Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2022 i BBC Music Magazine

As we were putting together our cover feature on Jascha Heifetz, I got in touch with three of today’s leading violinists to find out what they make of their famous forebear. The responses were fascinating. ‘Was he was my favourite violinist? ’ replies one. ‘Unlikely. But he was a huge influence on just about all of us.’ ‘I doubt that any of us have escaped his influence,’ agrees another. ‘While he isn’t my “favourite”, you can’t take your ears off him when he’s playing.’ The third, meanwhile, admits that ‘when people asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, I’d say I wanted to play the violin better than Heifetz!’… before implying that her tastes have now changed a little. As Jack Liebeck (not one of the…

4 … recently rediscovered pieces that pay tribute to Admiral Nelson (above) have been performed and recorded at the Museum of London Docklands 50,000,000 … dollars donated to the Juilliard School by the Crankstart foundation to provide tuition to students from under-represented backgrounds 18 … stops to play with, as the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire reveals its new £550,000 baroque-style organ 54 … years and no more, as Midem, the Cannes-based music industry tradefair, announces its closure…

The morning of 27 February 1854 (a Monday) began as many did for Robert Schumann. A er breakfast, he worked quietly at home in Düsseldorf. Around noon, however, he emerged from his study, and le the family’s first-floor apartment on Bilker Strasse without explanation. Still wearing a floral-patterned dressing gown and slippers, and hatless in cold weather, he walked at least ten minutes through pouring rain to a wooden pontoon bridge on the River Rhine. Schumann may or may not have been recognised en route: it was carnival time in the city, so his bizarre attire would probably have blended more easily into the milling crowds than it might otherwise have done. Arriving at the bridge, Schumann had no money to pay the toll collector. But he o ered his…

In South Africa, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and Cape Town Opera have released a new album called Cwaka. The Silence (left) to highlight the many difficulties that the pandemic has brought upon music ensembles. The album does exactly what is says on the tin – it consists of nine completely silent recordings of works by composers ranging from Bizet to Gershwin. It is not the first time that musicians have made a point of staying silent… In his ‘Rider’ Op. 74 No. 3 String Quartet (1793), Haydn requires his players, almost as soon as they have started, to stop for a full three bars. Play then resumes at full pelt, as if the break had never happened. Berlioz and Janáček also employ a bar of complete silence to dramatic…

With some disbelief, I realise that it’s half a century since I attended my first early-music concert – at the 1972 BBC Proms. It was a thrilling night, because the sounds conjured up by that virtuosic pioneer David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London were so new, so challenging, so revolutionary. So was the music, even though it had been composed four or five centuries earlier. Who then had heard of Hermann Finck, Jacobus Barbireau or Hans Kotter? Come to think of it, who has heard of them now? Munrow, who died tragically and much too early, had a knack for digging out complete rarities from the Medieval and Renaissance eras and bringing them to life so flamboyantly that you felt as if you had been transported to…

Visitors to Reykjavík can’t exactly miss the Hallgrímskirkja, as it towers over the city. ‘It is an extraordinary building,’ says conductor Graham Ross, whose Choir of Clare College, Cambridge travelled there in September to sing a concert and a Sunday service. ‘It’s very stark in its beauty. Inside, it is extremely clean, with huge, plain white walls and thin pencil-like windows which give amazing light effects. And the acoustic is second-to-none.’ The choir’s visit followed its recording (in London, with soprano Carolyn Sampson and the Dmitri Ensemble) of Ice Land: The Eternal Music, an album of works by Icelandic composers from the mid-20th century to the present. ‘The music is incredibly beautiful and shares a soundworld that seems to connect remarkably to the amazing landscape from which it comes. A…

Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in February are: 31 January – 4 February Elgar 7-11 February CPE Bach 14-18 February Edward Gregson/Alan Bush 21-25 February Respighi 28 February – 4 March Clementi In 2014, Become Ocean won the Pulitzer Prize for music. A vast and immersive symphonic seascape, it is a modernday answer to Debussy’s La mer. And there’s a clue in the title. This isn’t music that so much describes the ocean, but music that somehow, metaphorically, is the ocean. Beneath its glittering surface are powerful undercurrents. Its notes behave like shifting water; its structure is built of surging waves. While meticulously constructed as a musical work, at its heart is also a serious environmental message. In a note…

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. The work According to the music historian Charles Burney, who knew him well, ‘Handel’s look was somewhat heavy and sour, but when he did smile it was his sire the sun bursting out of a black cloud’. Across Handel’s music, is there anything to rival the sunburst that is Part I of Acis and Galatea, composed in 1718 for the pleasure-loving house guests of James Brydges, Earl of Carnarvon, and soon to be Duke of Chandos? Brydges had acquired an eye-watering fortune (by nefarious means) and was now remodelling his out-of-London estate at Cannons, Middlesex, where the Parish Church (for which Handel composed the Chandos…

William Christie (director) Christie and Les Arts Florissants have the theatre coursing through their veins, and any interventions in this 1999 account such as the spectacularly long choral trill in the first chorus reprise or a few ear-tickling Gallicisms never feel like gratuitous attention-seeking. The result is an eminently urbane reading based on a tweaked version of the original score (substituting a light-on-her-feet Patricia Petibon for the tenor Damon and succumbing to the later choral ending of Part I). It’s crowned by Sophie Daneman’s supple, coquettish Galatea. (Erato 2564 659887) John Butt (director) If bearding Acis and Galatea in its 1718 Cannons lair is a consideration, no one dots the ‘i’s and crosses the ‘t’s more thoroughly than the Dunedin Consort in 2008. But John Butt’s scholarly insight always serves instinctive, vivid…

There’s something invigorating about witnessing the burgeoning talent of rising stars, and this month’s pages offer an embarrassment of riches when it comes to bright young things. I was delighted to see Canadian pianist Bruce Liu’s International Chopin Competition recording receive a glowing report this month, and he’s not the only prize-winning artist you can hear. Our Recording of the Month (see right) finds French pianist Alexandre Kantorow performing spellbinding Brahms, while violinists Sonoko Miriam Welde and Francisco Fullana present hearty albums of Vaughan Willams and Vivaldi. Then there’s soprano Sheva Tehoval with a fine programme of French song, and baritone Nicholas Mogg singing works by Carl Loewe. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, Geo Brown, Michael Church, Oliver Condy, Christopher Cook, Martin Cotton, Christopher…

Rameau dipped his toe into the world of opera with this debut work at the age of 50. He’d have been forgiven for not writing another, given the divided response to the five-act tragedy upon its Paris premiere in 1733. It ignited fury from opera lovers beholden to Lully and bewitched those who were dazzled by its extravagances. Structurally no different to your average Lully opera, Rameau’s take on the art form was musically ambitious, to say the least. Revivals were popular enough in his lifetime, but the work soon vanished from the stage after his death.…

JS Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, BWV 1027-1029; Trio Sonata, BWV 527; Partita in A minor, BWV 1013 – Allemande Sarah Cunningham (viola da gamba), Richard Egarr (harpsichord) Avie AV2491 63:16 mins Only the first of Bach’s three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord survives in his own manuscript, and it is not known when he may have composed them. And while Sonata No. 1 in G, BWV 127 and No. 2 in D, BWV 1028 are laid out in typical four-movement trio-sonata form – slow-fast-slow-fast – No. 3 in G minor, BWV 1029 suggests a grander three-movement concerto; one could easily imagine its vigorous opening movement transcribed for a Brandenburg Concerto-like ensemble. Indeed, the middle movement of the Organ Trio Sonata No. 3 in D…

To see in the first few months of 2022, BBC Four will turn its attention to the art of dance. The season will be centred around BBC Young Dancer, the biennial competition which sees 16-20-year-olds compete across all dance styles. Previous winners have included street dancer Max Revell and contemporary dancers Connor Scott and Nafisa Baba, who have gone on to study at the country’s top dance schools. The BBC will also broadcast Firestarter: The Story of Bangarra, the critically acclaimed documentary about the world-renowned Bangarra Dance Theatre company, one of Australia’s top Indigenous performing arts organisations. Also scheduled as part of the dance season is Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story, the vibrant account of the electrifying Cuban ballet dancer, who started life on the streets of Havana before being…

Julian Haylock Writer and journalist ‘It’s over a century since Jascha Heifetz made his sensational American debut, yet his finest recordings still dazzle and amaze. Little wonder that for many he remains the “violinist of the 20th century”.’ Page 28 Stephen Pritchard Music journalist, The Guardian ‘Iceland’s primordial landscape of volcanic deserts, black sand beaches, spectacular waterfalls and gushing geysers can only support a tiny population – but it’s one that cares deeply about music.’ Page 46 Rebecca Franks Music journalist, The Times ‘My first encounter with John Luther Adams’s music was the recording of Become Ocean, the piece which won him the Pulitzer Prize. Instantly hooked, I eagerly began exploring the rest of his remarkable works.’ Page 60…

Lend us a tenor Eyebrows were raised at the Royal Opera House’s production of Tosca shortly before Christmas when, totally against character, the eponymous heroine appeared to dump her lover Mario Cavaradossi mid-opera and take off with a younger man. Tsk! In fact, it was simply that tenor Bryan Hymel (42) fell ill and Freddie De Tommaso (28) stepped in to play the ill-fated painter, to great acclaim. Taking Stockholm Ryan Bancroft has been named as the next chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The 32-year-old American, who is also the principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and recently won the Conductor Award at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, begins his new Swedish role at the beginning of the 2022/23 season. Endangered folk Finnish Kaustinen…

Cellist Laura van der Heijden introduces favourite recordings from her own collection Songs of Orpheus Karim Sulayman (tenor); Apollo’s Fire/Jeannette Sorrell Avie AV2383 I fell in love with Karim’s voice in person, because he did some concerts with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. We had a long train journey together and I listened to this album. I was completely riveted from beginning to end; I was just so taken by the inventiveness of it. It’s recorded in a really natural, energetic way. Each song has slightly different instrumentation, so you hear different relationships between the voice and the instruments. Rebekah Cummings Our Strength, Our Song Akemi Mercer-Niewöhner (violin), Rachel Mercer (cello) Centrediscs CMCCD27719 I came across this disc whilst doing research on pieces for cello and violin, and I was thrilled to…

It has been an incredible year, with artists and labels delivering top-class recordings during another challenging period. We’re delighted to present the nominations for the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2022, including those for our Premiere and Newcomer awards. Who wins is up to you, so visit classical-music.com/awards for full nominee details and to cast your vote. Voting closes at midnight on Monday 28 February, with the winners being announced at the end of April. THE AWARDS JURY: MICHAEL BEEK, ANDREW MCGREGOR, BERTA JONCUS, GEORGE HALL, REBECCA FRANKS VOTE NOW AT CLASSICAL-MUSIC.COM/AWARDS Orchestral nominations F Price Symphonies Nos 1 & 3 Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin Deutsche Grammophon 486 2029 Reviewed Christmas 2021 Vaughan Williams Symphonies Nos 4 & 6 London Symphony Orchestra/Antonio Pappano LSO Live LSO0867 Reviewed June 2021 Dutilleux Le Loup…

“When I first started, there were still music shops that didn’t know where to place my music” His fans may run into the millions but, the pianist and composer tells Claire Jackson, his style of writing will always struggle to find total acceptance within the classical music world Ludovico Einaudi has a special manuscript displayed in his studio. It’s a student piece of his, with corrections from a surprising mentor: Karlheinz Stockhausen. When the renowned avant-gardist came to Milan during the early 1980s, the young Einaudi was a keen attendee at his lectures. ‘It was a very important experience for me,’ says the Italian pianist and composer, smiling at my surprised expression. ‘At the time, Stockhausen was writing Licht [his seven-opera series – Donnerstag, Samstag and Montag were premiered at…

‘Why should we not have an opera in our own tongue, sung more or less by our own people, and produced at least in reasonable proportion by our own poets and composers?’ This question was posed by The Times’s music critic with perhaps unwarranted optimism in 1879. Charles Stanford at least tried with no fewer than nine operas – including Shamus O’Brien (1895) which some historians suggest set a landmark in Irish opera. More esteemed today is Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers (1904), her Cornish-set opera attaining its first English staging in 1909. Yet more successful was Rutland Boughton’s The Immortal Hour, based on a medieval Irish tale and first performed 1914 in Glastonbury at a festival created in emulation of Wagner’s at Bayreuth. It was admired by both Smyth and…

When Handel wrote Acis and Galatea, the 33-year-old composer was beginning to forge a significant reputation in England. Born in Halle, Germany, in 1685, he moved to Italy in his early 20s, where he wrote Dixit Dominus as well as the operas Rodrigo and Agrippina. Appointed Kapellmeister to George, Elector of Hanover – the future George I of Great Britain and Ireland – in 1710, Handel travelled to England where, two years later, he decided to settle. His Water Music, written for George I, was premiered on the Thames in 1717, the year he became house composer at Cannons, Middlesex.…

Brahms started out writing his first symphony in the mid-1850s, but didn’t actually premiere it until 1876, so plagued was he by self doubt. Despite encouragement from friends, including Robert Schumann, who would never live to hear the work, Brahms continued to tinker and revise. So much so, the music he’d written ended up being used for something else entirely – namely a sonata and concerto, among other things. Back to the drawing board, with a desire to emulate the great Beethoven symphonies he loved, the composer changed keys and finally delivered a Symphony in C minor.…

Colin Maitena – excerpts Estíbaliz Sánchez, Miren Urbieta-Vega, Mikeldi Atxalandabaso, José Manuel Diaz, Marifé Nogales, Fernando Latorre; Sociedad Coral de Bilbao; Bilbao Symphony Orchestra/Iker Sánchez Silva IBS Classical IBS152021 94:43 mins (2 discs) One of the earliest Basque operas, Maitena by Charles Colin (1863-1951) was first performed in Bilbao in 1909, and up to the 1930s it received a number of productions in the Basque country, Spain, France and Mexico. With no dialogue and a few minor cuts, this is its first (almost) complete recording. Étienne Decrept’s libretto begins in a Basque village. Wealthy farmer Piarrés wishes his daughter Maitena to marry wellborn Ganich rather than the lowly Domingo, but she disobeys him and leaves for America with the latter. Left widowed in Buenos Aires, she returns to experience initial…

C Loewe – The Other Erlking Songs and Ballads Nicholas Mogg (baritone), Jâms Coleman (piano) Champs Hill CHRCD165 60:18 mins Carl Loewe’s dramatic ballads, much admired in 19th-century Europe, continue to appeal to voice-piano duos who enjoy a ripping yarn. Nicholas Mogg and Jâms Coleman mix those songs with several overlooked lyrical numbers. Some prove musically less interesting than the enthusiastic liner note suggests (for example, ‘Über allen Gipfeln’ has beautiful moments but doesn’t sustain interest overall), and others are genuinely attractive discoveries. This demanding repertoire requires immaculate German and the ability to inhabit the characters through all their travails. The piano must depict everything from tolling bells to elf-kings (and their daughters) and the deep sea, while simultaneously sustaining occasionally over-large forms. Overall, Coleman and Mogg deliver, especially in…

February round-up This month’s Jazz Choice is followed by two other piano-led recordings that are as unlike it as they are unlike each other. It’s never a bad idea to listen to whatever’s new from American musician Bob James, and the selfexplanatory Feel Like Making LIVE! is no exception. Apart from being a fine player who famously abandoned his avant-garde roots to become a leading exponent of the mainstream, James is also among the surprisingly few pianists to have mastered the idiosyncrasies of the original electro-acoustic Fender Rhodes piano. This is very much in evidence on this live-in-thestudio trio collection that stirs a few standards and covers into a fine mixture of catalogue pieces. (Evo Sound EVSA 834M) Jools Holland is also a doyen of the mainstream in a somewhat…

Dvo ák’s Prophecy – And the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music Joseph Horowitz WW Norton 256pp (hb) £23.99 In 1893 Dvo ák declared: ‘In the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music’. Joseph Horowitz dashes this hope in his opening paragraph. The ‘Black musical motherlode’, he states, settled into popular music instead, while American classical music ‘stayed white’. To explain why, he usefully looks sideways (Charles Ives comes paired with Mark Twain) and avoids heavy academic artillery. Instead, he writes with a journalist’s fondness for reportage, short sentences and plenty of long quotes. This is both good and bad. Horowitz’s admiration for composers who tried to fulfil Dvo ák’sprophecyisclear. So is his frustration with a musical culture characterised…

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FEBRUARY’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 TUESDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12noon-1pm Composer of the Week Elgar 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Afternoon Concert 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert from the Royal Festival Hall. Poems of Ecstasy. Wagner Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod, Ravel Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, Lili Boulanger D’un soir triste, Scriabin Symphony No. 4 ‘Le Poème de l’Extase’. Cédric Tiberghien (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra/Karina Canellakis 10.00-10.45pm Music Matters 10.45-11pm The Essay 11pm-12.30am Night Tracks 2 WEDNESDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12noon Essential Classics 12noon-1pm Composer of the Week Elgar 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-4pm Afternoon Concert 4-5pm Choral Vespers for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord from Our Lady…

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 (seeoup.co.uk). Send answers to: BBC Music Magazine, Crossword 369/Feb 2022, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 17 Feb 2022 (solution in May 2022 issue). DECEMBER SOLUTION No. 366 DECEMBER WINNER Evelyn Tweedie, Stevenage Immediate Media Company Limited, publisher of BBC Music Magazine, may contact you with details of our products and or to undertake research. Please write ‘Do Not Contact’ if you prefer not to receive such information by post or phone. Please write your email address on your postcard if you prefer to receive such information by e-mail. We abide by IPSO’s rules and…

Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: music@classical-music.com Socialmedia: contactusonFacebookandTwitter Piano gems I enjoyed Malcolm Hayes’s article exploring beyond Tchaikovsky’s greatest hits (Composer of the Month, Christmas) but found it ironic that even he wholly ignored his nearly nine hours of piano music! If I had to pick a favourite? The lullaby Tchaikovsky wrote shortly before his death (Op. 72 No. 2 Berceuse) – with its repetitive minimal riff and lovely melody it sounds like a precursor to Satie, or Ravel’s Boléro. Michael Ponti’s recording is the best. David Davis, London Missing Maazel Your Timepiece article in the Christmas issue recounting the origins and story of the famous New Year’s Day Concert in Vienna ignored the contribution and achievements of Lorin Maazel. It is…

Esther Abrami Violinist Born: Marseilles, France Career highlight: Developing an online community of over 800,000 people with whom I can share my musical journey, as well as signing to Sony with a multi-album deal. Musical hero: I’ve always looked up to the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. His humanitarian work and the extremely touching quality of his playing and open-mindedness in approaching different musical styles have been a constant source of inspiration. Dream concert: Playing a concert under conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl, with a mix of core classical repertoire, new compositions and improvisations. Hilary Cronin Soprano Born: Suffolk, UK Career highlight: Winning first prize and the audience prize at the 2021 International Handel Singing Competition. It was thrilling to perform with Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Orchestra. Musical…

Pianist Samantha Ege was in the studio in late December to record an album called Black Renaissance Women. It features works by trailblazing composer-pianists, many of which are premiere recordings. They include Margaret Bonds’s Spiritual Suite, Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement and Helen Eugenia Hagan’s Piano Concerto in E minor. Lorelt releases the album in March. Staying at the keyboard, prize-winning Japanese pianist Mao Fujita was recently signed to Sony Classical. The young musician has wowed juries and audiences at festivals and competitions worldwide, and is set to launch his major recording career with an album of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas. Sony releases the recording in the Autumn. Sony also recently annouced a new recording project by Ivo Pogorelich. It was the music of Chopin which launched the…

While late-Romanticism was at its height, a cabaret pianist was turning music on its head. Tom Service celebrates the legacy of the great eccentric, Erik Satie The day I visited Erik Satie’s grave in Arcueil, the southern suburb of Paris where he lived and died in 1925 – as a ‘great musician, person of heart, and exceptional citizen’, as the epitaph says – there was a single ripe pear placed on top of the austere plinth. Which makes surreal sense, because among Satie’s piano works are his Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear. Satie’s music, his multi-dimensional creativity and the way he lived his life are still exemplary and visionary. He made some of the earliest music for film, he was a postmodernist avant la lettre, he conjured…

Jeremy Pound Acting editor With Vaughan Williams’s (right) 150th anniversary on the horizon, I imagine we’ll be hearing a fair amount of his music over the coming months. I’ve been listening repeatedly to his Fifth Symphony in the new transcription for organ by David Briggs, broadcast from Coventry Cathedral on Radio 3 in late 2021. Organ transcriptions of orchestral works can sometimes sound a little contrived, but this ideally captured the spirit and atmosphere of the original while still managing to showcase the cathedral’s mighty Harrison and Harrison instrument. Alice Pearson Cover CD editor It seems appropriate as we battle through the coldest and iciest months of the year to listen again to Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle. I spotted an excellent free online performance by the celebrated tenor and scholar Ian Bostridge, who has…

As a student of Berio and an acolyte of Stockhausen, Einaudi learned his craft from the very heart of the classical music world before deciding to turn his thoughts in a more populist direction. He is in good company in that respect. Jon Lord, co-founder of heavy rock band Deep Purple, initially studied classical piano, and with Concerto for Group and Orchestra he began a fruitful relationship with Malcolm Arnold. Another highly talented classical pianist was a certain Reginald Dwight, who regularly skipped lessons at London’s Royal Academy of Music but still passed his exams (though he also skipped his finals). As Elton John, he would emerge as one of rock’s most successful pianists. At the Royal College of Music, meanwhile, Rick Wakeman, future keyboard player of Yes, was taking…

Christian Curnyn (director) Early Opera Company Chandos CHSA 0404(2) Although Handel tinkered with the score, there’s something about the directness and intimacy of the pared-back original that blossoms so beguilingly when appropriate forces are deployed. Adrian Boult recorded it with the London Symphony Orchestra, Joan Sutherland and Peter Pears in the mid 1960s, and as the taste for something lighter grew, so chamber orchestras such as Neville Marriner’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields stepped up to the plate. But that same year, (1978), John Eliot Gardiner and the period instruments of his newly formed English Baroque Soloists offered a historically informed alternative, and since then Acis has never looked back – revelling in the fruity sound of baroque oboes, the piercing piquancy of the sopranino recorder and a…

Brahms Symphony No. 1; Violin Concerto Stéphanie-Marie Degand (violin); Le Cercle de l’Harmonie/Jérémie Rhorer NoMadMusic NMM101 82:23 mins (2 discs) Jérémie Rhorer and period instrument orchestra Le Cercle de l’Harmonie are likely to ruffle many feathers with this release. In Brahms’s First Symphony, instead of the measured and more Romantically charged interpretations of a Karajan, Abbado or Blomstedt, in the outer movements the composer’s dynamic and almost Beethovenian control of rhythm is emphasised. The smaller instrumental forces create a much more transparent, fleet-of-foot orchestral texture than is possible with a modern symphony orchestra. All these aspects of the performance are compelling and illuminating, especially when Brahms’s writing is at its most intense and highly-charged. But in the more reflective lyrical passages, both in the outer movements and the Andante sostenuto,…

Barber • Bruch • Vaughan Williams Bruch: Violin Concerto; Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending; Barber: Violin Concerto* Sonoko Miriam Welde (violin); Oslo Philharmonic/Tabita Berglund, *Joshua Weilerstein Lawo Classics LWC1222 60:26 mins In the (relatively) early days of stereo, the no-holds-barred charismatic intensity of Isaac Stern (with the Philadelphia Orchestra/Ormandy and NYPO/Bernstein in overdrive) achieved an emotional catharsis in the Bruch and Barber concertos that still overwhelms. But with rose-tinted spectacles removed, it seems clear the unstoppable adrenal surge, coupled with high-impact CBS sonics (which rarely drop below a healthy mezzo-forte) tell only one side of the story. This is where Sonoko Miriam Welde really comes into her own. For while she lacks nothing in excitement when the notes start flying, she produces a velvety sonority at low dynamic levels that…

Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie (DVD) Reinoud van Mechelen, Elsa Benoit, Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo, Stéphane Degout, Lea Desandre; Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon; dir. Jeanne Candel (Paris, 2020) Naxos 2.110707 140 mins Here’s a captivating, glorious performance, complemented by Jeanne Candel’s cheeky yet sensitive stage direction brought home through innovative cinematography. Such collective effort is needed to navigate Rameau’s first-ever opera, which piles one densely composed scene on top of another, as Hippolyte’s union with Aricie is thwarted by his step-mother Phèdre, herself in love with Hippolyte, while Phèdre’s husband Thésée is off visiting the Underworld. The principals embody the drama played out by their characters. Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo’s raw power as Phèdre in Act I collapses to a whispered vulnerability in her Act III confession. Elsa Benoit’s Aricie pivots from radiant arioso to dark brooding,…

CPE Bach – Sonatas & Rondos Sonatas – H31, H66, H173, H247, H281, H286; Rondos – H265, H267, H272, H274, H283; Fantasies – H291, H300; Arioso with 9 variations etc Marc-André Hamelin (piano) Hyperion CDA68381/2 136:51 mins (2 discs) CPE Bach may have emerged from behind his father’s shadow over the last two decades, but despite his prolific output – 400 solo sonatas, fantasias, fugues and sets of variations – his musical style remains hard to characterise. In a learned liner note for Marc-André Hamelin’s new album, Mahan Esfahani does his best to identify CPE’s achievement, if not his style. That achievement, says Esfahani, was best embodied in his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, which Haydn dubbed the ‘school of schools’ and which Beethoven used in…

Matthew Aucoin The Orphic Moment etc American Modern Opera Company BMOP Sound BMOP1084 Across two discs and seven works, we’re introduced to the music of American composer Matthew Aucoin (b1990). It’s quite the intro. Whether working with the voice, instrumentalists or full orchestra, Aucoin paints a dazzling musical picture. Now I want to hear more. (MB) Bob Chilcott Circlesong Houston Chamber Choir Signum Classics SIGCD703 Circlesong is a choral work packed full of fun, with vibrant, dynamic sections alongside more reflective, ethereal moments. Placed alongside a series of shorter pieces by the contemporary composer here, there’s plenty to enjoy. (FP) Debussy Préludes Book 2; Children’s Corner; L’Isle joyeuse Vanessa Benelli Mosell (piano) Decca 485 6859 Vanessa Benelli Mosell brings quite an aggressive approach to these works, with some surprisingly rapid…

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Chorus Lighthouse, Poole, 2 February Web: bsolive.com After a predominantly Russian start to 2022 the orchestra reaches out to Brahms and two works that deserve to be heard live more often: the Hölderlin-setting Schicksalslied and haunting Alto Rhapsody. Schuman’s Manfred Overture establishes the mood, which is lightened by Beethoven’s sunny Symphony No. 8. David Hill conducts, and the mezzo soloist is Hanna Hipp. Irish National Opera Linbury Theatre, London, 4-12 February Web: roh.org.uk Directed by Adele Thomas and conducted by baroque specialist Peter Whelan, the Irish company follows up its 2019 production of Vivaldi’s Griselda with his 1735 tale of love, intrigue and death: Bajazet. Gianluca Margheri takes with title role, with James Laing as the conquering Tamerlano. Orchestra of the Swan Playhouse, Stratford-upon-Avon, 8 February…

Alan Davey, the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this February BBC 100 To celebrate the centenary of the BBC, we’re showcasing the BBC orchestras and choirs and the Ulster Orchestra across an entire weekend this month. Each ensemble will perform music from the 100-year period, including a newly commissioned work by Thomas Larcher. 11-13 February Edward Gregson and Alan Bush Many reputable British composers owe their musical education to Alan Bush, who taught at the Royal Academy of Music for more than 50 years. We’ll focus on Bush’s music, teaching and political activism, before turning our attention to one of his distinguished students: Edward Gregson. Composer of the Week: 14-18 February, 12 noon Classical Fix Following Clemency Burton-Hill’s triumphant return on the…

1. Composed in 1761, whose Symphonies Nos 6, 7 & 8 are nicknamed ‘Le matin’, ‘Le midi’ and ‘Le soir’ (‘Morning’, ‘Noon’ and ‘Evening’)? 2. Inspired by a picture he saw hanging in a pub, which composer’s Second Symphony, premiered in 1902, has movements called ‘The Choleric’, ‘The Sanguine’, ‘The Melancholic’ and ‘The Phlegmatic’? 3. The action of which opera, premiered on 10 June 1865, begins on a ship to Cornwall and is finally resolved in a castle in Brittany? 4. Which composer was once described by Stravinsky as a ‘six-and-a-half-foot scowl’? 5. Who did the 17th-century diarist John Evelyn say was ‘esteemed to be the best composer of any Englishman hitherto’? 6. Of which nationality are the following conductors: a) Gisèle Ben-Dor (pictured above); b) Joana Carneiro; c) Alondra…

Author Kate Mosse’s career began behind the scenes in publishing as editorial director of Hutchinson. She has gone on to pen many historic and ghost fiction novels, as well as personal non-fiction books including An Extra Pair of Hands, which sheds light on her experience as a carer for her parents and mother-in-law. In 1996, Mosse co-founded the annual Women’s Prize for Fiction, launched in response to an all-male Booker Prize shortlist. Her latest novel, The City of Tears, is out now in paperback. When I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, my parents had an old-fashioned copper turntable with two very old records that I played over and over again. They were my first experiences of hearing a big orchestral sound. One was Karajan’s 1963 recording of…