Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2022 i BBC Music Magazine

Throughout his long career, pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has remained at the top of his game. Declared ‘a phenomenon’ at the age of just 11 by Wilhelm Furtwängler, the prodigy went on to enjoy the kind of success that too often fails to materialise for such exceptionally gifted youngsters. Respected equally for his technical skill and sense of musicianship, Barenboim’s keen intellect has always shone through. At the heart of his artistic and philosophical approach is a sense of balance – between discipline and passion, modesty and assurance – and a strong belief that music can help to overcome ‘the gulfs between people’. Jessica Duchen speaks to the venerable musician as he approaches his 80th birthday on page 26. One of Barenboim’s myriad projects in 2022 is a new…

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Vegan strings The first ever 100 per cent certified vegan violin has been unveiled by a violin-maker in Ireland. Padraig O’Dubhlaoidh says that he spent the pandemic developing an instrument that is made without animal glue, an adaptation that, he adds, not only makes it a more ethical option but is also good for the the instrument itself. ‘Animal glues have harmful effects on violins,’ he explains, ‘inducing powerful tensions in wooden components.’ Royal viol Jordi Savall, the eminent Spanish viol player, conductor and period instrument pioneer, has been made an honorary member of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Savall, who accepted the honour during a concert at Wigmore Hall, is in very prestigious company – beginning with Weber in 1826, other honorary members include Mendelssohn, Verdi, Clara Schumann, Yehudi Menuhin…

Some people are born simply too talented. In February, performances of Tama Matheson’s play Don Juan: The Brilliant Irreverence of Lord Byron saw pianist Clare Hammond (left) perform works by Beethoven, Debussy and others in between playing three female roles on stage, earning praise for her ‘fantastic’ acting skills from Matheson himself. She is not the first classical musician to have trod the boards with aplomb… In 1927, the pianist, conductor and composer Oscar Levant added ‘actor’ to his CV when he played, aptly, the songwriter in Watters and Hopkins’s Burlesque – a play whose Broadway run notched up 372 shows. A close contemporary of Levant’s, the great American bass-baritone Paul Robeson was a familiar figure in the theatre, not least when he earned acclaim as Shakespeare’s Othello – opposite…

I never hear an encore in a concert hall without thinking of Oliver Twist. ‘Please, sir, I want some more,’ the boy cried – ‘desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery’, as Dickens put it. Elsewhere in this issue we report that Daniel Barenboim has just recorded a whole album of encores. Presumably his legion of fans don’t feel reckless with misery, but are they desperate with hunger for more charming ivoryticklers from a performer who has already recorded umpteen albums of all conceivable repertoire? In fact, how often is an audience really hungry to hear more from a soloist who has already entertained them for a whole recital or a concerto? Or has the ritual of an encore just become another of those stale conventions baked into attending a…

‘Pierre Boulez was one of the great composers of all time and it’s impossible to imagine that someone will take his place, but in my opinion there are some excellent composers working today. ‘I’ve done quite a lot of contemporary music, especially here in Berlin: works of Jörg Widmann, Matthias Pintscher, Luca Francesconi and Philippe Manoury (pictured below), composers of other nationalities, and they all have something to say. I’m also very interested in the direction of electronics in music. I remember, I once went with Pierre Boulez to IRCAM when it was started in the 1970s, and he said to me: “This will be very important.” I said, “Pierre, sorry, I can’t relate to electronics or anything which doesn’t go with live music.” He said: “You might be right…

Stan Hugill (1906-92) Known as ‘The Last Shantyman’, Hugill hailed from Merseyside, the epicentre of England’s shanty tradition. He spent 23 years at sea, including a stint as the shantyman on the final voyage of Garthpool, Britain’s last commercial sailing ship. After retiring in 1945, he transcribed and recorded the shanties he had learnt at sea. He also penned several books on shanties, which remain a go-to resource for singers today. Alan Lomax (1915-2002) ‘What Enrico Caruso was to singing, Alan Lomax is to musicology,’ said oral historian Studs Terkel in 1997. A staunch advocate for the protection of folk music, Lomax collected and recorded songs, particularly from the African-American music traditions. In 1935, he travelled with folklorist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle to record work songs and interview sponge fishermen on…

Andrew Davis (conductor) Stuart Skelton (tenor), Sarah Connolly (mezzo), David Soar (bass); BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra Chandos CHSA5140(2) Andrew Davis first heard The Dream of Gerontius when he was 14 years old, and this 2014 recording is an eloquent testament to a lifetime spent absorbing and processing this musically and emotionally complex work. Each nuance of Elgar’s score is respected, the playing by the BBC Symphony Orchestra is flawless and Davis evinces as good a grasp of the work’s inner drama as is surely possible. Elgar made substantial cuts to the poem and his libretto concentrates more on the human experience of Gerontius than on the theological aspects of Newman’s original text. In this respect, Stuart Skelton is the ideal protagonist, perfectly carrying forward the psychological drama which leads…

Adam La jolie fille de Gand Queensland Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Mogrelia Naxos 8.574342-43 (reissue: rec. 1996) 133:24 mins (2 discs) Adolphe Adam (1803-56) is celebrated as the composer of the first full-length ballet score capable of standing on its own two feet – though a concert performance of Giselle’s Act II conducted by Vladimir Jurowski didn’t rivet attention throughout. Neither Giselle nor the more lamentably-plotted ballet that followed it a year later, La jolie fille de Gand, comes within a million miles of the later masterpieces by Delibes and Tchaikovsky, or the delight we know as La fille mal gardée (ostensibly contemporary with Adam, but actually a pot-pourri ballet put together by John Lanchbery). The best that can be said of this rarity is that it’s dansante (danceable), and elegant in…

Eleanor Alberga Violin Concerto No. 1; Violin Concerto No. 2, Narcissus; The Soul’s Expression* Thomas Bowes (violin), *Morgan Pearse (baritone); BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Joseph Swensen Lyrita SRCD405 74:38 mins Eleanor Alberga’s first notated composition was a portrait of her pet dog, a golden retriever. She was ten years old, and the Jamaicanborn composer’s urge towards music that paints pictures and tells stories still persists now that she’s in her early seventies. The latest and most beguiling work, from 2020, is the violin concerto (No. 2) inspired by the Greek myth of Narcissus, featuring a self-regarding soloist who may begin soaring prettily but reaches a bad end plummeting toward silence in disordered, ‘scordatura’ tuning. It’s the album’s most striking example of Alberga’s delight in dramatic effects. Along the way, the…

Handel – Dualità Arias from Arianna in Creta, Amadigi di Gaula, Partenope, Radamisto, Alcina, Faramondo etc Emoke Baráth (soprano); Artaserse/Philippe Jaroussky Erato 9029637062 72:21 mins Soprano Emoke Baráth is the featured soloist of this album, but our attention is grabbed by the name of another singer, Philippe Jaroussky. This is the star countertenor’s first commercial recording as a conductor. Jaroussky lets himself be led by Baráth, whose affective intensity and technical brilliance are most powerfully displayed in her extravagant additions. Sticking to the score or not, she provides a sonic feast: rich bottom-register timbre, brilliant yet voluptuous top notes and a pure core that energises even her longest lines. Baráth says she selected arias that ‘express the duality of the female soul’, and she wanders most from Handel’s music when…

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JS Bach Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 Jean Rondeau (harpsichord) Erato 9029650811 107:12 mins (2 discs) Jean Rondeau, a prominent figure of the nouvelle vague of harpsichordists, adopts a spacious approach to Bach’s inspired and masterly Variations. Not for him is Gustav Leonhardt’s almost invariable disdain for repeats, for all are scrupulously observed in this two-disc album. Rondeau’s responses to the music are, by-and-large, reflective and notably free from superficial showiness. For the most part his tempos feel carefully considered and are well judged, and his articulation all that we should expect from an eloquently punctuated and inflected conversation. Intimacy, clarity and faithfulness to Bach’s music, as Rondeau understands it, are self-declared aims, laid out in the accompanying booklet, in which two consecutive, almost entirely blank pages each contain one word,…

Conversations Steve Reich Hanover Square 352pp (hb) £20.87 Inspired by Stravinsky’s published discussions with conductor Robert Craft, in Conversations Steve Reich preserves his shared reflections with collaborators past and present. Michael Tilson Thomas describes the 1973 performance of Four Organs – in which the Carnegie Hall audience was so unruly the conductor had to shout out bar numbers (‘When we came off stage and you were white as a sheet, I said to you, nothing like this has happened since The Rite of Spring’) – while Colin Currie talks about preparing Drumming for the 2006 Prom to mark Reich’s 70th birthday. Doing away with the usual thirdparty interviewer has its perks: conversation is natural, personal and, because it is a composer talking to fellow artists, elicits interesting analysis (the impact…

Ariane Todes Writer and editor ‘Eye contact in music isn’t discussed or taught much, but hearing violinist Arnold Steinhardt recall a look he shared with Jacqueline du Pré in 1965 was proof of its power – a moment I shall remember forever.’ Page 42 Tom Stewart Writer and editor ‘My conversation with Gerald Barry was full of the same twists and turns you can hear in his music, which draws on numerous sources – musical and otherwise – without losing direction or its sense of mischief.’ Page 46 Mikel Toms Conductor and writer ‘What a joy to listen to so many recordings of The Dream of Gerontius, from Elgar’s own onwards. It’s like witnessing this glorious masterpiece evolve, establishing its place in the public’s consciousness.’ Page 62…

John Holiday Countertenor Born: Rosenberg, US Career highlight: Being able to share music on NBC’s The Voice. In my classical career, my highlights have involved bringing new opera to the world: Jonathan Dove’s Flight, Daniel Bernard Roumain’s We Shall Not Be Moved, Huang Ruo’s Paradise Interrupted and Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice. Musical hero: Derek Lee Ragin, the first African-American countertenor to grace the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. As with soprano Leontyne Price and mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, there is an artistry and truth in his performances. Dream concert: To have the John Holiday Experience at Madison Square Garden! Siqian Li Pianist Born: Chongqing, China Career highlight: My debut recital outside of China at Église Notre-Dame d’Auvers, the church in Van Gogh’s famous 1890 painting. I also performed a concerto in Kiev…

Flautist Noemi Gyori introduces us to a selection of her most treasured recordings Weinberg Symphony No. 21 CBSO/Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla Deutsche Grammophon 483 6566 I performed Weinberg at a festival in Munich, so was really interested in getting to know his music. This is a very long piece, dedicated to his parents and sisters – I come from a Jewish family, so there are personal links as well. What particularly struck me about this recording is that Mirga found the necessary colour the music requires, without distracting from the depth of it. It made a great impression on me. The Boyash Gypsies of Hungary The Boyash Gypsies ARC Music EUCD 1670 I come from Hungary and there’s a great palette of different types of music, including a very rich culture of…

Celine Byrne Soprano I’ve been listening a lot to the soundtrack of Les Misérables, which I’m going to see with my daughter in Dublin. I hate the phrase ‘rollercoaster of emotions’, but that is exactly what it is! I was into musicals long before I even knew what opera was and went to see Les Mis both in the West End and on Broadway, drawn at first by the fact that it had an Irish star – the amazing Colm Wilkinson, who played the original Jean Valjean and then the priest in the 2012 movie. The day after Les Misérables, I’m going to a concert that includes Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, which my son has been studying at school. It’s wonderful for children to be able to feel the music come…

Somewhere in my earliest musical memories, a black-and-white TV presents a sliver of sonic heaven, as a stocky young pianist with blazing eyes and a forest of dusky curls plays Mozart. Over the years, that figure – Daniel Barenboim – has remained a still point in a turning musical world. He started at the top and, as both pianist and conductor, he stayed there. Now that he is turning 80, there’s no point asking ‘Maestro’ (as he is usually called) if he is planning retirement. It’s unthinkable. Speaking to me from his office in Berlin, Barenboim is as direct as ever. He has always been a person who says what he means and means what he says, articulating his ideas with exceptional clarity and a certain amount of punch. Now…

‘Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread, Our eyes upon one double string.’ In The Ecstasy John Donne is describing the way that lovers’ eyes lock together, but we sometimes see something similar in concerts. Conductor and section principal eyeball each other, or quartet leader and cellist share an intense glance. Online you can watch Leonard Bernstein conducting a Haydn symphony, hands by his side, with nothing but his eyes and a grin; or Herbert von Karajan directing the musicians with his eyes clamped shut. So, what does eye contact actually achieve in music, and how important is it? For an orchestra, eye contact serves different functions. Conductor Leonard Slatkin explains: ‘Firstly, conductors make eye contact because we want the attention of an individual or a section. We may look at…

String Quartet No. 4, ‘First Sorrow’ (2006-07) Listen for the tune played simultaneously on two violins, one a tiny fraction sharper than the other. The result is a sound that burns with longing, like a vivid but distant memory – perhaps of a harmonium in a rural Irish church. Fast, loud arcs of joyous music follow before two high voices enter as if from within. Like much of Barry’s music, ‘First Sorrow’ ends with a twinkle in its eye. Hard D (1995) Barry’s years in Amsterdam and the music of Louis Andriessen resonate through this warm and supple score for woodwind, brass, piano and double bass. Its fuzzy saxophones and pugnacious trumpets skip along, missing beats as they please – more Joycean jig than cool continental abstraction. ‘I feel bound…

Mark Elder (conductor) Another remarkable account from another distinguished Elgarian: Mark Elder. The Hallé Choir and Hallé Youth Choir in this 2008 recording create a colourful, virtuosic and secure structure around which the vocal drama unfolds and, again, the beautiful sound engineering allows every detail of Elgar’s score to breathe. This recording should be heard for Bryn Terfel’s Priest/Angel of the Agony alone, though. His is by far the best performance available on record and he is the only singer who achieves that perfect balance between thundering authority and loving compassion. (Hallé CDHLD 7520) John Barbirolli (conductor) Considered for decades to be the definitive Gerontius, Barbirolli’s 1965 release needs to be included on any list of recommended recordings. For many, the role of the Angel is virtually synonymous with Janet…

I love it when artists are daring, or familiar music is recast. It’s not so much a case of reinventing the wheel, but more about exploring the music’s possibilities, or making a statement. So this month I was delighted to share Théophile Alexandre’s No(s) Dames project, which sees the countertenor challenge and deconstruct traditional gender roles in opera. Then there’s a pair of Beethoven symphonies reimagined for piano trio – Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos, no less; plus a fresh take on Schubert’s chilly Winterreise from baritone Benjamin Appl. Beyond that there are winning recordings of Florence Price chamber works, Bacewicz piano sonatas and a page of recent releases of music written for the big and small screens. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael Beek, Terry…

Metanoia JS Bach: Solo Violin Partita No. 1 – Sarabande; Borodin: Polovtsian Dances; Pärt: In spe; Puccini: Messa di Gloria – excerpts*; Villa-Lobos: Bachianas brasileiras No. 4 Manon Galy (violin); *Ensemble Sequenza 9.3; Ensemble K/Simone Menezes Accentus ACC 30567 51:39 mins Simone Menezes has elected to re-record Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances just a year after her debut album Accents (reviewed April 2021), and the results are even more beguiling. She takes more time over the magical opening (Russian pedal-pointing at its most skin-rippling), allowing her gifted group of players more room to shape Borodin’s indelible melodic/harmonic inspiration, while the recording sets the ensemble within a radiantly glowing acoustic. Violinist Manon Galy, a prize winner at last year’s International Heifetz Competition, plays the Sarabande from JS Bach’s B minor Partita. Her liquid-phrased…

Mozart • R Strauss Mozart: Oboe Concerto; R Strauss: Oboe Concerto Cristina Gómez Godoy (oboe); West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim Warner Classics 9029507760 46:53 mins Cristina Gómez Godoy joined Daniel Barenboim’s Staatskapelle Berlin as principal cor anglais ten years ago, aged 21, and two years later became the orchestra’s principal oboist. In the booklet note she writes that she wanted to record these two concertos ‘because they are the reason I completely fell in love with the oboe and with music… If I could simply create in other people’s lives this feeling of happiness that I had back then, my wish would be fulfilled!’ She does that and more. Godoy’s tone has an exceptional purity and beauty, without a trace of narcissism, and her musicianship is as gifted as it gets.…

CPE Bach • JS Bach JS Bach: Magnificat, BWV 243*; CPE Bach: Magnificat, Wq. 215 Miriam Feuersinger, *Anja Scherg (soprano), Marie Henriette Reinhold (alto), Patrick Grahl (tenor), Markus Eiche (bass); Gaechinger Cantorey/Hans-Christoph Rademann Accentus ACC30563 62:52 mins Composed in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat was his first major work as newly appointed Cantor of St Thomas, Leipzig. Twenty-seven years later, in an unsuccessful bid to succeed to the post, his second surviving son Carl Philipp Emanuel presented his own version. The two settings make for a fascinating comparison. Where JS opens with an ornate dance of stately jubilation, CPE dashes into action like the arrival of some Queen of Sheba. And while JS proceeds with a sequence of brief arias and choruses, CPE is less contrapuntal, more nervous and mannerist…

Beethoven Symphonies Nos 2 (arr. Ries) & 5 (arr. C Matthews) Leonidas Kavakos (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Emanuel Ax (piano) Sony Classical 19439940142 68:45 mins This is the second recording from a superstar trio whose individual players have already notched up a fair few Beethoven discs. But here are pieces usually out of soloists’ reach, performed in arrangments for piano trio. Symphony No. 2 is played in an arrangement by one of Beethoven’s own pupils, Ferdinand Ries. If Liszt turned the piano into an orchestra with his arrangement of this piece, Ries opts for the opposite tack. His scaled-back symphony is pure chamber music, and the trio play it as such. The ensemble sounds as one: supple, elegant – and, dare I say it, ever so slightly bland. For playing…

Bacewicz Piano Sonatas Nos 1 & 2; 10 Concert Etudes for Piano; Etudes in Double Notes; Concert Krakowiak Peter Jablonski (piano) Ondine ODE 1399-2 71:24 mins Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-69) was one of Poland’s leading composers, a fine concert pianist and a professional violinist. She credited her productivity to having a ‘motorek’, or little engine, that kept her going. She was fast, energetic, focused. And although there’s a risk in conflating biography and music, it’s hard not to hear that propulsive drive at play in the Ten Concert Etudes of 1956-57, performed with muscular conviction by Swedish pianist Peter Jablonski. He’s the latest in a series of pianists giving overdue attention to Bacewicz, with Krystian Zimerman’s 2011 recording of the Second Piano Sonata (Deutsche Grammophon) a landmark, and recent discs from…

Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 5 (arr. chamber) Hanna Shybayeva (piano) et al Naxos 8.551452 Beethoven piano concertos in chamber arrangements is an interesting idea, but ultimately feels a little weak, here. The piano dominates a score never designed for chamber ensemble. Still, the playing is top notch, and there is often charm and subtlety in the rejigged orchestral parts. (CS) ★★★★ Sarah Class Resonate Orchestra for the Earth et al Glorious Technicolour GLORIOCD2 Class’s talent for affecting melody is proven in commissions for the World Land Trust and HRH the Prince of Wales’s ‘Terra Carta’ project. From inspiring orchestral anthems to soulful solo piano, via a clutch of beautiful songs, this is a vivid and memorable collection. (MB) ★★★★ Dvořák String Quartets Nos 2 & 5 etc Vogler…

Your complete guide to what’s on Radio 3 this month, plus TV highlights 1 FRIDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12 noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Biber (rpt). Donald Macleod explores the music and what little is known of the life of Baroque master Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Afternoon Concert 5-7pm In Tune Caplet •Dvořák Dvor?ák: Cello Concerto 7-7.30pm In Tune Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 in Concert live from the Barbican, London. Canadian conductor Jordan de Souza makes his UK concert debut. Édith Canat de Chizy Omen (UK premiere), Vaughan Williams Concerto for Two Pianos, Berlioz Symphonie fantastique. Noriko Ogawa (piano), Kathryn Stott (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra/Jordan de Souza 10.45-11pm The Essay 11pm-1am Late Junction 2 SATURDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9-11.45am Record Review 11.45am-12.30pm Music…

The BBC presents a major new cultural history of the British Isles, exploring how various significant works of music, art, literature and design have helped create and shape our creative history. The eight-part series will air in April on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, accompanied by a nationwide festival, created in collaboration with museums, galleries, libraries and archives, which will take place throughout the month of April. Members of ensembles such as the Marian Consort and the ORA Singers will join artists, actors, poets and commentators in tracing the stories of innovators and rule-breakers from the cultural history of the British Isles. The series focuses on specific works of art from all genres that emerged at times of crisis, from the Black Death, Civil War and the religious upheaval of…

Jeannette Sorrell is an exuberant interpreter of Baroque and Classical repertoire with Apollo’s Fire, the ensemble she founded 30 years ago. Their latest recording, O Jerusalem!, presents music from the three main faiths in the ancient city. On 14 April, Sorrell will be conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and soloists in Bach’s St John Passion. As a small child, I mostly remember hearing Debussy and Ravel around our San Francisco home – my father was a European immigrant and my parents loved French language and culture. Later, I conducted Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloé Suite No. 2 while studying under Leonard Bernstein at Aspen and Tanglewood, and I loved it. But I always knew, since the age of 17, that I wanted to focus on historical performance. I bought the…

LETTER of the MONTH Full speed ahead A notable omission from Julia Winterson’s Trains of thought feature (March) is Michael Nyman’s pulse-pumping Musique à Grande Vitesse, specially commissioned for the launch of the Paris-Lille high-speed TGV line and premiered in 1993. The sensation of speeding at up to 200mph, with the countryside flashing past, can be heard right from the start, as the Michael Nyman Band sets up a steady, pounding rhythm before the orchestra makes its entrance. The work’s rhythmic drive waxes and wanes before reaching an almighty percussive apotheosis in the final section. I first heard the work in a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall and it always came to mind when we took the TGV from London to Paris. The concert was also memorable as…

7 … new operas were performed at St Pancras Station on 8 March to mark International Women’s Day. 44 … years to end with Wagner’s Parsifal, as David Greed, the leader of Orchestra of Opera North, has announced he will retire in June. 6 … new assistant conductors for the 2022/23 season have been announced by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. 9 … years of playing the piano, described by Olympic freestyle skiing gold-medal winner Eileen Gu (below), 18, as the secret behind her success.…

‘Last Wednesday, the celebrated Dr Handell arrived here in the Packetboat from Holyhead, a Gentleman universally known by his excellent Compositions in all kinds of Musick.’ So ran a short news announcement in The Dublin Journal, days after Handel’s disembarkment in the city on 18 November 1741. What was Handel doing in Dublin, when for 30 years London had been his main centre of operations? It was possibly the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who invited him. If so, it was a timely intervention: Handel’s last three operas had failed, and he was at a low ebb both personally and professionally. Two months before leaving London, Handel had completed Messiah, a new oratorio on the life of Christ and its theological significance. The author of its text, Charles…

We reveal who’s recording what and where… Violinist Charlie Siem has just put the finishing touches on a new recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Romance with the Philharmonia and conductor Oleg Caetani. Due in August on Signum Classics, it comes ahead of a further recording at Saffron Hall – of sonatas by Vaughan Williams and Grieg – which Signum has on its release roster for February next year. More Vaughan Williams was in the can at St Jude’s, Hampstead, recently as baritone Roderick Williams joined the London Choral Sinfonia and conductor Michael Waldron for a recording of mainly English song items. It also includes The Lark Ascending, recorded by violinist Elena Urioste, and is set for release by Orchid Classics in June. Avie Records celebrates its 20th anniversary this…

It’s time to put aside those painful memories of school music classes, says Tom Service, and welcome the renaissance of this often derided wind instrument The recorder: the first and last instrument that millions of schoolchildren all over the world ever play, producing sounds of screechingly overblown noisiness: it’s no surprise that the recorder is still associated with the ends of so many promising musical careers. So what is truly surprising is that, today, the recorder is the sound of cool. The instrument is the definitive soundworld of two of the most popular streaming series of the last couple of years. The galaxy far, far away of Disney’s The Mandalorian is conjured by the sounds of recorders: the composer Ludwig Göransson creates a recorderfestooned theme tune for a Star Wars…

Charlotte Smith Editor I’m ashamed to say that before this month I had failed to familiarise myself fully with the very fine playing of the late Rinat Ibragimov, former principal double bassist of the London Symphony Orchestra. The LSO has shared several videos of him as soloist on YouTube, all of them featuring impeccably warm, fluid and uninhibited playing. His interpretation of Bach’s Third Cello Suite is a joy – a kaleidoscope of shading and tonal colours. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor It was 25 years ago this month that, within three days of starting as editorial assistant of Classic CD magazine, I was packed off to Paris to interview the flautist Emmanuel Pahud. My first ever interviewee proved an absolute gent and the disc I was there to ask him…

‘To be a pianist, you need a very strange combination of modesty and assurance. In front of the score, you cannot be modest enough. It is much more complicated to understand a score than people think. You need to constantly think: “What is meant by this piano? What piano is it? What forte? Slowly? How slowly?” You need a great, permanent modesty to do that. I have been playing the Beethoven sonatas for more than 60 years, but I still read the score in quite a concentrated way before I start practising, let alone playing them on stage. There are always surprises because there’s always one side of the mountain that remains unseen. ‘But then you’re expected to go on stage and feel assured. You cannot go on stage modestly.…

Ravel Shéhérazade This cycle is one of the most delicious journeys a pianist can undertake. The virtuosic passages take flight and the melting pot of the Orient, French and Basque cultures call for heady transparency and crystal clear textures from the piano. Helen Grime Bright Travellers Fiona Benson’s poems are extraordinarily moving, raw and honest and Grime responds with music of the utmost beauty. Her piano writing is jewel-like, and the songs run the gamut from virtuosity to sparse folk-like melodies. Schubert Die Götter Griechenlands By not setting Schiller’s whole text, Schubert gives the impression of putting something incomplete in front us, as though we’re examining fragments of pottery. We’re left searching for something that is no longer possible – the cruel illusion that even if we want to, it’s…

Leonard Slatkin (conductor) ‘Arturo Toscanini was legally blind towards the end of his life and yet he was still conducting, from memory. He had beady, penetrating eyes that told you everything about what he wanted from the music – much more than his actual conducting gestures, which were stolid and rigorous. If you watch any video of him, you can see that the main point of communication with the orchestra is through those eyes. Fritz Reiner scowled a lot – he could completely devastate people with just the look of his glassy eyes. Watch a Leonard Bernstein video, and for all the gyrations and extrovert tendencies he had on the podium, his eyes are always wide open, gathering information.’ Sian Edwards (conductor) ‘When you look at a film of any…

Nathan Evans probably didn’t expect a 19th-century whaling song would make him famous. In December 2020, the UK was in yet another lockdown and we were all stuck at home scrolling on our phones. One video stood out. In just over a week, Evans’s rendition of ‘Wellerman’ had gone viral, he had quit his job as a postman and was appearing on radio stations and TV channels across the world. Singers and musicians across the internet were creating TikTok duets, adding accompaniments and harmonies. Even Brian May and Andrew Lloyd Webber joined in. ‘I ended up getting a manager, a lawyer, an accountant and a record label within a week,’ says Evans. His original video gained over 19 million views and has earned him a recording contract, a book deal…

America’s musical press in 1919 was awash with rumours about a new work – Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata. It had just tied for first place in the prestigious Berkshire Festival Chamber Music Competition, for which all entries had to be submitted anonymously. The jurors had speculated that the Sonata had been written by Ravel. When Clarke was revealed as the composer, they were astonished. ‘You should have seen their faces when they saw it was by a woman,’ the Festival’s patron confided to Clarke. The Sonata was hailed in the press as a work of ‘greatest genius’, compared favourably to pieces by Debussy. When composing at her best, Clarke felt ‘flooded with a wonderful feeling of power’ The Sonata has remained one of Clarke’s best-known works and is now a…

The work In 1900, Edward Elgar was flushed with the success of the Enigma Variations, premiered just one year earlier. After years of musical struggle, things were looking up for this jobbing, provincial violin teacher. Over the course of the previous decade, he had produced a series of well received, large-scale choral works, including Caractacus and The Light of Life, and when the Birmingham Music Festival approached him to write a new choral work, he had already made his mark as one of the most respected of emerging British composers. The Dream of Gerontius, however, would propel him to international fame and is now widely considered to be his masterpiece, arguably the greatest work of English choral music ever written. Although the press generally conceded that it was a decent…

Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande Julien Behr, Vannina Santoni, Alexandre Duhamel, Marie-Ange Todorovitch, Jean Teitgen; Lille Opera Choir; Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth Harmonia Mundi HMM905352.54 150:15 mins (3 discs) Using early 20th-century wind instruments, and with gut strings for the string section, this Pelléas takes us closer than usual to how Debussy himself would have expected his opera to sound. It’s like listening in black and white rather than colour. The music’s generally soft-toned orchestral landscape is both vivid and beautifully shaded; and in the fiercer passages such as Golaud’s brutalisation of Mélisande in Act IV, the strings deliver with a vehemence that might sound overdone on modern instruments, but doesn’t here. The downside is François-Xavier Roth’s insistence on minimal string vibrato, with almost none at all below mid-volume; the closeto-Baroque result…

Tenebrae Responsories – Feria Quinta Judith Bingham: Watch with me; Gesualdo: Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday; Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah I & II; Joanna Ward: Christus factus est The Gesualdo Six/Owain Park Hyperion CDA68348 69:49 mins The half-dozen male singers of Gesualdo Six, under the alert and sensitive direction of Owain Park, have already produced a quartet of first-rate recordings. This one, exploring the crepuscular soundworld of the Tenebrae services for Holy Week, is equally compelling. To highlight the ensemble’s versatility, the programme juxtaposes English and Italian, Renaissance and works of our own time: Tallis’s Lamentations of Jeremiah give way to Judith Bingham’s Watch with me, whose text in turn pre-empts Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday. Specially commissioned to end the programme is Joanna Ward’s chilling Christus factus est…

Price Uncovered, Vol. 2: String Quartets – in G (unfinished); in A minor; Piano Quintets – in A minor; in E minor; Negro Folksongs in Counterpoint; Folksongs in Counterpoint Michelle Cann (piano); Catalyst Quartet Azica Records ACD-71346 113:05 mins (2 discs) This second issue in Azica’s ‘Uncovered’ series of Black chamber composers presents the known piano quintets and string quartets of Florence Price (1887-1953), spanning late 1920s to 1951. That four are world-premiere recordings signals the less comfortable ‘uncovering’ that, despite becoming the first Black woman to be performed by a major symphony orchestra (Chicago, 1933), Price was marginalised in her lifetime and neglected following her death. Beautifully performed by the Catalyst Quartet, joined by pianist Michelle Cann for the Quintet in A minor (c. 1935) and possibly unfinished Quintet…

April round-up John Williams is having something of a European moment. Following on from his hugely successful Vienna concert in 2020, the now 90-year-old returned across the pond for The Berlin Concert in late 2021. DG have gone all out in documenting what was another prestigious career high for Williams, releasing the performance in full on CD, Bluray and Vinyl. Williams presides over the Berlin players with a firm hand and a twinkle in his eye. Pleasingly, the programme varies enough from the Vienna set, with Williams’s 1997 Elegy (performed by principal cellist Bruno Delepelaire) a moving highlight. (DG 486 2003) ★★★★★ Less than two weeks before Williams was born, Mortimer Wilson died. An American classical composer who also penned scores for a clutch of silent films in the ’20s,…

What would the 33-year-old Stan Tracey have made of Kit Downes’s new trio album Vermillion, his third for ECM? In contrast to Tracey’s deliberate (if unpredictable) style, Downes sounds as if he has freed his mind and allowed it to wander where it will. It’s not that simple, of course. Fragments of melody fanned by wafting drum and bass accompaniment (from Petter Eldh and James Maddren respectively) are the product of carefully considered deconstruction. Downes has pointed to the late great John Taylor’s influence on his music and it’s evident here in the young pianist’s sublime lyricism and his textured approach to improvising. (ECM 388 0001) ★★★★★ Different again is the music of the Johan Lindvall Trio. The Swedish, Norway-based pianist’s second album, This Is Not About You, consists of…

Alan Davey, the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this April One-Hit Wonders Horn player Sarah Willis delves into the composers you undoubtedly know, but perhaps just for a single work. She looks at how the likes of Pachelbel’s Canon, Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Gorécki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs interacted with contemporary culture. Composer of the Week: 18-22 April, 12 noon Europe’s Young Performers If you’re struck by a bout of insomnia, listen out for our three-night special from Europe’s top young musicians. Concerts will be given by the continent’s youth orchestras, BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and major competition winners. Through the Night: 23-25 April, 1am Music for Holy Week from Europe The European Broadcasting Union celebrates Palm Sunday with Easter…

THE QUIZ It’s time to put your classical music knowledge to the test… 1. Who died just nine days after conducting the premiere of his Sixth Symphony in St Petersburg on 28 October 1893? 2. After declaring in 1890 that his Second String Quintet would be his last work, who was then inspired by the playing of Richard Mühlfeld to write a Clarinet Trio, a Clarinet Quintet and two Clarinet Sonatas? 3. Which symphony from 1906 concludes with two hammer blows? 4. Mistakenly described as an ‘Aztec king’ by The Telegraph, which tenor sang ‘Rule Britannia’ dressed as an Inca warrior at the 2016 Last Night of the Proms? 5. As the title character of an opera by Donizetti, the notorious Spanish-Italian noblewoman pictured above poisons her son and five…