Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2019 i BBC Music Magazine

Elizabeth Davis Journalist ‘Earlier this year I moved to Singapore, and alongside the delicious food and amazing weather it’s been such a pleasure to discover the city’s vibrant music scene and big ambitions.’ Page 70 Fiona Maddocks Writer and journalist ‘Hildegard von Bingen and I have ended up living with each other since I wrote a book about her back in 2001. I certainly didn’t expect a 12th-century composer-visionary-nun to become a key part of my life.’ Page 72 Terry Williams Writer and journalist ‘The whooping horn flourishes in the coda of Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony grab me every single time. Listening to the dozens of recordings of this 19th-century masterpiece has been a rare pleasure.’ Page 78…

A storming success In the November issue (Letters), you ask us for the first pieces that got us into classical music. In the 1950s, when I was ten, my father bought a small record player and got me a 10-inch LP of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony from the cheap-and-cheerful Classics Club. I listened with fascination to the ‘story’, and played the record many times without knowing much at all about classical music. I then had to sit the 11-plus exam, and when I was given the English Essay paper, there on the list of optional topics was ‘The Storm’. I didn’t stop to see what the other choices were; I just started writing. I didn’t have to plan the essay: Beethoven had already done that. I told the story of the…

120 …beats per minute or less, if you want to drive safely. Research in China has shown that listening to fast music at the wheel causes people to put their foot down on the accelerator. 26 …inches, badly concealed. A thief was arrested in Wisconsin trying to hide a stolen flute in his trousers. Shop staff easily identified the unlikely bulge. 2 …fine musicians under one roof. Violinist Joshua Bell has married opera soprano Larisa Martínez in New York. 40 …years old, and another gong for the mantelpiece. To help Iestyn Davies celebrate two score years, Wigmore Hall presented the leading British countertenor with its Wigmore Medal.…

Each year, the Emmy Awards pays tribute to TV’s dearly departed actors, musicians and other talent in its ‘in memoriam’ segment. Featured this year was American conductor, pianist and composer André Previn. Except that the accompanying image was of none other than US conductor Leonard Slatkin (left) – very much still with us. This isn’t the first time, however, that living musicians have been prematurely declared dead… During the Siege of Leningrad in 1942, conductor Karl Eliasberg set about reconvening the Radiokom Orchestra for the premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7. Except, alas, percussionist Dzaudhat Aydarov who had recently been certified dead. However, on visiting Aydarov at the mortuary, Eliasberg found him showing signs of life – days later he was back behind the snare drum. In 2015, website Slipped…

Oliver Condy Editor In a change to the concert norm, former banker Bob Boas and his wife Elizabeth host frequent concerts in their resplendent townhouse near Oxford Circus. Back in September, pianist Ivana Gavric (pictured, right) performed solo music by Ravel, Dukas and Cheryl Frances-Hoad, followed by Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11, with the orchestral part reduced for string quintet. It all worked brilliantly. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Unless I choose to go down the punning route – Wagner’s Wing cycle, Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Prop and so on… – finding appropriate works to accompany my enjoyment of the Rugby World Cup has been a tough ask. Thankfully, Honegger’s breezy and bustling Rugby for orchestra is always worth a listen, especially on the 2017 recording by the Tonhalle Orchestra…

Every poll throws up its surprises and, consequently, leads to letters to the editor expressing surprise, dismay or downright disgust. Though some comment on who has made it into the list, more often than not they reflect on who hasn’t. One of the more interesting absences from our Top 50 is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-94), a composer who was ranked alongside Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as one of the four greatest ever by Mendelssohn and described by Verdi as ‘the real king of sacred music and the eternal father of Italian music’. And while Bach racked up a large number of votes in our poll, there was scarcely a mention of his exact contemporary George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) – Beethoven, who once called Handel ‘the master of us all...…

1 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) All hail JS Bach, whose spirit dwells in practically every note written since his death. With supreme contrapuntal skill, Bach sculpts music of perfect form and balance, bestowing it with an emotional power that has echoed through the centuries. From the aching beauty of the cello suites and the bewildering ambition of the keyboard works to the dramatic force of the cantatas, no one has, and could possibly, come close to Bach’s genius Steve Reich Bach to me is the greatest composer who ever lived, the genius who created the most beautiful counterpoint I have ever heard, plus the basic aria of the Goldberg Variations where I am reduced to tears. I first heard Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto as a teenager in 1950, shortly after…

Simon Rattle Chief conductor, LSO Rattle initially learned the piano and violin but as a ten year-old played percussion with Merseyside Youth Orchestra. He then studied conducting at London’s Royal Academy. Robin Ticciati Music director, Glyndebourne Like his mentor Rattle, Ticciati studied violin, piano and percussion, which he played in the National Youth Orchestra. Santtu-Matias Rouvali Chief conductor, Gothenburg SO (the Philharmonia from 2021) Rouvali studied percussion at the Sibelius Academy and played in the Lahti Symphony and Finnish Radio Symphony. Percussion, he says, helps inform his conducting. Jean-Claude Casadesus Founder, Orchestre national de Lille Casadesus was a percussionist before studying composition and conducting with Pierre Boulez. By 30, he had become chief conductor at both Paris opera houses. Steven Schick Percussionist and conductor The US percussionist combines a career…

Heavenly symphonies Hildegard’s main body of work, the Symphonie armonie celestium revelationum (The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations, from the 1140s and ’50s), comprises 77 religious poems, each set to a single line of chant. Stylistic pointers Upward leaps, especially rising fifths followed by downward scalic passages, are a hallmark. The music was written in early German neumes (notation in use prior to the five-line staff method). Sacred drama Ordo Virtutum (The Play of the Virtues, c1150) is among the earliest surviving morality plays, consisting of 82 melodies set syllabically, and identified as one of Hildegard’s first-known works. Subject matter Hildegard’s music reflects the liturgical calendar as well as celebrating martyrs, virgins, angels and saints. Greenness, gardens, growth, jewels and precious metals are frequent images, as in Columba…

Born in 1809 in Hamburg, Felix Mendelssohn progressed rapidly at the violin, piano and organ. Unlike his contemporaries such as Liszt, Thalberg and Alkan, Mendelssohn’s compositional style harked back to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, an essentially conservative approach that was consolidated at the Leipzig Conservatory, which he founded in 1843. Despite Mendelssohn’s short life (he died in 1847), the composer produced a great number of works, notably his youthful Octet, Violin Concerto in E minor, the Hebrides Overture, reams of piano music and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.…

What draws you to Shostakovich? He has always been one of my favourite composers; since childhood, in fact. I used to listen to his symphonies quite a lot, which was an unusual choice for a kid. Actually, when we were looking at the programme it wasn’t the first choice! We talked about doing Balakirev, but then I offered to do Shostakovich and I’m very glad that it turned out to be him. Tell us about choosing the pieces for this recording. I had played his First Sonata and the 24 Preludes before, so it was quite a natural choice. Since I was playing the First Sonata, it was quite logical to do the Second. Moreover, the Second Sonata is rarely played. I didn’t know the reduction of The Limpid Stream.…

Gregson Tuba Concerto; R Strauss Ein Heldenleben Claudio Records CA5255-2 (1986) 68:02 mins A bizarre coupling. The unnamed soloist plays fluently enough in the Gregson, but the Venezuelan Philharmonic under Edgar Meinhardt struggles with technically challenging passages in Heldenleben. ★★ Mahler Symphony No 1 BR Klassik 900179 (2007) 54:25 mins In this outstanding live performance, Mariss Jansons charts the multi-faceted emotional trajectory of Mahler One with total conviction and brings wonderful clarity to its subtly layered orchestration. ★★★★★ Erich Kleiber & Jean Martinon – The Decca 78s: Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel et al Eloquence 482 9386 (1948-51) 127:44 mins (2 discs)  Erich Kleiber delivers rhythmically compelling accounts of Mozart and Beethoven symphonies. Scrawny string sound undermines Jean Martinon’s refined accounts of Ravel and Chabrier. ★★★ Robert Irving – The Decca Recordings:…

Beethoven Complete Piano Concertos Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Jan Lisiecki (piano) DG 483 7637 173:53 mins (3 discs) Pianists who take up directing an orchestra from the keyboard tend to do so after a considerable track record as a solo performer – think András Schiff, Krystian Zimerman and Murray Perahia – and, one suspects, want a new challenge. Lisiecki is only 24 and still establishing his repertoire, so this new exploit comes as a surprise and, as if it wasn’t daring enough in itself, he’s made these recordings live. Yet reading the exiguous liner-notes to this recording, it’s hard to repress a sense of adolescent hubris. Lisiecki’s comments on the Fifth Concerto are sixth-form stuff: ‘Beethoven’s music is the product of different ideas… his scores contain precise…

Puccini Le Willis Ermonela Jaho, Arsen Soghomonyan, Brian Mulligan; Opera Rara Chorus; London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Mark Elder Opera Rara ORC59 62:39 mins This is an important release for Puccini fans – the first recording of his first opera in its original version, recently edited for Ricordi by musicologist Martin Deasy, who provides informative and substantial liner notes. Mark Elder delivers a lively and loving account of the score In this version, not performed since 1884 until Opera Rara revived it last year, the opera has an unfamiliar title. In its later, two-act editions – from which we also hear three extracts, including two arias added by Puccini which have become the opera’s most famous pieces – it is known as Le villi. In whatever edition, the story is much the…

Anon Carmina Burana Eloquence 482 7315 (1986) 255:16 mins (4 discs)  Philip Pickett’s interpretations of the skeletal sources are colourful and creative – though the frequent use of tabors, tambourines and bells grows irritating, as does Catherine Bott’s vocal swooping. ★★★ Berlioz Les nuits d’été; Canteloube Chants de la France Eloquence 482 8586 (1950/51) 62:30 mins  Lucie Daullène’s Snow White soprano has a gurgling innocence in the Canteloube, and Suzanne Danco in the first complete recording of Les nuits, her voice quivering and silvery, captures its languor. ★★★★ Mozart Requiem Harmonia Mundi HMM 931620 (1996) 54:20 mins  Philippe Herreweghe’s account of the Mozart/ Süssmayr Requiem is both majestic and intimate. Top-flight soloists, vital choral singing, stylish period-instrument playing and a glassy-clear recording. ★★★★★ Purcell Funeral Sentences Harmonia Mundi HMM 931462…

CPE Bach The Solo Keyboard Music, Vol. 38: Sonata in G major; Menuet in E flat major etc Miklós Spányi (harpsichord) BIS BIS-2337 78.35 mins Having polished off 20 discs chronicling CPE Bach’s keyboard concertos, the indefatigable Miklós Spányi is now 38 volumes into a survey of the solo works, delving here into assorted juvenilia. The provenance of some works bestows ‘benefit of the doubt’ status; others are familiar from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook; and the liner notes are candid in admitting that ‘many of the pieces… demand little technical prowess or musical sophistication’. Prowess and sophistication, of course, are two attributes Spányi possesses in spades. Fortuitously since 46 short tracks – some less than a minute – invite a degree of forbearance. The G major Sonata is sprucely…

December round-up Two releases by veteran pianists dominate this issue’s roundup: Abdullah Ibrahim’s solo Dream Time (Enja ENJ-9676 2 ★★★★★ ) and Ballades, remarkably Ahmad Jamal’s first solo album ( JazzVillage JV570140 ★★★★★ ). They share certain attributes, such as a retrospective theme which at 84 and 89 years young respectively is surely an entitlement. Both albums also have an intriguing status as statements, in that their performers are sounding more like themselves than ever while sidestepping any notion of complacency. Furthermore, each functions to an extent as a musical autobiography. Ibrahim’s is an entirely solo venture in which he knits 20 of his compositions together into a single suite, giving a narrative flow analogous to his musical pilgrimage through the various styles of African-American and his native South African…

Aaron Copland and the American Legacy of Gustav Mahler Matthew Mugmon University of Rochester Press 978-1-580-46964-7; 240pp (hb) £30 You might have expected a full study of Mahler and Bernstein before one devoted to Mahler and Copland. Yet Matthew Mugmon shows Bernstein was at the receiving end of an American dialogue with Mahler’s music, beginning in the early 1920s when Copland, his future teacher, studied with Nadia Boulanger. Mugmon builds his argument superbly, starting with the 24-year-old Copland’s case for Mahler in a New York Times letter of 1924. He then interleaves the two teacher-pupil relationships with the championing of Mahler works relevant to Copland by American-based conductors. There are revelations: Boulanger’s attempt to make the French look objectively at an Austro-German in the spirit of post-war internationalism; Koussevitzky’s championship…

LONDON Colin Currie Group and Synergy Vocals Hayward Gallery, 6-7 December Tel: +44 (0)20 3879 9555 Web: www.southbankcentre.co.uk Southbank Centre’s chamber series decamps to the Hayward Gallery for performances of Drumming, Steve Reich’s percussion extravaganza indebted to the music of Ghana. It’s presented in the context of a major retrospective exploring the shape-shifting art of Bridget Riley. Les Arts Florissants The Barbican, 8 December Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 8891 Web: www.barbican.org.uk It’s 40 years since William Christie founded the Early Music group that takes its name from an opera by Charpentier, and excerpts are included in a splendid gala celebration that touches on Lully and Rameau as well as Handel and Purcell. Christie is joined by co-director Paul Agnew; soprano Sandrine Piau heads the solo line-up. Verdi’s Otello…

DECEMBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 SUNDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9am-12 noon Sunday Morning 12 noon-1pm Private Passions Hannah Rankin (boxer) 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert (rpt) 2-3pm The Early Music Show 3-4pm Choral Evensong A Service for Advent with Carols, live from the Chapel of St John’s College, Cambridge, featuring a new work, Hark the Glad Sound by Judith Bingham 4-5pm Jazz Record Requests 5-5.30pm The Listening Service 5.30-6.45pm Words and Music 6.45-7.30pm Sunday Feature 7.30-9.30pm Drama on 3 Dance Till You Bleed 9.30-11pm Radio 3 in Concert from the Battersea Arts Centre, London. RPS Awards 11pm-12 midnight Unclassified with Elizabeth Alker 12 midnight-12.30am Classical Fix 2 MONDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Janáÿek 1-2pm…

Centuries after their deaths, the great composers are still exerting their influence. But who has had the greatest impact of them all? Who is the finest among them? Rather than poll performers, critics or academics, we decided to ask today’s composers – 174 of them, in fact. After all, they’re the people who look daily to those greats for inspiration, who follow in their footsteps in trying to work out where music is heading, and who grapple with developing their own individual voices, capturing and realising often fleeting musical ideas. Anyone can name their favourite composer (my own list of five would change by the day), but a composer who can command the respect of those who understand the naked fear of a blank manuscript, a looming deadline or the…

Maria Milstein Violinist Born: Moscow, Russia Career highlight: Collaborating with my sister Nathalia, a pianist, on our second album dedicated to Ravel has been a constant source of joy. My debut with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko was also exciting. Musical hero: One of my earliest memories is listening to Yehudi Menuhin recordings – he remains one of my favourite musicians. But so are Fritz Kreisler, Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, Pablo Casals and many more. I admire their ability to sing on their instrument and express the music in the most human way. Dream concert: That would be one in which the only focus is the music performed and the message it passes on. Robert Reid Allan Composer Born: Glasgow, Scotland Career highlight: Being the…

6th: At the Battle of Chamkaur (in the Punjab region, modern-day India) Guru Gobind Singh’s small number of Khalsa warriors fight a sizable Mughal army led by Wazir Khan. With defeat looking inevitable, Gobind Singh’s men persuade him to escape in disguise before they go on to face slaughter. 9th: Johann Kuhnau, Kantor of St Thomas’s Church, Leipzig, writes a letter complaining that fellow composer Georg Philipp Telemann is stealing his best pupils. Since arriving in the city in 1701, Telemann has been appointed as music director of both the municipal opera house and the Neukirche and, to Kuhnau’s dismay, has even been commissioned to write music for St Thomas’s. 11th: Author, pamphleteer and politician Roger L’Estrange dies aged 87. L’Estrange’s Royalist sympathies saw him serve time in both prison…

Buxtehude Jesu, meine Freude Gli Angeli/Stephan MacLeod  Sony Classical G010001887774B  This is so out of the realm of what you’d expect from Buxtehude. It has such an incredible depth of humanity and it’s much more emotional than the music people might associate with early Baroque composers. Buxtehude is often regarded just as Bach’s teacher and not as a great composer in his own right. You can hear the influence on the great Bach masses and cantatas – pulsing strings and yearning harmonies – but he’s definitely got his own tender musical language. Hahn Songs Various Artists Hyperion CDA67141/2 I first came to Hahn through reading Proust. The music really epitomises the Belle Époque era, and the songs themselves are so sensual, so perfumed, they’re like the musical equivalent of the…

Laid low by flu, or a ‘mild cold’ as my family call it, I took to my bed and re-read (the way one does) one of the great mission statements of musical history. It was Benjamin Britten’s 1964 speech ‘On winning the first Aspen Award’, in which he brilliantly articulates his belief that a composer’s first duty is to be useful to his or her community. That’s controversial enough. Pierre Boulez certainly wouldn’t have agreed. He once told me that composers who try to appeal to audiences were ‘like whores’. But another passage in Britten’s speech is even more provocative. ‘Music,’ he declared, ‘demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape-machine or a transistor radio. It demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special…

Over the past 12 years we’ve conducted, if you’ll excuse the pun, a number of ‘greatest’ polls. We’re well aware that naming the greatest in any discipline is something of a spurious exercise, but our results have never been anything other than enlightening, often puzzling, sometimes infuriating. Starting in April 2007, a selection of critics crowned Maria Callas Queen Soprano, pipping Joan Sutherland and Victoria de los Angeles to the throne. With a taste for polling, we skipped onto tenors, naming Plácido Domingo as the ne plus ultra. And in December 2008, we asked the choirmasters from around the world to vote for their favourite carol. Harold Darke’s setting of Christina Rossetti’s In the  Bleak Midwinter triumphed, and media coverage included the carol being sung in the Blue Peter garden…

Adams, John Luther Bach, Debussy, Feldman, Ockeghem, Sibelius Aho, Kalevi Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Wagner Alberga, Eleanor Bach, Bartók, Harrison Birtwistle, Messiaen, Stravinsky Allain, Richard Bach, Beethoven, Berio, Haydn, Vaughan Williams Banks, Tony Mahler, Ravel, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Vaughan Williams Barry, Gerald Feldman, Mozart, Obrecht, Satie, Webern Bates, Mason Berlioz, Britten, Ginastera, Gershwin, Mouse on Mars Beal, Jeff John Adams, Bach, Bartók, Prokofiev, Stravinsky Bedford, Luke Bach, Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, Wagner Bednall, David Beethoven, Howells, Puccini, Vaughan Williams, Wagner Bell, Iain Berg, Britten, Debussy, Pérotin, Rodgers Berkeley, Michael Bartók, Beethoven, Gesualdo, Janácek, Stravinsky Bigham, Ned Debussy, Gershwin, Holst, Mahler, Messiaen Bingham, Judith Berlioz, Hildegard von Bingen, Prokofiev, Rameau, Ravel Blackford, Richard Bach, Beethoven, Monteverdi, Mozart, Wagner Bond, Victoria Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart Brand, Neil Beethoven, Bennett Debussy, Mahler, Stravinsky Bray,…

The Budapest Festival Orchestra’s recordings number over 100. Its early discs on Philips include acclaimed performances Bartók’s piano concertos recorded with the orchestra’s co-founder, the pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis who died in 2016. Philips also teased out peerless versions of Dvoÿák’s Symphonies 8 & 9 (later remastered on Channel) and Kodály’s tangy Háry János Suite. Music by Strauss, Schubert, Brahms and more appeared on the Hungaraton label before the orchestra signed to Channel Classics in the early 2000s, which lavished the orchestra with the then new SACD format. The 5.1 surround sound achievable by Super Audio CD brought out stunning detail in its recordings which you can hear in its acclaimed and ongoing series of Mahler recordings, the first of which, No. 6, was released in 2005. No. 2…

Margaret Leng Tan has taken a tiny instrument and made a big impact on the world… much like the mini city state of Singapore. The pianist is the world’s first toy piano virtuoso – the New York Times hailed her as ‘the queen of the toy piano’, although presumably there wasn’t a vast amount of competition for that title. Tan made her name with the 1997 recording The Art of the Toy Piano and is best known for her interpretations of music by the likes of John Cage and George Crumb. In 1993, she performed Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano at a memorial concert for the composer in New York.…

1113 LIFE: Hildegard enters religious life. At 15, she has already experienced the mystic visions that will play a central role in her works. TIMES: The Spanish redouble their efforts in the Reconquista following the capture of Zaragoza by the Muslim Almoravid dynasty in 1110. A large fleet is assembled and sets out for the Balearic islands. 1136 LIFE: Hildegard succeeds her instructor as prioress at the cloister of Disibodenberg. During the following years, she writes several religious texts. TIMES: Kings Stephen of England and David I of Scotland sign the first Treaty of Durham. Fighting resumes two years later when David attacks England. 1152 LIFE: Scivias (Know the Way), a collection of 26 mystic visions recorded for Hildegard by a scribe, is completed. It will become her best-known literary…

Frans Brüggen (conductor) Orchestra of the 18th Century Philips 456 2672 Brüggen finely balances Classical restraint and Romantic sentiment When it comes to choosing a preferred recording of the ‘Scottish’, the field is a healthily competitive one. If you want, for instance, to enjoy it within the context of complete sets of Mendelssohn’s symphonies, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s version with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Kurt Masur’s with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (which alone includes the early 12 string symphonies) are the strongest options. These are two very different but equally valid interpretations. On single discs, meanwhile, Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic are predictably polished and, more recently, Edward Gardner and the CBSO deliver a fresh and invigorating account. However, the vote goes to Dutch conductor Frans Brüggen’s 1990…

Composers often turn to fiction for inspiration, and not just for the opera stage. This month’s pages are peppered with big characters; we’ve the noble King Arthur from Purcell, the terrifying Bluebeard from Bartók, the passionate Jane Eyre from Louis Karchin and the portly Falstaff from Elgar. Our Concerto Choice sees Kaija Saariaho borrow from the pages of Jacques Roubaud’s Graal Théâtre, just one of several recordings of works by women composers we’ve been enjoying this month. Others, by Dobrinka Tabakova, Ethel Smyth, Gabriela Montero and Fanny Mendelssohn, show a pleasing uplift in such releases. Finally, Andrew McGregor marks 20 years of Eloquence, the label leading the way in reissuing great recordings by iconic artists. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, Geoff Brown, Anthony Burton,…

John Adams Common Tones in Simple Time; Harmonielehre; Short Ride in a Fast Machine Montreal Symphony Orchestra/ Kent Nagano Decca 483 4938 68:01 mins Planned for John Adams’s 70th birthday in 2017, this album now appears to mark Kent Nagano’s last season with the Montreal orchestra. The end product appears somewhat carelessly packaged: the booklet notes overly rely on quotations from Adams’s website, and are only legible with a magnifying glass and torch. The music-making is legible, but the sound, live from three public concerts, is serviceable when much of the music needs the spectacular. A longtime Adams champion, Nagano shapes and sustains the floating, constantly mutating textures of Common Tones in Simple Time (1979) – Adams’s first work for orchestra, which now almost sounds more like the work of…

Kaija Saariaho Vers toi qui es si loin; Circle Map; Neiges; Graal Théâtre Peter Herresthal (violin); Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/ Clément Mao-Takacs BIS BIS-2402 (hybrid CD/SACD) 87:12 mins The players of the Oslo Philharmonic are on fine form A disembodied, electronically altered voice utters into a swirling mass of dissonant sound. Oboe, flute and piccolo issue fragments of melody over babbling strings and percussion. The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra are on fine form as they embrace Kaija Saariaho’s unique soundscape in this collection of works spanning the last 25 years. With the amplified (and unidentified) vocals representing 13th-century poet Rumi, reciting his words in their original Persian, Circle Map (2012) is a multi-layered, deeply evocative piece. It is one of three near half-hour works featured here, the others being the older Graal…

Bauldeweyn • Josquin Anon: Da pacem, Domine; Bauldeweyn: Missa Da pacem; Brumel: Mater Patris; Josquin des Prés: Missa Mater Patris The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips Gimmell CDGIM 052 72:30 mins This latest disc in The Tallis Scholars’ ongoing project to record all Josquin’s masses reaches controversial territory. Missa Mater Patris quotes liberally from the eponymous motet by Antoine Brumel with which it’s paired here; perhaps Josquin wrote it as a memorial for Brumel, but the musical style is so atypical that its attribution has been questioned. The Scholars take the work at an aptly reverential tread, capturing its introspective – at times hypnotic – qualities. The writing is tight and spare, the composer contrasting imitative duets with richer chordal passages. Using just one or two voices to a part, this performance…

Beethoven • Brahms Beethoven: Clarinet Trio in E flat, Op. 38; Brahms: Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114 Alexander Bedenko (clarinet), Kyril Zlotnikov (cello), Itamar Golan (piano) Orchid Classics ORC100102 62:14 mins Beethoven is said to have been exasperated by the popularity of his early Septet, Op.20, written in 1799; but the putative first musical Romantic was also a pragmatist, and in 1803 Beethoven took the lucrative step of reworking it for trio. Clarinettist Alexander Bedenko and his colleagues tackle its six movements here in a performance that’s immaculately poised and almost too tasteful. Bedenko’s melody beginning the second movement is smoothly, thoughtfully shaped, but is more of an introspective song hummed to oneself than the expressive, singing melody that the ‘adagio cantabile’ marking might suggest. Faster movements bubble…

Beethoven Complete Piano Sonatas Igor Levit (piano) Sony 19075843182 605 mins (9 discs) We’ve heard Igor Levit’s complete Beethoven live – and occasionally bumpy – at the Wigmore Hall, but to encounter it in distilled form is a bracingly illuminating experience. You won’t find here any startling new interpretations of the ‘Pathetique’, ‘Moonlight’, or ‘Les adieux’ sonatas, though Levit’s readings of those works are authoritative. Levit’s treatment of the early works is the most interesting aspect of the cycle What you will get is a new sense of the sheer physicality of the music. In a liner-note interview Levit talks about how congenial he finds Beethoven’s ‘physically centred’ writing… each hand operates as a relatively self-contained unit, bringing the different voices together within a stable position and meaningfully weighting each…

Harri Ahmas Organ Works Jan Lehtola (organ) et al Toccata Classics TOCC 0525  A welcome introduction to the Finnish composer whose organ music echoes Petr Eben’s angular tonalism. The organ’s clean, immediate sound adds brilliant clarity. The Sonata deserves wide currency. (OC) ★★★★ JS Bach • Jalbert • Pärt • Vasks Violin Concertos etc Margaret Batjer (violin) et al BIS-2309  Its moods ranging from otherwordly to feisty, Pierre Jalbert’s Violin Concerto has its memorable moments. The real pleasure, though, lies in the Bach, Pärt and Vasks that follow. (JP) ★★★★ Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus Warren Lee (piano) Naxos 8.573974  This piano version of The Creatures of Prometheus understandably lacks the colour of the ballet proper, yet is enjoyable enough in the capable hands of Warren Lee. (CJ) ★★★ Bizet…

Chris Potter, Zakir Hussain and Dave Holland Good Hope Chris Potter (soprano and tenor sax), Zakir Hussain (tabla, kanjira, chenda, madal), Dave Holland (bass) Edition EDN1136 Sharing as they do a strong element of improvisation, rhythmic inventiveness and (in Western terms) a penchant for modality, mixing Indian music and jazz has long been a productive approach. That said, ‘Indo-Jazz’ has in fact been so productive that it’s not been entirely obvious of late whether there was still more to be mined from that particular seam. Happily, this trio of exceptional musicians has done exactly that. Much of the group’s original sound hinges on Hussain’s array of percussion, which includes among others the double-headed madal and the tambourine-like kanjira alongside the more familiar tabla. He uses his instruments not just rhythmically…

28. Cedars Hall Where: Wells Cathedral School, Wells, Somerset Opened: 2016 Seats: 350 Cedars Hall was designed by London architect Eric Parry Architects, the firm behind the 2008 ‘renewal’ programme at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields and the recently completed Opera Terrace at the Royal Opera House. The striking Cedars Hall sits at the heart of Wells Cathedral School, and takes its name from both the ancient tree that dominates the immediate landscape, and Cedars, a Grade II*-listed Georgian pile that serves as the music school’s nerve centre. Behind its sweeping facade sits a clean-lined concert hall named after Michael Eavis, a former student and the founder of the nearby Glastonbury Festival. Its recital space is designed with a chamber music acoustic in mind and has already attracted the likes of pianists…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this December A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols  This year’s festive service will be Daniel Hyde’s first as music director of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. As always, it will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Eve at 3pm and then again on Radio 3 on Christmas Day at 2pm – and at various times on BBC World Service. Choral Evensong: 25 December, 2pm Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio British choral composer Bob Chilcott’s Christmas Oratorio received its premiere this summer at Gloucester Cathedral during the Three Choirs Festival, a concert that will be broadcast on Radio 3 this Christmas. The oratorio is a complete retelling of the Christmas story,…

Hours of pleasure On the subject of works that first inspired us (see also Letter of the Month, left), Children’s Hour on the BBC Home Service in the late 1940s introduced me to the delights of classical music. Works I encountered there included an extract from Walton’s Façade, used to introduce the whimsical Said the Cat to the Dog, and Elgar’s gentle Chanson de Matin, which preceded the exciting thriller serial Bunkle Butts In. On Mondays, Helen Henschel gave a series of talks entitled Music at Random which she introduced with a piano arrangement of the main theme from the last movement of Brahms’s First Symphony, and another Children’s Hour serial began with an excerpt from a Shostakovich symphony. Determined to hear more Shostakovich, I thus embarked on my first…

Minuet and tree-o A stroll around London’s Regent’s Park is set to become a melodious experience thanks to a new app. Composers at the Royal Academy of Music have been commissioned to write pieces of music that will be automatically triggered on users’ phones when they walk past certain species of tree, including hornbeam, ash and walnut. When trees overlap, two tunes will sound together. The app will also give information about the trees and the young composers as well. ENO arrival From Regent’s Park, it is but a 30-minute walk to the Coliseum, home of English National Opera (ENO). There, you may bump into Annelise Miskimmon, who has just been announced as the new artistic director. Presently director of Norwegian National Opera, Miskimmon replaces Daniel Kramer, who quit the…

Soprano Chen Reiss looks to early Beethoven for a new disc recorded in London with Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music. Titled Immortal Beloved, it gathers together orchestral songs and concert arias, including his 1790 aria ‘Primo amore’ and the dramatic scena ‘Ah! perfido’. The release, coming from Onyx Classics, coincides with Reiss’s appearance as Marzelline in the Vienna Staatsoper’s first production of Leonore in February. Harpsichordist Masumi Yamamoto recently accompanied Ibrahim Aziz (viola da gamba) in a recording for FHR Records at Plumstead’s Church of the Ascension. The duo recorded a programme dominated by Handel, including two sonatas (the ‘Kassel Sonatas’) that were recently unearthed and attributed to the composer. Rounding off the disc, due out in the Spring, is Gottfried Muffat’s Suite in E minor for…

It’s one of the most divisive phenomena in our musical lives, one of the most complained about facts of most classical music culture, and the thing that keeps more people away from the opera house and from classical singing than anything else. I’m talking about vibrato: the wobble, the tremulous vibration of pitch and intensity in singers’ voices that many are so allergic to – at least going by some of the letters we get sent at BBC Radio 3. The following are typical: ‘My dictionary of music describes [vibrato’s] use as a “detestable device”. Would it be so bad to have less of it?’; or another: ‘Why is wide-vibrato warbling tolerated and encouraged in “classical music?”’ Well: the first cliché about classical vibrato to scotch is that there’s something…

George Hall A recent LSO concert at the Barbican hit every conceivable spot. Emanuel Ax was the most magisterial but also self-effacing soloist in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, sharing not only the applause with cellist Tim Hugh, but also his encore – the delicate slow movement of Chopin’s Cello Sonata. And Simon Rattle proved a special Rachmaninov interpreter: the performance of the Second Symphony that followed, which he conducted from memory, was finely observant in its detail and thrilling in its overall sweep. Claire Jackson I recently heard the newly formed Britten-Shostakovich Festival Orchestra perform as part of its first UK-Russia tour. In honour of the ensemble’s namesakes, artistic director Jan Latham-Koenig conducted works by both composers, including Shostakovich’s Jazz Suites, which calls for so many musicians the Basingstoke Anvil…

JOHN ADAMS DOCTOR ATOMIC Adams conducts the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra in the first recording of his landmark 2005 opera, featuring a cast led by Gerald Finley. ‘Adams and his performers are at their peak in this recording of a great modern opera.’ BBC Music Magazine JOHN ADAMS VIOLIN CONCERTO A new recording of Adams’ Grawemeyer Award–winning Violin Concerto, with his frequent collaborators violinist Leila Josefowicz, conductor David Robertson, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. ‘This recording sets a new benchmark. Faultless.’ Gramophone, Editor’s Choice ALARM WILL SOUND & DONNACHA DENNEHY THE HUNGER The composer’s new album explores Ireland’s Great Famine. Performed by Alarm Will Sound led by Alan Pierson, soprano Katherine Manley, and sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. ‘A compelling operatic song cycle.’ Guardian KRONOS QUARTET…

Some love to play the system. John Corigliano has voted five times for Beethoven, Robin Holloway likewise for Bruckner. And, lest you think it a typo, Nicola LeFanu has plumped twice for Mozart, similarly Luke Bedford for Bach. There are, however, more surprises. Rolf Hind has opted for a blackbird (‘we have to honour birds’). On a similar theme, Jobina Tinnemans has gone for Mother Nature as one of history’s great (female) composers. Pop musicians feature too. Donnacha Dennehy has voted for ‘Wuthering Heights’ singer Kate Bush, Dai Fujikura for David Sylvian, frontman of the 1980s group Japan. Anna Meredith has given one of her votes to Icelandic singer Björk, and electronic duo Mouse on Mars gets Mason Bates’s vote. Jazz is well represented, too, by John Coltrane (Steve Reich…

Memorable moments for orchestral instruments such as violins or trumpets are ten a penny. Yet the percussion section, that varied and virtuoso group of musicians occupying the back rows of a symphony orchestra, is often relegated by composers to a much more supporting role. The odd timpani bash, for instance, or the shake of a tambourine. But you don’t have to delve far to discover that this assortment of instruments, from the booming bass drum to the tinkling triangle, has been assigned some of the most stirring and heart-stopping moments in all classical music. We’ve put together a list of percussion’s greatest passages – long and spectacularly short – and asked ten leading orchestral percussion and timpani players what it’s like to play them. Of course, our list isn’t comprehensive…

Old-fashioned Saint-Saëns (above) was always going to be the sort who’d walk out of the 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. ‘If that’s a bassoon, then I’m a baboon!’ he said wittily. With less humour, Stalin stormed out of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth, which the Pravda newspaper then condemned as ‘muddle instead of music’. Philip Glass found himself with a smaller ensemble when members walked out during rehearsals for his 1980 opera Satyagraha, apparently objecting to the music. ‘It sounded better when they left,’ he said, stoically. But no composer can stem the tide of history – during a performance in Brussels of Auber’s La muette de Portici, some of the audience left to join riots marking the start of the Belgian Revolution…

Political and religious life in 12th-century Europe had a direct impact on Hildegard You may think there were many people called Hildegard von Bingen: the one who catalogued the animals, birds, fish, plants, trees and precious metals of her native German Rhineland; the one whose medical theories are still valued by holistic therapists today; the one who invented her own, mysterious language of 900 words, its intention a continuing debate among scholars. Perhaps more famous is the writer, theologian and abbess, whose bold, arresting visions – many depicted in illuminated manuscripts – reflected her own fervent beliefs; who founded her own monastery; who stood up to monks, bishops, popes and emperors across Europe, the scourge of a corrupt Church, earning her the name ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’. Finally, there is…

Peter Maag (conductor) This 1960 recording is one of Decca’s early stereo trailblazers and first pressings of the LPs fetch eye-wateringly high prices these days. It’s a muscular performance and the London Symphony Orchestra simply relishes Maag’s drive and enthusiasm for a symphony that was not much in favour at the time. From the ominous opening paragraphs to the Finale’s exuberant conclusion, it’s a terrific musical ride. The brass fanfares in the Coda may be over the top, but they are thrilling and raise the hairs on the back of the neck every time. (Decca E466 9902) Heinz Holliger (conductor) In a scaled-down, ‘historically informed’ version from Heinz Holliger and his non-period Musikkollegium Winterthur, the ‘Scottish’ is paired in this 2011 recording with Mendelssohn’s rarely heard revised version…

Shostakovich Piano Sonata No. 1; 24 Preludes, Op. 34; Piano Sonata No. 2; Nocturne from The Limpid Stream Andrey Gugnin (piano) Hyperion CDA68267 79.27 mins Perhaps more familiar in Australia, as winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition which sponsored this recording, than in the UK, Andrey Gugnin has taken on a tough assignment for his Hyperion debut. An all-Shostakovich disc might sound like a winner – and in the most important sense it is – but none of the works represented here is ingratiating; had the pianist wished to be more so, he could have interlaced the monsters with transcriptions of the young Shostakovich’s theatre music. The early First Piano Sonata out-Prokofievs Prokofiev in its turbulence and edges towards atonality – it was one of the works the senior…

This is Rattle Thomas Adès: Asyla; Harrison Birtwistle: Violin Concerto; Elgar: Enigma Variations; Helen Grime: Fanfares; Knussen: Symphony No. 3 (DVD/Blu-ray) Christian Tetzlaff (violin); London Symphony Orchestra/Simon Rattle LSO Live LSO 3066 115 mins Rattle conjures a stellar orchestral response in each of Elgar’s variations This is an ultra-straight presentation of the opening concert of Rattle’s tenure as music director of the LSO: there are no visual gimmicks, no additional features, and not even the titles of the works in the programme are shown (so it’s worth checking the cue numbers on your remote to make sure you’re hearing the music you think you are). Rattle’s support for British composers, or at least a choice of them, is genuine and longstanding, and four of their 20th- and 21st-century works are…

Stéphanie first picked up a violin at the age of four and the instrument has barely left her grasp since. Born in Bruges, she studied at the Royal Conservatory of Mons and counts Véronique Bogaerts and Hermann Krebbers among her teachers. With traditional studies under her belt, she moved to Geneva’s Centre for Early Music to focus on her love of Baroque violin. Her continued studies, and a passion for 17th-century Italian and Belgian music, led her to establish the Clematis Ensemble with Leonardo García Alarcón. She plays a 1620 Maggini violin, once played by Edith Volckaert.…

Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle John Relyea, Michelle DeYoung; Pal Macsai (narrator); Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/ Edward Gardner Chandos CHSA 5237 (hybrid CD/SACD) 58:56 mins Bartók’s opera of 1911, its powerful symbolist libretto based loosely on the legend of Bluebeard, is a masterpiece. Only two singers appear, plus a spoken prologue; everything else is provided by the vast range, colour and scope of the orchestral writing. Edward Gardner is extremely good at the ‘big moments’, such as the powerful accelerando and crescendo as Judit realises what lies beyond the seventh door, or the unleashed glory of Bluebeard’s domain at the opening of the fifth (admittedly, if this blaze of sound did not make an impression, something would be very wrong indeed). But Bartók seeks extreme, unspoken reaches of the soul and the Bergen…

Schubert Winterreise Ian Bostridge (tenor), Thomas Adès (piano) Pentatone PTC 5186 764 72:26 mins There is an icy detachment in Adès’s evocative touch Ian Bostridge has returned repeatedly over the years to Schubert’s devastating Winterreise, so much so that in 2015 he wrote a book about it. This is his second recording of the song cycle, which sets Wilhelm Müller’s 24 poems on the mental disintegration of a man rejected by his lover, this time accompanied by Thomas Adès on superlative form. The performance was recorded live at Wigmore Hall in September 2018, although for all the audience presence you might think Bostridge and Adès were alone in some chilling concert hall at the end of the world. The death knell is sounded from the off in a ‘Gute Nacht’…

Terry Riley Sun Rings Kronos Quartet; Don Gurnett (vocals), Volti Nonesuch 075597925852 79:25 mins The Voyager 1 space probe, designed to explore the outer Solar System, was launched on 5 September 1977. Twenty-five years later, NASA sought to mark the anniversary with a new commission incorporating space sounds. They approached the Kronos Quartet, who turned to music’s own space voyager: experimental minimalist composer Terry Riley. It’s a kind of time capsule from an earlier, less cynical age The resulting Sun Rings is scored for string quartet, chorus and pre-recorded ‘spacescapes’ created from sounds captured by plasma wave receivers. One of Riley’s best-known works of this century – only now getting its first complete recording – it’s an intriguing, often moving paean to the twin mysteries of outer space and inner…

December round-up Alain Resnais’s 1955 documentary Nuit et brouillard (Night and Fog) remains one of the most powerful and poetic pieces of film made on the subject of the Holocaust. The score, composed by Hanns Eisler, is a tender and dignified accompaniment and one of three jewels on a disc of new recordings by Leipzig and Berlin orchestras under Jürgen Bruns. Both the attention-grabbing Leipzig Symphony and sorrowful Funeral Pieces of Motion Picture Scores are themselves a patchwork of Eisler’s own film music from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, composed while in exile in the US and after his deportation back to Europe. Sublime and haunting. (Capriccio C5368 ★★★★★ ) The big screen version of Downton Abbey is very much a continuation of the above-and-below-stairs odyssey begun by its small…

Sonos Play:5 £449 The boldest of the range, this powerful speaker boasts deep bass, good detail and will fill even the largest room with enjoyable sound thanks to the three 10-inch woofers and three angled tweeters. Sonos Move £399 Multi-room finally makes its way to the garden with the first battery powered speaker from Sonos that has 10-hour battery life and Bluetooth streaming for when you move beyond your home’s Wi-Fi. Sonos Amp £599 This impressive 125W class-D digital amplifier has inputs of your turntable, TV or CD player and can either stream music to other Sonos speakers placed around the house or power a pair of wired speakers.…

Celebrated children’s author Michael Morpurgo and Oscar-nominated film composer Rachel Portman have created a TV adaptation of Morpurgo’s children’s book Mimi and the Mountain Dragon this Christmas. The 2D-animated illustrations will be accompanied by a score performed by the BBC Philharmonic and singers from the Hallé choirs. The story, adapted for screen by Welsh poet Owen Sheers, follows the adventures of Mimi, a shy girl whose village is terrorised by the Mountain Dragon. Mimi then finds the dragon’s baby asleep in her family woodshed. Despite a perilous blizzard, she travels through the night to return the baby dragon to her mother. BBC One; Christmas Day…

Matthew Parris was the Conservative MP for West Derbyshire from 1979-86 and a parliamentary sketchwriter for The Times for 13 years. He now writes columns for The Times as well as The Spectator and has presented BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives series since 2006. He is a prolific travel writer, essayist and editor and his latest book, Fracture: Trauma, Success and the Origins of Greatness, is out next year. I’ve always loved music – as a listener, not as a performer. In many ways, music offers a window into the soul. I’ve learned a lot about people and ideas through music. I grew up in Africa, the oldest in a family of six. My mother was always singing and my father loved music deeply. He was quite a distant character,…