Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i BBC Music Magazine

Jessica Duchen Critic and author ‘When I first heard some Bartók, aged eight, the timpani glissandos scared me witless. Now, though, I think he was perhaps the greatest composer of his day. And have you heard him play the piano?’ Page 26 Julian Haylock Music journalist and author ‘Who would have thought that composing could be so risky? In one particular case, as I discovered, it even proved fatal. One thing’s for sure, it’s certainly not a career choice for the faint-hearted.’ Page 50 Roger Nichols Critic and author ‘A complaint sometimes levelled at French music is over its ultra-polite elegance. So it was fun listening to Florent Schmitt’s direct, rumbustuous style, at one with a man who took no prisoners.’ Page 56…

The rest is silence Your August Timepiece feature on 4'33" mentions John Cage’s quote that there is no such thing as silence. When it became obvious that our son was intending to pursue a career as a professional drummer, we enlisted a company to build a studio that would allow a band to play without disturbing our neighbours. The first time I sat alone in the soundproof studio I was totally surprised at what I could hear. My breath was loud and there was an underpinning of thrum from the beat of my heart. This became a trio when my digestive system gurgled quietly. I easily identified these sources but there was a hiss that became more and more obtrusive the longer I sat. Later I found out that, in…

Emily Nebel Violinist Born: Arizona, US Career highlight: When I was at the Royal Academy of Music, I led a joint orchestra with musicians from New York’s Juilliard School in an unforgettable concert at the 2019 BBC Proms. I also recently recorded an album of my favourite French sonatas with pianist Jean-Sélim Abdelmoula. Musical hero: I was fortunate enough to have worked with violinist Peter Salaff, founding member of the Cleveland Quartet, whose love for the string quartet repertoire was inspiring and infectious. Dream concert: An epic night of chamber music with all my friends, culminating in an open jam session where we feel free to improvise and engage the audience. Hao Zi Yoh Pianist Born: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Career highlight: Playing Schumann’s Piano Concerto at the finals…

When, in May, wild white storks hatched at the Knepp Estate in Sussex it was rightly celebrated – they are believed to be the first such births to have happened in the UK in 600 years. To mark such a significant event, Helen Ottoway was commissioned to compose White Storks , a string octet that was premiered online at the Shipley Arts Festival in July. Ottoway follows a noble tradition of bird-inspired composers… ‘Today at ten to eleven I saw 16 swans,’ wrote Sibelius on 21 April, 1915. ‘One of my greatest experiences! Lord God, what beauty!’ That majestic sight would soon find itself represented by the swinging horn motif at the beginning of the finale of his Fifth Symphony. Half-a-century later, Sibelius’s fellow Finn Rautavaara went a step further,…

The daring and virtuosic guitarist Sean Shibe has announced a new and exclusive multi-album signing with Pentatone. His first album for the label, taking in Spanish impressionist music with French influences, features works by Mompou, Poulenc, Falla and Ravel and will likely be released later this year. Star saxophonist Jess Gillam is set to follow Rise, her debut album, with a new disc called Time in September. The programme features new commissions by Australian composer Luke Howard and pop group Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory, alongside works by Philip Glass, Max Richter and Joby Talbot. Mantovani was one of Decca’s bestselling artists. The label is marking the 80th anniversary of the conductor, composer and entertainer’s signing by reimagining some of his popular recordings from the 1950s and ’60s, with the help of…

Ennio Morricone Born 1928 Composer Having first put pencil to stave before the age of ten, Ennio Morricone attended the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in his beloved home city of Rome. The son of a trumpeter, his early professional years were spent as a session musician and side man in Rome’s jazz clubs and recording studios, and he also found work as an arranger for RCA – indeed he worked with some of the great artists of the day. It was while playing the trumpet in session orchestras for films that Morricone was inspired to write the music for movies instead of playing it; he simply thought he could better. Though often remembered for the ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ – a term he disliked – Morricone’s filmography embodied so much more. His evocative…

Oliver Condy Editor Organists are now allowed inside their churches to do a spot of practice – my local parish church has a rather lovely two-manual tracker instrument which I’ve greatly missed over the past months. Cue oodles of Bach, Buxtehude, a sonata movement or two of Mendelssohn and a rendition of Percy Whitlock’s splendid Plymouth Suite. Just the thing to blow away the cobwebs. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor At nearly 900 pages, Citizens, Simon Schama’s superb history of the French Revolution, has been keeping me occupied for quite a while. Looking for apt aural accompaniment, I turned to Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, whose eponymous hero was one of the many to lose their heads as a result of Robespierre’s grim machinations. Both fast-paced and, at times, hauntingly beautiful,…

‘All my life, in every sphere, always and in every way, I shall have one objective: the good of Hungary and the Hungarian nation.’ Thus wrote Bartók in 1903. That someone so devoted to his country should find himself torn away from it in his final years was the bitterest turn of events, but he was by no means alone in suffering exile. Forced by the Russian Revolution to emigrate to the US in 1917, Rachmaninov found his new home no happy hunting ground as a composer, suffering creative stasis (see p60). As, over the following decades, Europe became dominated by grim regimes and war clouds gathered, others followed him over the Atlantic. These included, from Austria, Schoenberg and Korngold in 1933 and 1934. Schoenberg took to the US like…

“We rely on food in the same way that we rely on music at extraordinary times like this” Which singer’s favourite dish is Lancashire hotpot? Which pianist makes his own porridge with Irish pinhead oatmeal? And which conductor wouldn’t let you visit without serving his own Olivier Salad, a concoction which graces every Russian meal? The answers are bass Sir John Tomlinson (no surprise there), pianist Stephen Hough and conductor Vasily Petrenko. And the link between them all is the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnston. While we’ve all been listening to musicians making the best of wretched isolation and the miserable sight of closed concert halls and opera houses by playing online either solo or in remarkable ensembles, Johnston has gone a step further. She’s put together a cookbook that’s also an…

Internet download speeds may still frustrate any of you who have held meetings on Zoom, but your connection is hundreds of times quicker than just 25 years ago. Slow processors, phone lines and fledgling software made glancing at the simplest of websites an irritating experience. 1990s ‘dial-up’ technology involved a ritual sequence of noises, after which your 56kps connection would allow a 4mb track to be downloaded within half and hour. God forbid if anyone picked up the phone in another room – your connection would be instantly lost. Broadband arrived with the new millennium, allowing simultaneous calls and surfing, but its expense put many off and speeds were still slow – about 1mbps. Today, fibre-optic cables under our streets have improved things, but rural areas lag behind with many…

If you want an easy life, free of creative tension, neurosis and anxiety, don’t become a composer. You spend half the time waiting for the phone to ring, then when a commission finally arrives, reality kicks in: ‘Will my inspiration dry up?’; ‘Will they like what I produce?’; ‘Will I like it?’. And that is the $64,000 question. Once a new piece is ‘out there’, anything can – and often does – have play a part in the curious love-hate relationship that exists between composers and their own work. There are many reasons for a composer wishing he or she hadn’t written a piece. In some cases they decide they simply don’t like it, but there are also sad examples of over-popularity, political hi-jacking and even fatal performances. It’s all…

It’s 29 May 1913 and, in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is producing one of those splendid scandales in which the city specialises. In the midst of the uproar, with the aristos in their boxes shouting, hooting and blowing on their hollow door keys, a stentorian voice breaks through: ‘Taisez-vous, garces du seizième!’ ‘Shut your gobs, you posh sluts!’ ‘If I hadn’t hit the bull’s eye this year,’ said Schmitt, ‘I’d have had to jump in the lake’ It is the voice of the composer Florent Schmitt – and not the first or last time it will be heard sowing discord and aggravation. Of course, this sort of behaviour is not recommended if you want to make friends and influence people, and…

The work ‘Over six feet of scowl’ was how fellow émigré Igor Stravinsky described Sergei Rachmaninov, not without reason. During his lifetime, Rachmaninov had plenty to feel miserable about. However, his music tells a different story. While there is always an underlying and often undisguised melancholy in everything he wrote, there is never any trace of self-pity. Something unmistakably new had appeared in Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances A career as a composer and acclaimed piano virtuoso launched in imperial Russia in the 1890s had had its fair share of upheaval over the years, not least an enforced emigration in the aftermath of his homeland’s 1917 revolution. During the last 15 years of his life he composed little – imprisoned in a world of celebrity which only seemed to want to hear…

Eiji Oue (conductor) This, from 2007, is one of much feted sound engineer Keith O Johnson’s aural masterpieces, by some distance the most spectacularly recorded version on disc; also available on vinyl, it is a hi-fi buff’s dream. However, this would count for little unless the performance warranted all the loving care lavished on it. It does, superbly. Each movement is perfectly paced, inner detail is wonderfully clear even in the most densely scored passages and in the final pages, the Japanese conductor Eiji Oue whips his magnificently responsive Minnesota Orchestra players into a veritable frenzy. (Reference Recordings RR-96CD) Vasily Petrenko (conductor) Liverpool’s ‘honorary Scouser’ will be sorely missed when he heads to pastures new next year. Petrenko’s 15-year tenure at the helm of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has…

A New Century All six performances are conducted by the orchestra’s music director Franz Welser-Möst, who has been in Cleveland since 2002 and recently signed a contract extension until 2027. Overall, they paint a picture of sovereign technical command, with an upholstered warmth of tone not automatically in the DNA of American orchestras. Both traits are evident in the richly nuanced account of Beethoven’s Op. 132 String Quartet on disc one, performed by the full Cleveland string section. The unanimity of attack and accent are unfaltering, but it’s the expressive insight of the playing which is really striking. Both are evident in the opening Adagio sostenuto movement, where Welser-Möst’s addition of double basses shadowing the cellos an octave lower adds an extra notch of brooding intensity to the music. The…

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 ‘Choral’; Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra in C minor, Op. 80* Christiane Karg (soprano), Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo-soprano), Werner Güra (tenor), Florian Boesch (baritone); *Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano); Zurich Singakademie; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra/Pablo Heras-Casado Harmonia Mundi HMM902431.32 79:54 mins It is hard to believe a slow movement can be as moving as this This disc will provoke fiercely opposed reactions. For anybody – and it used to be all serious music-lovers – who regards Beethoven 9 as not only a monumental masterpiece, but an affirmation of the values inherent in European civilisation, to be performed on such occasions as the demolishing of the Berlin Wall, this account is likely to seem a negation, even when we’ve endured Hogwood, Norrington and their ilk. Yet it goes beyond…

JS Bach Harpsichord Concertos, Vol. 1: No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052; No. 2 in E, BWV 1053; No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056; No. 8 in D minor, BWV 1059 (completed Masato Suzuki) Bach Collegium Japan/Masato Suzuki (harpsichord) BIS BIS-2401 (CD/SACD) 65:48 mins This disc is the first of a projected complete survey of Bach’s concertos for harpsichord and strings. Most of them are the composer’s own arrangements, at Leipzig, of earlier works which he probably prepared for his sons and pupils to play at the collegium musicum concerts of which he was director during the 1730s and early 1740s. As well as the great D minor Concerto, the first volume contains those in F minor and E major, and a new reconstruction by Masato Suzuki of…

Korngold Violanta Annemarie Kremer, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Norman Reinhardt, Peter Sonn, Soula Parassidis, Anna Maria Chiuri; Teatro Regio Torino Chorus and Orchestra/Pinchas Steinberg Dynamic CDS 7876 79:12 mins Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violanta is half a double-bill of one-act operas that this remarkable wunderkind composed in his mid-teens. It was premiered in Munich in 1916. At times the score is mesmerisingly gorgeous, with opulent, Jugendstil-like orchestration. Often it has drawn acclaim for the precocity of its sensual, supposedly psychological love story. The tale nevertheless could seem more Mills & Boon than Freud. We’re in Renaissance Venice at carnival time. Violanta hates Alfonso, who seduced her sister, who then committed suicide, and orders her husband, Simone, to murder him – but at the crucial moment she decides she is in love with Alfonso…

Portraits de La Folie Handel: Ah! Crudel, nel pianto mio, HWV 78; Heinichen: Concerto in G, S.214; plus songs and instrumental works by Campra, Destouches, Eccles, Keiser, Marais, Purcell and Rebel Stéphanie d’Oustrac (mezzo-soprano); Ensemble Amarillis/Héloïse Gaillard Harmonia Mundi HMM 902646 63:03 mins Ensemble Amarillis shines with zest and bustling invention This project is mainly about the diverse ways in which ‘Folly’ was dramatised musically in late French Baroque vocal works. Seductive, impish and pining, ‘Folly’ was a woman addled by love, or one who made a man lose himself in love; the mythic Semele, famous for both, was a favourite role. Mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac is dazzling across these various personae, to which she brings not only luscious vocalism but also a blistering intensity. No less impressive is the Ensemble…

JS Bach Cello Suites Nos 1-6, BWV 1007-1012 Alisa Weilerstein (cello) Pentatone PTC 5186 751 159:12 mins (2 discs) Bach’s solo cello suites have acquired such a formidable reputation as the defining moment in the instrument’s performing repertoire, it is amazing anyone dares play them at all. Alisa Weilerstein’s exemplary technique and profound musicianship are more than a match for these iconic scores, yet even she admits in a refreshingly candid note the almost impossible challenges for the modern player: ‘the suites are too rich with ideas, too full of subtleties and too dense with the burden of history for any particular interpretation to be exhaustive,’ she almost despairs. Yet far from showing any signs of awestruck inhibition, her playing exudes a gentle confidence and subtly nuanced flair that compels…

JS Bach Complete Works for Keyboard, Vol. 3 Benjamin Alard (harpsichord, organ) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902457.59 Alard’s journey through Bach’s keyboard works here takes in French-influenced suites, chorale preludes, the great organ Passacaglia and more. The French-style instruments are as colourful as his playing. (OC) ★★★★ Casterede Flute Works Cobus du Toit (flute), Doreen Lee (piano) Naxos 8.574155 Surprisingly, it is the 12 Etudes that really shine in this recording. Cobus du Toit’s characterful playing is even and bright, but the recording quality could be a lot clearer. (FP) ★★★ Carlos Cipa Correlations (on 11 pianos) Carlos Cipa (pianos) Warner Classics 9029526754 An imaginative concept, this set of intuitively composed pieces explores the aural qualities and personalities of 11 different instruments. (MB) ★★★ Edward Cowie Clarinet Concerto; Concerto for Orchestra…

This year there will be a raft of archive and new Proms available to watch on BBC Four, presented by Katie Derham, Tom Service, Danielle de Niese, Suzy Klein and Josie d’Arby. The opening weekend will see a new work for the 350-strong BBC Grand Virtual Orchestra, as well as an archive Prom from 2017, which sees Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a programme of Beethoven, Gerald Barry and Stravinsky, whose Violin Concerto is performed by Canadian violinist Leila Josefowicz. Every Sunday throughout the Proms season, Katie Derham will host a series of archive concerts, including the Proms debuts of Chineke! Orchestra and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra – plus the John Wilson Orchestra Prom celebrating ‘The Broadway Sound’, the 2002 performance of the National…

Far from a phoenix-like rise, classical music faces an uphill climb back to some semblance of normality. While Richard Morrison talks mostly about professional musicians on p25, it’s the amateur scene that has been equally devastated. As I wrote in these pages some years back, Bristol, where this magazine is produced, is home to over 50 choirs, half-a-dozen amateur symphony orchestras, opera societies, brass bands and countless chamber groups. Together they form the bedrock of the city’s culture and provide a cherished respite from the daily grind. Ironically, we’ve recently needed that respite more than ever. Bristol is, of course, just one of hundreds of cities and towns whose music culture has disappeared. So when the green light is finally given to rejoin your ensemble, do let us know how…

1,000,000 …pounds raised by the Cathedral Choirs Emergency Fund to help save the UK’s threatened church singers. 2,210 …people watching the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the world’s first ‘full house’ since lockdown began. 0 …concerts will be allowed in Philadelphia until March 2021, the US city’s mayor has revealed. 17,572 …singers from 129 countries, joining vocal forces on the internet for Sing Gently, the latest work for virtual choir by Eric Whitacre (below).…

7th The American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier dies aged 84 in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. A leading advocate for the abolition of slavery in the mid-19th century, Whittier wrote two volumes of poetry on the subject. He was, however, best known for his 1866 narrative poem Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl, which depicts a family’s return to normality after the American Civil War. 9th Using the new 36-inch refractor telescope at Lick Observatory in California, astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard discovers a fifth moon orbiting Jupiter. Barnard names the moon Amalthea after the foster-mother of Zeus in Greek mythology, though it is largely referred to as, simply, ‘Jupiter V’. It is the first moon of Jupiter to be discovered since 1610. 13th British prime minister William Gladstone addresses a crowd of…

Timo Andres Antennae Timo Andres (piano) Nonesuch 7559798028 I’ve known Timo’s work for quite a few years now. He’s a brilliant composer and I love his music. Antennae was the first piece of his to get me hooked. It’s a short piece for solo piano is very good and easy to get to know; it’s minimalistic, a little virtuosic, with patterns that repeat quickly and it has very unusual sonorities that I enjoy. It was on an album called Shy and Mighty which one critic called ‘more mighty than shy’. I think that’s true. Angélica Negrón La Isla Magica Eleonore Oppenheim (double bass), Angélica Negrón (electronics) Innova INNOVA929 I’m really drawn to Angélica’s sound. I’ve been aware of her for a few years and her music does not sound the…

The other day I came across some old photos of family holidays when I was a child. My goodness, they look grim. In all of them we seemed to be huddled against a biting wind, usually with black clouds overhead. Possibly the person holding the camera was shaking with cold, because the pictures are so blurry that our faces are almost unrecognisable. And at the very moment the shutter clicks, invariably a stray dog wanders into the shot to urinate against a deckchair. I was reminded of them because the editor of this eminent journal asked me to provide a ‘snapshot’ of how the classical music world is dealing with coronavirus. I fear that it will be just like those ancient holiday photos: hopelessly blurred, yet evoking a miserable scene…

Over 12 years Bartók collected 10,000 folk melodies. He was a patriotic Hungarian, but although most of those melodies were gathered in what was known until the post-WW1 carve-up as ‘Hungary’, it’s more accurate to describe them as Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Transylvanian – they were the nationalities into which the once-proud Hungarian state was humiliatingly divided. The first song Bartók collected came from a Transylvanian housemaid he overheard, and when he teamed up with a fellow student named Zoltán Kodály he established a collecting strategy from which he never deviated. He would stay with friends or family and draw on their local connections; he was only interested in music from villages and his typical informants were swineherds, shepherds and servants, often lubricated with alcohol. He was suspicious of itinerant…

As you’ll see on p38, artists have always enjoyed a close relationship with food. So much so that several dishes even bear their own names. For instance, named after the great tenor after his acclaimed tours to South America, you can whip up a Salsa Caruso to add to pasta, using cream, sliced onions, ham, cheese, nuts and mushrooms. It’s now considered a protected Uruguayan dish. On a more meaty, richer note, the recipe for Tournedos Rossini might explain the composer’s portly appearance. Take round slices of beef tenderloin, pan-fry them in butter, add to each a thick slice of warm foie gras and top with madeira sauce. Healthy. Meanwhile, keep some of the madeira handy for a mushroom sauce to coat your Oeufs mollets Berlioz (Berlioz’s soft-boiled eggs). You’ll…

Rhythm Schmitt was fond of unequal rhythms (5/8, 7/8), giving his music an unsettled feeling that helps propel it forward – perhaps most notably in his Antoine et Cléopâtre (above). Mixed with more regular rhythms, they give his paragraphs intriguing shapes. Orchestration Right from his mid-twenties, Schmitt had a wonderful understanding of the orchestra. His textures tend towards rich complexity, so we often need to hear works several times. Complexity This orchestral complexity carries over into his syntax and form. Schmitt was a master of modulation and of grading the impact of successive climaxes so they build up naturally. Simplicity He could write simple music too, as shown in his piano duets with the student playing five-finger tunes in the primo part. The chromatic secondo part lends colour.…

Rachmaninov was very nearly the great composer who never was. The disastrous premiere of his First Symphony in 1897, conducted by an inebriated Glazunov, shattered his confidence so badly that it took a course of hypnosis from Dr Nicolai Dahl to persuade him to resume composing again (see p50). Equally feted as a pianist and composer, the international demands of the former role limited his time for the latter after his move to the US in 1917, though his later works still included masterpieces such as the Fourth Piano Concerto and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.…

Premiered shortly after the orchestral version, Rachmaninov’s own two-piano version of his Symphonic Dances thrills as much as the original, with many of the composer’s harmonic subtleties shining anew. Our recommended recording features two pianists who understand how to eke out the composer’s rich orchestral textures. (Vladimir Ashkenazy, André Previn (pianos) Decca 444 8452). Hindemith made hay and turned his rejected score into Symphonische Tänze Much like Rachmaninov’s, Hindemith’s Symphonic Dances were the victim of a cancelled ballet project, this time spearheaded by choreographer Léonide Massine. Hindemith, however, made hay and turned his rejected score into the Symphonische Tänze. With more emphasis on its symphonic nature than its dance characters, the work contains some of Hindemith’s most substantial and colourful music, particularly in the manic Scherzo with its demonic trumpet…

Why pair recent commissions with classic repertoire? Cleveland actually plays more contemporary music than a lot of other orchestras and we wanted to give a glimpse of what we do throughout the season. These are pieces we really believe in and which we’ve enjoyed playing. You don’t have to play the same stuff over and over again; there’s so much great music, and if you play it on a level like this orchestra does, it’s compelling and enjoyable. That’s the message of the three discs. It must have been tough to choose what to put on them? Yes it was, because every time we talked about it we would think of things we’d have to miss out. We’re sitting on tons of recordings, actually, because we record everything for our…

After two years studying privately under George Crumb, whose innovative approach to instrumental colours made a lasting impression, the American composer Christopher Rouse first came to wide attention with his First Symphony (1986), described by one critic as ‘an elegiac yet nightmarish score’. A keen admirer of the German tradition and Shostakovich, Rouse was also a fan of rock music, in particular the group Led Zeppelin. He became notorious for his loud music, but was widely admired by musicians and won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Trombone Concerto.…

John Adams Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?; China Gates Yuja Wang (piano); Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/Gustavo Dudamel DG 483 8289 (digital only) 30:58 mins Yuja Wang’s flawless technique is ideally suited to Adams’s work From Liszt’s Totentanz and ‘demonic’ recitals to accusations that saxophones were the devil’s mouthpiece, composers have often toyed with the beast. John Adams’s 2018 Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? – a nod towards the 18th-century charge that nonsecular music was irreligious – melds these ideas, combining devilish solos with toe-tapping melodies. The piece was commissioned and premiered in Los Angeles by Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Yuja Wang in early 2019; this recording is taken from a second performance given later that year. The solo part – written…

Dallapiccola Il prigioniero; Prima Serie Dei Cori di Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane Anna Maria Chiuri, Michael Nagy, Stephan Rügamer, Adam Riis, Steffen Bruun; Danish National Concert Choir; Danish National Symphony Orchestra/ Gianandrea Noseda Chandos CHSA 5276 (CD/SACD) 55:46 mins Gianandrea Noseda and his Danish forces offer a thrilling account Dallapiccola began work on Il prigioniero (The Prisoner) in 1943, when he and his Jewish wife were hiding out in the hills outside their home town of Florence. This one-act opera, with its subject of the suppression of liberty, was clearly written out of deep personal conviction. Dallapiccola’s own libretto was partly based on a story by the 19th-century French symbolist writer Villiers de l’Isle-Adam called ‘Torture by Hope’, in which a prisoner, having suffered every kind of torment, is falsely…

CPE Bach Complete Piano Trios Linos Piano Trio CAvi-music AVI 8553480 132:38 mins These trios, dating from 1775-77, are foremost keyboard pieces for obbligato piano – or harpsichord option in the case of the Wq 89 set, with violin and cello accompaniment. The genre was not entirely new – indeed, it might be seen to be a continuation of similarly structured pieces by Mondonville and Rameau three and four decades earlier. In addition to the distinctive originality of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s music, its transitional place in the evolution of the Classical keyboard trio provides interesting comparisons. In this recording originally intended to celebrate the 300th anniversary of CPE Bach’s birth but only now released, the Linos Piano Trio has opted for modern instruments, and argues cogently for its decision…

Thomas Adès Powder Her Face: Concert Paraphrase*; Berceuse; Mazurkas; In Seven Days† Kirill Gerstein, *Thomas Adès (piano); †Tanglewood Music Centre Orchestra/Thomas Adès Myrios MYR027 58:02 mins A triumphant cavalcade of delicately glittering effects Kirill Gerstein became involved with Thomas Adès’s music when bowled over by the composer’s early recordings of his own works. Since 2012 it has been both a keyboard partnership and a creative one: Berceuse, the Mazurkas and the Concert Paraphrase on Powder Her Face were all written for the Russian-American pianist. For Gerstein this music, like Beethoven and Bach’s, has become part of his DNA, the difference being that with this living composer he can discuss details of performance. Gerstein talks about Adès’s use of tonality, his ‘irrational meters’ and the infinite precision required to render the…

Water music It’s a shame Michael White didn’t name the ‘surprisingly rich laryngologist’ who first funded the Proms (The people who shaped the Proms, August). Dr George Cathcart didn’t just initiate the arena fountain as well, he decreed ice blocks surrounding it to cool the Queen’s Hall. The fountain itself survived two world wars, including the transfer (of a new one) to the Royal Albert Hall when Queen’s Hall was destroyed in 1941. It was finally removed in 2011 to make room for not so much bums on seats as more feet on floor. Entering a gradually filling hall on a hot summer’s evening to be greeted by the sight and cooling sounds of a flower-surrounded fountain was one of the features that made the Proms unique. Am I the…

Big-screen composer Composer Joseph Boulogne is to be the subject of a new Hollywood film. The Searchlight Pictures movie, which is being written by Stefani Robinson and directed by Stephen Williams, will tell of the remarkable life of the ferociously talented Boulogne who, also known as Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was the toast of Paris towards the end of 18th century, earning himself the nickname ‘the Black Mozart’ and hobnobbing with royalty. Doctor Poster Kings Place is to stage a unique new series of one-to-one concerts over August and September. The Kings Place Culture Clinics will involve visitors to the London venue enjoying a 15-minute consultation in which they tell a musician about their lockdown experiences before having a piece of music prescribed to them in return. Artists involved include pianist…

By the time Dvorák first glimpsed the shores of America on 27 September 1892, he may have regretted making the journey. His transatlantic voyage on the passenger steamship SS Saale had been horrendous – a storm-tossed, nine-day trip from Bremen, Germany to Hoboken, New Jersey with his wife Anna and two children in harness. ‘Everyone on the ship was ailing,’ he later wrote. Everyone, that is, except himself, who seemed strangely immune to the sickly swell of the ocean. Why had he uprooted his family from a comfortable existence in their native Bohemia? As so often when the US beckons, money was part of the attraction. Dvorák was nearing 50, and already the internationally esteemed composer of eight symphonies, when he was first approached by the National Conservatory of Music…

It’s a piece that defines the very stuff of pastoral nostalgia, which, for many, is what Englishness in music all about: George Butterworth’s orchestral rhapsody, A Shropshire Lad. But I want to argue for a different dimension to this music. Because A Shropshire Lad isn’t a footnote of sentimental whimsy from the lost generation of creative talents who died in the First World War trenches. In its time and place, this devastatingly powerful rhapsody is a realisation of a unique and profoundly modern musical vision. Butterworth died at the Somme in 1916 at the age of 31, and his output is shrouded in sepia tones of pity for his fate, as if his music were composed in the certain knowledge of his tragic, youthful demise. But it wasn’t: Butterworth was…

Andrew Thorpe Hampshire It was good to read your article on the history of the BBC Proms in the August issue, and I am looking forward to the BBC Radio 3 broadcasts of concerts from past years. I wonder if they will include Clifford Curzon’s performance of Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Piano Concerto No. 26 from 1974 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Pierre Boulez. A marvellous performance which I was pleased to attend with a friend, I have since listened to it on YouTube. Maybe this might be a future BBC Music Magazine cover CD? Michael Hanna West Sussex This year is the 100th anniversary of the first Blues record, indeed the first commercial disc by a Black American artist. This was ‘Crazy Blues’ by Mamie Smith, recorded for…

Outside South Kensington tube station stands a bronze statue of a slender, diminutive man in overcoat and hat. How Bartók became one of few composers honoured with a London statue deserves a story to itself, but here he is, the self-effacing figure whose impact on the musical world proved him a giant. As we approach the 75th anniversary of his death, this most genuine, direct and original of composers remains somewhat in the shadow of Igor Stravinsky (who was one year his junior). That could be partly because so few western musicologists can deal with Bartók’s native Hungarian; and Stravinsky’s larger-than-life personality and sizeable assemblage of supporters also contributed to his dominant presence. Yet is it perhaps Bartók who was the lifelong original, his tales of the musically unexpected evolving,…

In 1966, Mao Zedong (‘Chairman Mao’) launched the Cultural Revolution in China as a means to solidify his power following the disastrous failure of his Great Leap Forward economic reforms. The stated aim of the Cultural Revolution was to purge Chinese society of any lingering capitalist or traditional remnants. Unsurprisingly, this spelt bad news for music. Handing responsibility for the arts over to his wife Jiang Qing, Mao ruthlessly wiped out classical music in his country. Conservatories and concert halls were closed and performers and academics were removed from their jobs or even killed – Tan Shuzhen, the former vice-director of the Shanghai Conservatoire forced to take a job as a janitor, could consider himself one of the luckier ones. Instruments were destroyed, including pianos, symbolically smashed and burned. Though…

Birmingham’s Town Hall was built for music – designed as a home for the city’s Triennial Music Festivals by the architect Joseph Hansom and opened in 1834. Over the following decades, it saw the world premieres of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Parry’s Judith, Dvoÿák’s Requiem and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius before, in 1920, becoming the home of the new City of Birmingham Orchestra (the ‘Symphony’ bit came later). The CBSO moved into Symphony Hall in 1991, but the Town Hall reopened in 2007 as an elegant venue for smaller-scale ensembles, chamber music and jazz. See thsh.co.uk…

1870 LIFE: Florent Schmitt is born in Blâmont, Meurthe-et-Moselle, eastern France. Showing musical talent from an early age, he studies at the Nancy Conservatoire. TIMES: Emperor Napoleon III is captured following French defeat to Prussia at the Battle of Sedan. The Third Republic is proclaimed soon after in Paris. 1900 LIFE: Schmitt’s cantata Sémiramis wins him the Prix de Rome. His success, at the fifth time of trying, is rewarded with a 15-month period of study at the Italian capital’s Villa Medici. TIMES: Complete with art nouveau signs at its stations’ entrances, the first line of the Paris Métro opens, running from Porte de Vincennes to Porte Maillot. 1913 LIFE: Six years after its premiere, Schmitt’s ballet La Tragédie de Salomé is performed by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets russes, with Tamara…

Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor) Concertgebouw Orchestra Decca 410 1242 In making a library choice, sound quality is an important factor. To enjoy this kaleidoscopic score to the full it’s essential to hear as much detail as possible. My four top choices pass this test. Sadly, therefore, the synthetic ‘hole in the middle’ stereo and coarse-sounding trumpets of the Moscow Philharmonic disbar Kyril Kondrashin’s wild and wonderful account from a top spot. Evgeny Svetlanov made two recordings, his later one much the better recorded but not a front runner, whereas those by Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Simon Rattle and Mariss Jansons (I prefer the first and fleeter of his two recordings) most certainly are. Ashkenazy achieves a balancing act between symphonic and balletic Vladimir Ashkenazy’s 2018 recording with the Philharmonia is recommendable…

Much of the world’s music-making continues to be on ice and nowhere is that felt more keenly than in the US where, just recently, the Nashville Symphony announced it was suspending operations for a year. It’s bittersweet, then, to have them in the Orchestral section this month with a five-star performance of music by the late Christopher Rouse. They are joined by the Cleveland Orchestra, which scores a Recording of the Month (see right); the release is a great showcase for the quality of musicianship to be found across the Atlantic. The American flavour continues elsewhere with a Concerto Choice by John Adams, a new opera by David Lang and appearances by Elliott Carter, Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael Beek, Terry Blain,…

Debussy Images for orchestra; Images pour piano, Book 2 – Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut (arr. C Matthews); La plus que lente; Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune Hallé Orchestra/Mark Elder Hallé CD HLL 7554 59:97 mins Debussy is surely the ideal composer for the lockdowns and travel restrictions of recent times. His extraordinary ability to evoke the sights, sounds, smells and spirit of other places, such as Spain or the Far East, is all the more remarkable given they were often without first-hand experience, yet he had an uncanny ability to capture the essence of a culture, avoiding falling into mere caricature. The three panels of the orchestral Images each inhabit different worlds, testing any orchestra’s range of colour and style. The Hallé, in the latest…

Born to musical working-class parents, Rubbra left school aged 14 yet continued his musical studies until he gained a music scholarship to Reading University in 1920. The following year he entered the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under Holst. Rubbra was deeply impressed with his teacher’s devotion to Indian culture, and was further inspired in 1955 by a improvisatory performance by the virtuoso Hindustani sarod player, Ali Akbar Khan, which profoundly influenced the music of his own Piano Concerto. He was also inspired by the Catholic poet, Francis Thompson.…

Cleve • Vaet Cleve: Missa Rex Babylonis and other works; Vaet: Rex Babylonis Cinquecento Hyperion CDA68241 69:39 mins For over ten years the group Cinquecento has specialised (as its name suggests) in music from the 1500s. More specifically they have done much to resurrect composers who worked at the Habsburg Court in Vienna – Guyot, Monte, Schoendorff and now Johannes de Cleve (d1582). These singers are always nicely in tune and effectively blended, especially in the slower movements of the Mass where they strongly project the chordal colouring in the ‘Qui tollis’ and perfectly intensify the false relations in the first Agnus. Cleve, though, tends to keep all voices singing all the way through, so there is little respite from the unyielding texture. Vocal blending tends to turn into a…

Beethoven Violin Sonatas: No. 1 in D, Op. 12/1; No. 5 in F, Op. 24 'Spring'; No. 8 in G, Op. 30/3 Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin), Huw Watkins (piano) Signum Classics SIGCD 618 63:34 mins Listening to these captivating performances reminded me what an exhilarating time this is for CD collectors. Many players are now so attuned to the bracingly wide range of interpretative possibilities available, that it has (thankfully) become virtually impossible to define what is ‘mainstream’. Waley-Cohen and Watkins create a dazzling array of internal balances The inspired duo of Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins also take absolutely nothing for granted as they launch into the first of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas with a joyous sense of fresh discovery. They go way beyond generic posturing to give us –…

“Get Beethoven!” Paul Cassidy Matador 978-1-838-59342-1 264pp (pb) £10.47  Paul Cassidy has been violist of the Brodsky Quartet since 1982. The ensemble’s 50th anniversary falls next year and ahead of a book celebrating that and his own 40 years with them comes this witty and forthright memoir of his turbulent early life in Derry, Northern Ireland. The youngest child of 16, Cassidy grew up in a city fraught with violence and injustice, and he pulls no punches in hair-raising tales of priests, schoolteachers, criminals and gunmen from both sides of the sectarian divide – and the British Army. While his anger is still raw, Cassidy is equally passionate about the good things in a rebellious boyhood of fishing, ‘fags, booze and girls’ – and people, including his sister Bridget, who…

September round-up Unlike Bill Frisell, the venerated New York-based trumpeter Charles Tolliver has been a stranger to the recording studio. But here’s Connect, his first album in 11 years, and very welcome it is. Together with an all-star cast that includes Buster Williams on double bass and Lenny White on drums, Tolliver has produced a cracker. The compact four-track album bristles with the raw, truculent energy first heard in his early days at Blue Note. The opener, ‘Blue Soul’, is a stomping vehicle for Tolliver’s smeared, wayward notes; ‘Copasetic’, with its choppy, boppy sound opens with whipsmart unison playing before giving way to Jesse Davis’s driving alto sax solo. A guest appearance by the UK’s young sax slinger Binker Moses adds to the programme’s oomph. (Gearbox GB1561) ★★★★ Jean-Louis Matinier…

THIS MONTH: EXPERIENCE RADIO AT ITS BEST BEST ALL-ROUND Ruark Audio R3 £629 Ruark makes superb standalone sound systems and I’ve yet to hear one of their products I wouldn’t happily have in my own home. While the latest model also features a CD player and Wi-Fi streaming, this is their first Smart Radio system (see below), which means it has FM with RDS (87.5-108MHz), DAB/DAB+ and access to countless internet radio stations, all played through a precisely tuned 30W analogue class AB amplifier and two neodymium NS+ drivers. If you want to listen to music from the heart of Vienna or tune into Russia’s only classical music station, Orpheus Radio, this is the system to find them on, and with its room-filling, intensely enjoyable performance, it’s the best way…

Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this September The life of Marie Jaëll Donald Macleod explores the fascinating composer, pianist and teacher. One of the first women to be accepted into the French Society of Composers, Jaëll was taught by Saint-Saëns and Franck and became known as a great Liszt interpreter. She later focused on the science behind various piano techniques. Composer of the Week: 1-4 September What does Beethoven mean to you? Over the course of a week, we pose this question to poet and playwright Inua Ellams, actress and writer Sophie Stone, composer Nitin Sawhney and MPs Thangam Debbonaire and Tobias Ellwood. The Essay: 21-25 September Last Night of the Proms Dalia Stasevska becomes the second woman…

Max Richter has found success in many genres. Recomposed, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons reimagined with electronics and orchestra, was a worldwide bestseller and he has written music for ballets, film and TV scores including, most recently, My Brilliant Friend. VOICES, his new album for Decca, is a ‘hopeful work about potential solutions to the world’s problems’ based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My first conscious listening memory was hearing JS Bach, in particular the Double Violin Concerto. We were still living in Germany so I can’t have been more than three. I was transported not just by the music’s emotion but by the perception that there was a governing logic at work behind these sounds. I felt that there was something underneath, a grammar that made it happen. That’s…