Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2021 i BBC Music Magazine

Berta Joncus Lecturer, critic and author ‘The Beggar’s Opera transmuted opera into comedy, comedy into sharp satire, satire into political activism. And it kicked off the first media-fuelled cult around a teenaged singer. For originality and impact, it had no equal.’ Humphrey Burton Writer, director, producer ‘Writing my autobiography has been a boon: a voyage of self-discovery as I have looked again at films I directed 50 years ago and more, including this one, of music-making at dusk in the Umbrian hills.’ Leon Bosch Double bassist and writer ‘There are more recordings of Schubert’s Trout Quintet than imaginable, and the most rewarding aspect in evaluating so many performances was the need to construct an objective framework of analysis.’…

Vaccine in C major When Yo-Yo Ma went to receive his second COVID-19 vaccine, he brought his cello with him to give his fellow jabbees a little musical lift as they waited in line. Once he’d had his own dose administered at the Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts, the mask-wearing Ma stuck around to play a 15-minute recital of works by JS Bach and Schubert, much to the delight of his impromptu audience. Instrumental player The Premier League footballer Wilfried Zaha has called for all schoolchildren in the UK to be provided with a free musical instrument and lessons as part of the country’s road to recovery from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Music can bring so much joy to so many,’ the Crystal Palace star told The Times,…

Violinist Hideko Udagawa introduces favourite rarities from her collection Conus Violin Concerto in E minor Jascha Heifetz (violin); RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra/Izler Solomon RCA GD60927  I’ve been attracted to this concerto ever since I first heard Heifetz’s glorious 1952 recording about 15 years ago. I went on to learn it myself and I enjoy playing it very much. It’s not very much known outside of Russia, which is a pity. Because the composer was a violinist it fits the instrument very well, so it might sound more difficult than it is, but it’s a very Romantic and passionate work. Zarebski Piano Quintet in G minor W›adys›aw Szpilman (piano); Warsaw Quintet Muza XL 0178  Zarebski had quite a short life – he died when he was 31; so it’s perhaps not…

Oliver Condy Editor Rossini was such an opera powerhouse that we tend to gloss over some of his more intimate works. Very welcome, then, is a new release on Leaf Music of his six delightful Sonate a Quattro, written by the then 12-year-old composer in just three days. Scored for two violins, cello and bass, they’re full of the wit and élan that you’ll find in the operas and, in the Sonata No. 6, a wonderful William Tell-esque storm scene. Freya Parr Digital editor and staff writer I recently became ensconced in the world of author Fran Lebowitz, thanks to the Netflix series Pretend It’s a City. I happily entered the New York she inhabited, falling in love – as she did – with Leonard Bernstein at the…

French art song emerged in the 19th century and was largely considered the French equivalent of the German Lied. In time, though, it had established its own artistic framework and style, with the popular lyric poetry of the day – itself bound up in heady Romantic ideals and symbolism – forming the heart of new works. Berlioz (above) and Gounod were very much at the forefront of the artform; the former’s song cycle Les nuits d’été is the earliest example. Composers such as Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Bizet and Fauré followed suit and hugely expanded the repertoire. It was in the salon where this music initially found its audience; a thriving middle- and upper-middle-class was establishing new trends in music-making and private entertainment. If you were in the right circles, you could…

In 1983, the BBC brought The Beggar’s Opera to millions with a production specially filmed for primetime TV – alongside The Who’s Roger Daltrey as Macheath (above), the cast included major names such as Patricia Routledge (Mrs Peachum), Bob Hoskins (Beggar) and Ken Stott (Jemmy Twitcher). The film was directed by Jonathan Miller, with John Eliot Gardiner as conductor. ‘I remember turning up for filming and being quite stunned at some of the star turns, as I didn’t know who was going to be in it,’ says singer and Radio 3 presenter Lucie Skeaping, who played the part of the prostitute Mrs Slammerkin. ‘I was particularly amazed at Patricia Routledge, as I hadn’t realised that she was actually a properly trained singer with a wonderful operatic voice.’ As well as…

In my late 20s I had my first job in television; I was a member of the team that produced the BBC’s arts programme Monitor. I directed a profile of the Allegri String Quartet and time in New York making Rudolf Bing at the Met, a portrait of an impresario at the height of his power. Early in the summer of 1960, my boss Huw Wheldon and I set off for Italy and our most ambitious project to date, another portrait of an impressive arts figure, the composer Gian Carlo Menotti, whose TV opera Amahl and the Night Visitors was a popular favourite in the UK. Menotti was the inspirer of the renowned Festival of Two Worlds in the city of Spoleto. On the final day of the Spoleto shoot…

1824 LIFE: Studying the piano with Czerny, Liszt writes a waltz for the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein , Diabelli’s collection of variations by 50 different composers. It is his first published work. TIMES: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is premiered at Vienna’s Theater am Kärntnertor. The deaf composer has to be turned towards the audience at the end to see the applause. 1839 LIFE: He begins several years as a touring virtuoso pianist, initially to raise funds for a statue of Beethoven in Bonn. The writer Heinrich Heine later describes his huge popularity as ‘Lisztomania’. TIMES: The inventor Louis Daguerre publicly reveals his ‘daguerreotype’ photographic process. The French government acquires the rights to it so it can offer it free as ‘a gift to the world’. 1865 LIFE: Having taken up quarters in a…

Melos Ensemble Warner Classics 9185142 The bewildering array of available recordings of the Trout Quintet underscores its enduring popularity. After a lifetime performing the Trout and hearing countless other performances and recordings myself, this concentrated burst of critical listening in search of a winner proved challenging but rewarding. The Melos Ensemble, founded in 1950, dedicated itself to chamber music for larger, more unusual forces, and enjoyed an enviable international reputation. Its members all pursued complex careers as soloists, chamber and orchestral musicians, recitalists and pedagogues. It was this complexity, allied to a shared musical mission, that provided the foundation for their unparalleled rapport. This recording illuminates the essence of Schubert’s effervescent composition Their 1967 recording of the Trout Quintet, subsequently remastered and released again in 2011, exemplifies these unique ingredients…

When you reach 250 you can be forgiven for having an extra long birthday celebration. And so for Beethoven the party simply goes on (and on) – this month he scores not just a place as our Orchestral Choice (see p70) but also finds himself in the Recording of the Month spot (see over). We also celebrate dazzling young talent this issue, with must-hear new recordings by the dynamic violinist Johan Dalene and the astonishing pianist Ivan Bessonov. New recordings of up-and-coming artists are exciting, but sometimes it’s also nice to take a trip down memory lane. So this month we have a whole page of reissues, featuring musical gems from the likes of Joan Sutherland, Jussi Björling and John Eliot Gardiner. Michael Beek Reviews editor This month’s critics John…

Haydn Symphonies Nos 24, 30, 42 & 43 Orfeo Orchestra/György Vashegyi Accent ACC 26503 75:01 mins These mainly little-known pieces were composed in the mid-1760s, and while some of them are uneven in quality they all contain striking and sometimes quite original ideas. A particularly welcome discovery is Symphony No. 42 in D major, with its imposing opening movement full of surprising gestures, and its witty finale labelled ‘Scherzando e presto’. The other D major symphony here is No. 24. Its slow movement, with an elaborate flute solo skilfully performed on this recording by the Orfeo Orchestra’s player, Ildikó Kertész, soon outstays its welcome; but the finale’s pianissimo beginning, and its central section almost entirely in the minor, have more individuality. Symphony No. 43, for some reason nicknamed the ‘Mercury’,…

Martin Suckling This Departing Landscape**; Release; The White Road*; Piano Concerto *Katherine Bryan (flute), Tamara Stefanovich (piano); **BBC Philharmonic; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov Katherine Bryan is sublime, revealing a powerful lower range NMC D262 76:57 mins Martin Suckling, born 1981 in Glasgow, here makes his NMC debut. The title track, This Departing Landscape, takes inspiration from Morton Feldman’s comment about music as a transient art form. (Feldman’s Wilde-like soundbites – ‘I found it more beneficial to experiment with fountain pens than musical ideas’ – may be found in Give My Regards to Eighth Street.) Fast-moving, fragmentary melodies and shifting ideas signify the slipperiness of sound. Pattern plays a more prominent role in Release, where semi-regular instrumental outbursts represent the often-experienced urge to make a loud noise in a reverberant…

Largely recognised as the first really important German Romantic opera, Weber’s Der Freischütz (The Marksman) is based on August Apel’s tale of the same name – taken from the Gespensterbuch of ghost stories. It follows a young marksman who sells his soul for magic bullets that will help him win a shooting contest and the hand of the woman he loves. Weber’s opera was an enormous success following its premiere at Berlin’s Schauspielhaus in June 1821. Indeed, London saw four different productions staged at the same time in 1824.…

Though officially undated, Biber’s Requiem in F minor is believed to have been written in the early 1690s. That places it just a few years after the composition of the more grandiose and slightly longer Requiem in A major that he wrote in 1687. No record exists for whom this piece was written, though its intimate scale might suggest it was for a more low-key persona. Even though this setting of the Latin mass was written for smaller forces – it features just five soloists and a five-part choir – Biber succeeds in creating an intense and atmospheric soundworld.…

JS Bach Works for Keyboard, Vol. 4 – Concerti Italiani Benjamin Alard (keyboards) Harmonia Mundi HMM902460-62 196:55 mins (3 discs) This French harpsichordist/ organist continues his massive enterprise with a volume designed to display the young Bach’s mastery of keyboard transcription from concertos written by Vivaldi and his coeval Alessandro Marcello. Alard employs three period instruments: an Italian harpsichord with a warm and beefy sound, a restored Silbermann organ, and a pedal harpsichord of the sort used domestically to stand in for organs in German-speaking countries of the 18th century. Bach’s deep knowledge of Italian orchestral music, and his capacity to appropriate a style while adapting it to keyboard textures allows him, says Alard, to recreate the original universe of these works. Bach’s transcriptions should be seen, he says, as…

May round-up In this 1957 Florentine recording of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, the warmth and lyricism of Alberto Erede’s conducting eschews blood and thunder, giving the score a dignity sometimes lost in rougher-edged accounts, though a bit more tension would not go amiss. As Turiddu, Jussi Björling as always remains graceful, almost aristocratic, with maybe not quite enough Sicilian macho swagger. Renata Tebaldi’s Santuzza offers a striking sense of desperation while again measured and classy. Ettore Bastianini’s Alfio is sung with discretion and cleanness while Lucia Dani is a knowing, almost cheeky Lola. Fine orchestral playing, decent sound. (Alto ALC 1434 ★★★★ ) Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (1910) receives idiomatic treatment in this 1988 performance from conductor Vladimir Minin, a leading champion of the Russian sacred choral repertoire, and…

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Three to look out for Alan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this May Folk by Nell Leyshon  Drama on 3 presents Folk, a play by Nell Leyshon about Cecil Sharp, one of the UK’s most prolific folk song collectors. Folk tells the real-life story of Louie Hooper, who knew over 300 folk songs by heart, many of which she passed on to Sharp in 1903 during his summer trip to Somerset. Drama on 3: 2 May 7.30-9pm The Essay: Peter Brathwaite Baritone Peter Brathwaite introduces us to five singers whose voices have inspired him. From leading American soprano Leontyne Price to Mancunian cabaret singer Eric Bentley, Brathwaite celebrates the perfomers whose voices, artistry and stories have shaped his performing…

The American guitarist and bandleader Pat Metheny has performed with musicians from Ornette Coleman and Gary Burton to Steve Reich, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. A multi-Grammy award winner, he has released countless albums of his own and others’ works, and his new recording on the BMG label, Road to the Sun , includes his first two composed chamber works written for classical guitarists Jason Vieaux and the LA Guitar Quartet. I’m from a musical family. My grandfather was a professional trumpet player, my father played well and my older brother Mike is a fantastic trumpet player. I was pressed into learning trumpet when I was eight. Two years later, in 1964, THE BEATLES invaded America and that was the beginning of my awareness of music other than what was…

The BBC Music Magazine Awards are upon us once again – how time flies in lockdown! What continues to amaze me is the quality of the recordings that have continued to fly out of the studios despite the obvious challenges of the past 12 months. The stars have most definitely aligned for our Recording of the Year – with this year being the 500th anniversary of the composer Josquin, and The Tallis Scholars’ recording of his masses being the final volume in their nine-album, 34-year journey, the accolade couldn’t be more fitting. It’s also rather pleasing that violinist Tasmin Little’s very last recording for Chandos before retiring from playing has won the Chamber Award. All in all, I do hope you enjoy browsing this year’s full run-down of winners –…

Renate Stivrina Composer Born: Daugavpils, Latvia Career highlight: The premiere of my song cycle Seven Moments at the Cross with the State Choir Latvia under the conductor Maris Sirmais. I was once lucky enough to sing in his youth choir, which gave me a brilliant education. Musical hero: Pianist Hélène Grimaud has such respect for the sensitivities of musical timbre, while soprano Julia Lezhneva is intelligent and humble, with an incredible freedom to her voice. Dream concert: I’d love to give a recital on the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Warrington with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. And as a former dancer myself, I’d love to compose for contemporary ballet. Ji Su Jung Percussionist Born: Cheongju, South Korea Career highlight: About 15 years ago, I gave a concert at a juvenile…

Pianist Tom Poster and violinist Elena Urioste’s ‘UriPosteJukebox’ project was one of the highlights of the 2020 lockdown. Now the RPS Award-winning pair have taken it to the studio for an Orchid Classics album, set to be released in September. The sessions took place in February at the Menuhin School and saw them record pieces by Huw Watkins, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Cole Porter and Jesse Montgomery among others. Onyx Classics has enjoyed a run of recording dates in recent months, with sessions in Moscow and Berlin. The latter’s Teldex Studio was the location for a new album project by Chen Reiss. The soprano recorded items by Stravinsky, Copland, Takemitsu, Craig Urquhart and Avner Dorman for her American Landscapes album, scheduled for release in October. The Hidden Notes Festival, which emerged in…

‘Viola, viola’: the title of a piece by George Benjamin that creates a magical meta-instrument from its combination of two violas; and a meditation on the undecidability of the viola, the richest and strangest of the string instruments. It’s the viola’s place inside the textures of string quartets and orchestral music that’s at once its essence and its curse. The curse is built into the acoustic compromise of the viola, which is held like a violin, but tuned a fifth lower. Preserving that violin-like shape impairs the viola’s ability to resonate equally powerfully across the spectrum: the viola should be bigger than it really is to allow its bottom C string properly to resonate. Playing in the middle of the texture, the viola is often lumbered with repetitive patterns and…

Claire Jackson Alongside in-person concerts, I am missing Scotland. Birmingham Contemporary Music Group’s recent Roddy’s Reel workshop salved both sores. Harrison Birtwistle’s piece – scored for bass clarinet with audience participation – was composed and premiered on the north-westerly Isle of Raasay, where the composer lived for many years. Under the expert tuition of conductor Melvin Tay, Zoom-based enthusiasts ‘accompanied’ clarinettist Mark O’Brien with clapping and shusshing, evoking the Scottish coast.…

By announcing that it will move the BBC Concert Orchestra out of London in a couple of years’ time, but not yet revealing the new location, the BBC has set the cat among the pigeons. The move makes perfect sense in BBC terms. It’s in line with the corporation’s policy of boosting its output from the regions. It removes an ensemble from the crowded London market, where six full-time, symphonic-sized orchestras (including the BBC Symphony, of course), plus many chamber and period-instrument bands, tussle for audiences. And if the BBC Concert Orchestra is rooted in a town or city with a fine hall but no current resident band, everybody is a winner. I’m old enough to remember when the BBC had a training orchestra based in Bristol (it was disbanded…

Ah, the cold, cruel ear of the microphone. Its task is to capture faithfully a musical performance but it inevitably goes much further, picking up countless sonic artifacts: musicians’ breaths, page turns, creaky chairs and rattling radiators. And that’s just on stage. When, in the mid-20th century, record labels’ in-house studios were deemed too small to accommodate large orchestras, producers searched for alternatives. In New York, they tried Manhattan Center but encountered cooing pigeons. They tried Webster Hall, but it was plagued by sirens and rain hitting the roof. Carnegie Hall sessions were interrupted by the Seventh Avenue subway. Meanwhile, in London, orchestra players long grumbled over the rumble beneath Kingsway Hall. Noise reduction technology, better soundproofing and audio filters have helped matters, and some labels have moved their studios…

Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in May are: 3-7 May Satie 10-14 May Robert Schumann 17-21 May Fauré 24-28 May Mary Lou Williams ‘Thalberg is the first pianist in the world; Liszt the only one’. Sometimes ‘only’ is replaced by ‘unique’. Either way, when in 1837 Princess Cristina Belgiojoso-Trivulzio gave her evasive verdict on a pianistic ‘duel’, the culmination of a rivalry which had gripped Paris for 18 months, she seemed to imply something ‘other’ about the 25-year-old Franz Liszt. Gaining a reliable picture of Liszt has become a minefield, where much isn’t what it seems Posterity has happily bought into a superstar myth that has Liszt springing fully armed from the head of Zeus to vanquish poor Sigismond Thalberg,…

Amadeus Quartet, Emil Gilels (piano), Rainer Zepperitz (double bass) This 1975 recording is a glowing testament to an all-too-easily forgotten golden age of music-making; not a single note or phrase is allowed to pass by perfunctorily, with each lovingly constructed component contributing to a perfectly judged architectural whole. The Amadeus Quartet perform with customary panache, and Gilels’s sensitivity to every nuance justifies his status as one of the greatest pianists to have lived. Berlin Philharmonic bassist Rainer Zepperitz revels in this exalted company. ( DG 479 4886 ) Alban Berg Quartet, Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano), Georg Hörtnagel (double bass) This is an explosive, yet unfailingly idiomatic and elegant performance. Chamber music has been integral to Leonskaja’s musical journey, which is evident throughout this gripping performance. The brilliance of her sound, exemplary…

Beethoven Triple Concerto, Op. 56; Piano Trio, Op. 36 (after Symphony No. 2) Isabelle Faust (violin), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Alexander Melnikov (piano); Freiburg Baroque Orchestra/ Pablo Heras-Casado Harmonia Mundi HMM902419 64:52 mins Although it’s the Cinderella among Beethoven’s concertos, the Triple has had no shortage of recordings, with soloists occupying the gamut between three disparate big names at one end to established trios at the other. Faust, Queyras and Melnikov, as well as having distinguished solo careers, have worked together often enough to be bedded in as a trio – their recordings of Schumann trios and concertos are a prime example of their talents in both of these areas. The other significant contributors there were Heras-Cassado and the Freiburgr Baroque Orchestra, and they immediately grab the attention here as well,…

Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major MusicAeterna/Teodor Currentzis Sony Classical 19439743772 39:07 mins His articulation bristles with spontaneous relish The Seventh, more than any other of Beethoven’s symphonies, has suffered in the past from generic interpretative tendency. The music’s profoundly rhythmic impetus and moto perpetuo inclinations appear to have created a centralised vision geared primarily towards Wagner’s ‘apotheosis of the dance’. One of the main problems, by no means confined to performances on modern instruments, is that the internal detail of Beethoven’s exuberantly inventive orchestration, especially in moments of buoyant exhilaration, tends to become clouded, most notably in the massed strings. This is where Teodor Currentzis really comes into his own, revealing a panoply of ear-tweaking figurations and colourations. This is especially crucial in the finale, whose manic repetitions…

Hahn Ô mon bel inconnu(DVD) Véronique Gens, Éléonore Pancrazi, Olivia Doray, Thomas Dolié, Carl Ghazarossian, Jean-Christophe Lanièce; Orchestre National Avignon-Provence/Samuel Jean BruZane BZ 1043 59:07 mins Is Ô mon bel inconnu a musical, a comédie en musique, even an operetta? This 1930s Parisian confection defies tidy classification – just like the pair of unlikely collaborators who created it, Sacha Guitry and Reynaldo Hahn: a writer/performer who delighted in outrageous puns and dizzying plotlines, and a composer who cherished clarity. However, opposites appear to have attracted most successfully. Once again, Hahn found a way of setting what Guitry freely confessed were awkward and irregular verses. And he takes the great boulevardier’s almost surreal plot about a family who run a hat shop while dreaming of romantic encounters beyond their corseted bourgeois…

Beethoven Scottish Songs, Op. 108 – selection; Polly Stewart Rufus Müller (tenor); Hammer Clavier Trio Rubicon RCD 1062 48:22 mins This enjoyable selection of Scottish folk song arrangements by Beethoven forms just a small part of a series that comprised some 179 arrangements of largely Scottish, Irish and Welsh tunes which the composer completed for the Edinburgh-based folk song collector George Thomson in the early 1800s. Both men were interested in creating a lasting legacy of folk tunes, with Thomson deliberately commissioning top international composers, the sometimes bawdy lyrics of the originals rewritten by Scottish poets, including Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie. Tenor Rufus Müller and the Hammer Clavier Trio, the latter made up of period instrument specialists Cynthia Roberts (violin), Allen Whear (cello) and Christoph Hammer (fortepiano),…

Brahms Viola Sonatas, Op. 120; Zwei Gesänge, Op. 91*, etc. *Matthias Goerne (tenor), Antoine Tamestit (viola), Cédric Tiberghien (piano) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902652 50:22 mins Antoine Tamestit and Cédric Tiberghien claim that their chosen instruments for these recordings – a specially loaned Stradivarius viola, and a vintage-1899 Bechstein piano – ‘actually redefined our approach to this music.’ Perhaps from their point of view, but the end result for the listener is more contentious than they surely intend. Tamestit’s viola is a wonderful instrument for sure, offering a keening intensity quite different from the over-inflated tonal heft preferred by some of his present-day colleagues. In this company the Bechstein piano sounds odd, with a strangely matte tone (as if its una corda ‘soft’ pedal were permanently deployed) and less in the…

Ivan Bessonov plays... Bessonov: Funf Kinderstücke; Prokofiev: Piano Sonata No. 7; Rachmaninov: Études-tableaux, Op. 39 – Nos 1-5; Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker – Suite (arr. Pletnev) Ivan Bessonov (piano) Ars Produktion ARS38321 (CD/SACD) 64:43 mins Bessonov draws a beautiful sound from the Steinway Prepare to be astonished. Even allowing for the huge technical standards taken for granted today, Ivan Bessonov’s verges on phenomenal. He draws a beautifully rounded sound from the Steinway used in this recording, and the maturity of his searching is remarkable for a pianist still in his late teens. His programme’s opener is a suite from The Nutcracker, arranged by Mikhail Pletnev with a Lisztian level of deft ingenuity. In the ‘March’ the high-speed ascending scales around the main tune pass from the left to the right hand…

May round-up The are also ways of adding to the scope of jazz without using large resources (see Jazz Choice), as demonstrated by Shez Raja and associates on Tales from the Punjab, which sees this superb electric bassist drop down a few gears from his usual melodic groove-driven metafunk to explore his Punjabi roots alongside several musicians from the region. Raja deftly sidesteps the clichés of Indo-jazz, perfectly contextualising his lively contributions to this set of compositions and improvisations that variously feature voice, tabla, sarangi (possibly the only bowed string instrument in the world that requires the strings to be stopped by the player’s cuticles), the bansuri flute and even the cajon, the box drum with roots in Africa and South America. Vivid and highly engaging. (Ubuntu UBU0077CD) ★★★★★ Back…

Lev’s Violin – An Italian Adventure Helena Attlee Particular Books 224pp (hb) £20 The moment Helena Attlee heard the sound of Lev’s violin at a Klezmer gig in Wales she was bewitched: the instrument spoke to her ‘with a voice powerful enough to open pores and unbuckle joints.’ Yet the backstory of this violin, its ‘mongrel history’, was a mystery even to the instrument’s owner, and so Attlee is prompted to embark on something of a historical treasure hunt. A celebrated travel writer and noted Italophile, Attlee begins by delving into the history of Cremona’s luthiers’ workshops before her sleuthing takes her on across Italy and beyond. In many ways, the book is a non-fiction counterpart to Annie Proulx’s wonderful Accordion Crimes, using the adventures of a single instrument as…

Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes As part of the BBC’s project to shine a spotlight on Coventry – this year’s UK city of culture – BBC Four presents a new film about Delia Derbyshire, the Coventry-born pioneer of electronic music. Derbyshire worked at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s. It was during this time she composed the iconic theme tune for Doctor Who. The film is directed by Caroline Catz, with a new original score by performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti, composed using samples from Derbyshire’s posthumously released ‘Attic Tapes’. The film features archive materials, interviews with Derbyshire’s collaborators and dramatisations starring Catz herself in the role of the composer. Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes will be broadcast on BBC Four in May.…

No Purple, Hayes? I congratulate Malcolm Hayes on his enthusiastic and insightful piece on Malcolm Arnold. I discovered Arnold’s music more than 60 years ago as a schoolboy and was captivated by his melodies and brilliant orchestrations. However, I was surprised that no mention was made of the extraordinary concert he conducted in September 1969, as it was history in the making. Arnold collaborated with rock band Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for the premiere of John Lord’s Concerto for Rock Group and Orchestra. After difficult rehearsals, it was a triumph and played to a packed Albert Hall. Alan Freeman wrote in the Melody Maker: ‘the orchestra played like mad, the group played like demons and Malcolm Arnold conducted the orchestra like a man possessed! At times he…

On the evening of Tuesday 7 May, 1963, an enthusiastic crowd of opera lovers filed into the Grand Opera House in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a production of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. In the wings, nervously waiting to make his UK debut as a professional singer, was an unknown young Italian tenor. His name? Luciano Pavarotti. Pavarotti had sung in the UK before, though not as an operatic soloist. Eight years previously, aged just 19, he had travelled to Wales with the Corale Rossini, a male voice choir from his hometown of Modena, to compete at the Eisteddfod in Llangollen. The choir won first prize in its category, and their success fired Luciano with a desire to launch his own career in music. Eight years of patient training in his native…

Ears pricked up recently here at BBC Music Magazine when Bristol property websites advertised the sale of a terraced house complete with four bedrooms, two reception rooms… and a fully operational, two-manual pipe organ (left). While our diapason-doting editor rushed to plug in a few figures into an online mortgage calculator, we reflected on other pipe organs that can be found in unlikely places… Clearly, anything Bristol can do, Birmingham can do bigger. Birmingham, Alabama, that is. If ever you are in the US city and get invited to tea at Barry Norris’s house, do ask if you can have a go on his five-manual, 11,200-pipe organ – not surprisingly, it’s the largest to be found in a private residence anywhere in the world. Shoppers at Macy’s department store in…

Julian Haylock Poor old Tchaikovsky! Listening through Richard Bonynge’s fabulous complete ballet recordings for Decca, I was once again reminded how Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores were once derided for having symphonic pretensions, and his symphonies for being overtly balletic. Yet to hear Bonynge in this glorious repertoire is to be constantly reminded of how closely entwined structural and poetic narratives can be. And this was surely Tchaikovsky’s supreme achievement – the incendiary fusion of tonal function and emotional imperative.…

One of the prominent figures contributing to Tony Palmer’s Once at a Border is Robert Craft, an American conductor who, from the 1940s onwards, was Stravinsky’s assistant and trusted adviser and who lived with the Stravinskys in Hollywood and New York. It’s often thought that Craft was the composer’s amanuensis, but Stravinsky had no need of anyone to help him with his scores. Instead, Craft was more of a sounding-board for musical ideas, a confidant and someone who could effectively rehearse orchestras, ready for Stravinsky to conduct. He was instrumental in guiding the composer in his late style, introducing him to the soundworlds of Webern, Boulez, Stockhausen and more. ‘I think that if I hadn’t shown him some of the music that the European avant-garde were producing,’ Craft told this…

Superstar One of Liszt’s most imposing operatic fantasies, Réminiscences de La Juive (1835), was based freely on Halévy’s opera. This three-movement piano work showcases daredevil leaps, rapid octave work and rapid chromatic thirds for a single hand. Traveller Années de Pèlerinage contained descriptive pieces, some of which had gestated for 20 years. The autumnal Sposalizio responded to Raphael’s The Marriage of the Virgin (above). Liszt deploys a free variation technique, presenting a lyrically devotional idea in a cumulative succession of guises. Humanitarian Funérailles is an elegy for those lost in the Hungarian Revolution in 1849. The sombre opening’s evocation of tolling bells is answered later by rolling octaves, and the music reaches an overwhelming climax with the return of the lamenting main theme. Prophet The first La lugubre gondola is…

Around two-and-a-half years elapsed between the 20-year-old Schubert writing his song Die Forelle (in 1817) and the commission of the Quintet on which it is based. That short period, however, was quite long enough for this prolific composer to produce a wealth of masterpieces for every musical force, from solo piano sonatas to the Sixth of his nine symphonies. Life was largely looking up at the time, with his friend Joseph Hüttenbrenner and the baritone Johann Michael Vogl giving his career invaluable support and a teaching role providing comparative financial stability. Building a Library is broadcast on Radio 3 at 9.30am each Saturday as part of Record Review . A highlights podcast is available on BBC Sounds.…

What’s the attraction of the Triple Concerto for musicians? It’s quite a unique piece, with its combination of chamber, symphonic and concertante elements. There are a lot of places where it’s only about the trio, then there are moments between one soloist and the orchestra. And then there are passages with two soloists against one. It’s so diverse and very special, but also tricky. Musically it’s so witty and so original, and it’s a pure joy for every musician. Why did you want to record on period instruments? They have such different characters; and there’s a big advantage in using them in the sense of the rhetoric, articulation and colour they bring. It’s perhaps more obvious with the piano, because the fortepiano sounds completely different to a Steinway. With this…

Elgar Violin Concerto; Violin Sonata* Renaud Capuçon (violin), *Stephen Hough (piano); London Symphony Orchestra/ Simon Rattle Erato 9029511282 74:31 mins Accuracy matters, and violinist Renaud Capuçon has it in abundance. His pin-point precision in the opening movement of Elgar’s Violin Concerto sharpens the nerve-ends of the writing in the faster passages; and where soloists often fudge and slither, Capuçon nails every note, with nothing glossed over, distilling an uneasy air of incipient desperation in the music. He is, though, much more than a technical sharp-shooter. The ‘Windflower’ episode is steeped in aching sadness and vulnerable poetry, and that is echoed in Capuçon’s tenderly affecting traversal of the slow movement. Passions run high in the finale, where Capuçon strikes a riveting balance between a teeming nervous energy and, in the famous…

Rameau Dardanus Cyrille Dubois, Judith van Wanroij, Chantal Santon Jeffery; Purcell Choir; Orfeo Orchestra/György Vashegyi Glossa GCD 924010 168:37 mins (3 discs) This is an exciting and full-blooded account of a great opera Dardanus offers a wide spectrum of instrumental colour and a rewarding expressive range second to none among Rameau’s operas. Yet the work’s premiere in Paris in 1739 was indifferently received, and Rameau and his librettist Le Clerc de la Bruère made sweeping changes for its revival in 1744. So much so, in fact, that Dardanus was then described as a nouvelle tragédie. Today’s artists must decide which of the two versions to perform, or whether to mix and match. György Vashegyi, broadly speaking, has followed the 1744 score, which notably contains an affecting prison scene in Act…

A Musical Zoo Ravel: Histoires naturelles; plus songs by Barber, Britten, Duke, Fauré, Howells, Ireland, Musorgsky, Schubert, R Schumann, Shostakovich, R Strauss and Wolf Ashley Riches (bass-baritone), Joseph Middleton (piano) Chandos CHAN 20184 75:13 mins Riches sounds at home in any language or musical idiom When it’s not cultivating the cockroach or gelling with a jellyfish, there are another 36 species embraced by Ashley Riches’s musical zoo. Such a composer-hopping embarrassment of riches could prove a little fidgety, but happily the menagerie is anchored by two extended sets of songs: Ravel’s delicious Histoires naturelles, five snapshots of the natural world as acutely observed and nuanced as anything to be found in Janácek; plus Vernon Duke’s whimsical foray into the epigrammatic tongue-incheekery of Ogden Nash. Embracing German, French, Russian and English,…

Nordic Rhapsody Grieg: Violin Sonata No. 1; Stenhammar: Two Sentimental Romances; Sinding: Suite ‘im alten Stil’; plus works by Nielsen, Rautavaara and Sibelius Johan Dalene (violin), Christian Ihle Hadland (piano) Christian Ihle Hadland proves especially magical in the Grieg Sonata BIS BIS-2560 (CD/SACD) 68:24 mins Not content with convincingly recording two major concertos aged 19, the Swedish violinist Johan Dalene (currently a BBC New Generation Artist) promptly recorded this recital just after he had turned 20. Youthful passion occasionally pushes him to stylistic excess (his portamento slithering makes Sibelius’s ‘Souvenir’ wobble like a drunkard), but for most of the time he’s beauty incarnate and in perfect step with his composers’ various voices. He’s also blessed with a superbly understanding piano partner, Christian Ihle Hadland, who proves especially magical in the…

Berg Violin Concerto et al Gil Shaham (violin), Susanna Phillips (soprano), San Francisco Symphony/ Michael Tilson Thomas SFS Media 2193600902  Berg’s shimmering, often Mahlerian soundscapes are lovingly rendered by Tilson Thomas. Shaham brings tonal beauty and power to the sublime Concerto, while Phillips’s voice is radiant in the Seven Early Songs. (OC) ★★★★★ Eugene Birman Nostra Culpa Helsinki Chamber Choir Alba ABCD 500  Birman’s style ranges from haunting and atmospheric to plain brutal, with all manner of whoops and hollers thrown in. It’s superbly sung here but, for many, may prove fairly hard to love. (JP) ★★★★ . Haydn String Quartets, Op. 76 Chiaroscuro Quartet BIS BIS-2358  Following their disc of the first half of Op. 76, the Chiaroscuros return, armed with a perfect sound balance and rich, vibrant textures…