Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i BBC Music Magazine

Simon Heighes Writer and broadcaster ‘I’m just old enough to remember the Apollo Moon landings in 1969. Those grainy images were impossibly exciting for a six year-old; they still are today, refracted in the music inspired by the Moon.’ Page 42 Helen Wallace Curator, writer and broadcaster ‘If the audience have strong opinions about the Last Night of the Proms, its performers do too. It was entertaining to hear stories from Sakari Oramo, Nicola Benedetti and BBC Symphony viola player Natalie Taylor’. Page 54 Kate Wakeling Critic and writer ‘It was a joy to explore the life and work of Oliver Knussen. His scores burst with colour and imagination, and it was intriguing to discover how much Knussen doubted himself, despite his dazzling success.’ Page 60…

5 …billion years, covered in one work. Narrated by Richard Branson, Allan Zavod’s The Environment Symphony is set to be released on disc. 17 …new productions announced for the Royal Opera House’s 2019/20 season. 9 …years old, and a major music fan. After excitedly shouting ‘Wow!’ at the end of a Mozart concert, Ronan Mattin was invited to meet Handel & Haydn Society conductor Harry Christophers. 80,000,000 …pounds wealthier than last year. So says the Sunday Times Rich List 2019 about composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (below) who, at an estimated £820m, is the UK’s richest musician.…

The recent news that Japan’s Emperor Akihito would be abdicating and passing the throne over to his son Naruhito came with a pleasing musical twist – the new emperor, 59, has played the viola enthusiastically for many years, both privately and occasionally in an orchestra. Naruhito (left) initially played the violin but finding it ‘too much of a leader, too prominent’ switched to the its lower-stringed sister. He is by no means the first royal to have excelled at an instrument… In Tudor times, England’s Henry VIII played almost as many instruments as he had wives, regularly turning his hand to the lute, organ, flute, recorder and harp. It is said that one of the reasons why he took an instant dislike to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleeves, is…

MY FINEST MOMENT Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos 21, 23 & 26 Melvyn Tan (piano) EMI 749 3301 (1988) This was actually my first disc. It’s the three sonatas I had done the most when I was a teenager at the Menuhin School, so I thought I would just take those to record first. In the early 1980s I’d decided to consciously give up playing the modern piano and for about four or five years it was a very hard time for me, because I didn’t have much work. I lost out on a lot of stuff I probably could have done, like chamber music or accompanying, so it was a bit of a struggle. Then I met conductor Roger Norrington. EMI had already signed him up, so it was very…

Mitch Friedfeld, Vienna, VA, US The music of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir is at once sinister, terrifying and compelling. I’ve been listening to two discs by her: Aerial and In the Light of Air. The drama grows, you feel yourself sucked in, and you start looking for an escape – which she eventually provides, though not without a struggle. Her music is not for everyone, but I hope it continues to find a wide audience. Steve Shults, Atlanta, GA, US I’ve been delightfully surprised by Simon Rattle’s recording of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with the Berlin Philharmonic. Rattle’s first recording with the National Youth Orchestra was pretty good but it seemed to be a work in progress. His second recording with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was…

RAH = Royal Albert Hall CH = Cadogan Hall FRIDAY 19 JULY PROM 1 7.30-9.35pm RAH First Night of the Proms. Zosha Di Castri Long is the Journey – Short is the Memory (world premiere), Dvoÿák The Golden Spinning Wheel, Janáÿek Glagolitic Mass (final version, 1928) (Henry Wood Novelties: UK premiere, 1930). Asmik Grigorian (soprano), Jennifer Johnston (mezzo-soprano), Ladislav Elgr (tenor), Eric Owens (bass-baritone), Peter Holder (organ), BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Karina Canellakis SATURDAY 20 JULY PROM 2 7.30-10pm RAH Dvoÿák Violin Concerto, Smetana Má vlast. Joshua Bell (violin), Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Jakub Hrusa SUNDAY 21 JULY PROM 3 11am-12.15pm RAH  CBeebies Prom: A Musical Trip to the Moon. Programme to include: John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the…

Proms founder Henry Wood had many passions, one of which was new music. Even during the very first season of the Promenade Concerts, back in 1895, when a young conductor might reasonably have been tempted to play it safe, Wood programmed 23 ‘novelties’ – works that had never before been heard in the UK. Over his career, he gave the first performances of a staggering 715 works by 356 different composers. And his meticulous preparation and clear baton technique were the ideal formula for success with the new. Britten heard Wood conduct the UK premiere of Mahler’s Eighth This season, 150 years after Henry Wood was born, the Proms will explore the breadth of his musical tastes, programming pieces that were once ‘Henry Wood Novelties’. There’s a tribute concert (Prom…

Those of you who tuned into The Queen’s Christmas Message at the end of 2018 might well have spotted a fine, gilded grand piano nestling beside Her Majesty’s splendidly plump Christmas tree. That said same piano will be winging its way to the Proms on 16 August and will ring out to the tune of Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto, courtesy of Stephen Hough (see p49). In the meantime, sit back and explore the myriad instruments owned by other British monarchs over the centuries… Victoria and Albert Erard piano Buckingham Palace, London It may have been described by none other than Proms director David Pickard as ‘an impressive piece of bling’ but Queen Victoria’s Erard piano has spent the last 163 years sitting demurely in Buckingham Palace’s White Drawing Room. Lemon-tinted…

Saunter around Machynlleth, and you’re likely to pass the Owain Glyndwr Centre. This medieval building stands on the site where, in 1404, Owain Glyndwr (c1359-c1415) called a parliament of people from across the country. He was proclaimed the Prince of Wales, becoming the last native Welshman to hold the title. Dreaming of a Wales with its own government, universities and judiciary, Glyndwr was already embroiled in a war of independence against the English. His uprising against Henry IV of England in 1400 had gone well, and Glyndwr controlled almost all of Wales three years later. But his fortunes soon changed, and he eventually had to flee. It’s not known where he died.…

1952 LIFE: Oliver Knussen is born on 12 June in Glasgow, Scotland, into a musical family – his father, Stuart, is the principal double bass player in the London Symphony Orchestra. TIMES: King George VI dies in his sleep at Sandringham House. His daughter, the new Queen Elizabeth II, flies back at once from a tour of Kenya and Australia. 1968 LIFE: His First Symphony is premiered by the LSO at Royal Festival Hall. When István Kertész pulls out through illness, Knussen steps in to conduct the work himself, aged 15 (above). TIMES: Conservative MP Enoch Powell makes his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, criticising mass immigration into the UK. He is promptly sacked from the shadow cabinet by Edward Heath. 1979 LIFE: He begins work on his fantasy opera Where…

The best recording Neeme Järvi (conductor) Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra Deutsche Grammophon 478 4040 The Fifth Symphony’s popularity sees the work being performed so often that a sense of routine can be hard to avoid. It’s also a deceptively difficult symphony to perform really well, in a way that searches out the music’s qualities without point-making for point-making’s sake. And pursuing the opposite line, of relying overmuch on the exceptional economy and clarity of the music’s idiom and scoring, isn’t going to do it justice either. There is formidable competition from some some major names of the catalogue – Rattle, Barbirolli, Bernstein, Colin Davis – besides (in the different context of ancient recorded sound) a remarkable historical legacy from the likes of Koussevitzky, Hans Rosbaud, and maybe the greatest name of…

takt1 is the world’s most comprehensive online platform for classical music. Whether live or on demand, it puts a wealth of video, audio and articles at your fingertips, featuring the likes of the London Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, conductors Simon Rattle, Teodor Currentzis, Franz Welser-Möst, Andris Nelsons, Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev, pianist Yuja Wang and many more. On takt1, you can explore classical music in all its variety. Experience the thrill of watching world-class concerts from home – alongside the premium video live streams, you will gain access to a media library with more than 2,300 hand-selected videos of concerts and operas. Additionally, past live streams are stored in the media library for you to watch whenever you feel like it. Discover new content daily –…

Streaming service Konserthuset Play primarily features concert videos with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, resident orchestra of Konserthuset Stockholm. The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and its chief conductor Sakari Oramo are considered one of the strongest teams in classical music. ‘The orchestra can call itself one of the world’s best … not only because the technical level is stunning, but also because it demonstrates genuine character.’ (Die Welt, November 2015). Konserthuset Stockholm has become a global capital for trailblazing innovation and adventure in orchestral programming. With a compelling repertoire range, commitment to artistic quality and clear vision of the concert experience, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra is heading for the future. And all this can be experienced via Konserthuset Play! Launched in 2013, Konserthuset Play is taking full advantage of the…

JS Bach Cello Suites Nos 1-6 Rachel Podger (violin) Channel Classics CCS SA 41119 (hybrid CD/SACD) 127.38 mins (2 discs) Even in the hands of a master cellist there are certain physical and acoustic properties inherent to the cello that (quite naturally) form an intimate connection with any interpretative overview. As a result, the overriding impression we have of this music is one of enhanced lower resonance – even when using a period instrument or copy – and of certain inbuilt expressive properties imparted by the cello’s rich bass and plangent tenor regions, and the enhanced clarity and directness of its upper partials. The violin is a different kind of instrument in nearly every way – not just in terms of pitch and expressive personality, but most crucially in these…

Mahler Symphony No. 10 (realised Castelletti) Lapland Chamber Orchestra/John Storgårds BIS BIS-2376 (hybrid CD/SACD) 77:04 mins The level of performance is a tribute to Finland’s formidable training While Deryck Cooke’s completed version of Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony is today widely accepted as definitive, or near enough, others have continued to be made. This one by Michelle Castelletti differentiates itself by choosing small-orchestra forces, of the kind used in arrangements of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony and Das Lied von der  Erde made for the Schoenberg-founded Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna. Although the Society had folded before the draft score of the Tenth was published in facsimile in 1924, a reduced orchestral version along the same lines does therefore have a kind of historical validity. Castelletti’s arrangement achieves a remarkably full…

JS Bach Keyboard Concertos, BWV 1052, 1055, 1056 & 1058; Concertos for Two Keyboards, BWV 1060-62; Concertos for Three Keyboards, BWV 1063-64; Concerto for Four Keyboards Evgeni Koroliov, Anna Vinnitskaya, Ljupka Hadzi-Georgieva (piano); Potsdam Chamber Academy Alpha Classics ALPHA 446 144:19 mins (2 discs) Bach seems to have composed, or arranged, his 13 surviving keyboard concertos in the 1730s for family performance or for concerts at Zimmermann’s Coffee House in Leipzig. Three of them are transcriptions of his surviving violin concertos; another is a reworking of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins; still others are evidently based upon earlier Bach concertos that are lost. Presumably the string ensembles he deployed would have been small so as not to cover the modest volumes of the solo harpsichords or early fortepianos involved. Alas,…

Duel – Porpora and Handel in London Handel: Tolomeo, HWV 25; Ariodante – excerpts; Alcina – excerpt; Catone in Utica – excerpt; Porpora: David e Bersabea; Polifemo – overture; arias from Arianna in Naxo, Calcante e Achille, Polifemo, Mitridate Giuseppina Bridelli (mezzo-soprano); Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu/Franck-Emmanuel Comte Arcana A 461 65:50 mins Giuseppina Bridelli is a fine advocate for Porpora’s lyrical lines The Neapolitan composer Nicola Porpora arrived in London in the 1730s as guest of an opera company set up to rival Handel, and he has attracted quite a lot of interest recently. Several of his operas have been recorded and various singers (Karina Gauvin, Elena Cecchi, Vivica Genaux, etc.) have issued selections of his arias, but only this disc directly and vividly allows us to compare works…

C Schumann • R Schumann C Schumann: Piano Romance; Canon; R Schumann: Dichterliebe Julian Prégardien (tenor), Sandrine Piau (soprano), Eric Le Sage (fortepiano) Alpha Classics ALPHA 457 66:15 mins Listeners who know Dichterliebe will discover fresh delights What an unexpected treat this recital is, although given Julian Prégardien’s earlier experiments with the Lied genre (see his groundbreaking Winterreise), it’s unsurprising that he pushes the boundary. The repertoire is tightly focused – all Robert and Clara Schumann – but includes duets, solo piano works, solo songs and, at the core, a beautiful performance of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Op. 48 which draws on some small variations that Prégardien discovered in his work on the composer’s sketches, drafts and correspondence. Yes, the puritans will throw their hands up in horror, but there’s plenty of…

Beethoven Cello Sonatas: No. 1 in F, and No. 2 in G minor, Op. 5; No. 3 in A, Op 69; No. 4 in C, and No. 5 in D, Op. 102; Cello Sonata in F, Op. 17 (arr. Horn Sonata) Leonard Elschenbroich (cello), Alexei Grynyuk (piano) Onyx ONYX 4196 125:59 mins (2 discs) Pianist and cellist generate mystery and intensity in Beethoven The unusual element in this programme is the inclusion of the Sonata in F major, Op. 17, which was originally written to be played by the Czech horn player Giovanni Punto whose unrivalled technique – and ability to play chords – made him a celebrity. It’s not known for sure whether Beethoven himself made the cello arrangement, but he certainly authorised it. The result is a minor…

Gidon Kremer has established himself as one of the most highly respected violinists of his generation over the last five decades. Born in Riga, where early successes led him to study at the Moscow Conservatoire under David Oistrakh, Kremer would go on to become one of the great champions of new Russian and Eastern European music. He established Kremerata Baltica in 1997 as a platform for young talent from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the ensemble went on to win a Grammy in 2002. An author of four books, Kremer plays a 1641 Nicola Amati violin.…

The Academy of Barmy Composers – Baroque Mark Llewellyn Evans Graffeg 978-1-912-21386-3 66pp (hb) £12.99 ABC of Opera is inspired by Mark Llewelyn Evans’s interactive cross-curriculum schools project, designed to introduce children aged 6-11 to opera in fun and engaging ways. Now the singer and creative director has joined forces with artist Karl Davies to create a series of books in historical sequence: Baroque is the first of a projected four – and it’s colourful, informative and riotously unstuffy. Evans cannily uses storytelling to tell the story of opera, casting children Megan and Jack as principals who – via a time-travelling, multilingual Trunk – tumble into the past while exploring an old music hall. There they meet denizens of the Academy of Barmy Composers, including Professor Peri; Luckless Lully; Doc…

23. Thaxted Parish Church Where: Thaxted, Essex Built: 1340-1510 Seats: 499 For those planning to attend the Thaxted Festival this month, the performances themselves are just part of the attraction – concert-goers will surely also want to take a few minutes to admire the building in which the events take place. They will certainly have no trouble finding it. At around 55 metres tall – higher than a good number of England’s cathedrals – it can be seen from miles around in this largely rural corner of north-west Essex. Such is the church’s magnificence and perfection of design, in fact, that some cheekily suggest that it should be known as the ‘Cathedral of Essex’, doubtless accompanied by harrumphs from the diocese’s real cathedral in nearby Chelmsford. It has long been…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this July First Night of the Proms The BBC’s year-long Our Classical Century season draws to a close at the First Night with a new work celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landings by Zosha Di Castri. Also on the programme is the first of 32 ‘Henry Wood Novelties’ – works premiered by Proms founder Henry Wood. Proms 2019; 19 July, 7.30pm James MacMillan’s 60th Birthday The Scottish composer is celebrated as one of our Composers of the Week, in a series reflecting on his career thus far. Donald Macleod talks to MacMillan about his writing process, the role of religion and grief in his music and his fascination with Wagner. Composer…

The BBC Proms may feature well over 80 concerts, but somehow it’s the Last Night that always seems to grab the headlines. It’s one corner of this wonderful British festival that seems to remain forever barmy, and despite what seems to be a rapidly changing social and political landscape, it stays resolutely the same, year after year, even down to the unabashed annual airing of Arne’s Rule, Britannia!. If this rather eccentric evening is regarded as a chance for musicians and audience to let their hair down, that in itself suggests that they usually don’t – which couldn’t be further from the truth (there’s plenty of frothy entertainment throughout the season). That said, the jollities of the Last Night have, in the past, had to respond – and fast –…

Alessandro Fisher Tenor Born: London, UK Career highlight: As I’m at the beginning of my career, every opportunity feels like a highlight, particularly becoming a BBC New Generation Artist last year. There are some very exciting projects in the pipeline. Musical hero: Tenor Fritz Wunderlich’s interpretations of everything from lieder to Puccini were always so emotive and natural. He had an effortlessly beautiful voice. Dream concert: Hearing the BBC Philharmonic play Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, attending the annual barbershop convention in the US or, as a performer, singing Schumann or Schubert. Jess Dandy Contralto Born: Cumbria, UK Career highlight: Performing ‘Le Spectre de la Rose’ from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Douglas Boyd in Saffron Walden. Musical hero: Everything JS Bach writes,…

9th Irving Berlin’s song ‘For Your Country And My Country’ is recorded by Conway’s Band and released on Victor Records. Bearing the sub-title ‘The Official Recruiting Song’ on the score, it is a patriotic call to Americans to enlist in the army, with Coward’s lyrics telling listeners that ‘It’s your duty and my duty to speak with the sword, not the pen’. 9th A series of internal explosions destroys the British battleship HMS Vanguard as it lies at anchor late at night in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The ship sinks immediately with the loss of 843 men – only two of the crew survive. A participant in the Battle of Jutland the previous year, HMS Vanguard had spent the afternoon taking part in training manoeuvres near the Scottish coast. 16th The…

John Adams Harmonium San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Edo de Waart ECM 8214652 This is a wonderful choral symphony based on poems by John Donne and Emily Dickinson. The extraordinary thing about it is just the length of the build-up; there are various climaxes in the first 18 minutes or so, but it’s really after that the piece finally breaks out from where it has been going for all that time. It’s just a momentous crescendo and absolutely fabulous; a magnificent wall of sound. HK Gruber Cello Concerto Robert Cohen (cello) BIS BISCD1341 I never knew Gruber had written a cello concerto, which was remiss of me! I rooted out the recording and was just amazed. It starts off deceptively simple and winds itself into ever-more complicated patterns until there’s…

Kenneth Coon Born 1967 Saxophonist As a member of the renowned Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, baritone saxophonist Kenneth Coon’s collaboration with instrumentalists, vocal groups and orchestras included a memorable performance of Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic at the 2002 New Year’s Eve Concert. Coon, born in Atlanta, Georgia, joined the quartet in 1992, 23 years after it was founded by Sigurd Raschèr. In the group’s history, it has performed the premieres of over 250 new works by composers including Kalevi Aho, Philip Glass and Iannis Xenakis. Coon also worked as a lecturer on saxophone history and pedagogy, chamber music principles and contemporary music techniques. James Arkatov Born 1920 Cellist In 1968, a roster of musicians – many working in film music – were cobbled together by…

Oliver Condy Editor A recent trip to Norrköping, Sweden gave me the chance to hear the local orchestra and Ilan Volkov perform a selection of Nordic music, including Anders Hillborg’s O Dessa Ögon, setting a text by Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf and arranged here for soprano and orchestra. Its introspection and harmonic richness is different from Hillborg’s usual modernist style, but it was the perfect balm, and sung wonderfully by Hanna Husáhr. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor For all that we celebrate the warm weather, long evenings and conviviality of summer, there is nothing to match the melancholy of a rainy Sunday afternoon in July. On such occasions, it’s best just to go with the flow. Played by Renaud Capuçon, the long, lonely melodic lines and spare textures of…

Proms 15 & 17 30 & 31 July A Bavarian double I’d leap at the chance to see any concert performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Mariss Jansons. In reality, the closest I normally get to them is through their extraordinary recordings on BR Klassik. But the Bavarian collective is rewarding patient fans with two appearances this year after a six-year absence from the BBC Proms. With Beethoven’s Second and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphonies providing the drama on night one, and Sibelius’s beautiful First Symphony, Strauss’s suite from Der Rosenkavalier and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (featuring the velvet tones of violinist Lisa Batiashvili) the following evening, it’ll surely be a London stopover to remember. Oliver Condy Editor Prom 39 15 August Get the picture? One can just…

I played the Erard a few years ago on a BBC Radio 3 programme from Buckingham Palace. When Victoria and Albert’s 200th anniversary came onto the horizon I suggested that my manager approach the BBC Proms about featuring the piano in 2019. This Prom is the result, and it’s a wonderful way to celebrate an extraordinary musical marriage. No, the piano isn’t turbocharged in terms of volume like a modern piano, but I think the sound will come across beautifully in the Albert Hall: there’s often a special clarity about period instruments. And Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto was an obvious thing to play, given the close connection the composer had with Victoria and Albert – he even arranged one of his Songs Without Words for them to play as a…

Like Parry’s Jerusalem (see p7), Arne’s Rule Britannia became part of the Last Night routine in 1953. Today, the announcement of who will be singing it is one of the most anticipated moments of the season – as, increasingly, is what they will be wearing on the night. Most singers go for a humorous touch. Some have chosen to dress as Britannia herself – including, famously, Gwyneth Jones in 1991 – while in 2009 Sarah Connolly ruled the waves as, aptly, Admiral Nelson. National flags have also featured regularly, not least when, in 1985, Sarah Walker opened her elegant ball gown to reveal the Union flag – a trick she repeated in 1989 (above). Willard White wore a Union Jack bandana in 1999 and, in 2015, Jonas Kaufmann celebrated being…

‘I’m a big person. I’m just physically big and I enjoy life,’ Oliver Knussen once said. ‘I don’t know whether it’s extremely significant or just something that’s completely unresolved inside me, but I am profoundly drawn to miniature things, and fineness of detail and precision.’ Aged just 15, Knussen found himself conducting the LSO in his First Symphony Whatever Knussen’s physical stature – he was often described as a ‘bear of a man’ – his works are anything but large in scale: only a handful of his pieces spill over the 20-minute mark and his music is renowned for its exquisite craftsmanship, its intricate textural detail and its delicate, shimmering colours. But the brevity of his compositions belies their extraordinary power. His two published symphonies and his concertos for horn…

The work When the First World War broke out in the autumn of 1914, the consequences for Sibelius were worrying. Finland was then still a ‘grand duchy’ of imperial Russia, so that travel abroad, for years a major stimulus to composing, was now impossible. Worse, the flow of international royalties from his German publishers was cut off. He found himself effectively marooned in Finland, writing innocuous smaller works for local publishers to generate some income – and, probably out of frustration, reverting to his heavy smoking and drinking habits after several years of successful abstinence. Plans for a new symphony were given focus by Sibelius’s approaching 50th birthday Plans for a new symphony, however, were given focus by his approaching 50th-birthday celebrations in December 1915. There were moments of home-grown…

Pietari Inkinen (conductor) The antipodes might seem like an unlikely source of a seriously fine Sibelius cycle, but the tenure of Finland’s Pietari Inkinen as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s music director produced just that. Orchestral quality shines in every department in this 2011 recording, with the strings’ excellence no doubt relating to Inkinen’s parallel career as a violinist. This is music-making that’s fresh and alert in every bar, with a lovely tawny overall sound, plenty of atmosphere in the quiet moments, and total avoidance of inflated rhetoric. (Naxos 8.572227) Anthony Collins (conductor) Collins’s reputation as a conductor largely rests on the outstanding Sibelius recordings he made with the London Symphony Orchestra for Decca in the early 1950s – in monophonic sound exceptional for the period, decent enough…

Isn’t it amazing that an art form with over 1000 years of history is flourishing in the digital world? You can now stream thousands of hours of classical music, categorised by perfectly accurate metadata, from anywhere in the world. But wasn’t classical music always about the human touch? Emotion, creativity, and most of all, beauty? At Vialma, we create meaningful and enriching musical experiences which everybody can enjoy, share and keep. Whether you are a musician, expert, amateur or beginner, engage your mind as well as your ears and discover a service that brings together a community of music enthusiasts. Vialma prizes the knowledge and experience of real people above all else. Our playlists are hand-picked by music experts to take you on a thematic journey and to enhance your…

• Top quality videos Come close to the music and the musicians with Konserthuset Play’s cinematic approach. Every video is a piece of art. • World-leading artists Experience stunning interpretations of classical masterpieces and explore music from off the beaten track. And always with the stars of today. • For future generations Fun and educational videos for schools and children. Learn all about orchestral instruments, or solve a mystery in the concert hall. All videos feature captions in English.…

Were you surprised how well the music transferred to the violin? I was actually, to be honest. These pieces are so established in our minds; I hadn’t entertained the thought of them working on a different instrument. I remember being stopped in my tracks in the Juilliard School corridors; someone was practising the first prelude on a marimba. It sounded so beautiful. That opened my mind; then I heard some on the viola, so I thought it wasn’t that far-fetched. It was a bit of a leap of faith to decide to record them, though. What sort of preparation did you do? I was just preparing for concerts first of all, so that’s where most of the work happened. Suite by suite, I started to put them into recitals. The…

Janáček Sinfonietta; Taras Bulba, etc Alto ALC 1380 (1960/62) 68:00 mins With the ad hoc Pro Arte Orchestra, a youngish Charles Mackerras brilliantly brings out the Sinfonietta’s wild originality. Karel Ancÿerl and the Czech Philharmonic excel in Taras Bulba. ★★★★★ Tchaikovsky Symphonies Nos 4-6 Alto ALC 1603 (1960-61) 126:37 mins (2 discs) ‘Legendary Recordings’ these are indeed: Yevgeny Mravinsky’s mesmerising conducting gets fabulous Leningrad Philharmonic playing to match. Reasonable, rather bass-heavy sound. ★★★★★ Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty; Symphony No. 4  Eloquence 482 7223 (1952/71) 153:22 mins (2 discs) In Sleeping Beauty, stellar conducting by Anatole Fistoulari has the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra serving up a lyrical feast. A later Fourth Symphony with the RPO impresses also. ★★★★ Springtime in Yugoslavia: works by Lhotka, Janáček and Baranovic Eloquence 484 0200 (1955/70) 139:04 mins…

Glière • Saint-Saëns • R Schumann R Schumann: Konzertstück for Four Horns; Adagio and Allegro in A flat; Saint-Saëns: Morceau de concert in F minor; Glière: Horn Concerto Markus Maskuniitty, Martin Schöpfer, Kristofer Öberg, Monica Berenguer Caro (horn); Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Sakari Oramo Ondine ODE 1339-2 59:08 mins Maskuniitty and his three colleagues are simply superb Reinhold Glière (1875-1956) is not exactly a name to conjure with these days and his Horn Concerto explains why. According to one dictionary entry ‘his German Romantic and Russian nationalist orientation agreed with official Soviet policies on music.’ To be more specific, the Concerto, although composed in 1951, sounds a bit like Tchaikovsky but without the wonderful tunes. It’s harmless stuff, with rather too many predictable sequences, even if Markus Maskuniitty enlivens it with…

Berlioz Benvenuto Cellini Erato 9029568972 (2004) 187:16 mins (3 discs) John Nelson’s loving recording gives us the score as Berlioz delivered it to the Paris Opéra in 1837, before any changes or cuts were imposed. Finely sung and thrillingly played, it’s an essential document of a wonderful piece. ★★★★★ Glinka Ivan Susanin (A Life for the Tsar)  Eloquence 482 6924 (1955) 169:47 mins (3 discs) This censored Soviet-era version of Glinka’s pro-Tsarist 1836 opera is decently performed in this Belgrade Opera account, though the orchestral playing is just so-so, the recorded sound thin and glacial. ★★★ Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail  Eloquence 480 7191 (1950) 142:47 mins (2 discs) Josef Krips’s Viennese recording of Mozart’s Singspiel is disappointingly sung, while appended to it is an indifferently played LSO selection…

JS Bach Six Cantatas Eloquence 482 9722 (1964-82) 148:08 mins (2 discs) Sluggish tempos occasionally give a sleepy feel to these performances. But the vocal quality of John Shirley-Quirk and Janet Baker in the four sacred cantatas compensates. ★★★★ Couperin Sacred Music Lully Miserere  Eloquence 482 8542 (1954-55) 67:16 mins In these pioneering (mono) recordings, soprano Jennifer Vyvyan and tenor Richard Lewis shine among the soloists. Dedicated, but a little drab by modern standards. ★★★ Songs for Male Voice by Robert Schumann and Albert Lortzing  MDG Scene MDG 622 2079-2 (2002/04) 128:18 mins (2 discs) Breezy part-songs by Lortzing, paired with Schumann’s occasionally more introspective settings, including five with horn accompaniment. Superb technique and tonal allure from the 16 Detmold singers. ★★★★ Lieder cycles by Wolf, Schumann and Brahms  Profil…

Beethoven Piano Sonatas: Opp. 2/1, 14/2, 53 & 54 Angela Hewitt (piano) Hyperion CDA 68220 76:46 mins Clarity is the key quality of the recording as much as of these performances. As in her impressive solo Brahms discs, Angela Hewitt evidently works hard to make every detail, however tiny, tell, while at the same time striving for perfection of overall form. The Waldstein Sonata’s brief Adagio molto comes across as far more than an ‘introduction’ (as Beethoven labels it); then the way the Allegretto moderato finale emerges from it – raising song to a new level – makes it seem perfectly natural that this powerfully original sonata should have no conventional slow movement. The unusual formal procedures of the much less ambitious Op. 54 also make excellent, lucid sense. Hewitt…

Czech Piano Music Anthology Works by Dvorák, Fibich, Janácek & Smetana Alto ALC 4005 (1989-95) 298 mins (4 discs) Alto’s four-disc album of Radoslav Kvapil’s eloquent and probing pianism is a useful introduction to somewhat neglected repertoire. ★★★★ Gyorgy Cziffra – The Master Collection Works by Brahms, Gershwin, Liszt etc Hungaroton HCD 32814-16 (1970s) 223:37 mins (3 discs) The Hungarian pianist was born to play Liszt; but his Gershwin grips, and virtuoso lollipops are enthusiastically licked. ★★★★ Nicolas de Grigny Livre d’Orgue Tempéraments TEM 316061/62 (1992) 108:46 mins (2 discs) Saint Michel-en-Thiérache’s pungently tuned 1714 Boizard organ deserves equal billing alongside André Isoir’s elegantly idiomatic traversal of a volume much admired by JS Bach. ★★★★ Organ Classics from King’s College Works by JS Bach, Messiaen, Vierne etc Alto ALC1401 (1993)…

July round-up Fred Hersch has mostly recorded solo and with small groups, so it’s fascinating to hear him with a 16-piece big-band. For Begin Again nine of his compositions have been arranged for the WDR (West-Deutscher Rundfunk) Big Band by Vince Mendoza, whose association with them goes back at least a quarter-century. Usually I’m not a big-band fan (though exceptions include Count Basie and Mike Westbrook) but this is captivating stuff, the arrangements mostly at the orchestral end of the big-band spectrum. There are some fine solos from band-members as well as from the classically-trained Hersch himself, playing with all the thoughtfulness and elegance we expect of him. (Palmetto PM2195 ★★★★ ) On Il Cielo Sopra Berlino the London-based Kino Trio tackle eight of their own excellent compositions. I’m not…

Lau’s most recent album Midnight And Closedown ventures further into the post-folk genre they have really made their own on a mixture of songs and tunes. They share with Karine Polwart (see this month’s Choice) a reverence for the natural world, an especial talent for wordsmithery and considerable brogue appeal in the voice of lead singer and guitarist Kris Drever. This time his lyrics seem darker and more personal than usual, while the instrumentals are uncharacteristically understated – which will change in any live performances they give, where melodic templates are opened up for wild flights of improvisation by all three players. Martin Green uses accordion and keyboards to contribute digital beats and shading, while fiddler Aidan O’Rourke offers musical commentary and rhythmic counterpoint. (Reveal Records REVEAL078CDX ★★★★★ ) South…

THIS MONTH: ULTIMATE MUSIC STREAMING KIT BEST ALL-ROUND KEF LSX £999 Designed around KEF’s Uni-Q driver array, where a 19mm tweeter sits in the middle of a 10cm bass cone, the LSX stereo streaming speakers are impressively compact, especially as you get a network streamer, Bluetooth receiver and four amplifiers squeezed in, and the convenience of being able to place each speaker just about anywhere. They can stream hi-res files up to 24-bit/192kHz (wireless 24bit/48kHz), there’s optical, network, USB and aux physical inputs, and a recent update has added Spotify Connect and AirPlay 2. I was worried that by shrinking the dimensions, performance would suffer, but I was floored by the scale and authority on display. The space and restraint shown listening to Víkingur Ólafsson’s BBC Music Magazine Award-winning Bach…

If you’re unable to make it to the Royal Albert Hall for this year’s Proms, you can catch up on what you’ve missed by tuning into BBC Radio 3 or visiting the Proms website and BBC Sounds, which will have live broadcasts of every single Prom. As usual, BBC TV will be televising concerts every Friday and Sunday throughout the season, accompanied by Katie Derham’s revamped BBC Two magazine show on Saturday nights. The Proms season on TV will kick off with a live broadcast of the First Night, split between BBC Two and Four. Also on BBC Four, the BBC Philharmonic’s first performance under their new chief conductor, Omer Meir Wellber (26 July), as well as Joshua Bell (21 July) and Nicola Benedetti (28 July) in Dvorák and Tchaikovsky’s…

A Clara celebration Commemorating 200 years after being born is a great reason for celebrating the life and works of Clara Schumann (June, cover). Bravo to all who are bringing out her exceptional achievements this year. In 1996, for the 100th anniversary of her death, my Ambache Chamber Orchestra recorded her Konzertsatz of 1847 for BBC Music Magazine’s cover CD. The work was intended as a birthday gift to Robert, and makes an interesting contrast to the brilliant, teenage A minor Concerto – from a mature 28 year-old, this music has her hallmark expression of noble melancholy. BBC Music also deserves appreciation for that CD being devoted to women at a time when there was less inclusion: the other composers on it were Louise Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn and Marie Grandval,…

One of the most feted French actresses of her era, Fanny Ardant (left) may already be familiar to many opera fans, as her 30-plus film roles include that of soprano Maria Callas in Zeffirelli’s Callas Forever in 2002. Now, Ardant has ventured into in the real-life opera house as the director of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at Greek National Opera. In her own lavishly poetic director’s notes that accompany the production, which stars soprano Svetlana Sozdateleva in the title role (below), Ardant expresses her wish that ‘since the Greek shores welcomed me, may the Olympian Gods – if they deign to look at me – guide and protect me.’…

A Frideswide open door For the first time in its 473-year history, Christ Church, Oxford is to have a permanent girls’ choir. From next term, Frideswide Voices, which has previously only enjoyed occasional residencies in the college chapel, will sing one evensong a week, thus sharing duties with the long-established boys’ choir. The girls’ choir will also change its official name to Frideswide Voices of Christ Church, Oxford. Every Finn changes Things are on the move in Helsinki. Or, more precisely, conductors are. In Autumn 2021, Nicholas Collon (see Music That Changed Me, p122) will become chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the first non-Finn to hold the post. He replaces Hannu Lintu, who from January 2022 takes over as chief conductor of Finnish National Opera and Ballet.…

Sony Classical has already set out its stall ahead of Beethoven’s 250th birthday next year with the autumn release of the complete piano sonatas, recorded by Igor Levit. The mammoth project is already in the can and will coincide with Levit’s performance cycle of the works in Hamburg and Lucerne, among other cities to be announced. Sticking with Sony pianists, the label has just signed an exclusive long-term recording contract with Ivo Pogorelich. His first release, also due in the autumn, sees Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor bookended by a pair of Beethoven sonatas. The latter were recorded at Germany’s Schloss Elmau. Rubicon Classics is working with recipients of fellowship funds from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust to release debut recordings. Cellist Alessio Pianelli will record A Sicilian…

What happens when composers and performers find the outer limits of what’s musically, humanly and philosophically possible – and then break through those gates of perception to make music on the other side? Musical extremes are among the most conceptually thrilling and sonically adventurous parts of our musical universe. And they’re all around us. Let’s focus on some of the longest pieces ever written. How about John Cage’s As Slow As Possible, currently underway in Halberstadt in Germany, and expected to end in 2640? This 639-year-long organ work at St Burchardi Church began in 2001, and because the piece starts with a pause, the first chord was sounded only in 2003. Jem Finer’s Longplayer goes even further: a piece that began in 2000 and wraps up at the end of…

Martin James Bartlett Pianist Everyone knows Luciano Pavarotti’s performance of ‘Nessun dorma’, but not so many are aware of the recording of the whole of Puccini’s Turandot with him in it, conducted by Zubin Mehta with a cast including Joan Sutherland and Montserrat Caballé. Pavarotti is on top form as Calaf – he’s young, his voice is so powerful and he takes every phrase to the limit of what he can do. Caballé is unmatched as Liù, and Sutherland, while not an obvious choice as Turandot, brings a rare humanity to the role. One of my all-time favourite pianists is Shura Cherkassky, who is not as well known as I think he should be. In his recording of Godowsky’s piano transcription of Strauss’s Wine, Women and Song – my three…

Can anything and everything be turned into art? Is the entire human condition fair game for a writer, painter or composer? Or are some real-life subjects so horrific or still so fresh that they should be off limits, at least until those caught up in them are no longer around to be offended? That was certainly the view of the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, who declared that ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. But he said that in 1949, just four years after the full horror of the Holocaust had become known to the wider world, and when it seemed to some as if the human species had permanently lost its humanity, and therefore forfeited the right to amuse itself by creating beautiful things such as music, poetry and…

‘Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone…’ Rodgers and Hart penned these words in 1934, and their song has since been made famous by the likes of Billie Holiday and Elvis Presley. It is just one of many moon-inspired gems to have entered the pop charts. The Police, for instance, gave us the immortal line ‘I hope that my legs don’t break’ while Walking on the Moon in 1979, the year after Showaddywaddy had ‘taken a little walk’ Under the moon of love. On the heavier side of rock, Ozzy Osbourne chose to Bark at the Moon in 1983 and, inspired by an Aleister Crowley novel, Iron Maiden sung of a Moonchild in 1988. A little more gently, Cat Stevens and Mike Oldfield were, respectively, ‘followed’ and ‘carried away’ by…

Music hangs in the air, time slows down. On stage, pianist Julius Drake and mezzo-soprano Alice Coote perform a sequence of French song to a rapt audience. It’s one of those concerts which seems to affect everyone in a profound way. Everything comes together: first-class performers, wonderful acoustic, intimate venue. This exquisite late-night recital is not, however, in a world renowned chamber concert hall – London’s Wigmore Hall, say, or Vienna’s Konzerthaus – but in the Tabernacle in Machynlleth, a market town that’s home to little over 2,000 people. It sits in a green, windswept valley in Powys, the emptiest county in Wales. Up in the hills, the quiet is punctuated only by sheep and a few walkers and their dogs. Just off Machynlleth’s main street, where a market has…

Modernist roots Knussen’s kaleidoscopically colourful music carries echoes of 20th-century tonal modernists such as Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin and Britten (below), with a touch of Berg and Schoenberg thrown in for good measure. That said, his music still sounds like nobody else’s. Textural imagination Knussen was a master of musical texture, combining lush sonorities with laser-sharp filigree detail. His meticulous grasp of the instruments of the orchestra saw him uncover inventive instrumental groupings in each new work to create strange and wonderful new musical timbres. Technical precision Despite the apparent playful spontaneity of his music, Knussen was a deeply technical composer, often drawing on 12-tone serialist techniques and complex rhythmic schemes. But Knussen made sure he was never a slave to such devices: his technical complexity is always in the…

Though Sibelius lived to the ripe old age of 91 – he was born while Brahms was still working on his First Symphony and died just five years before the Beatles had their first No. 1 hit – his last 30 years saw him produce next to nothing as a composer. His Fifth Symphony of 1915, then, came comparatively late in his career. Though he completed two further symphonies, in 1923 and ’24 respectively, his Eighth never saw the light of day – according to posthumous accounts by his family, the composer burned its score, along with other work-in-progress, in the mid-1940s.…

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Hearing familiar works in a new light can be revelatory; just look at this issue’s Recording of the Month by Rachel Podger for starters (opposite). Then there’s Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony arranged for chamber orchestra, which leads the Orchestral pages, and Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs featuring a starkly emotional vocal by Portishead’s Beth Gibbons. This month we also feature a pair of cracking debut discs from BBC Young Musicians Martin James Bartlett and Jess Gillam, a sensational slice of Schubert from pianist András Schiff, not to mention a wonderfully witty and colourful introduction to opera for children on the Books page and our occasional round-up of the very latest World music releases. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael Beek, Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, Geoff Brown, Anthony Burton,…

R R Bennett Symphony No. 1; A History of the Thé Dansant; Reflections on a Sixteenth Century Tune; Zodiac Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano); BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/ John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5230 (hybrid CD/SACD) 64:34 mins A symphony; a soloistic piece; other assorted fare: the album’s mix follows its two predecessors in Chandos’s survey of Richard Rodney Bennett’s orchestral works. Equally, the picture remains of a super-efficient, imaginative craftsman who began as a modernist, then softened his style, without in either phase showing much evidence of writing from any strong personal need. Symphony No. 1 of 1965 has its delicate, then conflicted, then consoling slow movement dedicated to ‘DK’ – Bennett’s new amour, Dan Klein. But the outer movements are more typical: propulsive, busy with juddering staccato chords and decorative woodwinds,…

Björk Vespertine: A Pop Album as an Opera Ji Yoon, Aki Hashimoto, Simon Oesch, Raymond Ayers; National Theater Mannheim; Hotel Pro Forma/Matthew Toogood Oehms Classics OC 978 77:51 mins There is nothing new – nor undesirable – about combining opera and pop music. Since The Who’s 1969 rock opera Tommy, several pop artists have composed operas, including Damon Albarn and Stewart Copeland. Given established traditions of narrative-driven concept albums and of pop performance as multimedia spectacle, it seems natural that the two genres should overlap. And given her forwards-driving, alt-pop experimentalism, Björk would seem the ideal singer-composer to explore that territory. Except that this operatic version of Björk’s Vespertine, while sanctioned by her, is not her project and lacks the creative boldness of that searchingly beautiful 2001 album. Adaptor-arrangers Jan…

JS Bach St Mark Passion Marta Mathéu (soprano), Raffaele Pé (countertenor), David Szigetvári, Reinoud Van Mechelen (tenor), Konstantin Wolff (bass); La Capella Reial de Catalunya; Le Concert des Nations/Jordi Savall Alia Vox AVSA9931 110:32 mins (2 discs) Of Bach’s St Mark Passion, only the libretto by Picander (who also wrote the text for the St Matthew  Passion) has survived. There were at least two versions, and it is a recreation of the later 1744 version performed here. Musicologists tend to agree that Bach borrowed the music from existing works: the St Mark shares text with the Funeral Ode, BWV 198, for instance. Here is a live account from the Chapel Royal at Versailles (26 March 2018) of a reconstruction by Alexander Grychtolik and conductor Jordi Savall. Almost no free composition…

Borodin • Shostakovich • Weinberg Borodin: String Quartet No. 2; Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8; Weinberg: String Quartet No. 5 Dragon Quartet Channel Classics CCS 40919 73:03 mins Since the Borodin Quartet first made the unlikely coupling on disc of their namesake’s Second Quartet with Shostakovich’s Eighth – a pairing which made sense in their case, since the Borodins had a close relationship with the Soviet composer – several quartets have followed suit. Yet, quite apart from the common nationality of the composers, these two works inhabit utterly different worlds and the only obvious merit in coupling them is to demonstrate a quartet’s versatility. The Dragon Quartet adds to their programme a far lesser-known quartet by the Polish-Jewish émigré composer Weinberg, a close friend of Shostakovich’s. The Dragons play Borodin’s…

Schubert 4 Impromptus; Piano Sonatas Nos 19 & 20; Klavierstücke Andras Schiff (fortepiano) ECM 481 7252 124:21 mins (2 discs) Schubert’s world is fundamentally transformed András Schiff may be one of the great Schubertians, but this review must be as much about his instrument as about him. It’s a Brodmann fortepiano made in Vienna around 1820, and its four pedals are entirely unlike those of a modern grand. The effect of the soft pedal is quieter and thinner, suggestive of a harp. The strip of parchment and silk pressed against the strings of the bass register produces a buzz redolent of the bassoon. Given the thinness of the strings, the sustaining pedal has far less effect than its modern equivalent. The moderator pedal has a piece of cloth inserted between…

Bacewicz Piano Works Morta Grigaliunaite (piano) Piano Classics PCL10183  Bacewicz’s style ranges from the lyrical to the deeply introspective. The Second Sonata is the highlight, although the Children’s Suite’s dark simplicity is beguiling. (OC) ★★★★ JS Bach Sonatas Renaud Capuçon (violin), David Fray (piano) Warner Classics 9029550578  Fray and Capuçon have opted for an old-fashioned approach here – modern instruments, full vibrato, plenty of rubato. Not the snappiest of performances, however. (OC) ★★★ Elfman Violin Concerto etc Sandy Cameron (violin) et al Sony Classical 19075869752  Plenty of Elfman’s trademark quirk and zeal on display here in a heady Piano Quartet and gutsy Violin Concerto. Both demand to be taken seriously and they should be. (MB) ★★★★ Fauré • Debussy • Poulenc Choral Works Ensemble Aedes; Les Siècles et al Aparté…

LONDON Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Barbican, 4 July Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 8891 Web: www.barbican.org.uk Straight after their six performances at The Grange Festival, conductor Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music bring Mozart’s buffa masterpiece to the Barbican. Toby Girling and Simona Mihai are the Count and Countess, with Ellie Laugharne and Roberto Lorenzi their quick-thinking servants. New Music Biennial Southbank Centre, 5-7 July Tel: +44 (0)20 3879 9555 Web: www.newmusicbiennial.co.uk The Biennial invades the Southbank Centre to premiere 20 specially commissioned pieces alongside recent works. Pianist/composer Rolf Hind unites prepared pianos with gamelan; baritone Roderick Williams teams up with Chineke! for his own jazz-influenced Three Songs from Ethiopia Boy; and Dan Jones’s Music for Seven Ice Cream Vans turns being cool into an art form! Le…

JULY’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 MONDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week CPE Bach 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert live from Wigmore Hall, London. Joseph Pereira Mallet Quartet, Kevin Volans Four Marimbas, Stockhausen Vibra-Elufae, Steve Reich Drumming Part 1. Colin Currie Quartet 2-5pm Afternoon Concert 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm In Tune Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert from Snape Maltings. Stravinsky Pulcinella (complete ballet), Haydn Symphony No. 49 ‘La Passione’, Gershwin Suite from Girl Crazy. Kate Howden (mezzo-soprano), James Way (tenor), Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessel (bass), Ludwig Orchestra/ Barbara Hannigan (soprano) 10-10.45pm Free Thinking 10.45-11pm Arthur Cravan Is Not Alive 11pm-12.30am Jazz Now 2 TUESDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week…

Nicholas Collon is the founding conductor of Aurora Orchestra, an ensemble widely admired for its experimental approach that has recently included memorised performances of entire symphonies. Collon is currently principal guest conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and chief conductor at the Residentie Orkest in The Hague. He has just been named as the new chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2021. Before taking up the baton, he played the viola and piano, and was an organ scholar at Clare College, Cambridge. As a child, I listened to huge amounts of JS BACH. My dad had a copy of Trevor Pinnock’s Brandenburg Concertos with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, which is one of the earliest recordings on period instruments. I transferred the CDs on to cassette tapes so…