Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i BBC Music Magazine

To get an idea of the astonishing longevity of Stravinsky’s career, it’s worth setting it within the context of global events. When the Russian composer hit the Parisian headlines with the premiere of his ballet The Firebird in June 1910, Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen were both setting off from Europe in their bids to become the first explorers to reach the South Pole; at the other end of the timeline, his final appearance as a conductor, in May 1967, fell in the same month that The Beatles released their Sgt. Pepper album. Times change, and Stravinsky most certainly changed with them. As Erik Levi explores on p26, his ballets could always be relied upon to produce the unexpected, whether pushing into new rhythmic territory or doffing a cap to…

In with the new A new organisation has been founded in London with the aim of promoting and performing new and recently composed works. With conductor Zvonimir Ha ko as its artistic director, the International Centre for Contemporary Music (ICCM) has announced its 2022 season which, unsurprisingly, features several world premieres. Ensembles taking part include the Royal Philharmonic and Philharmonia orchestras and the London Sinfonietta. A glimpse of history Also in London, the Royal College of Music has officially opened its new museum, created with the assistance of £3.6m of Heritage Lottery funding. Exhibits include the world’s oldest guitar and several early keyboard instruments, plus artworks such as a famous portrait of the castrato Farinelli. Originally planned for spring 2021, the opening was delayed for obvious reasons. Boom and bust…

Having mixed with the undead in Shadow of the Vampire, dandied his way through Dangerous Liaisons and attempted to usurp the British throne in Johnny English, John Malkovich has now turned his attention to orchestral matters. For a new film called The Yellow Tie, the American actor is to play Sergiu Celibidache, the great, if uniquely characterful, Romanian conductor. Malkovich (left) will not be the first thesp to play a famous baton-waver… In 1990, Timothy West starred as the title role in Beecham, a TV film whose script, based on the earlier stage play by Ned Sherrin and Caryl Brahms, leaned heavily on the famed wit of the eminent British maestro. West was in his element in the role. For the 1998 film Hilary and Jackie, it was more about…

Most of us would agree that music is a language, arguably humanity’s most expressive and oldest language. What it doesn’t have, unlike speech and writing, is precision. Music can be used to express, for example, a feeling of love towards someone – as Gustav Mahler did for Alma in his Fifth Symphony’s Adagietto – but not to say ‘where were you till 3am last night?’ (possibly a question he wanted to ask later in their marriage). Music has its vocabulary and syntax, just like a verbal language. And its complexity is at least equal to Polish, if not Finnish. But the vocabulary and syntax of music is a self-contained world. It can’t be pinned down or translated, like the meaning of ‘apple tree’ or ‘it is raining’. Or can it?…

Bottesini was one of the most influential musicians of the 19th century and a master of his art. His instrumental virtuosity and consummate musicianship eclipsed the accomplishments of his fellow artists and mesmerised everyone who heard him; critical accounts of his performances around the world abound in superlatives and he was dubbed the ‘Paganini of the Double Bass’. He is now remembered primarily for revolutionising perceptions of the double bass as a solo instrument, yet he was also a prolific composer and a respected conductor. While the rest of the world focused solely on his extraordinary prowess on his instrument, Bottesini devoted considerable energy to pursuing those two other interests, sometimes refusing solo engagements to concentrate on them. Giovanni Bottesini was born into a musical family in Crema, near Milan,…

UK Sofie Vanden Eynde and Déborah Cachet St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, 8 January Web: gcs.org.uk Edinburgh’s Georgian Concert Society sees in the new year with a visit to the Parisian salon of the Marquise de Rambouillet, as evoked by theorbo player Sofie Vanden Eynde and soprano Déborah Cachet, who will perform music by Charpentier, Marais and Sainte-Colombe. Florilegium cuts symphonic Haydn down to chamber size in February, while in March mezzo Helen Charlston and Chelys Consort of Viols favours William Byrd. Danny Driver Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff, 16 January Web: rwcmd.ac.uk The Steinway International Piano series resumes with a line-up including Anna Fedorova and Julien Libeer. First comes Danny Driver, who rounds out a programme of Fauré, Debussy, Ligeti, Lili Boulanger and Betsy Jolas with Schumann’s…

For some, Bach is like oxygen, while for others he’s a composer they’ll get to grips with ‘one day’. Whichever camp you reside in, there’s a notable seam of Johann Sebastian running through this month’s reviews pages, from concertos to cantatas, sonatas to suites. There’s also a must-read book on the Cello Suites, penned by someone who knows more than a thing or two about them: Steven Isserlis. The great cellist also features in our Instrumental section and he’s one of a number of artists making repeat appearances this month. Most notably so is violinist Isabelle Faust, who plays not just, you guessed it, Bach, but also takes the Recording of the Month slot for her Stravinksy (see opposite). Beyond that, we’ve a striking batch of Brief Notes and a…

Lully Atys (DVD) Emmanuelle de Negri, Bernard Richter, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Nicolas Rivenq; Les Arts Florissants/William Christie; dir. Jean-Marie Villégier (Paris, 2011) Naxos DVD: 2.110694-95; Blu-ray: NBD 0132 V 196 mins Known as ‘the King’s opera’ because Louis XIV not only chose its subject but also sang whole passages of it, Lully’s tragédie en musique, Atys, which premiered in 1676, ran on and off for a century before sinking into oblivion until the Baroque revival two centuries later. That we now have this superbly filmed account is thanks to a meeting between the period-performance theatre director Jean-Marie Villégier and William Christie (with his Les Arts Florissants company), plus added expertise contributed by the dance historian Francine Lancelot. Toured internationally in the ’80s, this definitive production by the Opéra Comique was filmed ten years ago,…

Beethoven The Violin Sonatas, Vol. 3: Nos 8-10 Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin), Martin Helmchen (piano) BIS BIS-2537 (CD/SACD) 79:13 mins We are currently experiencing one of the most exciting periods in recording. We have been especially lucky over the last decade or so, with captivating recordings of Beethoven’s violin sonatas that (with rose-tinted spectacles firmly removed) make some golden-agers sound decidedly routine by comparison. Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen are an outstanding team, whose latest release brings their three-disc survey to an uplifting conclusion. The ‘little’ No. 8 (it feels almost like a sonatina when juxtaposed against the mighty Kreutzer) is kept light-as-air, with any passing musical in-jokes for the cognoscenti thrown off with a conjurer’s sleight-ofhand. One of the trickiest movements in the cycle to bring off convincingly…

December round-up Terence Blanchard was one of the foremost sharp-suited young lions of the 1980s’ Hard Bop renaissance, spent two spells with Art Blakey and formed a still-running 30-year artistic partnership with film director Spike Lee. Absence, with his band the E-Collective and the Turtle Island Quartet, comprises tunes written or inspired by Wayne Shorter, the influential tenor player whose main legacy may turn out to be his approach to composition, tightly-written despite harmonic progressions that at first seem to meander unpredictably. Blanchard and colleagues capture Shorter’s essence well, not to mention nodding to classics including Beethoven. (Blue Note LP: 3844255; CD: 3844264) Alto-saxophonist Kenny Garrett, another Blakey alumnus, made his main stir after joining Miles Davis in 1986, recording some well-regarded albums of his own during the same period.…

London Sinfonietta Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 1 December Web: londonsinfonietta.org.uk During its debut season just over half-a-century ago, the Sinfonietta gave the European premiere of Roberto Gerhard’s last two Zodiac pieces: Libra, a sextet fusing folk and serial elements, and the chamber symphony Leo, a nod to his wife’s birth sign. Both feature in an appropriately Catalan-themed programme marking the composer’s 125th anniversary. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Lighthouse, Poole, 1 December Web: bsolive.com Ryan Wigglesworth is both soloist and conductor, as Mozart’s sunny A major Piano Concerto K414 prefaces a work Dvořák characterised as about ‘Love, God and my fatherland’, his D minor Symphony No. 7. There’s more ‘fatherland’ at the outset: Janáček’s bucolic Lachian Dances. Sinfonia Cymru Riverfront, Newport, 1 December Web: sinfonia.cymru The orchestra slims down to chamber forces…

DECEMBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 WEDNESDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12noon-1pm Composer of the Week Emilie Mayer 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-4pm Afternoon Concert 4-5pm Choral Evensong from Hampton Court Palace 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert from Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. BBC Philharmonic/Omer Meir Wellber 10-10.45pm Feature 10.45-11pm The Essay 11pm-12.30am Night Tracks 2 THURSDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12noon-1pm Composer of the Week Emilie Mayer 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Afternoon Concert 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert live from City Halls, Glasgow. Schoenberg Chamber Symphony No. 2, Korngold Abschiedslieder, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6. Karen Cargill (mezzo), BBC Scottish SO/Alpesh Chauhan 10-11.30pm See Weds 1 Dec 11.30pm-12.30am Unclassified 3…

1. On 13 April 1742, an audience gathered at the Great Music Hall, Fishamble Street in Dublin for the first performance of which work? 2. Which composer’s British-based operas include Emilia di Liverpool (1824), Il castello di Kenilworth (1829) and Lucia di Lammermoor (1835)? 3. The original English libretto of which 1798 work contains references to ‘tufty groves’, ‘finny tribes’ and ‘the flexible tiger’? 4. Which instrument enjoys solos in ‘The Old Castle’ in Ravel’s orchestration of Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the first movement of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and the third movement of Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony? 5. How did the London Symphony Orchestra’s refusal to reschedule the dates of a tour to the US in April 1912 save the ensemble from potential disaster? 6. The pianist pictured above…

Born and educated in Bolton, Clive Myrie began his career as a reporter on BBC local radio and TV in the West Country. In 1996, he became a foreign correspondent before joining the BBC News team in 2009. Today, he presents the BBC News at Ten and in March this year was also named as the new host of the long-running Mastermind and Celebrity Mastermind quiz programmes. My Jamaican parents loved 1950s crooners like Frank Sinatra, and my older brothers and sisters listened to reggae, but I brought home classical music when I went to secondary school. Hayward Grammar School, Bolton, had a huge music department with multiple orchestras and bands. I learnt to play the violin and the cornet and I was good enough to play in school bands…

LETTER of the MONTH Invitation to the Dante Should readers wish to explore further, as a footnote to Claire Jackson’s interesting article about Dante (November), another composer who was inspired by his writings was Boris Tishchenko (1939-2010), who wrote five very substantial ‘Dante’ Symphonies (Op. 123) as a separate entity to his other nine numbered symphonies. They are all available on CD but, unfortunately, are public performances and the sound quality ranges from average to very poor. The audience coughs on the disc of Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 are so intrusive that, having listened to it once, I disposed of it. But the other two discs – one with Symphonies Nos 3 and 5, and the other with Symphony No. 4 (which lasts 51 minutes) are notably better, and…

Mao Fujita Pianist Born: Tokyo, Japan Career highlight: Playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra – with no rehearsal. Also, I was asked to step in with halfan-hour’s notice for the closing performance of the Riga Jurmala Music Festival. Musical hero: William Kapell was such a unique pianist with incredible improvisational skills. His Chopin recordings are particularly good. Dream concert: Next year, I’m going to Israel for the first time to perform eight concerts with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. I feel so lucky to be able to visit such a historic place at such a young age. Jordan de Souza Conductor Born: Toronto, Canada Career highlight: I have a reel of special memories: the magical quiet moments played by the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra, the virtuosity…

We do it on average 17,000 times a day, a rhythm of inspiration and exhalation that not only defines our physical existences but is also a fundamental arc of tension and release that gives life to our music: our breathing. It’s not just singers, brass and woodwind players who are in obvious thrall to its power. Breathing, as a metaphor and a fact of our bodies’ biochemistry, sustains whole operas and symphonies, and it’s essential to the sounds that string instruments and keyboards make. If a performance of a violin partita or a piano sonata doesn’t ‘breathe’, if it doesn’t follow the rise and fall of our breathing, it’s not going to move us in the audience. Composers and musicians have taken the shape of our breath as an essential…

I love ballet and am more interested in it than anything else.’ When Igor Stravinsky wrote ‘Ilove these words in 1911, he was basking in the afterglow of the phenomenal success of his early ballets The Firebird and Petrushka. But this commitment to ballet remained with the Russian composer for life. Indeed, it became the focal point of his creativity and resulted in him composing a dozen highly distinctive ballet scores spanning a period of over 40 years, as well as many other works for the stage in which dance played an important role. THAT WRITING BALLETS assumed such importance for Stravinsky is all the more remarkable given the generally low status that had been accorded to the medium during his formative years. With the obvious exception of works by…

Some pieces – operas, in particular – set out to make you weep. It would take a stonyhearted listener not to well up at least a little as they have their heartstrings pulled by master manipulators such as Verdi in La traviata, Puccini in Madam Butterfly (see p76) or Janá ek’s Jen fa. In these instances, the unfolding plot itself is enough to trigger the emotions. But music also works on an altogether more subtle level. Sometimes we find ourself reaching for the handkerchief while listening to works that, on the face of it, have no tragic content whatsoever. Perhaps they trigger some recollection or association? Or (as Richard Morrison discusses on p25) maybe there’s something in the structure of the music itself that causes an emotional response? Plus, of…

After hearing the Hallé or BBC Philharmonic play a Vaughan Williams symphony at the newly opened Bridgewater Hall, you might have taken a quick walk over the canal to the notorious Haçienda for a late-night tipple and an all-night rave. Certainly a weekend in Manchester held that prospect back in 1996 when the Hall first opened. Today, luxury apartments occupy where the Haçienda nightclub once stood. But the music that throbbed through its walls is now being given a new lease of life. In a hat tip to its city’s cultural heritage, the Manchester Camerata’s Haçienda Classical series reimagines dancefloor anthems and acid house tracks from the club’s heyday in the 1980s and ’90s. The Manchester Collective similarly reflects its home city’s fondness for diverse music-making. With its BBC Proms…

Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 1 in E flat; Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor; Samson et Dalila – Bacchanale Astrig Siranossian (cello); Philharmonie Südwestfalen/Nabil Shehata Alpha Classics ALPHA 764 60:37 mins Saint-Saëns’s First Cello Concerto, which opens this release, is hardly lacking in good recordings. Here, though, is a fine, flowing account, recorded with just enough resiny grit and grain in the soloist’s sound to make you feel as if seated with a good view of the stage. Astrig Siranossian plays with lyricism and passion, as well as with a rapt inward quality at the first movement’s end. Under the baton of Nabil Shehata, a protégé of Daniel Barenboim, the Philharmonie Sudwestfalen is not just technically polished but also lithe and graceful. The child-like simplicity of the second movement’s opening…

JS Bach Cantatas: Ich habe genug, BWV 82; Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen, BWV 32; Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106 ‘Actus tragicus’ Joanne Lunn (soprano), Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano), Hugo Hymas (tenor), Robert Davies (baritone), Matthew Brook (bass); Dunedin Consort/John Butt Linn Records CKD672 66:27 mins It’s extraordinary to think that the congregations at Bach’s churches would have regularly expected the musical quality represented here. These three cantatas are in effect musical dramas, each taking its listener on a transformative journey from pain and suffering to joy and hope (how appropriate today as, all being well, we start to emerge from this pandemic). Written in 1727 during his first years in Leipzig, Ich habe genug for solo bass voice and ensemble is one of Bach’s most emotive cantatas with…

On DSCH Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugue; R Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH Igor Levit (piano) Sony Classical 19439809212 231:14 mins (3 discs) If Igor Levit were a climber, I imagine he would endeavour to conquer El Capitan’s sheer face or the savage K2 in winter. The 34-year-old pianist is fearless, determined and fired up by monumental challenges. Think late Beethoven and vast sets of variations. His latest solo offering is if anything yet more ambitious: Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, clocking in at around two and a half hours, followed by Ronald Stevenson’s extraordinary Passacaglia on DSCH, for which you’ll need the best part of 90 minutes. Yet the first surprise of this album – which you will absolutely want to hear – is the subtlety and intimacy of Levi’s…

Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1; Tragic Overture Alexander Melnikov (piano); Sinfonieorchester Basel/Ivor Bolton Harmonia Mundi HMM902602 For his performance of Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, Melnikov plays an 1859 Blüthner piano – an instrument contemporary with the premiere of the work. The final track is an unexpected joy: the overture to Éliza by Cherubini, a composer Brahms greatly admired. (FP) Avner Dorman Dialogues of Love Grand Rapids Symphony et al Node Records 859749043171 The title might sound syrupy, but Dorman’s pair of large-scale works here are wide ranging and really rather thrilling. Composed for chorus and orchestra, Dialogues of Love sweeps you up, spins you round and leaves you breathless; the Variations is a rollercoaster in itself. (MB) Philip Moore Organ Works Stephen Farr (organ) Resonus RES10284 There’s plenty of drama…

The Bach Cello Suites – A Companion Steven Isserlis Faber 215pp (hb) £12.99 Particularly in the case of Bach’s Cello Suites, when wanting to investigate further the works’ background and creative process, it is easy to become bogged down in academese that no matter how meticulously researched, fails to convey the magic one feels as soon as the music actually starts. This is where Steven Isserlis’s companion really comes into its own, as it is written from a player-listener’s perspective. For many of us, Isserlis’s 2007 recording of the Cello Suites (Hyperion CDA67541/2) redefined what this glorious music is all about, and now you can savour the thinking (and feeling) that lay behind it. As Isserlis outlines the background to the suites with a deftness of touch reminiscent of his…

The first correct solution of our crossword picked at random will win a copy of The Oxford Companion to Music. A runner-up will win Who Knew? Answers to Questions about Classical Music (see oup.co.uk). Send answers to: BBC Music Magazine, Crossword 366/Dec, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 25 Nov 2021 (solution in Feb 2022 issue). Your name & address ACROSS 1 See 16 down 9 Sustained melody returning after brief time in mediocre surroundings (9) 10 Wheat you finally stored in percussion instrument (5) 11 I have no broadcast for Sullivan opera (7) 12 A view, one posed by overture to opera – opera by 9/19 (7) 13 Tenor supports sacking bass, making points (5) 15 Piece in three movements, unusually chirpy a couple of times…

Harpischordist Christophe Rousset is enjoying a busy recording schedule with two solo Bach albums planned for release by Aparté in March and May next year. Those follow the latest releases in his glittering Lully cycle of recordings with Les Talens Lyriques. Coming in January are both Acis et Galatée and Psyché, the latter coinciding with concert performances in Versailles and Vienna. Albion Records has big plans for 2022, Vaughan Williams’s 150th-anniversary year. The label took a who’s who of artists to Henry Wood Hall recently for a blockbuster project featuring Clare College Choir, Mary Bevan, Sophie Bevan, Jess Dandy, Britten Sinfonia and more besides, and in December they record the Tredegar Town Band for an album called Vaughan Williams on Brass. Manchester contemporary classical ensemble Psappha has joined forces with…

Simon Keenlyside Baritone I’m knee deep in Debussy at the moment – Pelléas et Mélisande is one of my favourite pieces of music on the planet. But I’m working so hard on that that I actually clear my head most mornings with JS Bach, and always have done. I had some headphones made, for my motorcycle, and they’re really good. I also love the piano – perhaps it’s because I’m a Lieder singer – and at the moment I’m mining Clifford Curzon and Solomon, but my go-to would be Horowitz. We went to Romania to premiere a fantastic new piece by Jonathan Dove and I had ten hours in a car to get to Bačau. I told my wonderful driver about my interest in Romanian folk music. He smiled, and…

The feeling with the orchestra has been fantastic; we love working together Domingo Hindoyan has heard of Tranmere Rovers FC, and I’ll be honest, I did not see that coming. True, Hindoyan’s predecessor as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko, was a fan of Liverpool Football Club, and one naturally – lazily – assumes that a native of Venezuela will have his own views on the beautiful game, Merseyside-style. But to look beyond the Reds and the Toffees takes more than a superficial engagement with Scousedom. If, like me, you’re from the Wirral, you’ll know that in making that mental leap across the Mersey to Prenton Park, Hindoyan has done his homework. That’s real commitment. ‘Yes, Tranmere – I know everything!’ he laughs. He’s shrewd enough…

You felt his creativity so near at hand that it gave you a feeling of ‘You inebriation, the sensation that it was you producing the music. It entered so completely into the characters, the atmosphere, the colours of my films as to permeate them with his music.’ This was Federico Fellini’s warmly appreciative verdict on the extraordinary contribution to his feature films made by Nino Rota, who scored no fewer than 16 of them between 1952 and his death in ’79. It would be naïve not to attribute the impact of Rota’s celebrated Fellini scores in part to the idiosyncratic nature of the films themselves and to the immediacy of the director’s strong personal style. But Rota also composed prolifically and successfully for many other film directors, both in Italy…

Four Visions of France Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1; Romance in F, Op. 36; Fauré: Elegie in C minor, Op. 24; Honegger: Cello Concerto; Lalo: Cello Concerto Daniel Müller-Schott (cello); Deutsche Symphonie-Orchestra Berlin/Alexandre Bloch Orfeo C988211 67:08 mins ‘Four Visions of France’ describes this disc accurately, charting the alternations of passion and restraint that have marked French music over the last 150 years. The German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott has the technique to project the disc’s multitude of moods and to move seamlessly from virtuosity to sensuousness and back again. My only reservation is not his fault. In Lalo’s own time, people criticised his noisy orchestration, and in his Concerto the cello is given the impossible task of living on equal terms with the full brass. This is a great pity,…

December round-up It was a long time coming, but Hans Zimmer’s debut Bond score has finally landed. No Time To Die is everything you want in a 007 film score and indeed everything we’ve come to expect. That Zimmer and his massive forces don’t stray too far outside of the lines set by John Barry and (specifically) David Arnold is a comfort. Bond is a brand and Zimmer gets it, going at it full throttle with pounding percussion, sweeping strings and fantastic solo guitar flourishes from Johnny Marr. There’s also a pleasing nod to Barry himself, with direct quotes from his music for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This is music that will leave you both shaken and stirred. (Decca 430845) Another composer no stranger to causing a stir is…