Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i BBC Music Magazine

Edward Higginbottom Conductor, professor of music ‘From the time I gave my first organ recital at Notre Dame as a young graduate student to my present, continuing engagement with Gallic culture, I remain a passionate advocate of all things French.’ Page 44 Jim Lochner Author and arts journalist ‘It has been a thrill bringing the story of Charlie Chaplin the composer to life. And as we celebrate the 130th anniversary of his birth, it is only appropriate that Chaplin’s music takes centre stage.’ Page 52 Hannah French Musician and broadcaster ‘I’ve been swept up in the life-story of 17th-century Venetian singer-songwriter Barbara Strozzi. Her music is at the heart of an extraordinary world of secretive meetings, jealous rivals and bittersweet anguish.’ Page 62…

35,000 …pounds was the price paid at Sothbey’s for ‘a substantial lock’ of Beethoven’s hair. The rare lot sold for over twice its auction estimate. 1 …hairdryer. That’s what violinist Nicola Benedetti takes with her on tour to warm up her hands before playing in concert. 1,500 …students from 35 schools joined forces at London’s Olympic Park to sing in the UK’s largest ever staging of Bizet’s popular opera Carmen . 2,316 …people across the globe say singing is good for your wellbeing. So says a survey conducted among the members of Virtual Choir 5.0, run by composer Eric Whitacre (below).…

Good news from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, who tell us that £83,000 from ticket sales for Patrick Hawes’s The Great War Symphony has helped towards the opening of Norton House, a new accommodation unit for families of injured servicemen. Hawes (left), whose work was premiered last year, says he is ‘incredibly proud’ to have done his bit to support SSAFA. He is, of course, not the first composer whose talents have helped a charitable cause… Like The Great War Symphony, the premieres of several well-known works helped the cause of injured personnel. These include Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, first heard in 1813 at a benefit concert for soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau, and Tchaikovsky’s 1876 Marche Slave, commissioned for a Red Cross Society concert in aid…

Julian Haylock Just as one might have thought that pianistic athleticism had reached its peak, I recently discovered on YouTube the remarkable Kristina Miller. It all started with a four-minute blast of Oscar Peterson, which at one point reaches a combined velocity and accuracy bordering on the superhuman. Then came Cziffra’s finger-breaking take on Strauss’s Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, tossed off at fizzing speed seemingly without a care in the world, and Horowitz’s Carmen Variations, breezed through as nonchalantly as a stroll in the park. Kate Bolton-Porciatti I recently heard pianist Jeremy Denk (above) play Binchois’s Triste plaisir and was struck by how romantic the 15th-century chanson sounded on the modern instrument. The experience took me back to the Ensemble Gilles Binchois’s hauntingly beautiful recording of this and other works by the…

1981 Barton is born in Georgia. Growing up, she sings in a choir and musical theatre at high school. 2000-07 She studies at Shorter College – falling in love with solo singing – and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. 2006 She is offered a slot at the Carnegie Hall series curated by mezzo Marilyn Horne, who described a Barton recital as ‘possibly one of the greatest ones I’ve heard’. 2007 Barton makes her professional debut singing Annina in Verdi’s La traviata at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and wins the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. 2013-14 Singing Fricka, Waltraute and Second Norn at Houston Grand Opera, she completes her first Wagner Ring. It paves the way for her Fricka at the Met Opera in 2019. 2013 Remarkable…

For most people, Charlie Chaplin’s musical legacy rests with the classic song Smile. But in a musical career that spanned over 50 years, Chaplin wrote over two-dozen published songs and composed nearly 900 minutes of film music – an astonishing achievement for someone who could not read or write music. He relied on a string of musicians to transcribe, arrange and orchestrate his musical vision, but working with Chaplin wasn’t easy. In his autobiography, Charles Chaplin Jr. remembered watching ‘a man who couldn’t read a note and knew nothing of the mechanics of the art, work at being a composer – and drive men mad.’ Chaplin’s musical journey begins in the shadow of the English music halls. His parents had separate careers as music hall songwriters and performers, and Chaplin’s…

I’m really not a festival goer. By that, I mean the type where rows of two-man tents, squadrons of portaloos and knee-deep mud are all part of the fun. I recently confused Glastonbury with Glyndebourne while chatting to a Radio 1 DJ, mind you, so I wasn’t expecting to be among the target audience for The Good Life Experience: an all-embracing, tent-welcoming festival for 6,000 in north Wales, where it’s easier to name the days when it doesn’t rain. However, The Good Life Experience (TGLE), says founder and record producer Steve Abbott, is designed ‘for people that don’t like festivals’. Aha. For starters, the three-day event takes place at the splendid Hawarden Castle, the former country pad of 19th-century prime minister William Gladstone. The Flintshire castle and grounds are now…

A penchant for laments From the soul-searching descending four-note scales of Udite Amanti (Op. 2), Lagrime mie (Op. 7) and Che si può fare (Op. 8) to Su’l Rodano Severo (Op. 3), in which King Louis XIII mourns the recent death of the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, Strozzi showed her mastery of melancholy and that she had a finger on the political pulse. The Seconda Prattica An advocate of the tradition taught by Cavalli, she sashays between measured and unmeasured passages, and different metres. She’s not shy to use the stile concitato and other dramatic effects, but her lyrical style is freer than her teacher’s. Cantatas for solo soprano Nearly three-quarters of Strozzi’s works are for solo soprano and she proves herself a ‘singer’s composer’. Striking features of her style include…

Shostakovich was just 37 when he wrote his Eighth Symphony. Even reaching that comparatively young age, however, could be viewed as something of an achievement given how, seven years earlier, Stalin had publicly expressed his disapproval of Shostakovich’s apparently dissolute opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – others had been executed or imprisoned for less. Though subsequent works such as the more positively received Fifth and Seventh symphonies had since kept the composer out of further trouble, the Soviet censors still loomed large and would continue to do so. Building a Library is broadcast on Radio 3 at 9.30am each Saturday as part of Record Review . A highlights podcast is available at bbc.co.uk/radio3…

There’s plenty of Eastern promise this month as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra take on Russian masters, violinist Jianwa Yang performs five-star Brahms and fellow fiddler Zhi-Jong Wang performs contemporary concertos by composers Shen Ye and He Zhenhao. Blighty is well represented, too, with reviews of works by Havergal Brian, Bernard Rands, John Tavener, Jonathan Dove and James MacMillan – not to mention Bax, Parry and Vaughan Williams. From the other side of the Atlantic we’ve five-star reviews of Artur Schnabel piano music and a zesty new chamber disc from composer Caroline Shaw. Finally, in the Screen reviews, an exciting discovery – for me – in the shape of composer Gerard Schurmann, whose film music has been released by Chandos. Michael Beek Reviews Editor This month’s critics John Allison, Michael Beek,…

Avshalomov • Shostakovich • Tchaikovsky Avshalomov: Hutongs of Peking; Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 (DVD) Maxim Vengerov (violin); Shanghai Symphony Orchestra/Long Yu Accentus Music ACC20440 109:39 mins This DVD of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra’s first appearance at the Lucerne Festival, in the summer of 2017, shows the concert was a well deserved success. With first desk players of exceptional ability, the orchestra plays with exemplary polish and a fine sense of ensemble under their conductor Long Yu. They open with a colourful and charmingly Respighi-like evocation In the Streets of Beijing by the Russian-Jewish composer Aaron Avshalomov. From its hushed opening to its boisterous climax involving Chinese drums, cymbals and the inevitable gong, the orchestra performs this with unashamed relish. Maxim Vengerov brings lustrous singing tone to Tchaikovsky’s…

Brahms Violin Concerto; Double Concerto for Violin and Cello Tianwa Yang (violin), Gabriel Schwabe (cello); Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/ Antoni Wit Naxos 8.573772 72.25 mins Tianwa Yang has made a name for herself with award-winning recordings of Ysaÿe, Mendelssohn and Sarasate. She has technique to spare, produces a gloriously open sonority on her 1730 Guarneri del Gesù, and possesses a vibrant musical personality ideal for the recording studio. The clarity of her glistening tone and technical dexterity are matched by an uncluttered interpretative instinct that proves especially handy in these old warhorses, which otherwise have a tendency to get bogged down in a rhetorical mire. Yang keeps the music flowing naturally throughout the opening movement of the solo Concerto – where things often come to a near-standstill. She also successfully avoids…

Donizetti • Verdi Donizetti: arias from Poliuto, Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria di Rohan; Verdi: arias from Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Ernani, I Due Foscari, Oberto and Il Corsaro Michael Fabiano (tenor); London Voices; London Philharmonic Orchestra/Enrique Mazzola Pentatone PTC 5186 750 (hybrid CD/ SACD) 57:03 mins In ‘Sprezzo la vita’, Fabiano shows us just what we are missing Discs of tenor arias are less common than those for sopranos, but this selection by the American singer Michael Fabiano shows how rewarding they can be. These eight items by Verdi and three by Donizetti (mostly from the 1830s and ’40s), not only vividly demonstrate the links between the two composers but also cover a sizzling range of moods and activities (vengeance, tenderness, murder, jealousy…

Si j’ai aimé Songs and orchestral interludes by Berlioz, Bordes, T Dubois, Duparc, B Godart, Guilmant, JP Martini, Massenet, Pierné & Saint-Saëns Sandrine Piau (soprano); Le Concert de la Loge/Julien Chauvin Alpha Classics ALPHA 445 59:25 mins Sandrine Piau’s rapture is palpable in Saint-Saëns’s ‘Extase’ Sandrine Piau’s new recital is entitled Si j’ai aime (If I have loved), but there is no ‘if’ about it, for this is utterly adorable from start to finish. Prompted by discoveries at the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice, the disc explores little-known French orchestral songs alongside a couple of movements from Berlioz’s pioneering Les nuits d’été to create a colourful bouquet of fragrant melodies in unexpected hues. It is hardly surprising that Saint-Saëns and Massenet are masters at the orchestral song, but figures such as…

Out of Italy Works by Antoniotti, Cervetto, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Boccherini, Lanzetti and Cirri Phoebe Carrai, Beiliang Zhu (baroque cello), Charles Weaver (lute), Avi Stein (harpsichord) Avie AV2394 72:25 mins In this recording, the virtuoso Phoebe Carrai joins Beiliang Zhu to probe the art of London’s forgotten cello masters. The programme and its execution are equally superb, as Carrai and Zhu roll out one world-premiere recording after another. Carrai and Zhu roll out one world premiere after another Their selection of cello masters amounts to an argument that competition breeds innovation. Giorgio Antoniotti (1692-1776) was a path-breaking theorist, Giacobbe Basevi Cervetto (c1682-1783) was London’s first celebrity cellist, Salvatore Lanzetti (1710-80) soon rivalled him, and Giovanni Battista Cirri (1724-1808) took up pleasure garden concerts, playing in London alongside the child Mozart. With…

August round-up This month’s Jazz Choice (see left) is reflected in several other recent releases that also follow the stripped-back approach of not including one or more instruments traditionally thought of as central to the genre. It’s not a new idea, but the realisation that jazz doesn’t have to be a melody instrument backed by piano, bass and drums can still lead us into fresh territory. Trumpeter Dave Douglas, pianist Uri Caine and drummer Andrew Cyrille provide a coin-toss for the above plaudit in the shape of Devotion, a set of pieces derived from the Sacred Harp, the quite extraordinary 19th-century American Christian vocal style derived from the hymnbook of that name (Google it at once if it’s not familiar). Douglas and Caine perfectly map the robust beauty of this…

Brahms in Context Natasha Loges & Katy Hamilton (eds) Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-16341-6; 432 pp (hb) £79.99 As its title suggests, this is more a book around Brahms than about him. We learn, among other things, about his politics, his religion, the developments in science and technology during his lifetime, and his relationships with publishers and with the leading musicians of his day. A few quirky bits of information emerge from the various chapters: the fact that in 1873 Vincent d’Indy called on Brahms, bearing a score of César Franck’s recently composed Rédemption which the latter had asked him to deliver to the German composer (d’Indy was not allowed to cross the threshold); or that in 1887 Brahms visited the studio of the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin, famous for his…

LONDON Tête à Tête Festival King’s Cross and around, 24 July–10 August Tel: +44 (0)20 7121 1100 Web: www.tete-a-tete.org.uk It opens with Madam Butterflop, a ‘ruination’ of Puccini’s much-loved masterpiece, and The Perfect Camel is described as a ‘hip-hop foxtrot operatic sketch comedy show’. Yes, Tête à Tête’s anarchic opera festival is back with a vengeance. Taking over public spaces and private dwellings, anything can happen! The English Concert Cadogan Hall, 5 August Tel: +44 (0)20 7070 4441 Web: www.bbc.co.uk/proms Directing this lunchtime Prom from the harpsichord, Kristian Bezuidenhout steers The English Concert through theatre music by Purcell as well as sonatas by Jacquet de la Guerre, Telemann and Handel. He also dispatches a solo Allemande by the man who fled a keyboard duel with JS Bach: Louis Marchand. Leipzig…

For sheer emotional impact, Puccini has few rivals in the opera world. The old adage goes that his music sounds better than it is (as opposed to Wagner’s, which is better than it sounds – ho ho). Which is, of course, unfair. Puccini’s output may be modest in size compared to that of, say, Mozart, Rossini or Donizetti – plus, of course, he wrote little else – but his operas have an irresistible decadence, sentimentality, melodrama and a narrative and musical tautness that continues to draw us in and reach for the tissues. Of course, once you’ve read Christopher Cook’s absorbing piece on the raw power of Puccini, you may want to explore the greatest recordings. On p26, we’ve teamed up with Primephonic, the streaming service, to give you four…

Savitri Grier Violinist Born: London, UK Career highlight: Playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall in 2012, plus performing with sarod players Amaan and Ayaan Ali Bangash last year in Bangalore – it gave me the chance to engage with my Indian heritage and make music in a totally different way. Musical hero: I was hooked on the recordings of violinist Christian Ferras when I was a teenager. I only wish I could have heard him live. Dream concert: Playing in one of Europe’s great chamber music halls with close friends in a programme of the Schubert String Quintet or the Elgar Piano Quintet. Samantha Clarke Soprano Born: London, UK Career highlight: Winning the Gold Medal after completing the Opera Course at Guildhall School was…

1st The words of ‘To Anacreon in Heaven’ are published for the first time ever in The Vocal Magazine. The words are sung to a tune by John Stafford Smith, son of the organist of Gloucester Cathedral. In time, the Smith’s tune will be combined with the words of Defence of Fort M’Henry, by the early 19th-century poet Francis Scott Key, to create the Star-Spangled Banner. 7th In the War of Bavarian Succession, Maria-Theresa and Joseph II’s Austrian forces lead a successful raid against Frederick II’s Prussian army at Bieberdorf in Bohemia. It is one of a number of skirmishes in a ten-month conflict that involves no major battles but sees thousands of soldiers dying of starvation and disease. 9th On his third exploratory voyage, Britain’s Captain James Cook reaches…

Henze El Cimarrón William Pearson (baritone), Karlheinz Zoeller (flute) et al DG 479 1516 This is my favorite work by Henze. It’s a quartet for baritone, percussion, flute and guitar, based on the recollections of a 104-year-old Cuban who was born into slavery, escaped and later fought for independence from Spain, before experiencing the Cuban revolution. My gripe with Henze’s music is that he wrote too much. Almost every piece that I’ve heard contains amazing moments of real genius, but it is somewhat inconsistent, and I often wish he’d edited and rewritten his pieces more. Fanny Mendelssohn String Quartet Quatuor Ebène Erato 4645462 This wonderful quartet is not published under the name Fanny Mendelssohn, but rather under her married name, Fanny Hensel – which has contributed to its obscurity. I…

Franco Zeffirelli Born 1923 Opera director Franco Zeffirelli enjoyed a long career as one of opera’s best known directors, both on stage and, latterly, on film. Italian repertoire was his particular forte, in sumptuous and, by and large, tastefully traditional productions. Born in Florence, he made his name in the 1950s at Milan’s La Scala where, having initially been employed as a set designer, he soon took the reins as a director. His earliest productions saw him working with soprano Maria Callas, and a similarly close collaboration with Joan Sutherland would soon follow with a string of operas at the Royal Opera House in London. Though he also enjoyed acclaim away from the opera stage – not least in his 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet and TV series Jesus…

Oliver Condy Editor Packing up 15 years’ worth of CDs for BBC Music Magazine’s office move has been a trip down memory lane: award winners, releases by major interviewees, tons of obscure organ music and a smattering of jazz. Pianist Till Fellner’s 2010 recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos 4 and 5 with the Symphony Orchestra of Montreal and Kent Nagano especially caught my eye. Smooth, refined, witty and dramatic, this wonderful ECM disc has it all. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor As he explains in the sleevenotes, a lot of thought went into the programme of pianist Martin James Bartlett’s (right) debut recital CD, Love and Death. It was well worth the effort, as it works a treat, taking us on a journey from reflective Bach to the…

Kristine Opolais soprano Tosca Tosca is the opera that has always been in my heart – I always return to it. Floria Tosca is my favourite character, because you get everything from her. She’s like a lion with those she loves: she’s fiercely loyal. There are many colours within her – she’s a passionate woman, full of love and hate. She is dangerous and scared but also sweet and kind. She shows all possible kinds of emotion and feeling, encompassing everything a woman can be. I try not to sing the roles that are important to me too much because I’m afraid I’ll lose that special feeling. Sometimes a lot of a good thing can become a little too much, just like certain foods or even relationships. When you see…

A wide variety of events and recordings have been planned to celebrate the 130th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin’s birth this year. For more, head to charliechaplin.com. Charlie Chaplin Film Music Anthology Le Chant Du Monde 2743009.10 This is a double CD of extracts from Chaplin soundtrack recordings put together by the Chaplin office. A limited edition set of soundtracks will follow. Chaplin’s Smile Warner Classics 93624901808 Violinist Philippe Quint breathes new life into some of Chaplin’s most memorable melodies, with pianist Marta Aznavoorian. The Sound of Charlie Chaplin Philharmonie de Paris October 2019 – February 2020 The opening weekend of this exhibition (9-13 October) explores Chaplin’s musical world in a series of concerts and films with live music with Ensemble Moderne, Orchestre de Paris, Paris Conservatoire Orchestra and others. With…

The Good Life Experience team has made this year’s festival a little more intimate, shifting the action nearer to the castle and reducing numbers a little. But it will still feature the same variety of excellent food, drink, books, crafts and outdoor activities, from poetry in the castle drawing room to wild swimming in the lake. In terms of music, one half of Sills and Stich, James Sills, will be a guest speaker (launching his new book Do Sing), as will Cerys Matthews. Details of this year’s classical artists are to be confirmed.…

1637 LIFE: Having previously arranged for her to take lessons from the composer Francesco Cavalli, her father now founds the Accademia deglia Unisoni to showcase her talents. TIMES: Teatro di San Cassiano, the world’s first ever public opera house, opens in Venice. The first operas staged there are Andromeda and La maga fulminata by Francesco Manelli. 1652 LIFE: Her father dies aged 69, leaving her nothing in his will. Yet she carries on making a living from composing, dedicating works to wealthy patrons. TIMES: Bernini completes his Ecstasy of St Teresa for the Cornaro Chapel in Rome, depicting a scene described by the 16th-century saint. 1664 LIFE: Her final known collection, Arias, is published. After this time, her name falls into obscurity and no more is recorded about her life…

Gianandrea Noseda (conductor) Few orchestras have been more closely associated with the Eighth than the London Symphony Orchestra, which features on two other notable recordings: one with André Previn and a powerful, if occasionally mannered, live performance under Mstislav Rostropovich. Yet this relatively recent live recording from the Barbican in 2018 surpasses these earlier versions in terms of the single-minded vision of the interpretation, the finesse and the sheer forcefulness of the orchestral playing, and the excellent SACD sound. (LSO Live LSO0822) Yevgeny Mravinsky (conductor) Since Mravinsky was largely responsible for launching and later reviving the Eighth, his interpretation bears the stamp of authenticity and, in the starker sonorities produced by his Leningrad Philharmonic, conveys much of the rawness and uncompromising power of the symphonic argument that so…

Weinberg Symphonies Nos 2 & 21 Gidon Kremer (violin); Kremerata Baltica; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla DG 483 6566 88.59 mins (2 discs) Few discs released during the Weinberg centenary year are likely to make more waves for the composer than this. In violinist Gidon Kremer and conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, it brings together two of Weinberg’s staunchest advocates and they deliver stunning performances that can only help to bring his music to a much wider public. The two symphonies featured here date from opposite ends of Weinberg’s career and encompass rather different moods. A predominantly lyrical, even romantic atmosphere pervades the three-movement Second Symphony for string orchestra. It was composed in 1946 at a time of considerable creative intensity as the young composer, fleeing Nazi persecution in his native…

Suk Asrael Symphony; Fairy Tale (Pohádka) Czech Philharmonic/Jirí Belohlávek Decca 483 4781 87:72 mins (2 discs) The Czech players enter into the fray with sophisticated abandon Jirí Belohlávek first recorded Suk’s epic Asrael Symphony (and Pohádka) with the Czech Philharmonic for Chandos in 1997. Played with a supremely intuitive feel for the idiom and captured in resplendent sound, it naturally took its place at the time alongside established favourites from Vacláv Talich, Rafael Kubelík and Libor Pešek. Since then a number of fine accounts have emerged, including those by Charles Mackerras, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Walter Weller, Kirill Petrenko (now chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic) and Belohlávek again, in a stunning live 2008 performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which was rightly accorded ‘Recording of the Month’ by this magazine back…

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K466; Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K467; Don Giovanni – Overture Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano); Manchester Camerata/ Gábor Takács-Nagy Jean-Efflam Bavouzet makes the music irresistibly sensuous Chandos CHAN 20083 65:08 mins The Don Giovanni overture makes a perfect companion piece to the Piano Concerto K466: both are in Mozart’s demonic D minor vein, and like the opera, the concerto ends with a sudden turn to the major, as though to brush aside its previous conflicts. Gábor Takács-Nagy makes the Concerto’s beginning sound particularly unsettling by having the syncopated upper strings play nudging accents which throw their off-the-beat aspect into strong relief. This is altogether a really fine performance, despite Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s curious tendency in the slow movement to spread left-hand chords downwards…

Cavalli L’Ormindo Eloquence 482 9382 (1968) 133:37 mins It’s magnificent, but it’s not Cavalli as we hear him nowadays. Who cares? Raymond Leppard’s Glyndebourne version is lush and utterly beguiling with Anne Howells as a deeply satisfying Erisebe. ★★★★ Cavalli La Calisto Eloquence 482 9400 (1971) 119:53 mins Raymond Leppard conducts a superb cast with Janet Baker in one of her greatest roles as the Goddess Diana. Ileana Cotrubas a touching Calisto and James Bowman in his prime as Endimione. ★★★★★ Anita Cerquetti Recital: works by Verdi, Bellini, Spontini, Puccini, Ponchielli  Eloquence 482 8601 (1956-57) 53:02 mins A glorious rarity from Cerquetti, a great Italian dramatic soprano who left the stage too early. Has Bellini’s ‘Casta diva’ ever been spun so effortlessly or the ‘Pace’ from Forza sung with such…

Dvořák Saint Ludmila Naxos 8.574023-24 (2015) 101:23 mins (2 discs) Dvorÿák’s Handel-inspired 1886 commission for the Leeds Festival is, sadly, interminable despite Svárovsky’s spirited account and some fine solo singing from the likes of tenor Tomáÿ Cerny. ★★ Fauré Requiem Franck Symphony Harmonia Mundi HMM 931771 (2002) 75:47 mins An unexpectedly expansive rendition of Fauré’s much-loved work, with a silky-smooth choral-orchestral sound from Ghent’s Collegium Vocale. It flows seamlessly into Franck’s Symphony. ★★★★ Lassus Choral Music Eloquence 482 8566 (1973-93) 167:51 mins (3 discs) Luminous, nuanced performances from the choirs of King’s College and Oxford’s Christ Church Cathedral showcasing the glorious, rich vocal polyphony of this prolific late Renaissance master with better-known masses alongside rarities. ★★★★★ Joseph Marx Orchestral Songs Naxos 8.573833 (2003) 56:35 mins Lavish, imaginative orchestrations of songs…

Beethoven Variations on themes by Grétry, Paisiello, Righini and Winter; Piano Sonata in C WoO 51; Waltzes in E flat & D Larry Weng (piano) Naxos 8.573939 59:27 mins As a composer who struggled with opera, grappling for over a decade with Fidelio, Beethoven must have looked enviously at his contemporaries who churned out works for the lyric stage. Yet Fidelio lives on as a blazing if flawed masterpiece, and such composers as Grétry, Paisiello, Righini and Winter now endure various levels of neglect. They remain in our consciousness here, in fact, because their tunes form the basis of the Beethoven variations around which Larry Weng organises this attractive new disc. All date from the 1790s, and though Beethoven resorts in places to textbook elaborations, elsewhere his genius shines through.…

The Austrian-born pianist always harboured a desire to compose, but his seemingly natural gift for the piano meant his family encouraged his performing. His talent was such that he was teaching others in Vienna by the age of 16. A move to Berlin, where he scraped a living, eventually saw his star rise. WWII put pay to a life in Europe and Schnabel relocated to the United States in 1939. Though he had struggled to find a following, the complete recordings of Beethoven’s sonatas he made from 1935-39 preceded him and helped his reputation. In the US he performed, taught and composed. His own music, distinctly modernist, is in stark contrast to that for which he was known as a performer.…

JS Bach Keyboard Works Benjamin Alard (organ and claviorgan) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902453.56 Alard’s Bach journey continues to inspire. This time he takes us northwards – mixing in Buxtehude, Pachelbel and Reinken is inspired. The instruments, including a bizarre harpsichord/organ hybrid, are fascinating. (OC) ★★★★ Bartók String Quartets Ragazze Quartet Channel Classics CCS 41419 The Ragazze Quartet tackles Bartók with vitality and assurance in this first volume of the complete quartets. Some more depth and guts would lift them to the next level. (RF) ★★★ Victoria Bond Instruments of Revelation etc Chicago Pro Musica et al Naxos 8.559864 I’d not encountered Victoria Bond’s music before, but now I’m a fan. These colourfully scored chamber works, in premiere recordings, paint a vivid picture indeed. (MB) ★★★★ Brahms • Mahler • Mozart…

Bill Frisell, Thomas Morgan Epistrophy Bill Frisell (guitar), Thomas Morgan (double bass) ECM 2626 68:37 mins This is the second recorded outing for this duo and a fine demonstration of the fact that minimal resources can be liberating rather than restricting. Perhaps because of the guitar’s two default roles as either a solo or chordal instrument, this particular combination remains relatively unusual, despite being associated with some big names (Hall/Carter, Metheny/Haden and others). For their part(s), Frisell and Morgan are perfectly at ease here, delivering a set of standards and borrowings with a combination of conspiratorial intimacy and panache. In passing, it’s oddly refreshing to hear Frisell working in this territory after his many excursions into country music and Americana, not because he’s in any way less able in these…

THIS MONTH: PORTABLE MEDIA PLAYERS BEST FOR VALUE SanDisk Clip Sport Plus £44.99 Technophiles and audiophiles look away now, because this is an incredibly basic MP3 player that does its job without fuss or flourish. It has space for 4,000 songs (16GB), an FM radio and a 20-hour battery, and you can use wired or Bluetooth headphones, which is a huge bonus at this price. The screen is tiny but nicely organised into folders, and once plugged into your computer you can drag and organise files easily. www.sandisk.com BEST ALL-ROUND iPod Touch from £199 Essentially this is a pared back iPhone, with access to the app store, video streaming and camera over Wi-Fi. But it is also a superb music player that handles AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless and FLAC files,…

24. Usher Hall Where: Edinburgh Opened: 1914 Seats: 2,200 Located in the heart of Edinburgh’s west end, Usher Hall is a venerable Scottish institution. It sits snugly between The Lyceum and The Traverse Theatre and is hard to miss – with its striking dome roof, ornate exterior and modern glass-fronted extension, it is one of the most stylish concert halls in the UK. The idea for the building dates back to 1896 when the whisky distiller Andrew Usher donated £100,000 to provide a City Hall fit for concerts, recitals and other music-related functions. It officially opened its doors in 1914 and, hosting over 200 concerts per year, is a major musical hub, not least when the Edinburgh International Festival takes over the Scottish capital each August. Blessed with outstanding acoustics,…

AUGUST’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS  Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 THURSDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Elgar 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Proms 2019 Prom 13 (rpt) 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Proms 2019 Prom 18 Britten Piano Concerto, Mahler Das Lied von der Erde. Leif Ove Andsnes (piano), Claudia Mahnke (mezzo), Stuart Skelton (tenor), BBC SO/Edward Gardner 10-10.45pm Feature (rpt) 10.45-11pm The Essay (rpt) 11pm-12.30am Late Junction 2 FRIDAY 6.30am-2pm As Thurs 1 Aug 2-4.30pm Proms 2019 Prom 14 (rpt) 4.30-5pm The Listening Service 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Proms 2019 Prom 19 R Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra, Robert Schumann Piano Concerto, James MacMillan The Confession of Isobel Gowdie. Alexander Melnikov (piano), BBC Scottish SO/Thomas…

Get the popcorn ready to enjoy with a full evening of film scores in concert on BBC Four. John Wilson and his orchestra return to the Proms for their tenth year, bringing their usual selection of great works for screen and big band. Scores from the Golden Age of Hollywood are on the programme, with excerpts from film musicals such as My Fair Lady performed alongside the opulent music of Korngold, much of which is still considered the benchmark for film composers today. Later in the evening, you can enjoy a Late Night Prom of sci-fi film and television music from the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO) under its founder and principal conductor Robert Ames. The concert will feature cult soundtracks from the last decade, including Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar and Jed…

Hayes vs Herbert I always look forward to reading your Building a Library feature. I was, though, irritated by Malcolm Hayes’s survey of recordings of Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony in the July issue, where he categorises Herbert von Karajan’s 1965 recording as ‘one to avoid’. I bought this recording when it was first issued and it has always struck me as very fine. I have listened to many other recordings since then, including those by Rattle, Barbirolli and Colin Davis, but I have found none which I prefer to the Karajan. Hayes criticises his ‘fixation’ with getting the richest possible sound from his orchestra. Nothing wrong with that, I should have thought – it is presumably what most conductors aim to achieve, though few succeed as well as Karajan. His final…

Music lessons The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is to set up and run a specialist music school in the nearby borough of Sandwell. Government funding has been approved for the new Shireland CBSO School, which will be both non-selective and non-fee paying. The first orchestra-run school of this type in the UK, it will open to pupils from Years 7-12 in 2021, and aims to have 870 students by 2025. Swiss role Thierry Fischer has been named as the next music director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. The Swiss conductor, whose previous posts include that of principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, will take over from Marin Alsop at the beginning of 2020. Under Alsop, the Brazilian ensemble has enjoyed a significant rise in profile…

Rubicon will release the complete Beethoven String Quartets in February next year. Recorded live in concert at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in June, the complete cycle was performed by the Kuss Quartet on a set of Paganini Stradivarius instruments. Once played by the Tokyo Quartet, the ultra-valuable set was loaned to the Kuss by the Nippon Music Foundation. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is working on two albums for Signum Classics in July. Pianist Elizabeth Sombart joins the orchestra for Beethoven piano concertos at Cadogan Hall while, at Abbey Road, the orchestra will also be taking part in a recording of Eugene Goosens’s 1959 arrangement of Handel’s Messiah. The finished products are scheduled for release in March and April 2020 respectively. Trumpeter Alison Balsom returns to the studio this month along with…

What’s that calling across the forest – the sound of hunting horn calls and romantic symphonies? I’m thinking of one particular ‘Romantic’ Symphony, in fact – namely, the two notes that begin Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. They’re also the first two pitches that herald the conquest of space in the main theme of John Williams’s Star Wars, and which sound the start of the philosophical cosmology of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. In the cacophony of sounds you’re now playing to yourself as you consider those epic openings, one interval remains constant: the fifth. From do to so as Julie Andrews would sing, from C to G, or D to A, or E flat to B flat. The fifth is a fundamental of Western music. It’s the nearest overtone to the…

What would William Glock or Pierre Boulez have said? Something unprintable in English or French, I imagine, if they saw what the BBC Proms was serving up on 16 August. It’s an entire concert celebrating the 200th birthdays of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, featuring the music of Albert himself and his dear friend Mendelssohn. Glock and Boulez would have been appalled. Uncompromising iconoclasts, they spent the 1960s and ’70s wrenching the Proms out of sepia-tinted Victoriana and into the bracing new world of avant-garde serialism. Celebrating a musical era they regarded as third-rate would have seemed ludicrous to them. They were not alone. When I was at university in the 1970s, the notion of studying Elgar – let alone lesser lights such as Parry, Stanford, Stainer or Sullivan –…

“I feel that promoting and celebrating love in all its forms is something we can all get behind” ‘I’m pretty sure I leaped up and started doing a crazy dance,’ laughs American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton when she recalls the moment she was invited to headline this summer’s Last Night of the Proms. ‘It was the most amazing feeling, quite honestly: to be invited along to any part of the Proms is an absolute honour, but the Last Night – I mean, I knew about this thing called the “Last Night of the Proms” long before I knew what the Proms even was, so it truly is a dream come true.’ Barton would be the first person to admit that her stellar career trajectory is rather unlikely: at just 37, she…

Of Notre Dame’s many great organists, the nearly blind Louis Vierne deserves a special mention for his loyalty to the post, which he held from 1900. His wish that he should hold that post to his dying breath was literally fulfilled on 2 June 1937 at his 1,750th organ recital. He had just completed the main concert and was about to play two improvisations. Having read the first theme in Braille, he started with a low E pedal when he suddenly suffered a seizure and fell off the bench.…

Rebecca Saunders Caerulean Carl Rosman (clarinet) Huddersfield Contemporary Records HCR 12CD Caerulean features multiphonics, air sounds and glissandos (notated as ‘sexy gliss’), as well as circular breathing. Jörg Widmann Viola Concerto Antoine Tamestit (viola) Harmonia Mundi HMM902268 Widmann (pictured above) has his soloist tapping the fingerboard and drumming the chinrest. The bow is used ‘normally’ only midway through the work. Liza Lim Sonorous Body Manfred Spitaler (clarinet) Hat Hut Records LC 6048 A showcase of the clarinet’s remarkable range with microtonality, keyclicks and both slap- and flutter-tonguing. Almeida Prado Cartas Celestes Aleyson Scopel (piano) Grand Piano GP746 Prado calls his harmonic language ‘transtonality’ – his Cartas Celestes features almost every type of sound the piano has to offer. Takemitsu Voice Emmanuel Pahud (flute) Warner Classics 9029570175 As the title suggests,…

If the movies are any indication of what happens in real life, you would be advised never to go to an opera or concert ever again. You would miss, of course, some thrilling music; but at least you would avoid suffering collateral damage from a political assassination (a common event during loud climaxes), an alien invasion, a deranged opera singer, or the other mayhem that regularly ensues on the silver screen. Also, characters in the movies never seem to have tickets to Renaissance polyphony or anything quiet. It’s always Verdi, Puccini, Beethoven, Liszt, or specially devised pastiches: music as turbulent and dramatic as the goings-on offstage. The next time you dress for your evening out, consider body armour. 1 The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) The Royal Albert Hall…

Barbara Strozzi was unafraid to challenge convention and to push the boundaries ‘One who doesn’t risk never finds joy’ advises the madrigal L’amante timido eccitato (The timid, excited lover). It’s a line that epitomises the life of its composer, Barbara Strozzi. No fewer than eight collections of exquisite vocal works published between 1644 and ’64 prove she was a prolific composer. Her output surpassed celebrated contemporaries Giacomo Carissimi, Antonio Cesti and Salamone Rossi, an achievement that was astonishing simply because Strozzi was a woman. Not only that, she was a headstrong woman, unafraid to explore eroticism in her music, to challenge convention and to push the boundaries of form and tradition. Her experience as a singer informed her innovations in her writing, using the voice as the ultimate expressive instrument.…

The work  After the enormously successful reception in 1942 of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, a work dedicated to the victims of the Nazi siege of the composer’s beloved home city of Leningrad, the composer was expected to write further symphonic works that could act as a morale-booster in the war effort. Yet the Eighth Symphony, composed between July and September 1943 some months after Shostakovich had been airlifted from Leningrad to a safer part of country, hardly fulfilled this requirement. The Eighth ‘contains many conflicts, both tragic and dramatic’, said Shostakovich Ironically, by the time the Eighth was completed, a series of victories by the Red Army had turned the fortunes of the war much more in the favour of the Allies. So there was a weight of expectation that the…

What draws you to Weinberg? The quality and honesty of his music. It is not (as Mauricio Kagel used to say) ‘music composed by a composer for composers’. Weinberg has written deep and personal statements about the century he lived in. His music is a diary of a survivor who never gave up believing in human values. Besides that, he shows all of us that through sounds one can reach people emotionally and, if listeners open their hearts, share with them your soul. Why do the two symphonies make a good pairing on disc? Being part of Weinberg’s heritage of different periods (the Second Symphony, an early work, and the 21st, a late one), they have something in common. While being sincere statements, both works show an incredible compositional skill.…

Rachmaninov Symphonies & orchestral works; plus music by Musorgsky & Prokofiev  Decca 482 8981 (1972-78) 305:25 mins (4 discs) A somewhat flaccid First Symphony apart, Edo de Waart’s Rachmaninov is refreshingly straightforward in this sumptuously recorded set. ★★★★ Shostakovich Symphonies Nos 9 & 15 etc  Alto ALC 1362 (1974-2012) 78:18 mins A finely etched and insightful Shostakovich 9 from Valery Gergiev is followed by Kirill Kondrashin’s overwhelming interpretation of the composer’s symphonic swansong, manic intensity juxtaposed with world-weariness to powerful effect. ★★★★★ Eduard van Beinum 20th-century masterpieces: Bartók, Kodály & Stravinsky Eloquence 482 5563 (1947-56) 157:55 mins (2 discs) Antiquated sound for Eduard van Beinum’s Rite and the Concerto for Orchestra; better sound for Music for Strings and Chant du Rossignol. ★★ János Ferencsik Orchestral works by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert,…

Granados Goyescas Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Gustavo Pena, Lidia Vinyes Curtis, José Antonio López; BBC Singers; BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Josep Pons Harmonia Mundi HMM 902609 59:33 mins Following defeat in the 1898 war with America, Spain saw a surge in interest in matters of national identity. Enrique Granados (1867-1916) was one of many artists who – while supposedly eschewing overt politics – was attracted to Goya’s cultural ‘psychology’ and ‘palette’, to which he paid homage in his celebrated piano suite, Goyescas (1909-11). Less well known is Granados’s opera of the same title, utilising themes from the suite and composed in 1915 following its success. Cast in three tableaux, this live recording from an accomplished BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Josep Pons reveals the opera to be really a work of two…

JS Bach Cantatas BWV 19, 149, 158 & 169 Lenneke Ruiten (soprano), Anke Vondung (alto), Benedikt Kristjánsson (tenor), Peter Harvey (bass); Gaechinger Cantorey/ Hans-Christoph Rademann; David Franke (organ) Accentus Music ACC 30466 73:09 mins Two energised Leipzig cantatas for Michaelmas bookend the latest offering from Gaechinger Cantorey, Hans-Christoph Rademann’s reconfigured performing arm of the Stuttgart Bach Academy. Period instruments have replaced erstwhile director Helmuth Rilling’s preferred modern ones, and the choral forces are smaller (16 voices plus soloists). Yet something of Rilling’s legacy lingers as performances flirt with several performing traditions that don’t always pull in the same direction. There’s vigour and attack aplenty, for example, in the tumultuous tussle of BWV19’s opening chorus, but Lenneke Ruiten’s soprano sounds a touch effortful in the first aria, and the tenor aria…

JS Bach Goldberg Variations, BWV988 Trio Zimmermann BIS BIS-2347 (hybrid CD/SACD) 73:30 mins Arrangement, transcription, and even shameless appropriation were very much part of musical life in Bach’s time. This version of his Goldberg Variations, however, arranged by Trio Zimmermann, claims to be an ‘unveiling’ rather than a transcription of the work for string trio. No complaints about the expertise and fluency of the Zimmermanns’ playing. Their approach to dynamics is refreshingly flexible, and all three players bring a graceful approach to ornamentation. There are so many places where the sheer verve of the string playing transcends what might be perceived as the limitations of the keyboard original, notably in variations 5 and 14, and their performance of the canonic variation nine has a persuasive fluency that is utterly captivating.…

Frescobaldi Toccate e partite d’intavolatura di cimbalo, Book I Christophe Rousset (harpsichord) Aparté AP202 78:27 mins The late 16th-century harpsichord honours Frescobaldi’s sound Harpsichordists regard Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) as their instrument’s first great composer. Influenced by Gesualdo, Monteverdi, and the leading keyboard composers of his day, he in turn exerted huge influence: JS Bach owned a copy of his Fiori musicali, and Bartók made spirited piano arrangements of his fugues and dance suites. Visiting Brussels in 1604, Frescobaldi learned from English, French and Flemish keyboard music. As organist of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome he had ample opportunity to develop his keyboard style. His technical inventiveness, the erudition of his counterpoint, and the scale of the musical canvases on which he worked were in his day something completely new. As…

August round-up It was with the LA Phil that John Williams made his public conducting debut in the late 1970s, an association of which they’re very proud. Celebrating John Williams is something of a love letter to the composer from the orchestra and its conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who is himself now a friend and collaborator. The two-disc set follows what is now an annual celebration concert of Williams’s music at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and showcases iconic works in a glorious live recording that doesn’t miss a beat. From his 1984 Olympic Fanfare and Theme to the Superman March, it’s a winning selection. (DG 483 6647 ★★★★★ ) From full orchestral forces to refined chamber arrangements, as Cinema Morricone – An Intimate Portrait reframes some of the Italian maestro’s…

Features: The most basic players work like mini hard drives with screens – plug into your computer’s USB and drag music files direct to them. Spend a bit more and choose a design that either connects to Wi-Fi or has microSD card slot so you can increase song capacity. Hi-res? Sadly there’s no one standard for hi-res audio, but any music files that have a higher sampling frequency than CD (16bit/44.1kHz) are generally deemed hi-res. Hi-res files – WAV, FLAC, AIFF, ALAC, DSD, MQA – reveal more detail than MP3 and CD and will make the most of a high quality hi-fi or music player. Remember, hi-res files take up considerably more space than MP3. Streaming? The latest portable media players let you stream music to Bluetooth speakers and wireless…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this August Birthday Variations To celebrate Martyn Brabbins’s 60th birthday, 14 leading composers are paying tribute to the conductor with new works inspired by Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Brabbins himself will lead the ENO Chorus and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, two ensembles he has held conducting positions with over the years. Proms 2019: Prom 35; 13 August, 7.30pm Edinburgh Festival We bring you another year of live concerts from Edinburgh’s Queen's Hall. Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason (see p23) team up for a stunning selection of cello sonatas, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra performs under its new principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev ahead of their first season together. Lunchtime Concerts; 5-25 August, 1pm Pelham Humfrey…

Lesley Garrett is one of the UK’s best known sopranos, using her popularity on stage, television, radio and recordings to win new audiences for classical music. She has just performed at the Wesley Centre in Yorkshire (www. maltonwesleycentre.org), in support of its appeal to turn it into a community hub and concert hall, and on 28 August will appear at the Snape Proms. I come from a village near Doncaster, a mining area where music welded the community together with brass bands, operatic societies and choirs. One of my earliest memories is of my mum and her two sisters going off on a Sunday to sing in the local choir. HANDEL’s Messiah, and particularly ‘For Unto Us a Child is Born’ is also a special piece for me and my…