Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i BBC Music Magazine

Claire Jackson Writer and critic ‘There are few pianists who can match Angela Hewitt’s breadth and depth of repertoire. It was an honour to discuss her soon-to-be-completed Bach Odyssey, awards from Wigmore and Leipzig – and that Fazioli fall…’ Page 26 Ian Taylor Journalist ‘As a writer and professional guinea pig, I have tried everything from fad diets to wreck diving in the Bermuda Triangle in the name of journalism. But now a completely different challenge: my first classical concert.’ Page 38 Lucy Parham Concert pianist ‘Like many people, I thought I was fine with my sheet music, but I soon discovered that digital technology and tablets can offer a massive advantage to musicians. Testing score-reading apps was a real eye-opener.’ Page 42…

Trial by absent jury James Naughtie’s interview with Noriko Ogawa (March) was filled with interesting details about the rigours of competition judging and the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ by jury members. It brought back to me a unique happening (I trust!) at the final of the City of Glasgow International Competition for Junior Violinists at Glasgow’s City Hall in 1977. The hall was full and ready for the 7pm start. The Scottish National Orchestra (the ‘Royal’ came later that year) was on stage and the first contestant took to the platform along with conductor Alexander Gibson. The player’s name escapes me, but the first concerto played was the Mendelssohn, and all on stage launched into it with gusto. Halfway through the first movement, the music ground to a halt as the…

450 …musicians. Marin Alsop (above) will conduct huge performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall on 16 & 18 April, the biggest ever staged at the venue. 2 …pauses in Verdi’s Sicilian Vespers at Welsh National Opera, as conductor Carlo Rizzi stopped the action to ask for ringing phones to be turned off. 90 …years old. The BBC Symphony Orchestra plans to recreate its first public concert from 1930. 350 …tonnes of CO2. Opera North is planning on becoming carbon neutral by 2030 by using secondhand props and costumes alongside environmentally sustainable sets.…

While undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumour at King’s College hospital recently, amateur violinist Dagmar Turner was asked to play her instrument mid-operation (left) so that surgeons did not damage the parts of her brain that control her hand movements. The remarkable story was picked up by the press, though it’s not the first time that music and surgery have shared each other’s company… As we relate later in this issue (see p50), back in the early 18th century composer Marin Marais once used the medium of a piece for solo viol to depict his experience under the surgeon’s knife. Given the misery he evidently underwent, Marais would have scarcely believed the comparative comfort enjoyed by today’s patients. These include, in 2014, the Israeli violinist Naomi Elishuv who, like…

This month: WILLIAM BOUGHTON Conductor MY FINEST MOMENT Maw Life Studies Raphael Wallfisch (cello); English String Orchestra/William Boughton Nimbus Records NI5471 (1996) I organised a weekend of music in Malvern for Nicholas Maw’s 60th birthday celebrations in 1995 and the ESO performed Life Studies. This incredibly hard piece, technically and musically, created numerous moments of angst and anxiety within the ensemble during our four days of rehearsals. The premiere performance and subsequent recording by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Neville Marriner had gone down in musician folklore, but I was determined the ESO should tackle this extraordinary work. Nick attended the dress rehearsal and the performance, after which I awaited his verdict. With a gentle smile he said ‘you’ve made the piece your own’ – which…

Oliver Condy Editor Back in February, Nicolas Namoradze, the winner of the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition, gave his Wigmore Hall prize recital – and a terrific programme it was, too. Alongside a Bach sinfonia and the Partita No. 6, the Georgian pianist pulled some York Bowen out of the hat. Each of the 20th-century English composer’s piano etudes are dazzling, inventive affairs, combining a stout Englishness with rich dashes of Debussian colour. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor How to pass a weekend ruined by Storm Dennis? Sulk? Or seize the moment with some Dennis-inspired listening? I went for the latter, sharing the company of Mozart’s Horn Concertos played by Dennis Brain, Schubert symphonies conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, Bellini sung by Dennis O’Neill and, in an adventurous delve…

Odyssey, journey, pilgrimage… whatever you to call it, there seems to be a special appeal to a tour or project that looks beyond a single concert. There’s no one way to go about it. Sometimes an artist explores an aspect of a composer’s work, as in the case of John Eliot Gardiner (above) and his Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. On Christmas Day 1999 they began their Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, performing all of the composer’s surviving church cantatas in one year. Also in 2000, The Sixteen and its conductor Harry Christophers embarked on their first Choral Pilgrimage. The focus wasn’t a single composer, but sacred music brought to the UK’s cathedrals and abbeys. Even when the music isn’t religious, there can be a spiritual aspect to these quests, or…

“I’ve decided that the time has come for me to plunge into the world of score-reading apps” I admit I’m a bit of a technophobe. Yes, I have a smartphone and an underused iPad mini, and I’m a little too addicted to Netflix. But when it comes to my professional life, I’m more analogue than digital. Which is why, up until now, I’ve been sceptical about using a tablet for reading scores during both practice and performance. I’m a busy concert pianist and teacher, and have had little time for deciphering each of the many apps. I’ve also been terrified that a tablet might crash or run out of charge midway through a concert. But technology moves quickly and the time has finally come for me to overcome these fears…

From the chilly wastes of Svalbard to the balmier climes of Australia, music festivals are staged in every corner of our globe, offering even the smallest villages a taste of world-class music-making. Festivals are usually a time to get up-close and personal with your musical heroes too – far from the formality of the concert hall and, crucially, their homes, artists settle in for the week, mingle with their fans and party on into the small hours. Life-long friendships and memories are cast at music festivals, and communities brought together anew. Are you involved in your local musical festival, as a volunteer, sponsor or life-long attendee? We’d love to hear about your experiences. Oliver Condy editor…

Newbury Spring Festival 9-23 May Revel in all-Beethoven programmes from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, pianist John Lill and the Vienna Chamber Symphony. Tel: +44 (0)845 521 8218 Web: www.newburyspringfestival.org.uk Salisbury Festival 22 May-7 June Celebrating the 800th anniversary of the founding of modern Salisbury, the festival includes Howard Moody’s Stone Songs, a choral love-letter to the Cathedral. Tel: +44 (0)1722 320333 Web: www.wiltshirecreative.co.uk English Music Festival 22-25 May Catch an Elgar world premiere from the BBC Concert Orchestra in a Dorchester weekend spanning music from Purcell to Adès. Tel: +44 (0)7808 473889 Web: www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk Festival of Chichester 13 June – 12 July Amid a month-long jamboree mustering over 200 events, violinist Clio Gould sets Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. Tel: +44 (0)1243 816525 Web: www.festivalofchichester.co.uk Peasmarsh Festival 25-28 June Nearing…

Leamington Music Festival 1-5 May There’s Beethoven aplenty, of course, while Leamington’s own Howard Skempton features alongside Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge. Tel: +44 (0)1926 497000 Web: www.leamingtonmusic.org Sheffield Chamber Music Festival 8-16 May ‘Nature’ is the starting point for Sheffield’s slice of the Beethoven cake, and there’s a Steve Reich pop-up in the Winter Gardens. Tel: +44 (0)114 249 6000 Web: www.musicintheround.co.uk Swaledale Festival 23 May - 6 June Guided walks in breath-taking scenery, its very own ‘Reeth Lectures’ and a quartet of quartets – what’s not to like? Tel: +44 (0)1748 880019 Web: www.swaledale-festival.org.uk Elgar Festival 28-31 May In his home city, Worcester’s most famous Wolves supporter is fêted with The Spirit of England and Symphony No. 1. Tel: +44 (0)905 28613 Web: www.elgarfestival.org Gregynog Festival 15-21 June…

OUR FESTIVAL CHOICE Prague Spring Festival When: 7 May – 14 June Tel: +420 (0)227 059 234 Web: www.festival.cz/en It usually opens with a birthday: Smetana’s. But there’s a prelude to this year’s Má Vlast. Prague has a 75th birthday of its own to celebrate and receives an all-Mahler present from the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko. It signals the off for 53 concerts that fill the Czech capital with everything from Vox Luminis’s Bach to Ensemble Modern’s Gérard Grisey via the splendidly named American vocal group A Roomful of Teeth. With the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic and artist-in-residence András Schiff, little wonder Prague has a perky spring in its step. DON’T MISS: Jubilee Concert 19 May Old friends (and new) assemble for a celebratory gala. Mezzo Bernarda…

Wolf Trap 28 May – 18 September In Vienna, VA, rising stars perform with the National Symphony Orchestra in a new production of Puccini’s La bohème; Jean-Yves Thibaudet performs Gershwin’s Piano Concerto, and Yo-Yo Ma and colleagues reunite as the Goat Rodeo Sessions. Tel: 877-965-3872 Web: wolftrap.org Ojai Music Festival 6-11 June Composer Matthias Pintscher assumes the music director post at this festival in California’s Ojai Valley, joined by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Calder Quartet and LA Phil New Music Group. Tel: 805-646-2053 Web: ojaifestival.org Grant Park Music Festival 10 June – 15 August Carlos Kalmar conducts a ten-week season mixing popular fare and rarities with a lineup that includes pianist Simon Trpcÿeski and violinist Christian Tetzlaff in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Tel: 312-742-7638 Web: grantparkmusicfestival.com Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival 13-28…

Adam Chamber Music Festival 4-13 February 2021 This biennial summer festival takes place in Nelson on New Zealand’s South Island. International guest artists are invited to collaborate with some the country’s finest musicians for ten days of live performances in small, intimate venues. Tel: +64 274 384 048 Web: www.music.org.nz Pacific Music Festival 10 July-3 August The Japanese festival – founded by Leonard Bernstein only a few months before he died – brings together the finest orchestral players from the US and Europe. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the festival welcomes back artistic director Valery Gergiev to conduct Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Mariinsky Theatre. Tel: +81 11 242 2211 Web: www.pmf.or.jp Baalbeck International Festival July The Lebanese festival is marking two major anniversaries this year: Beethoven’s 250th and…

Mendelssohn began to make his mark as a composer at a breathtakingly early age There’s a story that someone once handed the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche a pamphlet entitled ‘German Culture without the Jew’. Nietzsche turned it round and handed it back with the words, ‘What German culture without the Jew?’. He would no doubt have been thinking of Heinrich Heine, whose poetry was so popular that the Nazis were later forced to keep it in print even during the War, though of course omitting his name. But he would also have been thinking of Felix Mendelssohn, whose statue in his home city of Leipzig those same Nazis could only remove under cover of darkness, for fear of provoking a massed uprising. This was, after all, the same Mendelssohn who had…

The work  Parsifal is Richard Wagner’s last music-drama, composed from 1877-82 and performed at Bayreuth for the first time in July 1882, around six months before the composer’s death. But right from the 1840s when, in his 30s, Wagner read the medieval knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic Parzival, he was sure it would be his final opera. Music of transcendent beauty accompanies the narration of Gurnemanz, the old knight Wagner was increasingly interested in medieval sagas, and applied himself like a hyper-motivated PhD student to studying them, making or breaking connections among them and brooding on what musical form he might give them, having extracted the dramatic content that interested him. He was especially fascinated by the Holy Grail and by the Spear that pierced Christ’s side at…

Daniel Barenboim (conductor) Despite my caveats about DVDs, Barenboim’s 2016 performance from the Schiller Theater in Berlin is to be recommended. The production, by Dmitri Tcherniakov, is beneath contempt, but the musical side of things is the best I have heard in decades – listen and be shaken. One chief source of pleasure is the majestic Gurnemanz of René Pape, a singer with a gorgeous voice, but who I’ve often found running on automatic. Here, he and his colleagues are nearly ideal in one of Barenboim’s most committed interpretations. ( BelAir BAC128 ) Jaap van Zweden (conductor) Recorded in concert in 2011 is this radiant account from the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, with an excellent set of soloists under Jaap van Zweden, who offers a personal and intense…

The idea of ‘the difficult second album’ seems to plague pop and rock artists, but I’m not sure classical musicians have the same problem. It’s certainly not the case for 12 Ensemble, whose fantastic second album Death and the Maiden receives a glowing five-star review this month. At its heart is Schubert’s quartet arranged for string orchestra, and it sounds thrilling in the ensemble’s hands. Then there’s John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London; they follow their sensational Korngold debut (see November’s ‘Recording of the Month’) with a very fragrant disc of French treasures – our Orchestral Choice. Plus there’s this month’s Chamber Choice, which sees Bach keyboard works reimagined by the viol consort Phantasm. It’s Phantastic. Michael Beek Reviews Editor This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael Beek,…

Escales Chabrier: España; Debussy: Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune; Duruflé: Trois Danses; Ibert: Escales; Massenet: Thaïs – Meditation; Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole; Saint-Saëns: Le Rouet d’Omphale Sinfonia of London/John Wilson Chandos CHSA 5252 (hybrid CD/SACD) 79:05 mins How can these lovely pieces have been left on the shelf? Until now John Wilson had been known to me only as a conductor of musicals (my wife and I keep his wonderful video of Oklahoma! as a Christmas treat). But I’ve also heard on the grapevine that orchestral players will travel long distances to make music with him and this recording shows why. It features a collection of what Sir Thomas Beecham used to call ‘lollipops’, almost always consisting, as here, of French music, so I suppose more accurately termed ‘bonbons’. They…

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat, Op. 19; Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat, Op. 73 ‘Emperor’ Kristian Bezuidenhout (piano); Freiburg Baroque Orchestra/Pablo Heras-Casado Harmonia Mundi HMM 902411 60:03 mins Bezuidenhout and Heras-Casado give a glittering account These are invigorating performances of Beethoven’s first and last concertos, conveying an admirable sense of spontaneity. In the opening movement of No. 2 (actually composed before the C major work known as No. 1, but published after it) Kristian Bezuidenhout and Pablo Heras-Casado take the Allegro con brio tempo marking at face value, producing a glittering account that gives us an idea of the impression Beethoven’s own virtuosity must have made on his audiences. This is his only concerto without timpani, but by playing along in the initial tutti Bezuidenhout…

Handel Agrippina Joyce DiDonato, Franco Fagioli, Elsa Benoit, Luca Pisaroni, Jakub Józef Orlinski, Andrea Mastroni, Carlo Vistoli, Biagio Pizzuti, Marie-Nicole Lemieux; Il P’omo d’Oro/Maxim Emelyanychev Erato 9029533658 229:41 mins (3 discs) Joyce DiDonato gives a matchless performance in the title role This Agrippina jostles for top place among the opera’s complete recordings. Joyce DiDonato is matchless in the title role, most other cast members likewise outstrip rivals and their vocal qualities are ideal for their dramatis personae. Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev repeatedly hits the sweet spot in his tempos, dynamics and realisations, the score aiming to mirror Handel’s lost original. In the story, Agrippina connives for her weakling son Nerone to replace second husband Claudio as Roman Emperor. Claudio, thought lost at sea, returns and plans to resign the Empire to…

Arianna Handel: Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio, HWV 78; Haydn: Arianna a Naxos, HOB. XXVIB:2; A Scarlatti: L’Arianna Kate Lindsey (mezzo-soprano); Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen Alpha Classics ALPHA 576 72:13 mins Kate Lindsey adds muscle to her lofty and dignified arias Ardent, brilliant, stately: mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey probes the inner states of the mythical Cretan princess Ariadne. Abandoned by Theseus after helping him escape the Minotaur, Ariadne loves in extremis. Lindsey’s ravishing performances of cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti, Handel and Haydn immerse us in her joys and suffering. The Ariadne of each cantata is very different. Scarlatti’s heroine is almost embarrassingly intimate: she caresses her beloved, rejoices in her projected marriage, then erupts as she realises she has been betrayed. By the end of this emotional journey, Lindsey’s pure, straight tone has…

JS Bach The Well-Tempered Consort I – Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I & II; Musical Offering, BWV 1079, etc Phantasm The consort sound is a balm of well-tempered, flowing sweetness Linn CKD 618 66:55 mins  I see what they did there with the title, but this programme is in fact a first instalment of arrangements from both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier alongside moments from the Clavier Übung III and The Musical Offering. An academic exercise in counterpoint? Think again. In the hands of Phantasm this is anything but. Performing fugues with string quartets is an age-old device for selling the dialogue of these works, but in this consort of characters, new opinions are voiced and Bach’s invention is thrown into relief. The consort sound is…

The Long 17th Century Keyboard Works by Byrd, Locke, Buxtehude, Sweelinck etc Daniel-Ben Pienaar (piano) Avie AV 2415 150:08 mins (2 discs) It’s thanks to Pienaar’s technique that these translations work well This cabinet of musical curiosities curated by pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar showcases 36 works by as many composers, offering the listener a musical odyssey across 17th-century Europe. Alongside famous keyboard composers (Byrd, Buxtehude, Louis Couperin, Frescobaldi) are shadowy names like Arauxo, Bruna, Macedo and Schildt, and pieces recorded for the first time on the piano. Pienaar displays his collection thematically, connecting dances and variations, imitative and evocative works that suggest battles and birdsong, that paint portraits, tell stories and write elegies. It’s a deeply personal selection that makes for a captivating sequence. The three-dozen works were originally conceived for…

April round-up In the late-1950s, while the teenage Charles Lloyd was learning his trade on the Memphis blues circuit, a 17-year-old Carla Bley was working as a cigarette girl in New York’s Birdland jazz club. That listening education was the foundation for all that came after, from composing for large ensembles to playing in small groups like her long-standing trio with electric bassist Steve Swallow and saxophonist Andy Sheppard. There’s something special about hearing a big band composer/pianist playing in an exposed trio setting: it seems to distil the performance. Life Goes On comprises three characteristically pungent Bley tunes, each one having three parts. The theme in the blue-washed title suite (inspired by a recent illness) is picked over by Bley, before Sheppard’s nimble tenor knits it up; Swallow’s signature…

Bach’s Musical Universe – The Composer and His Work Christoph Wolff Norton 978-0-393-05071-4 400pp (hb) £31 The Listener magazine welcomed the appearance of Alfred Einstein’s post-war Mozart. His Character. His Work, praising a book ‘In which a great scholar, saturated in a subject unbends, sits back, and writes easily about it’. The reviewer could just as easily have been describing Christoph Wolff’s sequel (20 years in the making) to his Pulitzer-nominated Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. That book concerned itself primarily with biography; its successor tackles the music in greater depth, though not in the sort of analytical depth that drills deep into the musical linguistics. Rather, Wolff is out to examine Bach’s mindset through his habit of creating paradigmatic collections within a genre and, having created the ne…

What better way to get into classical music than in the company of a celebrated musician? The Southbank’s Encounters scheme recently invited a bunch of classical music newcomers to experience world-class music-making, guided by, among others, composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, violinist Nicola Benedetti and baritone, composer and all-round musical hero Roderick Williams. Williams took our writer Ian Taylor, himself a concert newbie, under his wing, and together they enjoyed a little light Rachmaninov and a bit of Holst. But was Williams’s enthusiasm enough to make a convert out of our unsuspecting good sport? Find out on p38. As with most things, I suspect that the key to loving music is largely down to the person who introduces you to it in the first place, whether a teacher, parent or friend. The…

Noa Wildschut violinist Born: Hilversum, Netherlands Career highlight: Performing at the National Liberation Concert – an open-air concert on an Amsterdam canal to celebrate freedom – live on national TV in front of the Dutch King and Queen. Plus a smaller and more intimate moment: making music with the kids from the favelas in Brazil and Ecuador. Musical hero: Violinist Janine Jansen is a source of inspiration, as both a musician and a human, as are my past and present teachers Vera Beths and Antje Weithaas. Dream concert: My dream concert will become a reality this summer: playing on the Galápagos Islands, making beautiful music dedicated to nature and conservation. Theo Parry Baritone Born: Aylesbury, UK Career highlight: As well as winning the Trinity Laban Gold Medal, the…

1st: Composers Daphne Oram and Desmond Briscoe launch the BBC Radiophonic Workshop at Maida Vale Studios, London. Set up to create sound effects for both BBC TV and radio, the Workshop will, over the next 40 years, contribute to programmes such as Doctor Who, Quartermass and the Pit and The Goon Show and employ musicians including Delia Derbyshire and Paddy Kingsland. 2nd: Played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Malcolm Sargent, Vaughan Williams’s Ninth Symphony gets an unenthusiastic reception at its premiere at the Royal Festival Hall. Reflecting on the critics’ reaction, the composer, now 85 years old, says ‘I don’t think they can quite forgive me for still being able to do it at my age.’ 6th: At Augusta National Golf Club, Arnold Palmer wins The Masters for the…

Tsintsadze Five Pieces on Folk Themes Daniil Shafran (cello), Nina Musinyan (piano) Cello Classics CC1008 These little gems exist for several instrumentations, but it’s the cello version that grabs me, especially through Shafran’s heart-melting playing in this 1957 recording. Georgian composer Sulkhan Tsintsadze possessed this art of writing directly into someone’s heart, often with original harmony turns. My favourites are the two slow pieces, Arobnaya and Lullaby. Castelnuovo-Tedesco Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 66 ‘I profeti’ Jascha Heifetz (violin); Los Angeles Philharmonic/Alfred Wallenstein RCA G0100026436513 Written for the fingers of the almighty Jascha Heifetz, the three movements of this thrilling work bear the names of the Old Testament prophets Jeremiah, Elijah and Isaiah. The unusual cadenza in the first movement, for violin and harp, is a wonderful highlight – elements…

My newspaper once had an editor who opined regularly in print about how to improve London’s public transport, yet privately admitted that he had last travelled by bus or tube in the 1970s. Until recently I felt a similar unease when writing about music in schools. My three offspring had long since passed through childhood, more or less unscathed. I still felt I should take part in the music-education debate, but I was one step removed, emotionally and philosophically. Then something mad happened. Shortly after I qualified for my bus pass, I became a father again. My latest sprog, Alice, is now pushing stridently through the terrible twos. Suddenly, I’m revisiting all those educational dilemmas I faced 30 years ago. Do I attempt to buy a broom cupboard in the…

Goldberg Variations The story goes that Bach penned this work to brighten the insomniac nights of Count Kaiserling (left). Whatever the truth, the beautiful aria and 30 dazzling variations add up to a remarkable work, published in 1741. The Well-Tempered Clavier This mighty collection is made up of two books of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, written 20 years apart. The title refers to the emerging ‘well-tempered’ tuning system, which meant that all the keys sounded equally in tune on a keyboard instrument. Six Partitas These six keyboard suites of dance movements were first published in 1726. Although they were his Op. 1, Bach had been composing for 20 years. He offered them ‘to music lovers in order to refresh their spirits’. Italian Concerto This…

As long as printed music has been around, musicians have searched for ways to make manual page-turning a thing of the past. Among many now-forgotten inventions, the 1880s saw the arrival of Padbury’s Patent Indispensable Music Leaf Turner which could be clipped to a music stand and operated by pulling on a cord with your knee, foot or other appendage. And 1954’s electro-mechanical page turner (above), although slightly more high-tech, still didn’t catch on. Of course, you could always learn your music off by heart.…

Daily life also barges into the realm of instrumentation. Three vacuum cleaners and a floor polisher famously made their concert debut in Arnold’s A Grand, Grand Overture, written in 1956 for the first of Gerard Hoffnung’s London concerts of caricature. It’s a piece that now should be left to period instrument orchestras, as only upright vacuum cleaners of the 1950s (below) are able to generate sufficient noise. A typewriter rules the roost in Leroy Anderson’s The Typewriter (1950), though its classical debut occurred in 1917 during Satie’s Parade, in the company of milk bottles, a foghorn, rifle and other ‘found’ sounds. Four Parisian taxi horns honked their way into Gershwin’s An American in Paris (1928), recently becoming the subject of scholarly debate about their exact tuning. But it has taken…

Proms at St Jude’s 27 June – 5 July Aurora Orchestra plays Copland, Voces8 tangles with Tallis and Willard White jazzes things up in Hampstead Garden Suburb Tel: +44 (0)20 3322 8123 Web: www.promsatstjudes.org.uk BBC Proms 17 July – 12 September One of the most anticipated events of the classical music year, the 2020 programme will be announced on 22 April. There’ll be full details in our Proms issue. Tel: +44 (0)845 401 5034 (UK only) Web: www.bbc.co.uk/proms Tête à Tête Opera Festival 24 July – 20 September Experimental mayhem and piquant social commentary return to King’s Cross and environs thanks to the festival behind Toscatastrophe and steampunk opera. Web: www.tete-a-tete.org.uk Grimeborn Opera 29 July – 5 September Rameau, Wagner and Amy Beach were on the menu at the Arcola…

Norfolk and Norwich Festival When: 8-24 May Tel: + 44 (0) 1603 531800 Web: nnfestival.org.uk ‘The Passing of Time’ is one of the drivers of this year’s festival. As well it might – the clock is ticking towards a 250th-anniversary edition in 2022. And it’s straight in at the deep end with Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time performed amid the timeless splendours of Norwich Cathedral. Among artists hoping to make time stand still are Vox Luminis, tenor Ian Bostridge, I Fagiolini and pianist Richard Goode. In the Spiegeltent, meanwhile, circus, cabaret and burlesque beckon. DON’T MISS: Britten Sinfonia 15 May Trumpeter Alison Balsom hops aboard the Sinfonia’s time machine with Maxwell Davies and Berio rearranging Purcell and John Woolrich reimagining Scarlatti. Plus Ligeti savours the Mysteries of the…

Iford Arts 23 May – 19 September With Handel’s Acis and Galatea as a bucolic postscript, peripatetic Iford lavishes Lehár on Bath and introduces Belcombe Court to the wiles of Bizet’s Carmen. Tel: +44 (0)1225 463362 Web: www.ifordarts.org.uk Grange Park Opera 4 June – 19 July The premiere of Anthony Bolton’s new opera about Alexander Litvinenko complements Puccini’s heart-tugging La bohème and Ponchielli’s seldom-seen La Gioconda. Tel: +44 (0)1962 737373 Web: www.grangeparkopera.co.uk Neville Holt Opera 10 June – 1 July Leicestershire’s 2019 Stirling Prize-winning opera theatre sets Verdi’s La traviata and Mozart’s Don Giovanni cheek by jowl. Tel: +44 (0)115 846 7777 Web: www.nevillholtopera.co.uk Dorset Opera Festival 21–25 July Bryanston’s operatic summer school crowns Musorgsky’s epic Boris Godunov with a relative Puccini rarity: La rondine. Tel: +44 (0)1202 499199 Web:…

Beethoven Festival Bonn 13 March – 27 September The City of Beethoven’s birth squeezes two festivals into an extended celebration, and heads to Cologne for the Missa Solemnis. Tel: +49 (0)228 5020 1313 Web: www.beethovenfest.de Festival de Saint-Denis 2 June – 6 July Paris’s northern commune enjoys orchestral concerts in the Basilica and chamber music in Légion d’Honneur’s pavilion. Tel: +33 (0)14813 0607 Web: www.festival-saint-denis.com Istanbul Music Festival 2-25 June There’s Eastern promise aplenty with the Borodin Quartet’s Shostakovich and Turgay Erdener’s ‘alla turca’ tribute to Beethoven. Tel: +90 (0)216 556 9800 Web: www.muzik.iksv.org Holland Festival 4-28 June Identity and connection preoccupy a lively festival that includes the premiere of Louis Andriessen’s homage to Frans Brüggen. Tel: +31 (0)20 523 7787 Web: www.hollandfestival.nl Granada Festival 25 June –12 July Late-night…

Oregon Bach Festival 26 June – 12 July For its 50th-anniversary season, this early music-focused festival presents three of Bach’s choral masterworks – the B minor Mass, St Matthew Passion and St John Passion – led by conductors including Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Julian Wachner. Tel: 541-346-5666 Web: oregonbachfestival.org Marlboro Music Festival 11 July – 9 August Under the co-direction of pianists Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss, this Vermont gathering spotlights intergenerational collaborations. Programmes are announced at the last moment. Tel: 215-569-4690 Web: marlboromusic.org Glimmerglass Festival 11 July – 25 August A new Francesca Zambello production of The Sound of Music is the featured musical at Glimmerglass, joining three mainstage operas: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Handel’s Rinaldo and Wagner’s Die Feen. Tel: 607-547-2255 Web: glimmerglass.org Festival Napa Valley 17-26 July Included in…

Form However energetic, impassioned or full of fantasy, form in Mendelssohn’s music is both strong and supple – yet it can also be unconventional. The Op. 13 String Quartet ‘frames’ a powerful four-movement structure with a song-like introduction and postlude, like a fictional narrator recollecting events within a novel. Dynamic Lyricism Mendelssohn creates wonderful soaring melodic lines, absorbing them into his larger structural thinking apparently without effort. The long-breathed melody that opens the Violin Concerto is the springboard for a magnificent and long dramatic musical paragraph. Tone-Painting Mendelssohn had a flair for vivid musical illustration and for creating haunting musical moods: think of the evocation of the multifarious magic of night in the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture and theatre music. He was a dab hand with watercolours, and often painted…

As he entered his last decade, much of Wagner’s attention was devoted to setting up and running the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which opened with a production of the Ring cycle in 1876. Though his life was now comparatively stable to what had gone before, financial good sense still eluded him and he was reliant on Ludwig II of Bavaria to fund his grand ambitions. And even at this late stage, an emotional dalliance with the poet Judith Gautier and fallings out with friends – not least the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche – were still very much part of the Wagnerian scenery.…

Why did you decide to pair the sonatas in the way you have? I felt that putting these sonatas together by tonality, harmony or speed was not enough for the complex personality and beauty of Scarlatti. Western countries have always thought that the negative has a positive value – think about Romantic music by Beethoven and Schumann; they create from opposition. I really wanted to show that in this earlier period, contrast is not a negative thing. These pairs of sonatas – and the cover of the album – follow this idea. Do you think Scarlatti was ahead of his time? I wouldn’t say ahead of his time, but I’d love to say that because his music is so beautiful and so true, it’s eternal. It is for me, for…

The Soviet-Armenian composer and pianist, most widely known for his Trumpet Concerto, followed Khachaturian in writing colourful Armenian folk-inspired music. Born in Yerevan, Arutiunian joined the Yerevan State Conservatory’s children group in 1927. At age 14 he was admitted to the Yerevan Conservatory, studying piano and composition, and graduated on the eve of World War Two. He enrolled at the Moscow Conservatory and in 1948 was awarded the Stalin Prize for his cantata Motherland , composed as his graduation piece. He wrote his Trumpet Concerto in 1950 for the virtuoso player Timofei Dokschitser.…

Delibes entered the Paris Conservatoire aged 12, where he eventually studied under Adolphe Adam. He began his theatre career as an accompanist at the Théâtre Lyrique. His first operetta, Deux Sous de Chabon (1855) led to a series of popular short works in that genre. While second chorus master at the Paris Opéra, he achieved success in ballet, contributing to La Source (1866), then writing the full-length ballet Coppélia (1870), the success of which enabled him to turn entirely to composition. His operas include Le Roi l’a dit (1873), Jean de Nivelle (1880) and Lakmé (1883).…

JS Bach Magnificat Handel Messiah Eloquence 484 0411 (1954/55) 200:47 mins (3 discs) Stentorian and often ponderous, the first of Adrian Boult’s recordings of Messiah is very much of its time, though his London Philharmonic forces are captured in remarkably detailed mono sound. ★★ Britten Cantata Academica; Missa Brevis etc Eloquence 484 0658 (1958-61) 71:19 mins Both as conductor or organist George Malcolm excels, securing a taut account of the inexplicably sidelined Cantata Academica. On Westminster Cathedral home-ground the Missa Brevis radiates authority. ★★★★ Janácek Six Moravian Choruses etc Harmonia Mundi HMM 932097 (2012) 71:42 mins From the al fresco freshness of the Moravian Choruses to a lambent male-voice Ave Maria, Daniel Reuss and his Cappella Amsterdam offer incisive, engagingly communicated insights. ★★★★ Vepres de Paques Chant de l’Eglise de…

Venezuelan born and of German-Jewish heritage, Reynaldo Hahn (below right) was taken by his parents to Paris in 1877. A child prodigy, he made a sensation at the salon of Mathilde Bonaparte singing Offenbach while accompanying himself on the piano. Through most of his career Hahn gravitated towards piano and voice, and regarded the string quartet as an ‘incomplete’ ensemble. However, in 1939 he embarked on composing his first quartet, a relatively short work. After completing this, he immediately began work on a far more ambitious, serious and larger-scaled Second Quartet; forced to leave Paris by the Nazi occupation, he completed the work while in Monte Carlo.…

JS Bach Cello Suites Nos 1-6 Eloquence 482 8523 (1960) 109:32 mins (2 discs) Jean-Max Clément’s survey of the Cello Suites now feels like a last gasp in the grand rhetorical tradition: copious espressivo vibrato, tasteful portamentos and soulful sarabandes. ★★★ Bentzon • Petrassi • Scriabin Piano Works  Danacord DAOCD 859 (1986) 157:37 mins (2 discs) A generous collection of premiere CD transfers from the mid-1980s, featuring definitive, high-impact accounts of Niels Bentzon playing his own piano music, and an invaluable reading of Petrassi’s Invenzioni. ★★★★ Schubert Impromptus, etc Eloquence 484 0777 (1958/60) 111:30 mins (2 discs) An outstanding example of DG’s typically clear and bass-light piano recordings of the late-’50s matching Jörg Demus’s immaculate phrasing, glowing cantabile and elegant soundworld to perfection. ★★★★★ Tartini The Devil’s Sonata Harmonia Mundi…

Antheil Serenades 1 & 2 etc Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen CPO 555 196-2  Cinematic works with swagger and sway from Antheil’s later, more tonal period; save for 1921’s The Golden Bird. The German players are on point and the recording top-notch. (MB) ★★★★ Asheim • Tchaikovsky Orchestral Works Ensemble Allegria et al Lawo LWC 1191  There’s some gorgeous playing from Ensemble Allegria in tuneful Tchaikovsky, but Asheim’s Høgsongen is less immediately appealing. (RF) ★★★ Beethoven Violin Sonatas Nos 3, 6-8 Lorenzo Gatto (violin), Julien Libeer (piano) Alpha Classic ALPHA 565  This duo’s playing bursts with lively energy and good taste without short-changing the rawness that gives Beethoven its edge. It’s a substantial programme too: the third volume of the complete violin sonatas. (RF) ★★★★ Berio • MacMillan • Verbey Trombone Concertos…

33. Wylam Brewery Where: Newcastle upon Tyne Built: 1929 Seats/standing: 800 On 14 May 1929, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) came to Newcastle to declare open the North East Coast Exhibition, a huge event designed to showcase the region’s industrial and commercial prowess. Over four million people would go on to attend over the following five months, with each millionth visitor presented with a commemorative gold watch. Several buildings were constructed for the exhibition, including a Palace of Engineering, a Palace of Industry, a stadium and a Palace of Arts. Of these, only the Palace of Arts still stands today, its art deco style and fine red-tiled dome making it easy to spot in the city’s centrally located Exhibition Park. Having served as a museum for much of…

Memorable maestro Richard Bratby’s feature on the CBSO’s first 100 years (March) poignantly reminded me of the many happy hours I spent in the Birmingham Town Hall as an enthusiastic young concert-goer from 1944-51. Those Sunday afternoon concerts during the tenure of George Weldon were the highlight of my week – in one season they featured a complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies, and I also recall a fine seasonal performance of Handel’s Messiah, during which I irreverently ate a bag of mince pies. Weldon was an immensely popular conductor and tended to assume a personality and appearance on the rostrum similar to that of Malcolm Sargent. An amateur racing driver, he exuded a grounded but outgoing persona and was frequently seen in a city pub with the then leader of…

Hallé heroics Congratulations to Delyana Lazarova, who has won the first ever Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition. The Bulgarian (above) will now become assistant conductor at the Hallé for two years, working with music director Sir Mark Elder. Uniquely, the competition involved a stage in which participants were invited to analyse digital avatars of themselves, created from their movements on the podium. Shades of play After taking heavy flak online for making an unlikely fashion statement during a recital in Canada, Yuja Wang has explained on Facebook that ‘humiliating and deeply upsetting’ treatment at the hands of border officials was to blame. Arriving at Vancouver’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts with her eyes ‘still visibly red and swollen from crying’ the pianist decided that ‘wearing sunglasses was the only…

Spanish-born violinist Francisco Fullana heads to Potton Hall in Suffolk this month to record works by JS Bach, Kreisler, Tarrega and Paganini. The recording, which includes Fullani’s own arrangement of Albéniz’s Asturias and Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Two Violins, played with Stella Chen, is set to be released later this year by Orchid Classics. Third Coast Percussion is in the studio with Clarice Assad soon, recording for Chicago’s Cedille Records. The Grammy-winning percussion ensemble, which is based in The Windy City, has also commissioned a new work from composer Danny Elfman, which will be recorded this year for the Orange Mountain Music label. Canterbury’s Caritas Chamber Choir recently worked with the Holst Society to record 14 of the composer’s unaccompanied part-songs, nine of which have been recorded for the very…

Let’s listen to the music of the night: it’s no surprise that soundscapes of nocturnal imagination have released such and rich strange dreamscapes from composers. At night, whether we’re dreaming or partying, we give ourselves over to the unfiltered power of our subconscious. Which is the place that so many composers access in their music. Take the nocturne as an idea and a genre. What the Irish composer John Field began, Chopin and Liszt took to new heights in their fantastical imaginings for solo piano in the 19th century. The nocturne was a place in which the usual rules of musical form and convention could be suspended, so that Chopin’s dreams could be spun in sounds of gossamer evanescence and sometimes disturbing weightlessness. Debussy’s orchestral Nocturnes take the principle even…

Karl Nehring Ohio, US Johann Jöhannsson’s 12 Conversations with Thilo Heinzmann for string quartet is lovingly performed on disc by the Brussels-based Echo Collective. It spurs me as a listener to reflect, perhaps even to grieve, but not to despair; to contemplate darkness, but not to be engulfed by it; to remember the disappointments life brings, but not to succumb to bitterness; and to confront the inevitability of death while simultaneously savouring the transient but immediately embracing wonder of life. One can only wonder what other treasures Jöhannsson might have gone on to compose.…

“Working with masters who are willing to collaborate with me is the best kind of togetherness you could hope for” Sharon Isbin is one of a handful of classical guitarists of the post-Andrés Segovia age who have crossed into something approaching celebrity. That is what happens when you’ve performed alongside Sting, Joan Baez and Mark O’Connor; have founded the Juilliard School’s guitar department; and have commissioned concert works from the likes of John Corigliano, Aaron Jay Kernis, Joan Tower and Christopher Rouse. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface of Isbin’s reach into popular culture, which includes a cameo in the pioneering Showtime series The L Word and a performance in the White House before Barack and Michelle Obama. Isbin’s desire to expand the guitar repertoire has sparked collaborations with…

Purcell Rondeau from Abdelazer Suite Starting off with some wonderful British music, this has such catchy rhythms that it makes me want to dance. It’s also a link to my second piece… Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra This is a fantastic set of variations on Purcell’s theme (above) and a great connection between composers across the ages. You don’t have to be a young person to appreciate it; Britten’s inventiveness is astounding for listeners of any age. JS Bach Goldberg Variations This is a long piece, so I’d recommend listening to the opening aria – the theme from which all the variations come – and then dipping into random movements. The music is like an aural depiction of a Swiss clock action: the variations fit together with…

Unless you want to be endlessly touching the screen to turn pages, you’ll need a Bluetooth pedal. There are several excellent pedals available but I chose the iRig Blue Turn. Adding a pedal to an app enables you to turn pages and scroll through your score with your feet. Although I performed all my concerts during the trial from memory (so I didn’t use scores), I know many friends and colleagues who swear by the Bluetooth pedal in live performance. The kit is portable and lightweight but I initially felt confused with my foot sometimes needing to be in two places at once – on the sustain pedal and the iRig. I also found it slightly complicated to set up, but once I’d got going progress was swift. Although the…

Brighton When: 2-24 May Tel: + 44 (0)1273 709709 Web: www.brightonfestival.org ‘I have travelled the world, but never as far as imagination can take me,’ observes Brighton’s guest director, the writer Lemn Sissay. And, from Ray Lee’s ‘symphonic Sci-Fi’ to Barely Methodical Troupe’s ‘Bromance’, imagination runs riot in a festival that embraces the shock of the new as much as it cherishes the imagination of past ages. So, while the Kronos Quartet ventures into outer space with Terry Riley’s Sun Rings, La Nuova Musica explores the world of ‘Handel’s Unsung Heroes’. DON’T MISS: Brighton Festival Chorus 14 May The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied the Chorus’s debut just over half a century ago and Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony brings them together again under Michael Seal. Chipping Campden Festival When: 9-23…

Easter at King’s 7-13 April New director of music Daniel Hyde presides over a Passiontide festival, including Bach’s St John Passion and Dvoÿák’s Stabat Mater. Tel: +44 (0)1223 769340 Web: www.kings.cam.ac.uk/easter Frinton Festival 22-25 May Essex embraces string quartets by Verdi and Beethoven, and tenor Ian Bostridge sings Schubert’s Winterreise. Tel: +44 (0)1255 670808 Web: www.frintonfestival.com Thaxted Festival 19 June – 12 July The Parish Church hosts Beethoven from the Brodskys, and baritone Roderick Williams braving ‘The Great Outdoors’. Tel: +44 (0)1371 831421 Web: www.thaxtedfestival.co.uk Harwich Festival 25 June-5 July Stile Antico salutes 400 years of the Pilgrim Fathers setting sail, while Sarah Nicolls’s inside-out piano navigates climate change. Tel: +44 (0)7425 145022 Web: www.harwichfestival.co.uk Cambridge Summer Music Festival 10-26 July College chapels, the Old Divinity School and the American…

Sonorities Festival Belfast 22-25 April From late-evening Feldman to cannily curated club nights, artists from over 20 countries join Belfast’s Hard Rain Ensemble for the city’s new music biennial. Tel: +44 (0)28 9097 4867 Web: www.sonorities.net Tectonics Glasgow 2 & 3 May With the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, a sonic bothy and a nod to the Fluxus art movement, Tectonics tantalises. Tel: +44 (0)141 353 8000 Web: www.tectonicsfestival.com Loch Shiel Festival 13-17 May Anchored by the Maxwell String Quartet and featuring pianist Martin Roscoe and the Broen Ensemble, Beethoven meets kayaking and al fresco frolics. Web: www.lochshielfestival.com Clandeboye Festival 14-22 August With pianist Barry Douglas, Camerata Ireland and soprano Ailish Tynan spearheading celebrations, Beethoven’s 250th anniversary is front and centre. Tel: +44 (0)28 9024 1919 Web: www.camerata-ireland.com The Cumnock Tryst…

Michael Ende, one of Germany’s most cherished authors, was born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1929 and lived in the town until he was six. It wasn’t until late into the Second World War that Ende returned to the safety of Garmisch to escape the bombs dropping on Munich. The son of surrealist painter Edgar Ende – whose work was banned by the Nazi Party – Michael discarded his military draft papers and instead worked as a courier for the Bavarian Resistance. A love of art and poetry inspired his writing, which included plays and novels. His most famous works are those for children, including the fantasy epic The Neverending Story.…

1809 LIFE: Felix Mendelssohn is born on 3 February in Hamburg, the second child – after sister Fanny – of Abraham Mendelssohn, a prominent banker, and Lea Salomon. TIMES: The bloody Battle of Wagram brings a decisive success for Napoleon’s French Empire and its German allies in the War of the Fifth Coalition against Great Britain and the Austrian Empire. 1822 LIFE: During his family’s holiday to Switzerland, he meets the composers Spohr and Hiller and begins his Piano Quartet in C minor, which is published as his Op. 1 the next year. TIMES: The Hamburg banker Elisabeth Berenberg dies aged 72. The sole heiress of the Berenberg Bank, she was the only woman to serve as a partner in the company since its founding in 1590. 1829 LIFE: He…

Hans Knappertsbusch (conductor) Jon Vickers (Parsifal), Hans Hotter (Gurnemanz) et al; Bayreuther Festspielorchester Orfeo C690074L Wagner wanted performances of Parsifal to be given only in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, but his heirs weren’t able to maintain a ban, and from 1913 onwards it has been performed throughout the world. Thanks to the extraordinary atmosphere it creates from the opening bar, interpretations of the most varied kinds have been attached to it. The fundamental thing to bear in mind is, perhaps, that Parsifal is not a religious work, not like a mass or Passion, but a study at the highest artistic level of what makes people religious, how a genuinely religious community is possible: above all, how we can see the basic beliefs of Christianity without believing in their literal truth. Tenor…

D Scarlatti Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. 2 – Sonatas in G major, KK 63, 144, 427 & 431; F sharp minor, KK 25; F sharp major, KK 318; C minor, KK 40; G minor, KK 30 & 35; F minor, KK 466; E major, KK 531; D minor, KK 64; A major, KK 279; D major, KK 118; B minor; KK 87 & C major, KK 95 Federico Colli (piano) Chandos CHAN 20134 62:42 mins W Dean Sutcliffe’s erudite liner note points out that amid the many things we don’t know about Domenico Scarlatti – there are no letters in his hand, no autographs of his sonatas – is how he wanted his sonatas to be paired, and it was apparently his intention that they should be. The two most authoritative…

Beethoven Symphonies Nos 5 & 7 NDR Radio Philharmonic/ Andrew Manze Pentatone PTC 5186 814 (hybrid CD/ SACD) 74:12 mins A classics graduate and sometime virtuoso violinist, Andrew Manze started conducting as an early music specialist before moving into symphonic repertoire, notably with Vaughan Williams. As principal conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie since 2014, his most recent recordings have been part of an award-winning complete cycle of Mendelssohn symphonies. Now, in Beethoven’s 250th-anniversary year, they have produced this thrilling contribution to the ever-growing recorded catalogue of the ubiquitous Fifth and the effervescent Seventh. The Fifth’s familiar opening leads into an Allegro impelled by nervous urgency. A consummate interpreter, Manze never plays fast and loose with tempos, nor with radically over-emphasised dynamics. The rigour of his period performance practice and expressive…

Arnold • Ibert • Nielsen Arnold: Flute Concerto No. 1; Ibert: Flute Concerto; Nielsen: Flute Concerto Clara Andrada (flute); Frankfurt Radio Symphony/Jaime Martín Ondine ODE 1340-2 51:54 mins Three flute concertos in one gulp might strike some as hard to swallow, but if any flautist is going to make this musical offering slip down it is the Spanish-born Clara Andrada. For fluidity, nimble attack, breath control and range of colours she really takes some beating. Teamed with Spanish conductor Jaime Martín, a past flautist himself, she dazzles most brightly in the strongest by far of these 20th-century concertos: Nielsen’s mercurial creation of 1926, to which she bequeaths an entirely appropriate improvisatory feel. Wherever her flute goes, you want to follow, whether it’s pirouetting on high or battling incursions from a…

Rossini Zelmira Federico Saachi, Silvia Dalla Benetta, Mert Süngü, Joshua Stewart, Marina Comparato, Luca Dall’Amico, Xiang Xu, Emmanuel Franco; Górecki Chamber Choir, Krakow; Virtuosi Brunensis/Gianluigi Gelmetti Naxos 8.660468-70 174:51 mins (3 discs) Zelmira was Rossini’s farewell to Naples in 1822 – he was ambitious at that point to become a European composer, not just an Italian one. So within months Zelmira made its way to Vienna, then to London and finally to Paris in 1826 where Giuditta Pasta took the title role. This is the version that Naxos recorded at the Wildbad Festival in Germany in 2017. The libretto is shipwrecked by its own implausibility. Why has Zelmira’s father Polidoro, the deposed king of Lesbos, gone into hiding? Has Ilo, the heroine’s Trojan husband, good reason to doubt his wife?…

JS Bach St Matthew Passion, BWV 244 Benjamin Bruns (Evangelist), Carolyn Sampson, Aki Matsui (soprano), Damien Guillon, Clint van der Linde (countertenor), Makoto Sakurada, Zachary Wilder (tenor), Christian Immler, Toru Kaku (bass); Bach Collegium Japan/ Masaaki Suzuki BIS BIS-2500 (hybrid CD/SACD) 163:14 mins (2 discs) When Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium first recorded the Matthew Passion in 1999 the idea of one or two voices to a part was still largely regarded with suspicion. Now as he revisits the work, the approach and all its implications are much more mainstream. Suzuki, however, has not been persuaded; indeed it’s fascinating how much his two recordings have in common. Many of the numbers share the same duration almost to the second (though there’s perhaps a shade more ‘lift’ in the earlier…

Beethoven Cello Sonatas Nos 1-5; Variations – on ‘See the conquering hero comes’; on ‘Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen; on ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’ Ori Epstein (cello), Omri Epstein (piano) Linn CKD 627 70:50 mins Beethoven’s five cello sonatas neatly demarcate his early, middle and late periods. The brothers Ori and Omri Epstein offer some fine and thoroughly musical performances, marred only by a few puzzling idiosyncrasies. Particularly successful are their graceful performance of the variations on ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’ from The Magic Flute; and their intense account of the opening movement of the G minor Sonata, Op. 5 No. 2 with both repeats observed, making the piece last fully 20 minutes. But the sonata’s second movement is too laid-back – an easy-going Allegretto, rather than the prescribed Allegro.…

JS Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I & II George Lepauw (piano) Orchid Classics ORC100107 310:33 mins (5 discs) What Schumann memorably dubbed ‘the work of all works’ has long attracted harpsichordists and pianists in equal measure. Though Bach himself could have barely envisaged the Steinway piano of today – the chosen instrument for this recording – it seems unlikely, from all that we know of his active interest in the evolution of keyboard instruments, that he would have considered it unsuitable for the ‘48’. George Lepauw provides the listener with a thoughtful if at times idiosyncratic survey of these preludes and fugues; and who of us can but applaud the sentiments expressed in his accompanying essay that the recording ‘was born out of my desire to become a more…

April round-up The makers of Sherlock sank their teeth into Dracula for a horrifically entertaining three-part adaptation for the BBC earlier this year. David Arnold and Michael Price’s original music is full-blooded, endlessly creative and yet totally traditional when required, featuring soprano Grace Davidson and cellist Peter Gregson among all manner of orchestral and electronic effects. Four and a half hours of TV needed a lot of music, so it’s no wonder Silva Screen have opted for two discs. It may be too much blood and thunder for one sitting, so I’d suggest taking the odd bite. (Silva Screen SILCD1619 ★★★★ ) There’s more literary fare with The Personal History of David Copperfield, Armando Ianucci’s take on Dickens for the big screen. The music is by Ianucci's composer of choice,…

Cambridge Audio CXA61 £749 A gorgeous 60W amplifier designed to cope with whatever source you throw at it, with multiple analogue inputs, USB for hi-res playback, aptX HD Bluetooth for best possible wireless streaming and an improved DAC (digital to analogue converter) to bring out the detail in your recordings. cambridgeaudio.com Marantz PM6006 £349 Great value design with sound quality that outstrips many at twice the price. It gives a powerful performance with bags of detail and depth. There’s no Bluetooth input, but you do get a phono stage for turntable and multiple inputs for CD/Bluray, and even your TV. marantz.co.uk Naim Supernait 3 £3,499 The third generation of this premium 80W integrated amplifier is a triumph, especially for vinyl aficionados, as Naim has added high quality built-in phono stage…