Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2021 i BBC Music Magazine

Claire Jackson Writer and editor ‘I first heard Beatrice Rana perform ten years ago when she won the Montreal International Music Competition. Her latest Chopin recording earns her a place in the pantheon of super-league pianists.’ Page 26 Rob Ainsley Writer and blogger ‘Researching Hooked on Classics involved the variety I love: Tchaikovsky, electronic Bach, 1970s prog, Kenny Everett, the Horse of the Year Show . I also now know quite a bit about vegetable slicers.’ Page 46 Stephen Johnson Author and composer ‘It’s too easy to take Dvoÿák for granted. As a result of writing my piece, I won’t be doing that again. There’s more to him than an inspired folksy melodist with a flair for big canvasses. So much more.’ Page 60…

9 …grade exams on nine instruments, including singing, taken in a single day by music teacher Estelle Jackson. 13 …years old. Violinist Christian Li (see p14) has become the youngest artist ever to record Vivaldi’s Four Seasons . 185 …children performed Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in a body percussion arrangement at Saint-Michel-Garicoïts de Cambo school in France. 10,000 …vaccines funded by the Truro Cathedral Choristers (above) through their crowdfunding campaign, which brought together singers from 31 countries around the world.…

By mid-September 1922, Ronald Gurney could face it no more. Just two months earlier, he had married and moved into a new home in Gloucester, hoping to put his experiences as a soldier in World War I behind him. Instead, Ronald’s brother, the composer and poet Ivor Gurney, turned up unexpectedly on the doorstep, announcing his intention to stay with the newly-weds. It would have been a difficult situation at any time, but Ivor’s mental turmoil made it immeasurably worse. He, too, had been a First World War soldier, seeing action at Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele. Wounded and gassed in 1917, Ivor was eventually invalided out of front-line action. But when the war was over, what we now call ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ began wreaking havoc on his personal behaviour.…

This year’s Riga Jurmala Music Festival in Latvia featured the first ever appearance of the Mariss Jansons Festival Orchestra. Made up of players from leading orchestras in Germany, Holland, Norway, Switzerland and Austria, the new ensemble takes its name from the great Latvian conductor, who died in December 2019. It is by no means the first orchestra to have been named after a person… Some orchestras simply take their titles from the person who founded and conducted them – such as the Hallé, brainchild of Sir Charles Hallé in Manchester in 1858, and, in recent years, the John Wilson Orchestra. Evgeny Svetlanov also conducted the orchestra that bears his name. However, for him, the honour came posthumously – the State Academic Symphony Orchestra ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ adopted its current title three…

MY FINEST MOMENT Néère Véronique Gens (soprano), Susan Manoff (piano) Alpha Classics ALPHA215 (2015) I had been fighting for so many years with EMI, because I wanted to make a second solo recording of French songs. The first one, with Roger Vignoles, was a very big deal for me, but they didn’t want me to record another. I was sure this was my music; I wanted to do it so much and I wanted to do it with Susan Manoff. They wanted a big name pianist, but we were looking for something more. So when I moved to Alpha I said, ‘This is what I want to do,’ and they said ‘Of course, let’s do it!’ I always want to include well-known songs plus songs that nobody knows – I…

Jeremy Pound Acting editor Recent research into national anthems led to me revisiting various works in which they feature one way or another. This included the Philharmonia and Riccardo Muti’s recording of Schumann’s (right) Marseillaise -quoting Hermann und Dorothea Overture, based on Goethe’s tale of love during the French Revolutionary Wars. Schumann weaves the anthem into this charming work with brilliant ingenuity. Alice Pearson Cover CD editor Last weekend I revisited a DVD of a young Maurizio Pollini playing concertos by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms with the Vienna Philharmonic under the veteran conductor Karl Böhm and a young Claudio Abbado. What a treat, with the clarity of the Mozart complementing the warmth of the Brahms and each concerto executed to perfection. Michael Beek Reviews editor Following artists…

Chopin 26 Preludes Scriabin Piano Sonata No. 2 Beatrice Rana (piano) Atma ACD 22614 (2012) Recorded when she was just 19, Rana’s debut disc of Chopin and Scriabin placed lyricism above mere pianistic fireworks. Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 Beatrice Rana (piano); Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano Warner Classics 2564600909 (2015) ‘In the hands of Rana, Prokofiev’s concerto becomes a white-hot volcano of intense expression’ (Jessica Duchen, BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month, February 2016) JS Bach Goldberg Variations Beatrice Rana (piano) Warner Classics 9029588018 (2017) ‘Every piece in Rana’s tapestry is vividly characterised… For this CD, five stars are not enough’ (Michael Church, BBC Music Magazine) Stravinsky Petrushka; The Firebird Ravel Miroirs; La Valse Beatrice Rana (piano) Warner Classics 9029541109 (2019)…

‘‘Godfrey showcased not just Ethel Smyth but also such lesser-known figures as Edith Swepstone, Mary Lucas and Ethel Barns ’’ Has any musician been more devoted to the cause of British music than Sir Dan Godfrey (1868-1939)? Henry Wood, with his Queen’s Hall Orchestra, played his part across the same period, not least via the Proms. However, the less flamboyant Godfrey – staid, bespectacled bank manager in appearance – was just as formidable. Countless native composers (a significant number female) had their works performed by the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra – now the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra – during Godfrey’s 41-year reign as conductor and guiding light. Quite how many is uncertain: at his farewell dinner in 1934, Godfrey guessed at something between 220 and 250. ‘I’ll bet most people couldn’t name…

Though you can find the Hooked on Classics albums on several streaming services today, the five-minute opening track ‘Hooked on Classics Parts 1 & 2’ isn’t precisely what Radio 1 listeners would have heard storming the pop charts in 1981 (or while watching Legs & Co do their moves on Top of the Pops). The album track includes snatches of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Bach’s Toccata in D minor, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Rossini’s William Tell overture; however, the original single’s side-A line-up was, in rapid succession, as follows: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the Bumblebee Mozart Symphony No. 40 Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue Sibelius Karelia Suite Mozart ‘Voi che sapete’ from The Marriage of Figaro Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet Clarke Prince of Denmark’s March (‘Trumpet Voluntary’)…

In the summer of 1997, Sunderland AFC had a bright idea. Though football teams had long been running out onto the pitch at the beginning of games to the sound of pop music, why not mark the first season at the club’s new home, the Stadium of Light, with something a little different? And so, as the Black Cats emerged from the tunnel for the first home match of the season, it was the sound of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights booming through the PA system that greeted them. It worked a treat, as that first match saw Manchester City vanquished 3-1. Sunderland would come third that season before finishing top the following year and gaining promotion to the Premier League. The choice of music also made its mark outside…

King’s College Chapel (above) is Cambridge’s most iconic building. Begun in 1446 following King Henry VI’s foundation of the college, this architectural masterpiece is home to the world-famous choir, which has sung daily services in its splendid acoustics since its very beginning. In addition to the regular cycle of sung services, the chapel today hosts many of Cambridge’s largest orchestral and choral concerts plus the Easter at King’s Festival. It is, of course, also the setting for A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s, broadcast annually around the globe by the BBC since 1931.…

1857 LIFE: In Prague he enrols at the Institute for the Cultivation of Church Music to study organ and composition. TIMES: The Supreme Court of the US rules that blacks are not citizens, regardless of whether they are slaves or free, and so the rights and privileges of the Constitution do not apply to them. 1884 LIFE: On his first visit to England, he conducts his Stabat Mater at the Albert Hall and his Sixth Symphony at St James’s Hall. He leaves with two commissions for major choral works. TIMES: A bombing campaign by Irish nationalists in London results in an explosion in the left-luggage room of Victoria Station; the building, however, is empty and no one is injured. 1892 LIFE: He accepts an offer to become director of the…

Zubin Mehta (conductor) Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Decca 470 9542 Zubin Mehta and the Symphonia Domestica are bosom buddies: he has recorded it on no fewer than three occasions. While his re-makes with the Berlin and London Philharmonics have their moments, they pale in comparison with this remarkably fresh and vivid version with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (with which today he is conductor emeritus). Made in 1969, when Mehta was in a golden period as the orchestra’s music director, it bristles with the self-confidence and élan he had instilled in the players since his appointment, aged just 26, seven years earlier. Mehta finds a degree of emotional nuance matched by no other conductor Mehta has often been branded a brash interpreter, but there is no sign of that here.…

Beethoven Complete Piano Concertos Krystian Zimerman (piano); London Symphony Orchestra/ Simon Rattle DG 483 9971 172:00 mins (3 discs) It is appropriate that the peak of Beethoven’s orchestral artistry should be scaled by two musicians also at the height of their powers: these performances are as near-definitive as I ever expect to hear. Krystian Zimerman, who has always ploughed a lonely furrow in defiance of convention, just gets better with the years; supported by the transparency and eloquence of his passage-work, his interpretations here have a fleet grace which takes the breath away. Simon Rattle, meanwhile, makes the perfect foil, though Zimerman, as reported in Jessica Duchen’s liner note, employs a different metaphor: ‘I don’t expect Simon to accompany me, yet he does, because he’s absolutely like a glove… he’s…

Brahms Symphony No. 3; Serenade No. 2 Budapest Festival Orchestra/ Iván Fischer Channel Classics CCS SA 43821 (CD/ SACD) 68:13 mins The final instalment in Iván Fischer’s complete Brahms symphony cycle is something of a mixed bag. Conductor and orchestra certainly have the measure of the Third Symphony’s lyrical middle movements which are projected with great expressive warmth, wonderfully subtle phrasing and a natural fluidity of tempo. There are also some extremely imaginative touches in the Finale: for example, the horn’s menacing stopped notes, and the mysteriously wispy washes of string colour that bring the Symphony to a close. Fischer takes the movement at a commendably lively speed, and he builds up quite a head of steam in the big orchestral climaxes. Far more problematic is the first movement. The…

Vivaldi Violin Concertos, Vol. 9 – Le nuove vie: RV 194, 211, 281, 283, 346 & 365 Boris Begelman (violin); Concerto Italiano/ Rinaldo Alessandrini Naïve OP7258 70:26 mins Here is Volume 9 in the stimulating series of violin concertos which form part of Naïve’s ‘Vivaldi Edition’. This is playing that deserves unqualified commendation Le nuove vie, that is to say, new directions, refers to Vivaldi’s response to changing tastes in music which were taking place around the 1720s. Most, if not all the concertos assembled on the disc belong to this period even if they cannot be assigned precise dates. The fertile melodic invention and the sheer profusion of ideas projected in this music are a source of constant wonder and unbridled delight. The blend of joyful tuttis and scintillating…

Tiranno Handel: Agrippina condotta a morire; Monari: La Poppea; Monteverdi: L’Incoronatione di Poppea – arias; A Scarlatti: Il Nerone; La Morte di Nerone Kate Lindsey (mezzo-soprano); Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen Alpha Classics ALPHA 736 75:34 mins Lindsey’s extraordinary vocals are complemented by Arcangelo’s subtle playing After their disc of works related to the mythical Arianna, Kate Lindsey and Jonathan Cohen present another remarkable ‘character’ exploration, this time of the tyrant Nero as displayed through works from the 17th and 18th centuries. This is perfect ground for Lindsey and Cohen, both extremely accomplished and transformative performers of Baroque music. The journey opens with Scarlatti’s chamber cantata Il Nerone. Lindsey immediately summons up the savage cruelty of Nero’s heart as Rome burns (‘Or coll’abisso istesso’), and as he contemplates his helpless victims (‘Veder chi…

Laks Complete Works for Voice and Piano Ania Vegry (soprano), Dominique Horwitz (speaker), Katarzyna Wasiak (piano) EDA EDA 45 102:23 mins (2 discs) A superbly performed two-disc set and some really notable gems This world premiere recording of songs by Polish-born composer Simon Laks (1901-83) is quite a discovery. Almost every track in this extensively annotated and superbly performed two-disc set demonstrates Laks’s special gift for capturing the emotional essence of the poetry to which he felt the closest affinity and clothing it with idiomatic vocal writing and instantly evocative piano accompaniments. The first disc focuses primarily on his earliest songs composed from 1938 onwards. These include an extensive number of settings of poems by Julian Tuwim, covering a wide range of emotions from utter despair (‘Erratum’) to gentle nostalgia…

Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 2 This late work was written in 1845, just two years before Mendelssohn died; that he was only 36 when he finished it cruelly reminds us that he left the world all too soon. Written while enjoying a period of respite in Frankfurt, the piece contains vivid passages and moments of intense dramatic expression and much energy. Mendelssohn himself admitted to having stuggled with parts of the work and though he completed it, he shelved it as something of an exercise. Indeed, it wasn’t published until after his death, in 1851.…

September round-up  Arne’s finest opera, Artaxerxes, is performed with a compelling sense of theatrical narrative by The Mozartists under Ian Page, originally taped by Linn Records in the wake of a celebrated 2009 production at Covent Garden. In theory, Arne’s valiant attempt to put English language opera seria on the musical map might have changed the course of homegrown opera, but in the event a lack of local creative talent and the public’s prevailing taste for music on the lighter side maintained the status quo. Revisiting this exhilarating performance, it is little wonder that Haydn exclaimed he ‘had no idea we had such an opera in the English language’. (Signum Classics SIGCD 672 ★★★★ ) Vladimir Jurowski’s 2004 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Third Orchestral Suite is especially notable for the conductor’s…

Lypertek PurePlay Z3 2.0 £99 Lypertek makes some great value earbuds, and this updated version (above) boasts excellent active noise cancellation, Bluetooth 5.2 – which ensures a longer range and more stable connection – and whopping seven-hour battery life. What’s more, they fit like a glove and sound terrific. amazon.co.uk Grado GT220 £199 There’s no noise cancelling here, and they don’t feel especially premium. They are, however, the most musical true wireless earbuds I’ve found, with a dynamic and engaging performance that’s difficult to fault and a level of detail that’s a world away from the competition. grado.co.uk Sony WF-1000XM4 £250 Easily the best true wireless headphones currently available, Sony’s flagship design might be expensive, but have phenomenally good noise cancelling, great 12-hour battery life, comfortable fit, great call quality…

Should you want an amusing reminder of what TV was like in the 1980s (or, if you’re a little younger, an intriguing insight), go to YouTube and type in ‘Hooked On Classics Top of the Pops’. Though no-one tried to fit the whole Royal Philharmonic Orchestra into the Top of the Pops studio, alas, what you will see is Legs & Co dancing a slightly awkward-looking choreography to a medley of Mozart, Grieg and all. Presenter Steve Wright’s mickey-taking upper-class accent may speak volumes about how many perceived classical music, but the sales figures told a cheeringly different story – as we explore on p46, Hooked on Classics’ charts success earned the RPO a potentially life-saving sum. Time and again, we find that when people are actually given the chance…

Late revival An orchestral work by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor unperformed for over a century has been given a new lease of life at this year’s Three Choirs Festival. His Solemn Prelude was premiered at the festival back in 1899, but has since gone unnoticed – until, that is, a recent stock-take of works premiered at the Three Choirs brought it to light. For the 2021 re-release, performed by the Philharmonia at Worcester Cathedral, a new orchestral score was specially prepared by Faber Music. Not such an ill wind Research carried out at Bristol University has shown that playing woodwind or brass instruments generates fewer aerosols and droplets than singing or speaking. The study, carried out on a range of instruments and assisted by leading trumpeter Alison Balsom, was triggered by the…

The Passion of Reason Sour Cream Attacca 9682-3 This is legendary for me, because you have three recorder legends in a trio together: Frans Brüggen, Kees Boeke and my former teacher Walter van Hauwe. It was a very important album for me when I started playing in Amsterdam in the 1990s. It’s very mystical, with ideas around symmetry and perfect contrapuntal art, but also emotion and passion. The sounds are unusual; it’s a bit of a trip. JS Bach Air Ekseption Philips 873 003 UBY Bach’s Air from the orchestral Suite in D major is obviously quite well known; for me it’s a symbol of eternity and of absolute music and perfect freedom in the universe. But this recording by the Dutch band Ekseption features Hammond organ and soprano saxophone!…

Lucy Crowe Soprano I like to listen to fellow artists, colleagues and friends that I’ve worked with, just to hear how they’re getting on and feel proud of them. I love mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey’s voice; it has such a dark-chocolate colour, and she plays with it so much. I love how she can be so dramatic and show real vulnerability at the same time – there’s a real contrast in her artistry. Her new release, Tiranno, is brilliant (see review, p78). A few months back I heard a voice on BBC Radio 3 and thought ‘who is that?!’ It just stopped me in my tracks. I found out it was the soprano Ruby Hughes, so I’ve been listening to her Handel’s Last Prima Donna album. I find it magical; her…

Music education, at every level and in every format, has never seemed so imperilled. I write that not to demoralise those young people who, in a few weeks, will embark on music courses at school, university or conservatoire. Thank heavens you are! There are fewer and fewer of you. A new Ofsted report points out that, over the past decade, ‘pupil numbers at key stages 4 and 5 [of the music curriculum] have steadily declined, key stage 3 provision has been reduced and trainee primary teachers have been offered shrinking amounts of musical training’. In other words, every age group of state-school pupils, from reception to sixth-form, is likely to be getting less (or worse) music education than those at school ten, 20 or 30 years ago. And it wasn’t…

Beatrice Rana’s new Chopin album is just one of several recordings to be released this summer, with plenty of other pianists wrapping their fingers around his keyboard works. Harmonia Mundi followed its June release of Complete Nocturnes by Alain Planès (see review, p87) with a set of Sonatas and Mazurkas from Javier Perianes (left) in July – we’ll look at that in next month’s issue. Also being reviewed in the October issue is a pair of Deutsche Grammophon Chopin releases: Alice Sara Ott presents Echoes of Life, which sees her framing the 24 Preludes with contemporary works by the likes of Nino Rota and Chilly Gonzalez, while Seong-Jin Cho (see p22) takes on the Piano Concerto No. 2 with the LSO. There’s more to follow from DG, too, with Jan…

Though one of the most important and popular composers of the last 150 years, this doesn’t mean Ravel is always easy to place, either as a man or as an artist. The man was at once shy and reclusive, though fully aware of his own gifts, and willing to be aggressive in his music’s defence. Some people found him cold and offhand; others profoundly treasured his friendship. Possibly for us, the most intriguing mystery concerns his sexuality. All we really know is that he was not gay and that he never married – he realised not only that marriage would entail an unacceptable intrusion on his working habits, but that those habits might prove equally unacceptable to a wife. As for the mysteries of his music, Ravel the artist, while…

‘He has assisted many monarchs in their musical difficulties,’ wrote The Star newspaper in a tribute to Daniel Godfrey Snr in May 1898. ‘The late King Kalakau of the Sandwich Islands sent him the Order of Kapiolani. From the Sultan of Zanzibar came two splendid gold bracelets for a new setting of the National Anthem of Zanzibar. The late Emperor Alexander of Russia presented him with a splendid enamel and silver cigar-case for arranging regimental marches for the Russian Army…’ As a composer and arranger for military bands, the influence of Dan Godfrey Jr’s father spread impressively wide. Himself the son of Charles Godfrey, the long-term bandmaster of the Coldstream Guards, Daniel Godfrey Snr was just 25 when he was appointed bandmaster of the Grenadier Guards in 1856, soon after…

One composer particularly well known for his love of football is Mark-Anthony Turnage – his opera The Silver Tassie, premiered in 2000, is all about the game. On 5 November this year at the Barbican, Turnage will be remembering one of his beloved Arsenal’s most dramatic moments – the 1989 league title-winning victory against Liverpool – when his new work Up For Grabs is premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, guitarist John Parricelli and drummer Peter Erskine. Named after a moment from Brian Moore’s commentary of the match, the work will be preceded by a conversation with fullback Lee Dixon and other members of the 1988-89 Arsenal team.…

In the ‘Song to the Moon’ the fusion of words and music is so fluid it seems entirely natural Does Dvorák need any special advocacy? Surely he’s about as ‘canonic’ as it gets. At least three of his symphonies, his Cello Concerto, the opera Rusalka and several of his chamber works are unshakeable favourites. The recent revamping of a hugely popular TV commercial for an iconic brand of bread has ensured that the cor anglais melody from his From the New World Symphony is one of the few classical themes known way beyond the concert hall. Yet, while the rest of Dvorák’s huge output is marginalised, the very popularity of those favourites has the effect of obscuring their beauty and originality for those who think of themselves as cognoscenti. And…

Antoni Wit (conductor) If you don’t like downloads or streaming, this richly enjoyable 2009 performance by the Staatskapelle Weimar is the leading option on CD. Antoni Wit’s tempos are consistently broader than most, but that allows the warmth of Strauss’s orchestration to radiate, with no significant loss of detail. The Weimar violins are especially impressive, phrasing with a natural pliability and feeling for the long-spun, lyrical melodies. Naxos’s engineering sets the players in a concert-hall perspective, with pleasingly high levels of transparency. ( Naxos 8.570895 ) George Szell (conductor) The Symphonia Domestica is so intricately orchestrated that any weaknesses in individual sections or players are glaringly obvious. There’s no danger of that in this Cleveland Orchestra recording. Made in 1964 for Strauss’s centenary, it still scorches all the others in…

I do love a recording cycle; it’s a bit like waiting for a sequel to a great film – will the next instalment be as good? Better? This issue we see the continuation of a number of very fine series, from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony’s riveting Shostakovich to Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico’s frankly epic Haydn symphony cycle. But that’s not all, for Naïve’s always-great Vivaldi mission continues with cracking violin concertos, and Barry Douglas returns with a third volume of Tchaikovsky piano treasures. And if sequels aren’t your thing, how about a remake? Krystian Zimerman makes a fabulous return to Beethoven’s piano concertos – our Recording of the Month. All that, plus new discoveres, a page of reissues and a handful of books to enjoy. Michael…

Barber • Scriabin • Sibelius Barber: Symphony No. 1; Scriabin: Le Poème de l’extase; Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 Kansas City Symphony/Michael Stern Reference Recordings RR-149 62:28 mins The orchestra’s quicksilver response reveals a tour de force If you were wondering where to find music-making to shed remarkable light on the Nordic world of Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony, then with no disrespect to its inhabitants, Kansas City might not be the first place you’d think of looking. Founded in 1982, this orchestra offers here a classy standard of playing, plus the conductor-and-orchestra chemistry that’s needed to generate musical results as memorable as these, and in three very different works. The young Samuel Barber’s First Symphony proclaims a strong musical personality whose idiom was at that time (1935) much more incisive than the…

André Messager’s Passionnément Composed just three years before his death, this three-act musical comedy was one of André Messager’s greatest successes. A quintessential French operetta, Passionnément brought the house down when it premiered in January 1926 – the house being the Théâtre de la Michodière in Paris. With a libretto and lyrics by Maurice Hennequin and Albert Willemetz, the modestly scored work balances splendour and farce, with a modern transatlantic storyline and colourful characters.…

JS Bach – Dialoge Sonatas, Suites and Concertos arranged for lute and recorder Dorothee Oberlinger (recorder), Edin Karamazov (lute) DHM 19439875862 68:12 mins This is a disc of arrangements and transpositions accommodating various sizes and tunings of recorders. It is the sort of thing which the Bach family might have got up to and, by-and-large the adjustments work well. If on occasion greater enjoyment probably would derive from playing some of the arrangements, as opposed to just listening to them, it is not intended as a slight. Dorothee Oberlinger is an accomplished recorder player who furthermore has contributed a thoughtful essay, which neither skates over nor obfuscates issues concerned with her treatment of the music. Edin Karamazov offers a sympathetic and judicious partnership, in addition to his lute solo arrangement…

Beethoven  Piano Sonata No. 29 ‘Hammerklavier’; 15 Variations and Fugue ‘Eroica’ Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano) Pentatone PTC 5186 724 66:49 mins There are some recorded performances so remarkable that to praise them seems insolent. This recording of Beethoven’s largest, longest piano sonata is among that tiny group. Pierre-Laurent Aimard is perhaps primarily known as an exponent of recent music, but then one could say, adapting a related remark of Stravinsky’s, that the Hammerklavier Sonata is forever contemporary. Certainly in an account as striking as this it seems to belong to no period of history, being more adventurous and challenging even than Beethoven’s other late masterworks. What distinguishes Aimard’s account – this goes, too, for the far from meagre ‘filler’, the exuberant Eroica Variations – is that it is free from idiosyncrasy,…

ABC of Opera – Classical Mark Llewelyn Evans; illustrations by Karl Davies Graffeg 64pp (pb) £8.99 How do you try and get children into opera? With fart jokes of course! ‘Windy Wolfy’ (aka Mozart) is just one of the characters encountered in this second volume of The Academy of Barmy Composers. After their Baroque adventure, Jack and Megan are whisked to the age of Haydn, Beethoven, Rossini and Chevalier de Saint-Georges by a time-travelling trunk. The children enounter the composers, with a promise to share what they’ve learned and keep their music alive. It’s a sweet idea and one that is delivered somewhat breathlessly in a whirlwind of colourful illustrations, changing fonts and facts. Every page virtually explodes with words, pictures and information; as well as learning about music history…

September round-up  It’s All Your Fault showcases Mike LeDonne ‘s Groover Quartet and Big Band, featured on three and five tracks respectively. LeDonne, best known as a pianist, is impressive on the Hammond C-3 organ too. He plays the instrument used by the legendary Jimmy Smith, whose spirit seems to have blessed these sessions. LeDonne is a committed custodian of the bop tradition, but that is just one aspect of his work. Here there are strong elements of blues, rhythm & blues and the soul jazz of the late-’50s/early-’60s given a contemporary edge. The title track, the album’s splendidly funky opening, gives notice of what is to come. Flanked by dependable players like saxophonists Eric Alexander and Jim Snidero and trumpeter Jon Faddis, LeDonne delivers an enjoyable, exuberant, exhilarating, satisfying…

Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra Glyndebourne, Lewes, 13-28 August Web: www.glyndebourne.com Ahead of a performance at the BBC Proms (31 August), Robin Ticciati conducts Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In this semi-staged production, Simon O’Neill and Miina-Liisa Värelä are the ill-fated lovers, with Karen Cargill as Brangäne. Hebrides The Maltings, Snape, 24 August Web: www.snapemaltings.co.uk Britten’s Sinfonietta Op. 1 and Suite for Harp precede the premiere of Joseph Phibbs’s chamber reduction of the orchestral song cycle Our Hunting Fathers, with soprano soloist Elizabeth Llewellyn. On 20 August Llewellyn joins pianist Simon Lepper for songs by Brahms, Puccini and Coleridge-Taylor. Marmen Quartet St Mary’s Church, Haverford West, 24 August Web: fishguardmusicfestival.com Winners of the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, the Marmens frame works by Salvatore Sciarrino and New Zealand composer Salina Fisher between…

Last Night of the Proms As well as the usual Last Night pomp and circumstance, the BBC Symphony Orchestra will give the world premiere of Mother, a new work by Gity Razaz. The American composer was taught by John Corigliano, who has praised her unique use of Middle Eastern influences. Proms 2021: 11 September, 7.30pm Ghost Variations Since his death in an asylum in 1856, Robert Schumann has been a source of fascination for psychiatrists, who have rediagnosed him time and time again. Journalist Phil Hebblethwaite digs into the timeline of our changing attitudes towards the composer’s mental health challenges. Sunday Feature: 19 September, 6.45pm Composer of the Week: Julius Eastman Donald Macleod is joined by baritone Davóne Tines – a performer and champion of the music of Julius Eastman…

Pianist Charles Owen enjoys an international player as both a soloist and as part of a piano duo with Katya Apekisheva, with whom he is co-artistic director of the London Piano Festival. He celebrates three successful decades as a performer with a 50th-birthday recital with actor Simon Callow at Kings Place on 15 September. His performance of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage, recorded at the Menuhin School during lockdown, is released on Avie on 17 September. I was born in Cambridge and my mother used to push my buggy into King’s College Chapel to hear the choir rehearsing. Musical standards were certainly set high early! We later moved to Hampshire, where my father was a vicar, so my early memories are connected with church music and the organ. My mother had…

Great Britten It was good to read conductor Edward Gardner’s reflections on some of his recordings (August) and to be reminded that we live in a time of transition, where recordings are not to be seen as the last word on any particular piece of music. However, there are certain recordings which inevitably act as a bedrock and from which others diversify, for better or worse. Peter Grimes is a prime example of this. Written for a particular voice (Peter Pears) by a composer (Britten) who was also his partner and who conducted the opera’s first recording, it must stand as a sort of benchmark for subsequent recordings. That said, personally I think Stuart Skelton in Gardner’s recent recording gives us a more nuanced Grimes even than Pears himself, whose…

Joséphine Olech Flautist Born: Saint-Cloud, France Career highlight: Giving the premiere of Thierry Escaich’s Flute Concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Lahav Shani in Amsterdam’s beautiful Concertgebouw last year. It was a great honour to add this wonderful new piece to the flute repertoire. Musical hero: I owe so much to my first flute teacher Nathalie Rozat, as well as Fuminori Tanada, composer and accompanist of the Paris Conservatory flute class, who has accompanied generations of flautists at the highest level in the most difficult repertoire. Dream concert: Playing Mahler’s Ninth with my best friends to an audience that has never heard classical music before. Vlad Vizireanu Conductor Born: Constanta, Romania Career highlight: Conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Elgar’s Enigma Variations as a finalist in…

Turkish violist Beste Tiknaz Modiri and Ecuadorian pianist Andrés Añazco have recorded an album of works by Turkish composers. The landmark project includes premiere recordings of music by Yalçin Tura, Melisa Uzunarslan and Ayça Kocatürk, either written for the duo or arranged by them. Musical Concepts is set to release it. Deutsche Grammophon recently announced the signing of composer-artist duo Hania Rani and Dobrawa Czocher. Rani, a pianist, singer and composer, and Czocher, a cellist, have enjoyed much success in their native Poland as well as notable appearances on recordings by other DG artists. The label plans to reissue their popular Polish disc Biela flaga ahead of a brand new album. Linn Records has been enjoying a busy summer of recording, with sessions both up north and down south in…

Let me confess: I have not, for the majority of my life, been the very model of an unadulterated fan of the work of William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Instead, I have thought of their Savoy Operas as reliquaries of an antiquated Victorian-era jingoism, complacent bourgeois sentimentality, one-dimensional expressive jollification and tub-thumping establishmentarianism. That was, at least and at last, until I got off my high horse of prejudices, and realised what a pompous prig I was being in not properly attending to the miraculous world of topsy-turvy-dom that Sullivan and Gilbert create in their operas most satirical. Some prejudices fall more easily than others: the idea of Sullivan’s musical sentimentality is easily overturned by hearing the precision, economy and sincerity in how he builds the dramatic tension of…

Martin Cotton Lockdown brought with it a heightened awareness of the passage of time and, for me, a work which encapsulated this musically was Feldman’s Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello. At a consistently quiet dynamic level, small motifs circle round in the silence, often with no discernible pattern, but gradually take on the character of old friends as they appear after a long absence. For 75 minutes, nothing seemingly happens – but everything happens. Erik Levi As I was driving my dog to her favourite walking area in the countryside, I happened to turn on the car radio and catch the opening bars of a new release of Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello from violinist Barnabás Kelemen and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt (see review, p84). The sheer electricity of the playing…

Beatrice Rana is discussing the delicious moment when musician and composer truly connect; when the notes are not only technically secure, but there is a clear understanding between innovator and interpreter. Recently, she has been working closely on one composer’s work in particular, someone whose oeuvre has long been problematic for the Italian pianist. But who is the mysterious challenge-setter? Could it be Pierre Boulez, whose abstract piano sonatas out-fox the most dedicated keyboardist? Or Ronald Stevenson, whose hour-long single-movement Passacaglia on DSCH requires a feat of endurance from its soloist. Perhaps one of the lesser-known Classical composers, Dussek, Wölfl or Reicha, who all place their own particular demands on 21st-century pianists? No. It is, in fact, one of the pillars of piano music: Chopin. ‘My relationship with Chopin has…

“What keeps music fresh is always having the sense that there is in-the-moment imagination going on” When composer William Schuman became president of the Juilliard School in 1945, one item on his to-do list was ‘form a resident quartet’. Rejecting some of the top string quartets of the day, he instead gathered three hungry young string players who had dabbled in jazz while serving in the US Army and a violist raided from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. ‘It was greater than anything I’d ever dreamed of,’ Schuman said of their debut concert. ‘Here were four men on fire with what they were doing… just on fire with it.’ As the Juilliard Quartet celebrates its 75th anniversary, aspects of that fiery, high-intensity style remain intact. ‘People come up to me after…

‘The only love affair I have ever had was with music’ ‘There are in fact two types of music: that which pleases and that which is boring’ ‘But doesn’t it ever occur to those people that I can be “artificial” by nature?’ (in response to the criticism that his music was more about technique than about true feeling) ‘Why become a second-rate Ravel when you’re already a first-rate Gershwin?’ (to Gershwin, who asked to study with him) ‘I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously… But I have written relatively little. I did my work slowly, drop by drop.’…

The venerable Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, founded by Sir Thomas Beecham, is actually younger than Noddy Holder and Freddie Mercury. As the RPO glided through its first rehearsal 75 years ago in September 1946, the future front men of Slade and Queen were already bawling at full volume, albeit as babies. Behind this pub-quizzable fact is a deeper truth. Pop is more established, and the classical establishment sprightlier, than some imagine. Indeed, the RPO’s Hooked on Classics – a medley of hook lines from popular classics overlaid by a drum-machine disco beat, sometimes treated as the reductio ad absurdum of crossover – is 40 years old this August. The 1981 disco prince is now a dad dancer. It’s a story of Art vs Commerce; paying respect vs paying bills; and Beethoven…

For those new to Komitas, an excellent starting point is Armenian pianist Lusine Grigoryan’s album which includes the Seven Dances . Through judicious use of staccato and pedalling, she evokes the original folk instruments which inspired these pieces ( ECM 481 2556 ). An album often cited as a companion to Grigoryan’s disc was concurrently recorded in 2015 by the Gurdjieff Ensemble, which performs Komitas’s piano music effectively transcribed for the folk instruments he would have known ( ECM 2451 ). More transcriptions of Komitas, this time by living Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian (b1939), may be heard in an album by viola player Kim Kashkashian with percussionist Robyn Kchulkovsky ( ECM 461 8312 ). Another evocative album of Komitas’s piano works, filled out by a number of pieces for piano…

Melody: Infectious folklike themes came to Dvoÿák naturally, as did long, arching, continuously evolving melodies. In the Cello Concerto, even before the soloist enters, the horn has an outpouring of instrumental song as shapely and heartfelt as a great operatic aria. Tone-painting: Though an admirer of Brahms’s ‘absolute’ music, in later years Dvoÿák turned more to illustrative music. His four late symphonic poems, starting with The Water Goblin (a character also featured in his opera Rusalka, above), are sumptuous, vivid examples of storytelling with his orchestral palette at its richest. Dance: Dvoÿák is equally at home in the lilting Viennese waltz and the more complex rhythms of the Bohemian furiant; sometimes, as in the Scherzo of Symphony No. 8, he can pull off a gorgeous fusion of the two. His…

Not quite 40 when he conducted Symphonia Domestica’s first performance in New York, Richard Strauss was already famous. His four years at the Bavarian State Opera had been followed in 1898 by his appointment as principal conductor at the Berlin State Orchestra, where he would remain until 1913. As a composer, his string of tone poems, beginning with Don Juan in 1889, enjoyed the highest esteem. Though his first opera, Guntram, suffered a poor premiere in 1894, Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier would soon make an altogether more significant mark. 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.…

Did you need persuading to record this cycle again? On the contrary; I wanted to do it from the moment I finished my recording with Leonard Bernstein! I had to make so many compromises then. Unitel recorded it on video and practically destroyed the acoustic of the Musikverein – they put carpet on the walls and so on. I had to play three concertos, live, in one session. Then shortly before we were supposed to record Nos 1 and 2, Bernstein died and I decided to conduct them myself. This new recording presented some challenges, didn’t it? We faced issues I’d never had before and we had to find crazy solutions. The orchestra had a serious issue in staying together, because of the distancing required; I slept for five weeks…

Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1; 16 Waltzes* Emmanuel Despax, *Miho Kawashima (piano); BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Litton Signum Classics SIGCD 666 87:23 mins That fortissimo drum roll, that abrasive string figure, those scarifying trills – no piano concerto by Beethoven, Mendelssohn or Chopin had ever opened with such an onslaught. We tend to forget how unsettlingly innovative the supposedly ‘conservative’ Brahms must have sounded to early audiences – the more so as the unprecedented length and breadth of the 25-year old’s D minor Piano Concerto first unfolded in 1859. It is that length and breadth, every dramatic incursion and poetic parenthesis of it, that the immaculately dextrous young French virtuoso Emmanuel Despax and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in top form under the mature sway of Andrew Litton seem intent on revealing.…

Handel Ariodante (DVD) Cecilia Bartoli, Kathryn Lewek, Nathan Berg, Christophe Dumaux, Sandrine Piau, Rolando Villazón, Kristofer Lundin; Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco/Gianluca Capuano; dir. Christof Loy (Salzburg, 2017) Unitel DVD: 802408 216 mins Wandering chairs, lounge suits and paneled rooms; Christof Loy’s directorial signature is written right across this recording of Ariodante from Salzburg. Yet Handel’s 18th century is never entirely jettisoned, with the dancers and sometimes the Scottish Court appearing in period costumes. As so often in Loy’s work, an opera’s historical past and today’s present tense are in constant negotiation, with his strongly drawn characters caught between the two. This then is no routine Ariodante – how could it be with Cecilia Bartoli taking the lead? – spinning a familiar tale of the hero winning the princess, Ginevra, despite…

Canteloube L’arada; Chants de France Karen Coker Merritt (soprano), Sean Kennard (piano) Centaur CRC 3804 62:06 mins In 1933 Joseph Canteloube’s Vercingétorix left the Paris Opera stage after only nine performances, charged with being ‘untheatrical’, despite the revolutionary plot and the name role being sung by the great tenor Georges Thill. The plain truth is that he was not so much a composer as a fine orchestral arranger, his best-known work being his delightful Chants d’Auvergne. His own collection of songs L’arada which begins this disc suffers both from a lack of any memorable melodies and from a thick piano texture which soprano Karen Coker Merritt, in her liner notes, rightly describes as resembling the reduction of an orchestral score. Altogether happier are the two sets of Chants de France,…

Penderecki String Quartets Nos 1-4; String Trio etc. Tippett Quartet Naxos 8.574288 52:58 mins They ricochet through the textures like a violently discharged pinball Who, hearing Penderecki’s first two string quartets, could have predicted the trajectory that would lead to the Fourth, premiered roughly half a century later. The first two wear their 1960s avant-garde credentials with pride: No. 1 (1960) a cornucopia of buzzing, thrumming, thwacking extended instrumental techniques inhabiting the soundworld of a Berio; No. 2 (1968) a little indebted to Ligeti. Then came quartet silence until, two decades on, the brooding miniature Der unterbrochene Gedanke indicated a linguistic hiatus heralding a plunge into a less astringent world – a development compounded by the String Trio, and two further quartets content to engage with points of reference including…

Love Songs Transcriptions of Schubert, R Schumann, R Strauss et al Angela Hewitt (piano) Hyperion CDA68341 72:28 mins Keyboard transcriptions are often over-egged puddings, the transcriber blithely drowning simple lyrical songs in buckets of octaves, arpeggios, scales and roulades. Angela Hewitt’s spacious, uncluttered approach revels unashamedly in the pianism while still letting the original songs sing. I fell in love with Gieseking’s filigree-free version of Strauss’s ‘Freundliche Vision’. Reger’s affectionate but respectful renditions of Strauss’s songs, including the glorious ‘Morgen!’, stretch the piano’s singing abilities. No pianist who has accompanied ‘Allerseelen’ can resist the chance to ‘sing’ it as Hewitt does. And there are treasures here – Wilhelm Kempff’s limpid arrangement of Gluck’s greatest five minutes – Orpheus’s Lament and the Dance of the Blessed Spirits – should be on…

Anne Chmelewsky Songs Without Words Anne Chmelewsky (piano) et al Sony Classical G010004498576P (digital) Here and there, Anne Chmelewsky reveals her talents as a film composer with some beautiful soundscapes and moments of pathos. For the most part, however, the album consists of directionless floatiness. (JP) ★★ Dvorák Symphonies Nos 6-9 Park Avenue Chamber Symphony/ David Bernard Recursive Classics RC3137552 There’s a tremendous sheen to these performances of Dvorák’s later symphonies; Bernard and his Park Avenue musicians prove why they’ve won many fans in Manhattan and beyond. The oh-so familiar Ninth stands proud, but I’ve played their lyrical Eighth on loop. (MB) ★★★★ Grayston Ives Requiem The Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge; Britten Sinfonia/Richard Pinel Signum Classics SIGCD682 The Choir of Jesus College, Cambridge joins the Britten Sinfonia for the…

Twenty of this year’s Proms will be broadcast on BBC TV, but if you happen to miss any, they’ll all be available to watch on BBC iPlayer until 11 October. There are a few new presenters appearing this year, with saxophonist Jess Gillam (2 Sep) and organist Anna Lapwood (10 Sep) making their Proms presenting debuts, alongside Radio 1’s Clara Amfo (3 Sep) and some of the more familiar faces. The Sinfonia of London makes its greatly anticipated Proms debut under John Wilson, who reformed the orchestra in 2018. Soprano Miah Persson (above) joins them for songs by Berg (9 Sep). For something a little different, you can tune in to watch the Proms debut from the genre-bending Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter Moses Sumney, who is joined by Jules Buckley and the…

Schubert Piano Sonata in A minor, D845 Imogen Cooper (piano) Avie AV2156 Elgar Violin Concerto Yehudi Menuhin (violin); LSO/ Edward Elgar Warner Classics 5669792 Schumann Frauenliebe und -leben Brigitte Fassbaender (mezzo), Irwin Gage (piano) Deutsche Grammophon 483 7209 Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato Soloists; Ensemble Orchestral de Paris/John Nelson Erato 5454172 Janácek The Cunning Little Vixen Lucia Popp et al; Vienna Philharmonic/ Charles Mackerras Decca 475 8670…