in the large hall of the Musikverein on 11 February 1903. Organised under the auspices of two of the city’s most influential music organisations, the Vienna Academic Wagner Society and the Vienna Concerts Society, the concert was conducted by the Bruckner pupil and disciple Ferdinand Löwe who had worked intensively with the composer on preparing a published edition of the Fourth Symphony. It attracted a huge audience keen to pay homage to the great composer, who had died in the Austrian capital seven years earlier. A few days prior to the concert, Löwe had unveiled his own piano transcription of the Ninth, which was performed in front of…

Dmitri Hvorostovsky (left) is set to have his home town airport named after him – Yemelyanovo International Airport, which serves the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, is to change its name in honour of the much-loved baritone, who died of brain cancer at the age of 55 in November 2017. Hvorostovsky was born and educated in Krasnoyarsk, then made his operatic debut there before launching a global career that famously included winning the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1989. He now joins a notable list of classical musicians to have been recognised in such a manner… Should you be off on skiing holiday this winter, you may well arrive at Salzburg Airport WA Mozart, a name that was adopted in 1996 to reflect the Austrian city’s pride in…

MY FINEST MOMENT Beethoven Piano Sonata in E flat Op. 31 No. 3 Martin Roscoe (piano) Deux-Elles DXL 1167 (2018) When I was asked to record all the Beethoven sonatas there were quite a few I hadn’t played in public, and this was one of them. Although I’d taught the piece, I had to learn it from scratch and then I found two or three opportunities to perform it. I’ve known the work since I was a child and I often used to think that it was one of my least favourite Beethoven sonatas, until I actually sat down to prepare it for the sessions. It leapfrogged over several others while I was working at it. He wrote it when he was in complete despair, but the sonata itself is…

Aldo Parisot Born 1918 Cellist As the longest serving faculty member of the Yale School of Music, Aldo Parisot retired in July 2018 at the age of 99. Parisot began cello studies in his native Brazil, making his debut aged 12 with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. He later became principal cellist of the orchestra, where he was spotted by the American attaché to the Brazilian embassy, who helped him study in the US and secure a scholarship at the Yale School of Music. He studied chamber music and, under Paul Hindemith, music theory, performing in several major orchestras before pursuing a solo career. Constantly seeking to expand the cello repertoire, Parisot premiered works by many composers including Heitor Villa-Lobos, who composed his Second Cello Concerto for Parisot. He performed the…

Oliver Condy Editor An invitation to talk about a raft of new organ recordings on Radio 3’s Record Review gave me the chance to explore some new repertoire – and organs. It was a delight to discover Paul Edwards’s Contemplation on a recent Priory disc of pieces played by Stephen Moore on Llandaff Cathedral’s new Nicholson. Elgarian and Howellsian in flavour, the work is ideal for showing off an instrument’s tonal richness. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Was it really back in 2010 that, in Valladolid to interview pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, I had the bonus of hearing the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y Léon in its impressive new concert hall? Time flies. Now led by conductor Andrew Gourlay, this vibrant orchestra has released the first disc on its own…

Nellie Melba (1861–1931) launched her international career in 1887, specialising in Italian and French repertory. She considered Covent Garden her spiritual home and became a noted Mimì (La bohème), singing the role into her sixties. Italian coloratura soprano Amelita Galli-Curci (1882–1963, pictured above) was discovered as Gilda (Rigoletto) in Chicago in 1916. One of the biggest recording stars of the 1920s, she sang in Britain only in concerts. Luisa Tetrazzini (1871–1940) debuted in her native Florence in 1890, and became a star at Covent Garden in the 1900s. Like Galli-Curci, her repertoire focused on Verdi, Donizetti, Rossini, Bellini and Bizet. Czech soprano Maria Jeritza (1887–1982) began her career in Vienna, later becoming a star at the Met and visiting London in the mid 1920s. Particularly noted as a Straussian, she…

Fenella Humphreys Violin I began violin and piano around the same time. My piano teacher was great at preparing people for exams. I remember my first exam was a bit scary but it didn’t freak me out like competitive music festivals did. My mum figured that music exams should be treat days, so I always had ice cream for breakfast before taking one. The system isn’t right for every kid. I remember teaching someone who hated exams so much that he wanted to give up. Eventually he admitted he liked learning pieces, but was really unhappy about exams. He carried on with lessons and did well without grades. Personally I liked having something to work towards and found that exams set the goals for me. Jess Gillam Saxophone I took…

‘Don’t never forget your true and faithfull friend’, wrote Mozart in a visitor’s book while he was attempting to learn English. He was clearly less precocious with language study than he was as a composer, and that endearing mistake with ‘never’ reminds us that he may have been a genius but he was also human. As an opera composer he went from prodigy to trailblazer within a couple of decades, yet his four most enduring lyric works all celebrate simple yet universal qualities like love and lust. Mozart was not yet 11 years old when his first stage commission came his way Take the three operas Mozart wrote with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, a figure who looms large in the composer’s output. Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and…

The work ‘If all the world were devastated, nature would still begin to breed new life again’  It is not Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony itself that, as the nickname suggests, is ‘inextinguishable’ but the concept of an elemental life force embodied within it. Nielsen spent an idyllic rural childhood in the bosom of a poor but close-knit family on the southern Danish island of Funen. His memoir, My Childhood, reveals his detailed sharpness of recollection, reverence for nature and quizzical interest in all his fellow creatures. In memory, with the objectivity of temporal distance, this allows us to sense our composer looking in on sometimes painful scenes with both compassion and a quality of detachment. Once, the boy experienced the unavoidable destroying of a working Jutland horse, Samson, after an accident…

Jean Martinon (conductor) Issued originally on the RCA budget ‘Victrola’ label, Jean Martinon’s 1971 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra remains arguably the most viscerally exciting. Here is symphonic coherence, but also an urgency that is sometimes riveting. Things almost come to grief in the last movement, when low strings lag behind their higher cousins in a quiet, canonic passage – but this is a small price to pay and the Chicago performance remains iconic. (RCA 82876762372) Neeme Järvi (conductor) Järvi’s conducting has sometimes appeared terse to the point of impatience, but in this 1993 Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra recording this pays dividends, even if the second movement’s tempo sits at the upper limit. The outer movements are powerful and the finale’s opening especially arresting. The woodwind incantations in the slow…

I’m always amazed by the treasures that record labels find, sometimes in the most unlikely of places, and we’re receiving more and more decades-old recordings that have largely gone unreleased. For the most part they aren’t reissues, but they’re certainly not ‘new’ either, so this month we have a ‘Historical’ round-up page, gathering the very best of recent archival releases. Very much in the here and now are composers Cheryl Frances Hoad, Kaija Saariaho, Thea Musgrave and Robin Holloway, and each has music reviewed this month, though composers from the past have plenty of column inches, too. Highlights include Purcell’s opera King Arthur, a glorious disc of Italian Cantatas by Handel, and two very fine recordings of piano works by Liszt and Brahms. Michael Beek Reviews editor This month’s critics…

Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2; plus ‘Antonio Pappano Plays & Explains Sergei Rachmaninoff’ (DVD) Staatskapelle Dresden/Antonio Pappano EuroArts 0880242676481 105 mins Pappano gives the orchestra plenty of time and space to deliver The most beautiful auditorium in the world? Dresden’s Semperoper has to be one of them. And it says something about even the former East Germany’s attitude to its cultural heritage that, like the rest of Dresden, this jewel in the city’s musical crown was (eventually) rebuilt from a bombed-out wartime ruin to look as far as possible as it did before. With an acoustic that’s as fine as the exquisite surrounding décor (pink and orange-red, decorated with gold leaf), the auditorium doubles as the concert hall of the opera house’s orchestra, which performs its orchestral programmes there as the…

JS Bach Piano Concertos Doremi DHR-8063/4 (1970/72) 114:27 mins (2 discs) Early 1970s recordings that may lack authenticity, yet Vasso Devetzi’s velvet touch and flawless cantabile (with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra) are a constant source of wonder. ★★★★ JS Bach Violin Concertos Alto ALC 1399 (1957/62) 68:51 mins Orchestrally plush and steadfast by modern standards, yet David Oistrakh and his son Igor play the violin concertos with exemplary style and finesse, alongside a welcome Melodiya Brandenburg bonus. ★★★★ Joaquin Rodrigo Guitar Concerto; Harp Concerto etc Alto ALC 1379 (1960/62) 71:41 mins Neither Narcisco Yepes (Aranjuez) nor Andrés Segovia (Fantasia, Zarabanda) are at their mellifluous best here, but Nicanor Zabaleta’s sensational harp-led Concierto serenata is a bona fide classic. ★★★ Albert Markov Works by Paganini, Handel, Corelli et al Doremi DHR-8067/8…

Adam Le Corsaire Eloquence 482 8605 (1990) 131:01 mins (2 discs) Adam’s complete score, and not the truncated version of harems and pirates that is usually danced. Richard Bonynge and his musicians lavish their love on elegantly crafted music suffused with charm. ★★★★ Handel Semele Eloquence 482 5055 (1956) 137:25 mins (2 discs) Not Handel as we like him now, but a groundbreaking recording by Anthony Lewis. Well-mannered vocally in an English way rather than unsettlingly erotic, but Jennifer Vyvyan is incomparable as Semele. ★★★★ Mascagni Cavalleria Rusticana Leoncavallo Pagliacci Sony 19075820002 (1951/74) 139:13 mins (2 discs) In this warhorse double bill from New York, Richard Tucker is a stylish Turiddu but his Santuzza fails to blaze. Best is Giuseppe Valdengo’s edgy Tonio. ★★★ Tragédiennes 1-3 Arias by Lully, Gluck,…

A prolific composer and writer, Robin Holloway was a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral and went on to study at King’s College, Cambridge. He returned to Cambridge in the 1970s, when he began a 32-year role as a professor of composition. Notable students who studied with him include Thomas Adès, Judith Weir, Jonathan Dove and Huw Watkins. Robin’s works have been performed in concert halls the world over, including at the BBC Proms. His multifaceted style has been applied to several concertos, a symphony, choral and instrumental works and two operas.…

The Polish Violin Szymanowski: Mythes; Nocturne and Tarantella; Chant de Roxane; Romance; Moszkowski: Guitarre Op. 45 No. 2; Kar¯owicz: Impromptu Jennifer Pike (violin), Petr Limonov (piano) Chandos CHAN 20082 75:16 mins Limonov partners Pike devotedly with great skill and sensitivity Jennifer Pike’s exceptional sensitivity to tonal inflection and temporal flexibility works wonders in Szymanowski’s Mythes, whose bar-line-free invocations of Greek mythology create the impression of profoundly inspired extemporisations. No less bewitching is the Op. 28 Nocturne  and Tarantella, in which Pike intoxicates the senses – rather appropriately as the Tarantella was apparently composed following a heavy drinking session – via a captivating range of tonal colours, dynamic inflection and articulation. The fact that Szymanowski composed music of such profound eloquence for the violin was due almost entirely to his friendship…

JS Bach Sonatas & Partitas for solo violin Doremi DHR-8061/2 (1969) 130:01 mins (2 discs) Graceful phrasing and variety of tone and attack from Devy Erlih are sadly compromised by what sounds like a strong contribution from the air conditioning. ★★★ Chopin Etudes, Op. 25; Liszt Mephisto Waltz; ‘Feux Follets’; Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 7 Alto ALC 1381 (1956-60) 77:34 mins A wonderful reminder of the stir Vladimir Ashkenazy’s arrival caused. Virtuosity is allied with poetry. The crystalline staccato in Rachmaninov’s Corelli Variations recalls the Master himself. ★★★★★ Paganini 24 Caprices for solo violin Bartók Sonata for solo violin Jolivet Suite Rhapsodique for solo violin Doremi DHR-8071/2 137:29 mins (2 discs) There’s a low whooshing sound throughout. In the Paganini not all the stratospherics are in tune. Otherwise the Suite…

James Francis Brown The Heavens and the Heart The Choir of Royal Holloway, et al Resonus RES10227 This is likeable stuff. Brown’s largely accessible style is most inventive in the depictions of countryside scenes from his childhood in the Clarinet Concerto, the central work here. (JP) ★★★★ Castelnuovo-Tedesco PianoWorks David Witten (piano) Albany TROY1732 Bright performances of pieces written as far apart as 1924 and 1960; they showcase Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s imaginative flair. The older works – like Le Stagioni – are the most beguiling. (MB) ★★★ Chaminade Piano Works Mark Viner (piano) Piano Classics PCL10164 A charming listen. Chaminade is an unsung hero of her time, and this disc showcases just how colourful her music is. Mark Viner plays with panache, his renditions light and sensitive. (FP) ★★★★ Debussy Jeunes Années Jonas Vitaud (piano),…

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One of Britain’s leading violinists, Pike first came to public attention in 2002 when she won BBC Young Musician at the age of 12. A student at Chetham’s School of Music, she went on to make her Proms debut at 15, and became a BBC New Generation Artist. Her recordings for Chandos, as both a soloist and chamber musician, include discs of French and Czech works, the Mendelssohn and Sibelius Violin Concertos and, most recently, an exploration of Polish violin music with pianist Petr Limonov, reviewed on p93. My earliest memories of music are of Mozart. My first CD, when I was four or five, had piano concertos on it, and I was enchanted by MOZART’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat major. I remember just putting it on…

‘E major, second inversion, please’. Those words are still enough to bring me out in hives. Music exams (see our feature on p52) are a cruel business at the best of times but, goodness, they seemed Dickensian in my day. ‘Don’t forget to scowl’ was probably one of the examiners’ guidelines, and the lady who shouted ‘Bravo!’ after one of my Grade 5 violin pieces may never have worked again. But I still look back with fondness and gratitude for a system that moved me, step-by-step, towards the lofty heights of Grade 8 and with it the confidence to call myself a musician. Actually, I do hope the Associated Board and Trinity in recent years haven’t grown too cosy towards their candidates. People respond in all sorts of different ways…

Vanessa Benelli Mosell Pianist Born: Prato, Italy Career highlight: Playing in La Scala in Milan, the legendary temple of music in my home country, and recording my first disc of works by my hero Stockhausen. I’ve also recently started conducting, and getting to grips with a composer as complex as Grisey made me excited for the future. Musical hero: I was lucky enough to meet Stockhausen when he invited me to study with him. A defining moment in my life, it was an experience that I will treasure forever. Dream concert: Directing the Berlin Philharmonic from the piano in the Philharmonie. I’ll get my manager onto that! Cassie Kinoshi Composer Born: Leicester, UK Career highlight: Being able to travel with musicians I admire and play in venues in…

11th: King Edward VII gives his formal approval to the new flag of Australia. The design, which was chosen from over 32,000 entries to a public competition, incorporates Britain’s Union Jack along with the Southern Cross constellation and the Commonwealth Star – they are set against either a blue or a red background, depending on whether or not the flag is flown in an official capacity. 13th: The UK, Germany and Italy agree to end their collaborative two month-long naval blockade of Venezuela, an action taken against the South American nation in response to the failure of its president Cipriano Castro to pay off foreign debts. When, however, the US threatens to intervene by sending a large fleet from Puerto Rico, the three countries back down. c15th: Brooklyn toymakers Morris…

De Falla Harpsichord Concerto Manuel de Falla (harpsichord), et al EMI B-40067-1979  This is probably the last big piece that Falla composed completely – there is a famous opera, Atlántida, that he never finished. Stravinsky said this concerto is emblematic of neo-classicism and I would agree. At the beginning, you think ‘why is he putting harpsichord, flute, oboe, violin and cello together?’ It’s quite him, though, and it took a lot of time to prepare. Falla originally wrote the piece for Wanda Landowska, the wonderful harpsichordist who premiered it. Szymanowski Symphony No. 4 (Sinfonia Concertante) Arthur Rubinstein (piano); Los Angeles Phil/Alfred Wallenstein Sony 60046-2-RG Rubinstein was Polish and there are traces of that heritage here, which Szymanowski got from Chopin’s style – he was a huge fan of Chopin. I…

John Simpson BBC News world affairs editor In the past months I’ve been revisiting Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra – it’s the first bit of classical music I can remember latching on to. I loved its clear melodic lines and that lovely dark brown voice of Malcolm Sargent doing the commentary. When I was a kid, it did seem to be written for people like me, which I felt was important. Britten had an understanding of how the younger mind works, and I’ve felt a certain amount of gratitude since. The First World War had a profound effect on my family. I find that a lot of my interests, literary and musical, are attached to that war. Butterworth’s I loved Britten’s clear melodic lines and the dark brown…

As I write this, 2,000 employees of HMV wait to learn their fate. For the second time in six years, this once-proud chain of record stores has gone into administration, following a poor Christmas generally on the high street and a particularly catastrophic one for a retailer offering products that fewer and fewer people want to buy. When HMV first went into administration, in 2013, the cause was said to be the vast increase in online downloads at the expense of ‘physical’ albums. Then came a ray of hope. In 2015, with its flagship London store on Oxford Street reopened, HMV actually overtook Amazon as the UK’s biggest retailer of CDs and DVDs. It was a false dawn. Now, downloads have declined in popularity, but instead the demand for streaming…

Rhodes’s more memorable Tweets 19 September 2016 The only place in the world where I know what the f**k I’m doing, is sat in front of a piano. Which may be sad at 41. But could be worse... 14 August 2017 Does anyone else have that thing where they love one musician so much it feels like you’re cheating on them when you listen to someone else? 13 March 2018 10 yrs ago I quit my job, had a mental breakdown, attempted suicide & spent almost a year in psychiatric hospitals. Since then, still mental, I’ve released 7 albums, 3 intl. bestselling books (handed in 4th today) & and toured the world in my dream career. Everything is possible. 8 August 2018 Playing from memory is a personal choice. Whatever…

2018 WAS ANOTHER FANTASTIC year for recordings, but which ones were utterly unmissable? In December we tasked our awards jury with the (enviable) job of listening afresh to each recording given five stars by our critics throughout last year. And during a lively day of discussion, they then chose the cream of the very creamy crop for our shortlists. Now it’s over to you to select your favourites. Over the following three pages we reveal all 21 nominations. When you’ve finished, visit classical-music.com/awards, listen to the excerpts and cast your votes! The winners will be announced on 10 April. THE AWARDS JURY: CLAIRE JACKSON, STEPH POWER, ANTHONY PRYER, PAUL RILEY, MICHAEL BEEK, OLIVER CONDY, REBECCA FRANKS, ANDREW MCGREGOR Orchestral nominations Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 MusicAeterna/Teodor Currentzis Sony 88985404352 Reviewed February…

Milein Cosman was able to gain access to rehearsals with leading musicians It’s notoriously difficult to capture the movement of a musician in a static image. Not for Milein Cosman. The artist, who died last year, was a prolific portraitist of musicians, with drawings of Britten, Vaughan Williams and Copland to her name. The Royal College of Music Museum has acquired over 1,300 of Cosman’s sketches, including a major collection of 50 portraits of Stravinsky, most of which were drawn over a three-day period at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios. The Russian composer had come over in the late 1950s to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra. ‘She spent those three days in absolute bliss,’ says Julian Hogg, a close friend of the Cosmans, and executor of their estate. ‘She was…

Early convention In Mozart’s formative years, lyric theatre conformed to one of three conventions: opera seria, with high-flown subjects for highborn audiences; opera buffa, a much looser comic style inspired by commedia dell’arte; and the Singspiel, an informal vernacular entertainment where music and dialogue coexist. Human heart Whereas the fee-paying court liked its musical commissions to be as ornate as its architecture, Mozart favoured melodies that were simple, heartfelt and human. In the quartet ‘Andrò ramingo e solo’ from the opera Idomeneo four disparate characters express complex individual emotions with a passion rarely heard until then. Breaking the rules Abetted by his great collaborator, Lorenzo Da Ponte (pictured below), Mozart was emboldened to follow his creative instincts. The buffa elements of The Marriage of Figaro, for instance, though present, are…

The Fourth Symphony came at a crisis point in the 50-year-old Carl Nielsen’s life. Having lost patience with his various extra-marital indiscretions, his wife Anne Marie, a noted sculptor, had left him. Nielsen himself, meanwhile, had recently parted company with Copenhagen’s Royal Theatre where he had been employed as a violinist for a quarter of a century. This change in his circumstances was accompanied by a period of self-reappraisable as a composer, eventually leading him towards the more modern-sounding, fractious style that distinguishes much of his music thereafter.…

Why present these three distinct works together? With this disc you hear that he starts in Eastern European traditions, with Lutos¯awskian twists. You also hear the problems he had; there are things he wanted to say, but didn’t have the technique for it. Jeux vénitiens came from that fact. I think he then realised combining traditional and aleatoric systems provides the best possibilities for maintaining the symphonic form while still producing something new. This is what the Fourth Symphony is. Do you think the First Symphony is overlooked? I don’t think it’s overlooked – people just don’t know about it. I think it’s good for people to hear the joy he had, and realise that he was a highly skilled composer. He was trained in the most traditional way, but…

Composer of five symphonies, chamber, instrumental, choral works and an opera, Boris Lyatoshynsky was born in Ukraine and cut his teeth at the Kiev Conservatory. A relatively late-starter – taking up piano lessons aged 14 – he went on to win no less than two Stalin State Prizes. His musical style, influenced by western Romanticism, expressionism and folk-song, meant he found himself – like so many other artists – having to tread carefully under the watchful eyes and ears of the state. He went on to become a respected music professor in both Kiev and Moscow.…

Bruch • Stenhammar Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1; Stenhammar: Violin Sonata in A minor, Op. 19; Two Sentimental Romances Christian Svarfvar (violin), Henrik Måwe (piano); London Philharmonic Orchestra/Joana Carneiro Rubicon RCD 1033 65:36 mins Swedish violinist Christian Svarfvar brings a great deal of warmth and subtlety to the Violin Sonata and Two Sentimental Romances by his countryman, Wilhelm Stenhammar. Dating from the turn of the 19th century, the Sonata remains unaccountably neglected by performers despite being attractive and full of memorable thematic material. Admittedly, its musical language is hardly original since at this stage in his career, Stenhammar was still heavily indebted to Brahms, Schumann and Schubert, and a distinctly Nordic colouring is far less in evidence than in the sonatas of Grieg. Nonetheless, Svarfvar and pianist Henrik Måwe deliver…

Bellini Norma (DVD) Sondra Radvanovsky, Joyce DiDonato, Joseph Calleja, Matthew Rose; Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orchestra/Carlo Rizzi; dir. David McVicar (New York, 2017) Erato DVD : 9029562976; Blu-ray : 9029562975 169 mins This is the Met in broadcast mode with the American soprano Susanna Phillips our ‘guide’ to Bellini and Romani’s version of ancient Gaul. This is also the Met in a deeply conservative mood. Robert Jones designs an ancient forest full of apparently real trees and as the overture ends, director David McVicar trudges his blood-smeared warriors in from battle bearing their dead on shields. A good many seem to have lost their clothes in the fight, but that’s McVicar for you. Norma ascends a platform by the outsized oak tree to cut the sacred mistletoe and…

Elgar The Music Makers; The Spirit of England Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Staples (tenor); BBC Symphony Chorus; BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Andrew Davis Chandos CHSA 5215 (hybrid CD/SACD) 61:56 mins I listened to this disc with growing apprehensions, all of them realised. So it’s necessary to say that the performances of these two relatively minor choral works are quite excellent, Sir Andrew Davis and his forces, especially Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples (why is this wonderful tenor so little recorded?), give their all and one can’t imagine their being performed more nobly, to use Elgar’s favourite term. It’s one of mine too, and at his finest I regard Elgar as one of the greatest composers of the last century. But these two pieces show him at his less-than-great, the first is…

JS Bach Magnificat Harmonia Mundi HMM 931326 (1990) 53:08 mins Philippe Herreweghe, with his Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale and a fine solo team, delivers a bright and festive Magnificat and a martial Ein feste Burg (with WF Bach’s added trumpet parts). ★★★★ Fauré Requiem, Pelléas et Mélisande etc Eloquence 482 4963 (1981/93) 77:58 mins A superb anthology by Neville Marriner’s Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields includes a beautifully sung Requiem, a tender Pelléas et Mélisande Suite and a delectable Masques et bergamasques. ★★★★★ Mahler Das Lied von der Erde; Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen etc. Eloquence 482 7169 (1970/72) 96:59 mins (2 discs) Sympathetic mezzo Yvonne Minton shares Das Lied with heroic tenor René Kollo, and adds the Fahrenden Gesellen cycle and four Wunderhorn songs – all vividly played by Georg…

JS Bach Italian Concerto; Partita No. 4 in D, BWV 828; Chaconne Federico Colli (piano) Chandos CHAN 20079 59:42 mins The Italian pianist Federico Colli has chosen works by Bach whose meaning, he tells us, is their relationship with the transcendent. In other words, he adds further into a lengthy exegesis, we must experience this relationship by means of a contemplative approach to reality. Well, yes, but do readers, or certainly Bach lovers need to have their thoughts and feelings channelled in directions chosen by the performer? Colli’s Bach playing is from an expressive standpoint in the Romantic tradition, especially where dynamics are concerned. His use of the sustaining pedal is, on the other hand, admirably restrained. The ‘Ouverture’ of the D major Partita is crisply and coherently articulated, and…

Historical Round-up The latest brace of live BBC broadcasts sourced from the Richard Itter archive each feature performances from a single month in the mid-1950s. Given these two-disc sets were recorded from radio broadcasts, the sound is remarkably good, if clearly some way below studio quality. Yehudi Menuhin is heard in Mozart Violin  Concertos from January 1956, two with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcom Sargent and Alfred Wallenstein respectively, and three with the London Mozart players under Harry Blech. Menuhin’s charm and exquisite tone shine through, even when confronted with Sargent’s oversized orchestra. The performances with Blech are lovely and vibrant throughout, whether in the vigorous Rondos or the rapt beauty of the slow movements (ICA ICAC 5153 ★★★ ). Mahler, Wagner, Haydn, Brahms draws on…

FEBRUARY’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 FRIDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12 noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Tippett 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 Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Stravinsky Scherzo fantastique, Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4. Paul Lewis (piano), BBC Philharmonic/Ben Gernon 10-10.45pm Free Thinking 10.45-11pm The Essay 11pm-12.30am Music Planet 12.30-1am Music Planet World Mix 2 SATURDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9am-12.15pm Record Review – Building a Library 12.15-1pm Music Matters 1-3pm Inside Music 3-4pm Sound of Cinema 4-5pm Jazz Record Requests 5-6.30pm J to Z 6.30-10.15pm Opera on 3 from the Metropolitan Opera. Bizet Carmen. Aleksandra Kurzak (Micaëla), Clémentine Margaine (Carmen), Roberto…

Proms pleasure My highlight of 2018 was my first visit to the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, where we heard violinist and conductor Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields perform Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Bridge and Beethoven. Our seats were at the top of the hall so the view was wonderful, enabling us to take in the surrounding architecture. In the interval, we had a nice surprise. We went downstairs to the foyer to get some air and cellist Steven Isserlis was there. We had a lovely chat with him before going back for the second half. Judith Harris, Leeds The joys of no Spring I received January’s magazine and cover CD with some trepidation. I volunteer for an organisation giving advice and help to…

Big in Japan The BBC Proms are heading to Japan. From 30 October to 4 November, the cities of Tokyo and Osaka will host a six-day BBC Proms International festival – complete with First and Last Nights – performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its chief conductor Thomas Dausgaard. The event, some of which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3, follows similar festivals in Australia and Dubai in 2016 and 2017. The iceman conducteth We hope that Dausgaard returns from Japan in better nick than his fellow maestro Daniel Harding (see also p17) recently did. On tour with the Orchestre de Paris, of which he is the principal conductor, Harding discovered to his horror that in winter the Land of the Rising Sun becomes the land of…

We reveal who’s recording what, and where… Pianist Di Xiao is putting the finishing touches on a new album that brings together works by women composers and traditional Chinese tunes. Planned for release in March, it follows a pair of concert projects on a similar theme, with performances taking place in London and Birmingham, then later in the year in China. NMC Recordings is working with the Goldfield Ensemble to record an album of chamber music by 82-year-old Erika Fox. Though active in music in the 1970s and ’80s, and with only a few recordings made for radio broadcast, the Vienna-born composer has never actually had a commercial release of her music. Described as ‘bold, uncompromising and remarkably fresh’, it’s one of the more anticipated releases of 2019. Alexandra Papastefanou…

Sweden, October 2018. The audience in Malmö were in raptures at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Then the Adagietto movement began. And somebody dared to open a packet of chewing gum, at a sub-optimal moment of maximally pianissimo intensity on-stage. The offending confectionery was ripped out of her hands by a vexed Mahlerian, and after the tumultuously loud climax to the whole piece, the wannabe gum-chewer struck the guy who had taken it, and they were supported by their friends, lovers and political partners in a full-on fisticuffs that is still going on as I write this. That last bit isn’t true, but the rest of it is. How did we get here? Why is our listening culture so delicate that it can’t deal with the…

Jessica Duchen I’m enthralled by Vladimir Jurowski’s new recording of Swan Lake with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’. This is Tchaikovsky’s original version (before Riccardo Drigo got his hands on it) – but actually the revelation is the performance itself. The playing is sleek, serious and streamlined, with a core of fire fulfilled in breathtaking dramatic climaxes, enhanced by magnificent recorded sound. The dark, impassioned score seems just half an inch from Wagner, reminding us that its inspirations include Lohengrin and that Prince Siegfried’s name is no coincidence.…

‘‘I will continuously be rebelling about all kinds of things until I drop dead” Leila Josefowicz is only 41, which in practically any other industry and by any other metric would be young – a spring chicken. Yet the Canadian-American violinist has been in this game for almost 30 years: a former child prodigy, she had professional management by 13; was making her Carnegie Hall debut (playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, no less) aged 16; and had released four acclaimed albums before she turned 20. ‘It’s kind of insane,’ she muses. ‘When you have your own children you think: 13? That’s like, freakish. So, I’m not normal. I sort of accept that, fully.’ In the light of what Josefowicz has gone on to do, those early discs, with their glossy…

The explosion in popular culture that took place in 1920s Britain gave a huge boost to the concept of celebrity as we know it today. This was a decade that saw the rise of the sporting personality, as the nation went crazy for cricket, tennis and golf and the racecourse became the place for the well-to-do to show off the latest fashions. Dance band leaders such as Jack Hylton, known as the ‘British King of Jazz’, grabbed the headlines and, accordingly, watched their bank balances swell. Ballet was going through a particular vogue, with audiences flocking to see the dying swan, Anna Pavlova. Noël Coward and Ivor Novello were the darlings of the West End, adored both as writers and as actors. And then of course there were the stars…

Scales and arpeggios, like square-bashing for squaddies, have been daily drill for musicians for millennia. Yet it took the Victorians to make them standard measures of skills, included in graded exams as part of a fixed menu of compositions and tests of musicianship. Millions since have experienced the joys and sorrows of the grade system. Many flourish thanks to its stepwise structure, progressing from entry-level grade one to the considerable heights of Grade 8. Others crack under the pressure of performing to an audience of one – the examiner. And if ‘hands up for more tests’ hardly sounds a dead cert in the teachers’ popularity stakes, the number of people of all ages to take graded exams is on the rise. The sector’s growth has been propelled by bold initiatives…

Rachmaninov turned down the job, but when Walter Henry Rothwell (above) was approached to be the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first music director, he had no qualms. Recruited by the orchestra’s wealthy founder, William Andrew Clark Jr, Rothwell immediately set about assembling an ensemble of top musicians. And the London-born conductor had form: he studied in Vienna in the 1880s with teachers including Anton Bruckner and was later talent-spotted by Gustav Mahler, who took him on as his assistant conductor. Rothwell championed Romantic repertoire, and remained the LA Phil’s conductor until his death in 1927.…

1756 LIFE: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born on 27 January in Salzburg, the seventh child of Leopold Mozart, a composer and violinist, and Maria Anna Mozart. TIMES: When a French force attacks the British garrison on Menorca, Britain formally declares war. The ensuing Seven Years War embroils several European nations. 1762 LIFE: Mozart and his older sister are taken by their father on a tour to Vienna, where they twice play the harpsichord for the empress Maria Theresa. TIMES: While Peter III, emperor of Russia, is away on holiday, his wife Catherine stages a coup d’état. The success of her reign, as Catherine II, earns her the title ‘the Great’. 1786 LIFE: The Marriage of Figaro is premiered in Vienna to great acclaim. Based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais,…

Alan Gilbert (conductor) New York Philharmonic Orchestra Dacapo 6220624 This is a live 2015 concert performance, but there is barely any audience noise – only a palpable sense of occasion and collective, rapt attention. The vivid sound is quickly noticeable, as is the quality of the playing. Gilbert’s reading shows masterly attention to the inter-relation of the four movements and, within the discursive first movement, of paragraphs. A powerful linear sense of the symphonic journey emerges, encompassing a perfectly judged second movement where continuing symphonic evolution remains perceptible. Gilbert shows masterly attention to the relation between the movements In the slow third movement, the tension of the extended opening string passage resists selling out to mere melodrama, and an elemental force persists. The beautiful subsequent violin solo passage is allowed…

Lutos¯awski Symphonies Nos 1 & 4; Jeux vénitiens Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu Ondine ODE 1320-5 (hybrid CD/ SACD) 57.21 mins Three keys works, each from an essential point in Witold Lutoslawski’s career, add up to a thrilling portrait of the modern Polish master. All are played with searing energy by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the lucid baton of their chief conductor, Hannu Lintu, in equally successful performances that render any relative rankings of these pieces entirely redundant. Yet benefitting particularly from this approach is the First Symphony, seldom heard in the concert hall perhaps because its Bartókian energy is deemed blunt in comparison with the composer’s mature masterpieces. The symphony, which was first performed in Warsaw in 1949, led to accusations of formalism against Lutos›awski. It also…

Antheil Symphony No. 3 (American); Symphony No. 6 (After Delacroix); Spectre of the Rose Waltz; Archipelago; Hot-Time Dance BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds Chandos CHAN 10982 66:52 mins In the 1920s George Antheil may have been America’s self-declared ‘bad boy of music’, but thereafter, up to a certain point, he tried to behave. The hammering composer of Ballet mécanique pored over scores of the symphonic literature, though without absorbing much sense of conventional symphonic form. In this second volume of Chandos’s survey of the orchestral Antheil, both symphonies, finished in the 1940s, are fidgety, episodic creations of bustling Americana. They are equally greatly enjoyable, partly because you never know where Antheil’s tendency to pastiche or borrow will take him next. Sibelius? Mahler? Prokofiev? Shostakovich? One of Antheil’s own film scores? The echoes…

Adam Le Diable à quatre; La Poupée de Nuremberg; Giralda; Le Toréador Eloquence 482 8603 (1964-96) 77:26 mins Richard Bonynge is a persuasive advocate of Adam’s frothy and melodious ballets and opera overtures. Guaranteed to lighten up a drab winter’s day. ★★★★ Elgar Symphony No. 1; In the South Alto ALC 1385 (1990) 73:37 mins Neville Marriner and a greatly expanded Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields deliver fiery and emotionally intense accounts of Symphony No. 1 and In the South. Suitably warm and atmospheric sound. ★★★★ Sinfonia: Works by JS Bach, JC Bach, Arne, Boyce, Locke, et al Eloquence 482 8794 (1967-76) 153:14 mins (2 discs) Richard Bonynge, Emanuel Hurwitz and Richard Hickox conduct neatly articulated modern instrument performances of Baroque and Classical repertoire, including works by Salieri and JC Bach.…

Brahms • Dvořák • Mendelssohn • Prokofiev Brahms: Violin Concerto, etc. Dvoÿák: Violin Concerto; Czech Suite; Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor; Symphony No. 3, etc; Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2; Symphony No. 1, etc. Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Joseph Swensen (violin) Linn CKR 614 261:16 mins (4 discs) Swensen plays with no excess sentiment but plenty of love So many remarkable violinists have filed past over recent years that it's easy to forget (if you ever knew) that Joseph Swensen is one of the best. He was also an engaging principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for nine years. So this set is more than a selection of great violin concertos; all four are matched with music by the composer in question, offering an ideal introduction to each. There’s an…

Berta Joncus is bowled over by Lionel Meunier and Vox Luminis’s take on this colourful drama Purcell King Arthur Stefanie True, Caroline Weynants, Marcus Farnsworth, Zsuzsi Tóth, Sophie Junker, Olivier Berten, Sebastian Myrus; Vox Luminis/Lionel Meunier Alpha ALPHA 430 97:59 mins (2 discs) This King Arthur is a giddy triumph for its artists. Blazing their way through the score, the performers set a new benchmark, delivering a production that’s equally gutsy and gorgeous. The performers deliver a gutsy and gorgeous production A spoken play when it was first written by John Dryden, King Arthur became a musical work in 1691 once Dryden asked Henry Purcell to set crucial scenes. In Dryden’s plot, King Arthur, helped by the wizard Merlin, defends his country and his beloved Emmeline against the incursions…

Berta Joncus takes delight as this superb French team casts these classic cantatas in a bold new light Handel Aminta e Fillide; Armida abbandonata; Trio Sonata in B minor; La Lucrezia Sabine Devieilhe (soprano), Léa Desandre (mezzo-soprano); Le Concert d’Astrée/Emmanuelle Haïm Erato 9029563362 96:10 mins (2 discs) This carefully wrought performance has a fiery intensity This production is a delight throughout. For Handel’s greatest Italian cantatas, Emmanuelle Haïm brings together two stars: soprano Sabine Devieilhe, known above all for her leadership of opera in France, and the prize-winning young mezzo Léa Desandre. Haïm retains control by preparing both the scores and the sopranos’ ornaments, her vision giving this carefully wrought performance a fiery intensity, as if recorded live in concert. Vocally the casting is perfect. In Armida abbandonata, Devieilhe…

Brahms Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Opp. 38 & 99; Klavierstücke, Op. 76 Kate Bennett Wadsworth (cello), Yi-heng Yang (piano) Deux-Elles DXL 1181 67:52 mins This recording presents Brahms’s cello sonatas on period instruments based on a penetrating study of the performance practice of the time. Yi-hen Yang performs on a 1875 Streicher piano similar to the one owned by Brahms. The sound is small scale with a silvery top and without the turbo-charged quality of a modern piano’s bass. This is particularly beneficial in the earlier E minor Sonata. Some may well have problems with the almost vocal quality of the solo cello playing. That said, the approach to phrasing and rubato is often illuminating, and overall the standard of playing is never less than expert, notably in the…

Brahms Klavierstücke, Opp. 76, 118 & 119; Rhapsodies, Op. 79; Fantasias, Op. 116; Intermezzi, Op. 117 Charles Owen (piano) Avie AV2397 116:03 mins (2 discs) Owen’s tone carries an admirable sense of hushed drama This pair of discs from Charles Owen contains all of Brahms’s late piano pieces. Listening to this wonderful music – and especially the 20 pieces written in 1892, and published in four sets as Opp. 116-119 – we may imagine Brahms himself deriving solace from it in the loneliness of his final years as he composed, or perhaps initially improvised, it. ‘The cradle songs of my sufferings’ was how he once referred to the three Intermezzos, Op. 117, though only the first of them is an actual lullaby. Owen plays it quite beautifully, while in the…

February round-up The trio format wasn’t all that popular in Petrucciani’s ’80s heyday. They seem to be everywhere these days – often with some unusual instrument choices. Mare Nostrum III, the final part of an album trilogy, is from Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren, French accordionist Richard Galliano and the Italian trumpet player Paulo Fresu. Song titles like ‘Blues sur Seine’ and ‘Letter to my Mother’ are clues to the Euro-centric, mood-enhancing music made by these longtime associates. Fresu is at his gently appealing best, on both muted trumpet and rich toned fluegelhorn; Galliano articulates dreamy wistfulness on a selection of accordion variants. Lundgren’s contented, Satie-esque comping on numbers like ‘Human Requiem’ is heavenly. (ACT 9877 2 ★★★★ ) Rymden is a regular piano trio set-up – but there’s nothing…

18. Philharmonic Hall Where: Liverpool Opened: 1939 Seats: 1,700 The Art Deco home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society and Orchestra stands on the site of the original concert hall. Opened in 1849, that earlier hall was widely admired for its acoustic before being destroyed by fire in 1933. Mercifully, an autograph book dating back to the original hall’s founding, along with some instruments and autographed pictures, had been stored in a fireproof safe, so has survived to the present day. Building of the new hall was delayed by the Liverpool City Corporation insisting that it should also be suited for cinema showings: a screen designed into the new building, raised from the stage by a mechanical hoist, is still an admired historic feature today. The new building was designed…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this February Berlioz 150 To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s death, the BBC orchestras and choirs are hosting a weekend of live concerts and pre-recorded studio programmes. Expect three days of Berlioz’s operas, orchestral and choral works, as well as discussions about his compositional style. 15-17 February James MacMillan’s 60th birthday To kick off his 60th birthday year, James MacMillan is joining forces with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble with which he has a decades-long partnership. The concert will feature the composer’s heartbreaking choral work Seven Last Words from the Cross alongside Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, his spectacular percussion concerto. Radio 3 in Concert: 27 February, 7.30pm Bach’s Mass in B…