Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i BBC Music Magazine

Claire Jackson Journalist and critic ‘A seven-foot tamtam, an aluphone and a frog-shaped wood-block – just some of the instruments in Evelyn Glennie’s collection. It was wonderful to explore her career through these unique objects.’ Page 26 Sophy Roberts Journalist and author ‘Part detective hunt, part ode to a place often misunderstood, my book The Lost Pianos of Siberia traces the story of Russia’s love of the piano. But it’s also about a love for music and how culture can bring us together.’ Page 44 Alexandra Wilson Academic, author and critic ‘When I discovered opera as a student all those years ago, Verdi’s works were my first love. I’ve really enjoyed revisiting his life and works: they remind us that opera and politics are never far apart.’ Page 62…

King’s at the double Even the firmest cornerstones of the classical music calendar were rocked by the upheaval of the pandemic in 2020, and the annual television broadcast of Carols from King’s was no exception. With two cases of coronavirus ruling out any of the King’s College, Cambridge choral scholars from taking part, urgent replacements were needed to fill in the adult voices. Thankfully, the six men of the King’s Singers were all available at short notice and sang alongside the choir’s trebles, at a suitably social distance, for the cameras. A fine Finn Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has been awarded an honorary knighthood for services to music and UK-Finland relations. Salonen, who was born and studied in Helsinki, has been principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in…

Raimonds Pauls Long Way in the Dunes Raimonds Pauls and his Orchestra Microphone Records MRCD525 I associate Raimonds Pauls with my childhood and the movies we watched during Soviet times. He’s a wonderful pianist and melodist, perhaps known more in Latvia and Russia. His music is light and romantic, with a little bit of a jazzy touch. The Long Way in the Dunes was a very famous movie – it’s very easy-listening but not at all trivial. Kancheli Earth, This Is Your Son Frédéric Bednarz (violin), Natsuki Hiratsuka (piano) Metis Island MI0009 Giya Kancheli often came to Latvia and gave concerts at the Riga Dome Cathedral. These miniatures for violin and piano are very nice. The central piece on this disc starts out very melancholic, strange and modern, but becomes…

Oliver Condy Editor While editing Sophy Roberts’s wonderful piece on Siberian pianos (see p44), I was reminded of the time some years back when I listened to Borodin’s evocative tone poem In the Steppes of Central Asia while travelling on the Trans-Mongolian railway. In just eight minutes, Borodin paints a vivid picture of a lonely caravan winding its way across the Gobi Desert, accompanied by the plodding hooves of horses and camels. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor My search for music with which to mark the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine takes me all the way back to 1798, when Edward Jenner first came up with the notion of vaccines in general. Rather aptly, this was the year that saw the premieres of Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis (‘Mass for…

Colin Currie Another Scot, Currie was the first percussionist to reach the finals of BBC Young Musician of the Year (1994), was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2003-05 and is the founder of his own Colin Currie Group. Elliott Carter, Jennifer Higdon and Thea Musgrave have all written works for him. Adrian Spillett In 1998, while a student at the Royal Northern College of Music, Adrian Spillett became the first percussionist to win BBC Young Musician of the Year. The following year he formed the ensemble 4-MALITY with which he has toured extensively. He has performed with several major UK orchestras. Pei-Ching Wu A founder-member of the Ju Percussion Group, Wu has innovated marimba playing techniques involving up to six mallets. In 1999 she appeared with the Hungarian Amadinda…

It’s that moment on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow that we all wait for. After the expert has inspected and appraised the ornate vase, Victorian brooch or Chinese gong in front of them, at last comes the revelation of – expectant pause – how much it’s worth. Cue a delighted grin on the face of the owner or, as often as not, the fixed smile that hides a sense of deep disappointment. Whatever the verdict, it all makes for a good Sunday evening’s viewing. Thanks partly, though not entirely, to the likes of Antiques Roadshow and its TV bedfellows such as Bargain Hunt, Antiques Road Trip and Cash in the Attic, our enthusiasm for antiques and collectibles has soared in recent years. And, explains Duncan McCoshan, a cataloguer at rare books specialists…

Challenging conventions Verdi became frustrated with the two-part aria/duet form around which Italian operatic scenes were routinely structured, with a slow first section, linking passage and fast, showy ‘cabaletta’. He increasingly tweaked the formula, structuring scenes in a more fluid way to respond to the ebb and flow of emotions. Orchestration Verdi’s earlier works are sometimes disparaged for their ‘guitar-like’ accompaniment. In his mature operas, the orchestral writing is more sophisticated, expressive and to the fore. This paralleled Wagner’s innovations, though Verdi denied a direct influence and worried about younger composers abandoning the primacy of the voice. Characterisation Many Verdi operas revolve around a doomed love affair between a young soprano and tenor but Verdi subverted the norm as the drama required. In Macbeth the central couple are dysfunctional and…

As a young man, Robert Schumann seemed set for a career as a virtuoso pianist, encouraged by his teacher Friedrich Wieck. However, an injury to his right hand – possibly caused by a home-made finger-strengthening device – put an end to that and so he concentrated on composing. Schumann’s early works were written exclusively for the piano but in 1840, the year in which he married Wieck’s gifted daughter Clara, he devoted himself to song. The next year saw him embark on the first two of his four symphonies, with further orchestral, chamber and choral works following soon after.…

What’s the story behind the album’s title? Titles are sometimes a nuisance; two of the pieces on the album begin with the word ‘and’, so I thought it could at least get things started. It’s a pretty thin reason, I know, but in lieu of anything better I decided that’s what I’d call it. I suppose the idea of adding a bit of intrigue was in the back of my mind a little, too. Also, I like minimal things and you can’t get much more minimalist than that! The programme spans the centuries. What was your starting point? We had Arvo Pärt’s commission, And I heard a voice , and that gave me the idea to do a record of some more of his music, but not a whole record…

Born in Milan, Brusa began composing aged five. She studied at the city’s Conservatory under Bruno Bettinelli and Azio Corghi, graduating in 1980. She then subsequently taught composition at various Italian conservatories, finally returning to teach at the Milan Conservatory. From 1976-85, she made several visits to the UK, where she was mentored first by Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington, then by Hans Keller in London. She became naturalised British in 2018. A series of recordings devoted to her orchestral works is being released by Naxos to critical acclaim.…

Bartók • Martinu Martinu: Violin Concertos Nos 1 & 2; Bartók: Sonata for Solo Violin Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin); Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Jakub Hruša BIS BIS-2457 (CD/SACD) 74:40 mins The orchestra clearly relishes Martinu’s highly coloured palette For nearly 30 years Martinu’s First Violin Concerto, completed in 1933, was thought to have been lost. Composed for the American violinist Samuel Dushkin, who turned out to be very demanding where the solo part was concerned, the work disappeared during Martinu’s lifetime and had to wait nearly 15 years after his death for its premiere in 1973. The work itself might be described as transitional; in the outer movements Martinu favours the busy, sometimes jazz-inflected neo-classicism he cultivated in the late 1920s. The slow movement, however, is full of generous, almost pastoral lyricism…

Willem Jeths Ritratto Verity Wingate, Martin Mkhize, Frederik Bergman, Paride Cataldo, Dominic Kraemer, Lucas van Lierop, Cameron Shahbazi; Dutch National Opera; Amsterdam Sinfonietta/Geoffrey Paterson Challenge CC 72849 88:24 mins Paride Cataldo’s posturing D’Annunzio all but steals the show An invitation to an opera that promises a party is not to be sneezed at! As Willem Jeths discovers in his third music drama, Ritratto (Portrait), parties are an elegant way of introducing assorted characters, and a perfect excuse for bad behaviour. (Think no further than Flora’s Party in La traviata, or more recently Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel.) Jeths and his librettist Frank Siera’s hostess is the fabulously rich Marchese Luisa Casati, who with the help of the early 20th-century avant-garde, including D’Annunzio, Diaghilev, Marinetti and Man Ray, intends to make…

Bartók String Quartets Nos 1, 3 & 5 Jerusalem Quartet Harmonia Mundi HMM 902240 75:24 mins Despite stiff competition from his contemporaries, Bartók’s is perhaps the greatest 20th century contribution to the quartet literature and we can never have enough recordings. So it is welcome news that the outstanding Jerusalem Quartet, who released the even-numbered works on the same label back in 2016, has now with this album completed their cycle. Dating from the early phase of Bartók’s career, the First Quartet reflects the same unhappy love affair with Stefi Geyer as the Violin Concerto, taking up the ‘Stefi theme’ as well. It opens in a state of lonely desolation, and the feeling of suspense is superbly captured by the Jerusalems, who also find the earthy folksiness to remind us…

Bowen Fragments from Hans Andersen; 12 Studies, Op. 46; Concert Studies Nos 1 & 2 Nicolas Namoradze (piano) Namoradze brings a deft touch to these charming works Hyperion CDA68303 66:32 mins Praised by Saint-Saëns as ‘the most remarkable of the young British composers,’ York Bowen (1884-1961) has all the same never received quite the attention his music deserves. This delightful disc is a treasure chest of lesser-known works given beautifully attentive performances from the acclaimed young pianist Nicolas Namoradze. Bowen’s Fragments from Hans Andersen (1920) are ten musical vignettes, each capturing a scene or character inspired by the master of fairytales. Namoradze brings a deft touch to these charming works, teasing out their respective tenderness, melancholy and wit with subtlety and poise. The remainder of the disc is given over…

February round-up Patrick Cornelius’s Acadia takes its name from an area in Maine, the inspiration for much of this music. On Way of the Cairns Cornelius celebrates the beauty, mystery and freedom of National Parks and other tracts of wildness in nine varied, highly-engaging compositions by him and (one each) drummer Paul Wiltgen and pianist Kristjan Randalu. Cornelius says he wanted the band, rather than his tenor, to be the lead voice, and this has largely been achieved. The title track could almost be called, after Beethoven, ‘cheerful feelings on arriving in the countryside’. The album has an airiness and freshness all too desperately needed. (Whirlwind WR4766) ★★★★★ Stride piano evolved from ragtime in the 1920s and continued to have some degree of influence on major figures like Duke Ellington,…

Allegri’s Miserere in the Sistine Chapel Graham O’Reilly Boydell Press 392pp (hb) £45 Sometimes quite famous works have a dubious status. ‘Albinoni’s’ Adagio for example was fabricated from fragments by Remo Giazotti c1900, ‘Bach’s’ Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 585) is probably by somebody else and this fascinating and impressive book demonstrates that our familiar modern versions of Allegri’s Miserere (with their high Cs) ‘have been modified out of all recognition’ from the version written down in the 1630s. Indeed when the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I requested a copy he couldn’t believe the ‘wretched appearance’ of the apparently simple music. O’Reilly employs two types of evidence to establish the performance traditions of the work: he transcribes some earlier manuscript sources, including the crucial 1892 version by the…

As we go to press with this issue, 2021 has barely begun – the pandemic, of course, is still with us, although the promise of an end to it all is welcome indeed. The music world faces an almighty challenge in the months to come, not just to perform live to audiences once more, but also to ensure that those audiences haven’t fallen by the wayside in the intervening year. Music’s paths have seldom been entirely straight and smooth. Sparked by visits from Franz Liszt and John Field, ‘pianomania’ swept through Tsarist Russia from the mid-19th century and musicians did everything in their power to keep playing, despite the considerable obstacles of distance, landscape, weather and politics. Wives transported instruments thousands of miles across the tundra in the dead of…

Mak Grgic Guitarist Born: Ljubljana, Slovenia Career highlight(s): For me, it’s been performing in venues such as the Musikverein, Walt Disney Hall, Konserthuset and Shanghai National Theatre, while also seeing my ideas for EuroStrings and the Virtual Guitar Orchestra come to fruition and make a mark on the international music scene. Musical hero: Conductor Carlos Kleiber, for his immaculate attention to detail and colour, as well as his relentless demand for perfection. Dream concert: A classical version of what I experienced when I supported singer-songwriter KD Lang. I’d love to relive the energy of the audience in the grand hall, breathing with each phrase. Jeneba Kanneh-Mason Pianist Born: Nottingham, UK Career highlight: Playing Florence Price’s Piano Concerto with the Chineke! Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. It was…

South-West England-based music charity Sound World has stepped up to help struggling local musicians by commissioning 12 new short works by composers such as Sally Beamish, Nico Muhly and Howard Skempton. The pieces have been recorded for a forthcoming album, Reflections, available to download soon. Composer Nigel Hess has completed a personal collection of his works called The Way of Light. The album features artists including the BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra, St Catherine’s College, Cambridge Girls’ Choir and pianist Nicholas McCarthy, to name but a few. Orchid Classics will release it on 5 February. Back in December Cordelia Williams recorded a new album of piano works at Southampton’s Turner Sims Hall. Called Night Light, it features poetry alongside a diverse programme of music by Thomas Tomkins, Liszt, Scriabin, Schumann…

What do the following pieces of music have in common: ‘Mars’ from Holst’s The Planets, the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony, and the main theme of Howard Shore’s score for The Lord of the Rings? They all use the time signature of 5/4, five beats in the bar, rather than the conventional symmetry of two and fours (with occasional visits to waltzing three-time) that the vast majority of classical music is composed in. Useful for a pub quiz, maybe, but it begs a bigger question: why are groups of other numbers apart from two, three, and four so uncommon in our music? In the early 18th century, the writer Charles Burney knew the answer. When Handel dared to write a few bars of five-time to dramatise the moment in…

Hugh Anderson Oregon, US The Rogue Valley Choral in Medford, Oregon performed its annual Holiday Faire concert virtually this year. One item played by the Jefferson Baroque Orchestra was an Ariette con Variazzioni by FWH Benda and the director, Morgan O’Shaughnessey, said it reminded him of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. It is a delightful piece with an intricate Baroque flute solo. O’Shaughnessey found the original manuscript online but did not find any recording of it. So it’s great to have a recorded performance of this wonderful piece.…

I guess I’m not the only one searching metaphorically for a rudder, a compass, a fair wind and a seaworthy vessel to get me through 2021. The turmoil inflicted by COVID has cast doubt on all certainties – including, for musicians, the certainties of employment and the continuation of concert and operatic life. Where do we look for the inspiration to rebuild, refocus and regenerate after this catastrophic hiatus? As chance would have it, one of 2021’s anniversaries points us in a helpful direction. Fifty years ago, in April 1971, Igor Stravinsky died. I remember it well. I was a sixth-former who had already decided that, somehow or,other, I would make music the centre of my life. Unluckily I attended a school that didn’t consider music a worthy academic subject.…

James MacMillan Veni, Veni, Emmanuel etc. Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Jukka-Pekka Saraste RCA G010001846447Z Though not Glennie’s debut album, it was this premiere recording of James MacMillan’s riotous and exuberant showpiece, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, that truly launched her international career. Martland Street Songs; plus works by Klatzow, David Horne etc. The King’s Singers RCA G010000245012M Steve Martland, something of a brutalist maverick among British composers, showed a more urbane side to his creativity in this remarkable collaboration with Glennie and The King’s Singers. Erkki-Sven Tüür Symphony No. 4, ‘Magma’ Estonian National Symphony Orchestra/ Paavo Järvi Erato 385 7852 One of Glennie’s most charismatic outings, with what BBC Music Magazine’s reviewer described as ‘an intoxicating physical score’, its awe-inspiring climaxes caught in demonstration sound. John Corigliano Conjurer Albany Symphony Orchestra/David Alan Miller Naxos…

Whether victims of changing fashions, neglect or progress, many US concert and opera venues have been lost over time. 1849’s Astor Place Riot did for New York’s Astor Opera House which, among other productions, staged the US premiere of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena . San Francisco’s Cort Theatre played host to the San Francisco Symphony in the years after World War One. After several names changes, Capitol Follies, as it was latterly called, was demolished in 1941. A car park stands in its place. Before moving to Lincoln Center, the New York Met was located on Broadway in a splendid opera house that opened in 1883. While the gilded auditorium was spectacular, the backstage areas left a lot of be desired. It was eventually pulled down in 1967. Finally to Detroit,…

1813 LIFE: Verdi is born in Le Roncole near Parma, the first child of Carlo, an innkeeper, and Luigia, a spinner. He takes organ lessons as a child. TIMES: Under the Duke of Wellington, a British, Spanish and Portuguese army defeats Joseph Bonaparte’s French forces at Vitoria, Spain, leading to victory in the Peninsular War. 1839 LIFE: His first opera, Oberto , proves a success at its premiere at La Scala in Milan and leads to a commission for two further operas from the theatre’s impresario Bartolomeo Merelli. TIMES: A four-and-a-half mile stretch of railway between Naples and Portici is inaugurated by King Ferdinand II, making it the first line to open in the Italian peninsula. 1859 LIFE: Verdi marries soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he has been in a…

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano) Eugene Asti (piano) Chandos CHAN10492 Recordings have emerged steadily since mezzo-soprano Julia Culp and Otto Bake’s historic 1909 account, the most recent being fellow mezzo Elina Garanca’s with Malcolm Martineau in November 2020. Rich, lower voices such as the magnificent Elisabeth Grümmer (with Aribert Reimann in 1963) or Helen Watts (with Geoffrey Parsons from 1966) bring maturity and complexity to the character. The 59-year-old Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, in 1974, offers a persuasively manic performance; Marian Anderson is downright heart-breaking in 1946. But Sarah Connolly and Eugene Asti, who have a lengthy artistic partnership, create a believable, thoughtful and sympathetic character in their 2008 account. Connolly presents no naïve young girl, but a tenderhearted life companion Connolly presents no naïve young girl, but a tender-hearted life companion whose voice…

As I cast my eye over what follows in the reviews section this month, I notice a distinctly British and American roster of composers. From the US we have works by the likes of Caroline Shaw, David Gompper, Jennifer Higdon and Joseph C Phillips, while keeping the British end up are Hubert Parry, York Bowen, John Tavener and William Walton, among others. We’ve not one but two albums of Beethoven symphonies transcribed for piano – including a turn from the legendary Martha Argerich, who supplies two of the four hands for a keyboard Pastoral . And speaking of legends, this issue includes a Historical round-up where you’ll find recordings by Nadia Boulanger, Wilhelm Backhaus, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Toscanini. Michael Beek Reviews editor This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Terry…

Beethoven Symphony No. 7; Piano Concerto No. 4 Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/ Lahav Shani (piano) Warner Classics 9029517768 73:14 mins Like his mentor Daniel Barenboim, Lahav Shani is both an outstanding pianist and conductor – he has been chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic since 2016 and recently became music director of the Israel Philharmonic. In the piano concerto, with violins arrayed left and right, and cellos and double basses (whose presence is unusually ‘felt’) in the middle, Shani emphasises the music’s lyrical impulse and exultant quality rather than eliciting a heroic overview. Although he relishes the implicit contrast in the brief Andante con moto central movement between muscular strings and acquiescent piano, he avoids the pitfall of attempting to impose a similar emotional narrative on the outer movements. Everything unfolds…

An award-winning composer, conductor and pianist, David Gompper has enjoyed a global career that has seen him make music in the UK, Russia, Nigeria and across the United States. Born in South Carolina, he studied at the Royal College of Music and found an early affinity with chamber music and song. His 2009 Violin Concerto saw a turning point in his focus and the concerto form has continued to occupy and inspire him ever since. Gompper continues to play the piano, accompanying the likes of cellist Tim Gill, double bassist Volkan Orhon and baritone Stephen Swanson.…

Bruckner Latin Motets Latvian Radio Choir/Sigvards Klava Ondine ODE 1362-2 56:38 mins Anton Bruckner devoted his life and his music ‘to the dear God’, the words he inscribed on the title page of his Ninth Symphony. But all his work, with insignificant exceptions, is dedicated to God, even though He gave the composer a particularly rough time. Worse, perhaps, than anything else was a hopeless lack of confidence, which led Bruckner to indulge in incessant revisions of his works. It was the symphonies that caused him most anxiety, but his choral works weren’t altogether untouched by it. However, most of the works on this excellent disc were written early, even in his teens, and rather than revising he would write a new piece, often to the same words. It probably…

R Schumann String Quartets Nos 1-3 Emerson String Quartet Pentatone PTC 5186 869 76:46 mins The musicians have such a natural, vital feel for this music It seems that at last people are really starting to get Schumann’s chamber music. The Piano Quintet has always been popular, but the three string quartets he wrote the same year are marvels too. It’s just that they’re subtler, less extrovert, at times more enigmatic. Here’s playing that penetrates this music to a degree that surprised even a fully paid-up fan like me. The Emerson are such a fine ensemble, but they’re also four strongly individual personalities. The element of dialogue in Schumann’s quartet-writing is forefronted beautifully. At times it’s tender and intimate, like a conversation by the fireside in Schumann’s Leipzig home; at…

Nicolas Bacri (b1961) Born in Paris, Bacri took private lessons with Louis Saguer before entering the Paris Conservatoire in 1979. There he studied under Serge Nigg and Michel Philippot, and graduated with a premiere prix in music composition in 1983. That same year he was awarded a two-year residency at the Académie de France in Rome. From 1987 he was head of Radio France’s chamber music department; he left his position in 1991 to devote himself to composition. He has composed more than 100 works, including orchestral works, operas, cantatas and chamber works.…

JS Bach Goldberg Variations Marcin Swiatkiewicz (piano) Rubicon RCD1064 These Goldbergs are full of energy and spontaneity. Swiatkiewicz’s frequent use of the 16-foot stop lends many of the variations a magnificent Thuringian heft. (OC) ★★★★ Brahms Horn Trio; Cello Sonata No. 1 etc Alec Frank-Gemmill (horn) BIS BIS-2478 Fascinating to hear new colours in a familiar work, with Brahms’s First Cello Sonata transcribed for French horn. It makes a fine prelude to a terrific performance of the Horn Trio. (JP) ★★★★ Bruckner Mass No. 2; Te Deum Collegium Vocale Gent Phi LPH 034 Bruckner’s intricate counterpoint and rich orchestrations make for seductive, powerful listening, especially in the Te Deum which bursts with harmonic colour. Herreweghe and his musicians give invigorating and beautifully balanced accounts. (OC) ★★★★ Chausson • Ravel Piano…

A Celebration of the BBC Orchestras and Choirs The BBC’s ensembles present a series of live concerts based on the theme of ‘reinvention’. The music of Stravinsky is at the heart of the weekend’s programming, marking 50 years since his death. 12-14 February Classical Commonwealth Belize-born British composer Errollyn Wallen explores the history of music in the Commonwealth and how it has intersected with British classical traditions. From Scottish folk songs to Mayan chant from her native Caribbean, Wallen examines the far-reaching concept of ‘British music’. Sunday Feature: 21 February, 6.45pm Lunchtime Concerts from Cardiff The Consone Quartet has curated a week of lunchtime concerts live from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, focused on the music of Schubert and Schumann. They’ll be joined by Paolo Zanzu on…

Sibelian journeys In your January issue, Tom Service shows how Sibelius’s music evokes the wild nature of Finnish weather and landscapes. When listening to his music, particularly the symphonies, I always see a mode of travel: ocean liner crossing the Atlantic, railway train going through barren countryside, yacht in full sail, motor car chugging up to full speed, space ship circling the earth and so on. Put on a performance of any Sibelius symphony, from the slow quiet introduction going into the wide powerful Allegro, and see if you can see what I see! Barry Valentine, County Down Inspiring others I found David Lipsey’s feature on sponsoring young musicians (Pay it Forward, January) inspiring. His description of first meeting Kerem Hasan at a fundraiser for retired greyhounds was especially endearing,…

Though 2020 was unremittingly awful, John Rutter (left) at least did his bit to mark the year’s best bit of news. Invited by the Oxford Philharmonic to write something to thank the scientists behind the Oxford COVID vaccine, the British composer penned Joseph’s Carol, which enjoyed its premiere in the city just before Christmas. Composers and science have, in fact, long enjoyed each others’ company… By far the most eminent scientist among well-known composers was Alexander Borodin. A professor of chemistry at St Petersburg’s Medical-Surgical Academy, the Russian was respected for his research into aldehydes and, in 1869, made the important discovery of the aldol reaction. Though Edward Elgar’s approach to chemistry was more homespun – often involving impressing friends with exciting concoctions – he was accomplished enough to invent…

Margaret Bevan Ilfracombe I was delighted to see Christopher Cook’s Composer of the Month feature on Adolphe Adam in the Christmas issue, not least as I had recently bought the new DVD of his Le Postillon de Lonjumeau, based on your glowing review a couple of months earlier. Why this opera isn’t better known is beyond me. What it lacks in drama, it more than makes up for in charm, memorable tunes and, above all, vocal acrobatics. In this performance, Michael Spyres is simply marvellous as the Postillon himself. A real treat!…

There were two causes for celebration at Versailles last year, both colliding in a gala evening on 16 May. It was 250 years to the day since the Royal Opera first flung open its doors, and 350 years since Louis XIV granted a patent to the Académie Royal de Musique, a company that soon expanded to include the Royal Academy of Dance. The pandemic had other ideas, however. Salvaged from last year’s cancelled programme is Molière’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, with its comedy-ballet to a score by Lully. Christophe Coin will conduct it in June while Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo is performed in July by Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations. Rarities by Campra, Sacrati and Desmarest are spliced with Handel’s Orlando and Cavalli’s Egisto. But the Baroque doesn’t have the stage…

After the Russian royal family heard him ‘duel’ with Mozart in 1782, Clementi began exporting his English brand of pianos to Russia, advising his colleague John Field to ‘make hay while the sun shines’. By 1810, six Western entrepreneurs had set up piano workshops in Russia, including a St Petersburg factory founded by the Bavarian-born Jacob Becker. The ‘Steinway of Russia’ was so well regarded that Becker pianos travelled to the Paris World Fair of 1878. As the century progressed, only a few foreign-made Broadwoods and Blüthners made it through Russia’s protective trade barriers. This helped the likes of Becker dominate the domestic market. The factory thrived until the 1917 Revolution when Becker’s factory became state property, and renamed as Red October with a shift towards inexpensive instruments made in…

Verdi moved gradually away from the rigid conventions of Italian Romantic opera In paintings and in photographs, from youth to old age, Giuseppe Verdi cuts a rather severe figure – his brow creased, his mouth turned resolutely down beneath that bushy beard, his mood solemn and inscrutable. Only in some of the photographs taken late in life do we glimpse a twinkle in the eyes, as if the man had finally started to let down his guard. One wonders what he thought about the life he had lived, across almost a century of drastic social change and dramatic political events, of personal sorrows and astonishing professional achievements. The journey from son of a rural innkeeper to country squire – a rags-to-riches narrative that he was not averse to embellishing –…

The work  ‘Since first seeing him, I think I am blind, Wherever I look, Him only I see’. These besotted words open Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben, regarded as one of his great song cycles alongside Dichterliebe and the Eichendorff-Liederkreis. This cycle emerged in 1840, Robert’s ‘Liederjahr’ (‘Year of song’), during which songs flowed from him at a miraculous rate. A piano postlude recalls the opening song, poignantly re-evoking the bliss of new love The 30 year-old’s inspiration was both emotional and practical. Robert was frantically in love with the supremely gifted pianist Clara Wieck, but needed to persuade his would-be father-in-law, Friedrich Wieck, that he could financially support his intended bride. Famously, Wieck opposed the marriage so ferociously that he took Schumann to court; he lost the case, and…

Felicity Lott (soprano) and Angelika Kirchschlager (mezzo-soprano) Recordings which are less precious about the cycle, and with more awareness of how Schumann expected his music to be performed, will appeal to a non-purist. No one surpasses Graham Johnson, whose consummate gift as pianist and programmer builds depth, space and reflection into the work. Here, he interleaves wordless performances of the songs into a long journey exploring the life and loves of a more three-dimensional woman than Chamisso’s cardboard cut-out. Kirchschlager and Lott sing with artistry, passion and playfulness. (Hyperion CDA67563) Edith Mathis (soprano) Known for her superb Mozart singing, Mathis’s technically superb soprano sound is a delight, virtuosically modulated throughout yet never cold. Her shaping of the vocal lines is exquisite. The extrovert songs, such as Nos 2 and 5,…

... and ... Arvo Pärt: Drei Hirtenkinder; Kleine Litanei; Virgencita; Habitare fratres in unum; Alleluia tropus; And I heard a voice...; Caroline Shaw: and the swallow; Julia Wolfe: Guard my tongue; Anon: Laude di Cortona (arr. Paul Hillier) Ars Nova Copenhagen/ Paul Hillier Naxos 8.574281 62:48 mins This beautifully conceived recording opens with two works by Caroline Shaw and Julia Wolfe, interleaved with groups of sacred works by Arvo Pärt as well as six Laude from Cortona in Tuscany. The Laude , drawn from a 13th-century manuscript which was only discovered in the 19th century, are imaginatively arranged by Paul Hillier. Sung with a huge expressive range, from rustic energy to rapt contemplation, the medieval works forge connections with the 21st-century compositions through shared keys, motives, textures and words. But…

Scriabin • R Strauss R Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra; Scriabin: Symphony No. 4 ‘The Poem of Ecstasy’ Seattle Symphony/ Thomas Dausgaard Seattle Symphony SSM 1025 52:23 mins The trumpet work in both pieces is superlatively good It might be nostalgia for the big late-Romantic orchestra, so long missing in live action, that makes me indulgent to the interpretations of these cosmic blockbusters. Both need this wide soundscape and the art that conceals art for the details in a clear, broad picture. We still get the timbres of woodwind and harps adding their splashes of colour; from shrieking piccolo to silky bass lines, as quiet as the grave in Strauss’s first fugue, the dynamic range is impressive. Any conventional idea that there needs to be a long gap between Also sprach…

Copland • R Strauss R Strauss: Duet Concertino*: Capriccio - Prelude**; Copland: Clarinet Concerto: Appalachian Spring- Suite (1944 version) Ernst Ottensamer (clarinet), *Stepan Turnovsky (bassoon), - -Academy of London; Northern Sin(bnia/ Richard Stamp SignumC1assicsS1GCD654 7.5:14mins Late Richard Strauss and middle-period Copland is an odd coupling. Even the recordings are disparate, the Copland tracks dating from 2014, the Strauss from 1990-91. True, all the music here is from the 1940s, with the concertos - both composed between 1946-48 - being played by the late Ernst Ottensamer, the Vienna Philharmonic's sometime principal clarinet. Strauss's Duet-Concertino goes very nicely, the initiall y disputatious soloists gambolling amicabl y through its extended rococo finale. Unfortunately; several details of Strauss's elaborate interactions for solo stringgroup and string orchestra and harp are lost in the overgeneralised recording…

Boismortier Les voyages de l’Amour Katherine Watson, Katia Velletaz, Chantal Santon Jeffery, Judith van Wanroij, Thomas Dolié, Éléonore Pancrazi; Purcell Choir; Orfeo Orchestra/György Vashegyi Glossa GCD 924009 157:37 mins (2 discs) The French composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) is remembered today mostly for his instrumental music, especially his flute sonatas; but there are a handful of stage works, all written for the Paris Opéra, of which Les voyages de l’Amour was the first, garnering some 18 performances following its premiere in 1736. For some reason the second act failed to please, and was quickly replaced by the composer and his librettist: on this recording both versions are included. Cupid’s Travels is described as a ballet, but while there are numerous highly inventive dance movements it’s otherwise sung throughout, often…

JS Bach 6 Partitas, BWV 825-830 Asako Ogawa (harpsichord) First Hand Records FHR92 150:30 mins (2 discs) Asako Ogawa is a noted soloist and continuo player, and is also a Baroque coach at the Guildhall; the people she has studied with include Laurence Cummings and Steven Devine – she therefore comes with the best credentials. Yet by the time I had listened to the first 30 minutes of this recording, I had taken against her. The opening Praeludium was clean and unfussy, and the first Allemande had hints of pensive rubato, but her playing seemed to have no heart. The first Sarabande had no plangency, and the operatic sweep of the first Sinfonia was reduced to a stilted froideur; in the Allemande of the second Partita, expressiveness was replaced by…

February round-up Wilhelm Backhaus: The Complete 1940s Recordings brings together Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Backhaus was still recording for HMV prior to the acrimonious circumstances which led to his move to Decca in 1950. The disc contains pieces issued in their entirety for the first time. The major work is Mozart’s Coronation Concerto No. 26, K537. Fluent, unfussy and purposeful, Backhaus illuminates the music of some of his favourite composers. His playful understanding of the outer movements of Bach’s Italian Concerto and his gentle view of its Andante are perhaps of especial appeal. (APR 5637 ★★★★ ) In 1920 Arturo Toscanini was appointed artistic director of La Scala, Milan. The First Recordings, 1920-1926 mostly features his newly formed Orchestra of La Scala in a programme mainly of short pieces…

Which features? Make a checklist of the features you need, such as DAB radio, Bluetooth or headphone output; but be warned, if it’s cheap and bursting with hi-tech features, sound quality may well be an afterthought. Look for products that do the basics well, with the money spent where it counts on quality components such as DACs and robust speaker cabinetry. Which brands? For the best sound quality, stick to well-established audio brands such as Denon, Marantz and Cambridge Audio who have a track record in great-value products, plus their reputation to maintain. Bigger brands also drip down features from premium ranges to the cheaper collections. Extras Remember to factor in costs such as speaker cables, speaker stands and possibly even a phono stage if you’re looking to connect a…

The second series of the Music to my Ears podcast is now available to stream or download on Acast, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This series, we’re joined by a raft of famous faces from the classical music world and beyond, all of whom share the stories of their musical lives. Comedian Deborah Frances-White reveals how she used to sneak into the opera when she first arrived in London from Australia and tells us about her experiences of music when she was a Jehovah’s Witness. Composer Errollyn Wallen speaks to us from her lighthouse in the Scottish Highlands, recalling the experience of writing a piece for the BBC Proms in lockdown. Conductor Karina Canellakis, meanwhile, explains how she began life as a violinist and her love of…

When I was growing up I had a lot of music around me – my father used to fill the house with his LPs. We had a recording of Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals with verses by Ogden Nash and I remember absolutely loving it. And as a teenager I discovered Handel’s Messiah, which I would listen to interspersed with The Beatles – my big love affair with Handel’s music began with the soprano solo that begins Part III of Messiah, ‘I Know My Redeemer Liveth’. At that time, my understanding was that classical music had to be sad. I thought the pastoral stuff was naff; I felt that you needed to be on the verge of tears for the music to talk to you. I spent my late-twenties living…