Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i BBC Music Magazine

For Riccardo Chailly, music has been ‘a lifelong companion’. Currently music director of La Scala, the conductor, who this month celebrates his 70th birthday, has collaborated with the world’s greatest artists during his eminent career, and can remember his musical initiation at the age of six, when he attended the premiere of a ballet by his composer father. ‘Even now I remember the sound of him composing at the piano in the night, so his style of contemporary language accompanied me right from the start,’ he tells George Hall on page 30. It’s this early exposure to music that pianist Benjamin Grosvenor hopes to share with UK school children through his work as an ambassador for Music Masters. A former prodigy, having taken part aged 12 in 2004’s final of…

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Siân Dicker Soprano Born: Trowbridge, UK Career highlight: My first recital for the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2020 provided hope throughout lockdown. A recent highlight was Lost and Found: Royal Opera House’s newly commissioned micro-operas to celebrate International Women’s Day. Musical hero: Operatically, Jamie Barton and Sondra Radvanovsky. As for other song recitalists, I take great inspiration from Roderick Williams, Ailish Tynan and pianists Iain Burnside and Susan Manoff. Their programming is always so invigorating! Dream concert: I’d love to programme a song recital in collaboration with a live artist who could create artworks in response to the performance – a unique, multi-sensory experience for audiences. Darren Bloom Conductor, composer Born: Los Angeles, US  Career highlight: As conductor, my three recent NMC albums of music by wonderful composers. As composer,…

We reveal who’s recording what and where… Cellist Pieter Wispelwey headed to the MotorMusic studio in Mechelen, Belgium, in December to record a programme of works by JS Bach and Kodály. The recording, In Memoriam II, will be the follow-up to his forthcoming Schubert album (In Memoriam I), which is out in February on the Evil Penguin label. Part II is scheduled for release in October. Also in front of the microphones in December was conductor Simone Menezes, who presided over the Philharmonia orchestra at Henry Wood Hall for three days of Ravel recording. Joining them was pianist François-Xavier Poizat and together they took on both the Piano Concerto in G and the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Aparté is to release their collaboration in September. Another Autumn release…

It is perhaps even more important to listen to and reflect on Steve Reich’s Different Trains today than it was at the time of its premiere, says Tom Service ‘If anybody came to me and said, “We’d like you to write a piece about the Holocaust,” I would run, not walk, in the other direction as fast as is humanly possible.’ That’s the American composer Steve Reich talking about Different Trains, his piece for amplified string quartet, sampled spoken voices and a pre-recorded ensemble of multiple string quartets, written for the Kronos Quartet in 1988. And yet Different Trains has been called by the musicologist Richard Taruskin ‘the only adequate musical response to the Holocaust’. So how can it simultaneously be not about the Holocaust, and also a life-changing confrontation…

Elsewhere in this issue you can read about music inspired by love and romance (p40). Squalid, sensation-seeking hack that I am, I am fascinated by the dark side of that subject: composers who have developed a fixation on some unattainable person and secretly expressed their obsession in coded form in their music, usually because they dared not speak it out loud. What prevented them from doing the latter? Social convention, perhaps, if the person in question was felt to be ‘out of their league’. Or a feeling of humiliation if that person had spurned their advances. Or else a degree of consideration for the other people – respective spouses, usually – that might be hurt by the revelation. Either way, few musicians have had the audacity of the young Otto…

Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in February are: 30 January – 3 February Vivaldi 6-10 February Smetana 13-17 February Tallis 20-24 February Wagner 27 Feb – 3 March Strozzi Ruggero Leoncavallo was a man on a mission. In 1890, he had watched his younger compatriot Pietro Mascagni achieve global success with the short opera Cavalleria rusticana. With single-minded determination, Leoncavallo set about using the same formula – a gritty tale of poverty, adultery and violent death, all set to impassioned music – to create a hit of his own. Soon enough, his Pagliacci was pleasing audiences throughout Italy and beyond, in due course becoming a regular partner for the work that had inspired it. Pagliacci was the product of pragmatism…

Why did you call this Echo? It’s a very beautiful word and it evokes so much, musically, spiritually and in nature. We see echoes of so many things; we hear how composers through the ages have echoed, to a greater or lesser degree, other composers – especially with Britten’s love of Bach and Thomas Adès’s love of Purcell, and how their music may have informed how they write a melody, or how they feel music should be, spiritually. Tell us about the newer programme choices… I was really keen to record Huw’s piece, and it grew from there. Deborah, Cheryl and Errollyn are three composers I adore; I love their soundworld, they’re all so individual and have an idiosyncratic approach to harmony and rhythm. Again, they have a sort of…

Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1; Mazurkas – selection Margarita Höhenrieder (piano); Orchestra La Scintilla/Riccardo Minasi Solo Musica SM 400 69:29 mins Chopin’s E minor Piano Concerto predates his departure from Warsaw in 1830, yet shows his early maturity as a composer. A fine performance on period instruments recreates the fresher soundworld he would have known. Margarita Höhenrieder on an 1855 Pleyel with Zurich’s Orchestra La Scintilla conjures up all its lyricism and virtuosity. With conductor Riccardo Minasi, she reveals the combination of post-Mozartian grace and pre-Brahmsian sturdiness in the epically proportioned first movement, also drawing on bel canto inspiration in the central ‘Romance’ and brilliant krakowiak rhythms in the finale. A change of venue (more intimate) and piano (another Pleyel of the same period) is audible in the selection of…

Beethoven • Franck • R Schumann Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47 ‘Kreutzer’; Franck: Violin Sonata in A; R Schumann: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor, Op. 105 Renaud Capuçon (violin), Martha Argerich (piano) DG 486 3533 81:14 mins Much of this recording is of the highest calibre, both technically and expressively – hardly a surprise given the abilities of these two artists. The only flies in the ointment are sporadic, but annoying chiefly because they seem so wholly unnecessary. In both the Beethoven ‘Kreutzer’ and Franck sonatas, Martha Argerich seems determined to set her own seal from the very beginning by ignoring what would seem to be the composers’ clear intentions. In the Beethoven, the violin sets the tempo over four bars and the piano…

Distant Melodies – Music in Search of Home Edward Dusinberre Faber & Faber 256pp (hb) £18.99 First violinist of the acclaimed Takács Quartet, Edward Dusinberre writes with much the same verve and insight as he plays. His first book, Beethoven for a Later Age delved deep into the inner workings of this most hallowed of ensembles, the string quartet. Written during the Pandemic, Distant Melodies takes an ambitious form, interweaving Dusinberre’s experience of the pandemic, his early musical experiences, and thoughtful exploration of four composers – Britten, Bartók, Dvořák and Elgar – whose lives and music have each navigated questions of home, displacement and return. Dusinberre proves a fine historian and musicologist. He draws particularly deft parallels between Britten, Bartók and Dvořák who all spent time living in America, ‘trying…

JS Bach Cantatas for Bass (1991) – Cantatas, BWV 56, 82 and 158 Peter Kooy (bass); La Chapelle Royale/Philippe Herreweghe Harmonia Mundi HMM931365 52:20 mins Ich habe genug has long been one of Bach’s most popular cantatas, and recordings over the years have featured baritones, bass-baritones, contraltos, counter-tenors and, in Bach’s own revision, sopranos. The resigned text and sombre music work best in the original conception for bass, not because the vocal line is particularly low, but for the extra depth of sound. Peter Kooy has a warm voice, phrases beautifully, is discreet and elegant in his trills and gives the words full meaning. With Herreweghe and his small forces as admirable partners – not so much light in texture as intimately engaged – this is a very affecting reading.…

Top three February picks Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel presents the story of the celebrated movie composer, as told by the man himself and his closest collaborators. Across his 40-year career, Hans Zimmer has redefined the movie score, pioneering new techniques and introducing new generations to the drama of orchestral music. Here, he reveals the musical secrets of his craft. In Chineke! Play Coleridge-Taylor and Sowande, Europe’s first majority black and ethnically diverse orchestra performs music by two historic black composers in a special concert filmed live at Birmingham Town Hall. Two novelettes by British-born Samuel Coleridge-Taylor are followed by Fela Sowande’s colourful and energetic African Suite. Finally, make time for Winter Journey: Schubert’s Winterreise. Inspired by Schubert’s bleak and masterful song cycle, this reimagining of Winterreise’s sparse, haunting songs takes baritone…

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 382/Feb 2023, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 21 Feb 2023 (solution in May 2023 issue). ACROSS 1 Russian singer overturned bucket in series (9) 6 Dance one associated with US President (5) 9 Staff set up to attend old Spanish composer (7) 10 Rock band’s leading position in Iran, unexpectedly (7) 11 Some percussionist or marimba-player offering component of Alpensinfonie? (5) 12 Support crew starts to express nerves – series of concerts taking a long time (9) 14 Curious effect with porthole in Holst opera…

George Hall Music and opera critic ‘Having known Riccardo Chailly’s music-making since his early days with Decca – with whom he still records – it was an enormous pleasure to talk with one of the most versatile and admired conductors of our time.’ Page 30 Alexandra Wilson Author and professor ‘I felt real empathy delving into Leoncavallo’s biography: here was a man who set his ambitions high but was perpetually frustrated in his quest to become Italy’s national composer. A fascinating but ultimately sad life.’ Page 60 Terry Williams Writer and artist ‘It was listening to his First Symphony that made me a belated Elgar convert. An emotionally charged work with great tunes, I love this masterpiece above all for its complete sincerity. Thank you, Sir Edward!’ Page 64…

On the night of 25 February 1903, what should have been a routine car journey for Giacomo Puccini and his family abruptly turned nasty. The composer had been in Lucca, Tuscany, that day for a medical appointment, and was returning to his villa in Torre del Lago, about 20 miles away. With him were his partner Elvira, their son Antonio and a chauffeur. Four miles out of Lucca, in frosty, foggy conditions, their vehicle veered off the road and rolled 15 yards down an embankment. The car flipped over, pinning Puccini underneath but throwing the other passengers clear. Elvira and Antonio escaped with minor injuries, and the driver broke his thigh. Puccini himself, however, was less fortunate. He was nearly asphyxiated by petrol fumes, his right shin was severely fractured…

IN ASSOCIATION WITH Orchestral nominations Sibelius Symphonies; Tapiola; 3 Late Fragments Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Klaus Mäkelä Decca 485 2256 Reviewed May 2022 This four-disc survey of Sibelius’s symphonies and other orchestral works is quite the calling card for young Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä. Taking on this symphony cycle is something of a rite of passage for Finland’s conductors. The results? ‘Electrifying’ and ‘revelatory’, according to our review. Coleridge-Taylor Othello Suite; African Suite; Ballade etc Chineke! Orchestra et al Decca 485 3322 Reviewed December 2022 There is ‘passion and flair’ on display in this collection of orchestral works by Coleridge-Taylor, performed by the brilliant Chineke! Orchestra under conductors Kevin John Edusei, Fawzi Haimor, Roderick Cox, Kalena Bovell and Anthony Parnther. Our review called it ‘one of the biggest and best collections of his…

Nearly every composer has something to say about the subject, not least because they so often turned their own turbulent love lives into music Eyes meet, sparks fly – and the music plays. From the troubadours who wandered France in the 12th and 13th centuries singing about courtly love to the starry instrumentalists recording love-themed recital albums in our time, from Arne’s comic ballad opera Love in a Village (a hit in its day) to Zemlinsky’s breakup orchestral work Die Seejungfrau, love has, one way or another, been one of the universal, timeless themes explored in western art music. Opera almost wouldn’t exist were it not for people falling in love with the wrong characters or for insatiable passion that drives them to extreme ends. Safe to say that in…

Having shared the nominations for the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2023 (see p26), I can’t help but wonder what recordings might make next year’s list. I’d be surprised if Ruby Hughes and Huw Watkins weren’t somewhere on it; their album Echo (see Recording of the Month, right) is a beautifully curated programme which stirs the soul. Then there’s the Takács Quartet’s sublime set of works by Dutilleux, Ravel and Stephen Hough (see our Chamber Choice). We’ve two princes of the piano: Eric Lu offers sumptuous Schubert (this month’s Instrumental Choice), while Hannes Minnaar dazzles in Shostakovich. And we’ve managed to muster up three magnificent violin recordings in Brief Notes, by Mayumi Hirasaki, Anne Battegay and Charlie Lovell-Jones. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael Beek, Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti,…

Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus Cappella Aquileia/Marcus Bosch CPO 555303-2 62:17 mins Beethoven was naturally attracted by the myth of Prometheus, bringer of most things he valued, so it’s not surprising that he wrote music expressing his enthusiasm for it, notably in the ‘Eroica’ Symphony and the great set of Variations, Op. 35. More surprisingly he wrote this hour-long ballet for it, consisting of 18 items, mostly very short, though the Overture and Finale top six minutes apiece. The tone is for the most part quite light, and in this lucid version the orchestra is appropriately small. Under Marcus Bosch dynamics are limited, wind instruments predominate over strings, and it is just conceivable that this music should accompany dancing. What is surprising is how lightweight almost all of it is,…

Lost in Venice Marcello: Violin Concerto, Op. 1, No. 9; Veracini: Overture No. 6 in B flat; Vivaldi: Violin Concertos, RV 182, 320R & 521; Cello Concerto in B flat, RV 788; Sinfonia a 4, RV 786 Infermi d’Amore/Vadym Makarenko (violin) Eudora EUD-DR-2206 (CD/SACD) 65:11 mins Lost in Venice showcases a handful of Venetian Baroque concertos and orchestral works that were left unfinished or fell into obscurity. It includes several reconstructions and premiere recordings of neglected works by Vivaldi, Benedetto Marcello and Francesco Veracini. Among the premieres is Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto, RV 182, its opening movement a real show-stopper of violin fireworks: rapid arpeggios, bariolage and double stoppings – all of which Ukrainian violinist Vadym Makarenko despatches with acrobatic flair, playing an Italian violin of 1760. Yet Makarenko responds most…

Fabrice Bollon Die ungebornen Enkel* (The Unborn Grandchildren); The Secret Garden of the Cordania *Irina Jae-Eun Park (soprano), *Nutthaporn Thammathi (tenor), Johannes Moser (electric cello), Fabrice Bollon (electronics) Naxos 8.574456 69:42 mins Acclaimed conductor Fabrice Bollon has more recently established himself as a composer of distinction. His intriguing and inventive new song cycle, Die ungebornen Enkel (‘The Unborn Grandchildren’), sets poetry by Austrian Expressionist Georg Trakl (1887-1914) and breathes new life into these poems of love, melancholy, ecstasy and folly. Bollon scores the work for the unusual combination of soprano, tenor and electric cello, thus continuing his longstanding collaboration with the experimental cellist Johannes Moser. From these minimal forces, Bollon draws an impressive range of sonorities, enhanced and expanded by multi-track techniques. His musical language moves from late-Romantic tonal harmonies…

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Babbitt Works for Treble Voice and Piano Nina Berman (soprano), Steve Beck, Eric Huebner (piano) New Focus Recordings FCR-349 Soprano and pianist tease out all the otherworldliness and emotional variety of these works, spanning half a century of Babbitt’s extensive, experimental career. On Du, in particular, there’s delight in the endless possibilities of both music and language. (SW) Bertolotti • Rota et al Works for Flute and Harp Claudio Ortensi (flute), Anna Pasetti (harp) Tactus TC 910005 Rota’s well-known Sonata is joined by four other flute- and-harp compositions by lesser-known 20th-century Italian composers. A neoclassical grace dominates and, while not all of the music absorbs all of the time, the combination’s dreamy, yearning emotional landscapes are convincingly explored. (SW) Biber Mystery Sonatas Mayumi Hirasaki (violin) et al Pasacaille PAS1088 Mozarteum University professor…

FEBRUARY’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-12 noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week Vivaldi 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-4pm Afternoon Concert 4-5pm Choral Evensong 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape CHOICE 7.30-10pm Radio 3 In Concert from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. Byrd and Bull arr Howarth Music from the Elizabethan Court, Judith Bingham Venice (world premiere), Edward Gregson The World Rejoicing, Fredrick Schjelderup Out of Reach (world premiere), Peter Graham Turbulence, Torque and Tide and Hymn for Bram (world premiere). Daniel Thomas (euphonium), Michael Cavanagh (baritone), Black Dyke Band/Nicholas Childs 10-10.45pm Free Thinking 10.45-11pm The Essay 11pm-12.30am Night Tracks 2 THURSDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12 noon Essential Classics 12 noon-1pm Composer of the Week…

Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: music@classical-music.com Social media: contact us on Facebook and Twitter LETTER of the MONTH Not the full Monteverdi Nicholas Kenyon wonders what the BBC broadcast in 1928 of Monteverdi’s Return of Ulysses in Vincent d’Indy’s edition sounded like (Early learning, Christmas). We have evidence of this in an article by JA Westrup in the Monthly Musical Record for 2 April 1928. It is sad, but perhaps not surprising, to read his comment that a listener with no knowledge of Monteverdi’s work ‘must have thought him a dull composer, which he is not when sung on the stage’. Westrup’s criticisms were directed in part at the edition, for its extensive and sometimes arbitrary cuts and its inappropriate and anachronistic…

Steven Isserlis has always been a hero to me – as a musician and as a human being. I discovered Steven through his recording of Schumann’s Cello Concerto, which was a revelation. Steven thinks like a composer, somehow: he understands the structure of each phrase. The commitment with which he plays every note is really astonishing. It isn’t just about the cello with him – it is all about music. Steven often says, ‘Don’t play like a cellist – be a musician!’ He has the ability to see into the heart of the works he plays, with his unique sound and vibrato. I admire his deep integrity in music, his sense of style and his commitment to new and unknown pieces. I had the great fortune to work with Steven…

Riccardo Chailly celebrates his 70th birthday on 20 February at the peak of a high-level career in which he has enjoyed ongoing success not only with the world’s great orchestras in the concert hall and on disc, but equally in the opera house: he is currently music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and of La Scala, Milan. We spoke towards the end of last year on a free day amid rehearsals for Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov, with which he opened the 2022-23 La Scala season on the traditional date of 7 December. His family, in fact, has a history with Italy’s leading opera house: he recalls sitting aged six with his mother in a La Scala box at the premiere of a ballet with a score by his father –…

I was born in Conwy, a fishing village in north Wales, and many of my earliest memories are of singing. World War II was at its darkest hour, and my father was fighting in France. There was no cinema, and nobody we knew had a gramophone. So singing was an integral part of daily life. For me it began as my mother sang me to sleep at night with ‘Golden slumbers kiss your eyes’, a lullaby written in the 17th century by Thomas Dekker. The Beatles appropriated it for their Abbey Road album in 1969, and more recently John Lewis harnessed it for a Christmas TV advert. Other songs I grew up with included ‘A frog he would a-wooing go’ and ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’ – ‘Oh, tis my delight/On a…

The composer Thanks not least to his own letters and his wife Alice’s diaries, Elgar’s life was as closely documented as any, and yet as a character he remains strangely elusive. For someone apparently so rooted in a sense of place, he moved around a lot, living for periods in London (twice), Malvern, Herefordshire and eventually Sussex, and his popular characterisation as the quintessential Englishman belies a man with a very pan-European outlook. His music, meanwhile, ranges in emotion from the fond depictions of close friends in the Enigma Variations of 1899 to the darker, despondent world of the post-war Cello Concerto. 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 By…

Bellini Bianca e Fernando (DVD) Salome Jicia, Giorgio Misseri, Nicola Ulivieri; Orchestra e Coro dell’Opera Carlo Felice Genova/Donato Renzetti; dir. Hugo de Ana (Genoa, 2021) Dynamic DVD: 37954; Blu-ray: 57954 148 mins Director Hugo de Ana’s production of Bianca e Fernando for Genoa Opera is so relentlessly busy that Bellini all but plays second fiddle to the reworking of his early opera Bianca e Gernando. Silver balls roll around the stage, a small boy wanders aimlessly with a balloon, and there’s a vast model of the universe with the planets circling the sun. A troupe of actors come and go with sticks and ropes while the chorus, dressed in surgical gowns and masks, stands in serried ranks at the top of an ellipse that slides open. At least Gilardoni and Romani’s libretto about…

Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Opp 109-111 Anne Queffélec (piano) Mirare MIR 634 69:25 mins Ever since Artur Schnabel launched the first ever recording of all the Beethoven sonatas by a single player with a luminous account of Op. 110 in Abbey Road Studios in 1932, the final trilogy has been regarded as a kind of summa demanding the utmost in philosophical or visionary pianism – and evoking a vast range of responses from generations of the greatest players. Now in her seventies, the distinguished French pianist Anne Queffélec offers readings which seem rather consciously to pursue the middle way – avoiding extreme tempos, mitigating dynamic contrasts, seeking to mask seriousness with a certain spontaneity, sustained by flexible phrasing and generous pedalling, as if to remind us that the sound matters as…

February round-up The hype surrounding Sony Playstation’s God of War – Ragnarok ahead of its release in November was massive, so it’s perhaps of little surprise that it would become one of the fastest-selling videogame titles ever. A sequel to 2018’s God of War, it actually lives up to the pre-release furore, offering players stunning visuals and engaging storytelling. It also features a brilliantly epic score by Bear McCreary, better known perhaps for his small-screen music in the likes of Outlander and The Rings of Power. McCreary employs huge orchestral and choral forces to underscore the mayhem, but there’s plenty of melody, mood and magic, too. (Sony Classical G0100049192107) A contender for ‘best thing on TV in 2022’, Hugo Blick’s revisionist Western The English should have had everyone talking, but…

February round-up Now almost forgotten except by violin aficionados, Toscha Seidel largely moved away from a concert career to the Hollywood studios in the 1930s. He was famed for his luscious tone, which comes through clearly in the few electrically recorded tracks: Kreisler’s Schön Rosmarin and Liebesfreud are the standouts here. The other short acoustic recordings need a more forgiving ear, especially in the Mendelssohn and Lalo concerto movements with orchestra, but show off Seidel’s flexible, if sometimes wayward rubato. Chausson’s Poème, from the Hollywood Bowl in 1945, benefits from Stokowski’s conducting, and has a real live vibe. (Parnassus PACL 95010) After years of neglect, Mieczysław Weinberg now has a considerable recorded presence. His Chamber Symphonies come from his later years and give a good idea of his style, with…

City of London Sinfonia Village Underground, London, 1 February Web: cityoflondonsinfonia.co.uk The devil doesn’t necessarily have all the best tunes, but he’s on scintillating form as demonstrated in this concert, ‘Dance with the Devil’, in which director and violinist Alexandra Wood charts a demonic course through Locatelli’s ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata, Mephistophelean Piazzolla, and the Charlie Daniels Band’s The Devil went down to Georgia. Irish, Scottish and Appalachian reels bestow exorcism. Academy of Ancient Music The Apex, Bury St Edmunds, 1 February Web: aam.co.uk Part contrapuntal companion to his Art of Fugue, part subversive dig at King Frederick the Great of Prussia, the Musical Offering sits at the heart of an all-Bach programme. Bookended by sonatas for viola da gamba and flute are the Trio Sonata plus the two ricercars. Mahler…

Alan Davey, the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this February Sound the horns Radio 3’s In Concert starts February with an evening of music for brass, performed by West Yorkshire’s Black Dyke Band as part of the Royal Northern College of Music’s Festival of Brass. Three world premieres are part of the menu. In Concert: 1 February, 7.30pm Time for Sleep In Private Passions, Wayne Sleep tells Michael Berkeley about the secrecy surrounding his Royal Opera House dance with Diana, Princess of Wales. He also talks movingly about his mother Joan, a single parent who left her singing career to raise him. Private Passions: 26 February, 12pm Key masters Richard Egarr traces the harpsichord’s history from its medieval origins and near-total disappearance…

1. Whose solo piano works include ‘Des pas sur la neige’ (Footprints in the snow) and ‘The snow is dancing’? 2. Which composer was still in his early teens when he wrote the ballet The Snowman, first performed in Vienna in 1910? 3. What is the occupation of the frozen-handed Mimì, doomed heroine of Puccini’s La bohème? 4. Name the US composer, pictured above, whose opera Cold Mountain was premiered at Santa Fe Opera in 2015? 5. You’ll need to wrap up warm if you’re going to a concert at the following venues in the winter months. In which capital cities are they? a) Musiikkitalo; b) Harpa; c) National Arts Centre; d) Alexela Concert Hall? 6. Which composer was born in a brewery in the Bohemian town of Litomyšl on…

Wynne Evans has sung leading roles with many British and European companies and is particularly well known to millions of television viewers as the extravagantly moustachioed singer Gio Compario in the Go Compare adverts. As well as fronting several television and radio series, he presents a daily show on BBC Radio Wales. Wynne Evans – Beyond Compare, his live performance of popular opera and music theatre songs, is at St David’s Hall, Cardiff on 17 February and Swansea Arena on 25 March. I was born in Carmarthen into a family mad about music and theatre. My mum, Elizabeth, started a youth opera company and then went on to save the local theatre, which became the subject of a 2022 Sky film called Save the Cinema. As a child, I had…