Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i BBC Music Magazine

How do you plan the perfect Proms season? It’s that unenviable question that each year faces the organisers of the world’s greatest festival of classical music – a chance to showcase the talent and creativity of our collective isles, and to extend the invitation to outstanding performers from around the globe. Following a couple of years of abridged programming due to the pandemic, 2022’s Proms were a glorious return to large-scale performance, and 2023 is set to continue that trend with two months of splendid crowdpleasers, from Beethoven’s Fifth, Mahler’s Ninth and Stravinsky’s Rite to celebrations of birthday boys Ligeti, Rachmaninov and Byrd, and no fewer than 15 new commissions. The range of programming this year, too, is particularly broad, with concerts inspired by film, gaming, Bollywood, Northern Soul and…

Taking a bow What to do when, midway through the UK premiere of Glière’s Violin Concerto, your £24,000 bow breaks? If you are US violinist Stefan Jackiw (above), playing the work at the Lighthouse in Poole, you simply lean over to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s leader, borrow their bow, and carry on. ‘This is something I have never experienced before,’ reflected Jackiw later, adding that the incident gave the performance ‘some sort of joyful spontaneity’. A bright Tom Borrow One trusts that Tom Borrow has never broken a piano mid-concert. If, however, he should ever do so, he now has an extra £7,000 to help pay for the repairs. The Israeli pianist has been named as the winner of this year’s Terence Judd-Hallé Award which, as well as the cash…

2nd: Following its world premiere on Broadway the previous year, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens in the West End. Featuring Denis Quilley in the title role and Sheila Hancock as Mrs Lovett, the production runs at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane for 157 performances. 16th: At the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Ronald Reagan reveals that George HW Bush is to be his running mate in the forthcoming US presidential elections. Reagan originally approached Gerald Ford for the position, but the former president turned the offer down, later revealing that he might have accepted had he been allowed more time to consider and negotiate it. 23rd: Helen Hagnes Mintiks, a violinist in the orchestra for a Berlin Ballet touring performance at the New York Met,…

A pianist, composer and conductor, Anton Rubinstein had a huge and underappreciated impact on the development of Russian music. Perhaps most obviously, he founded the St Petersburg Conservatory – he was its first director and recruited many of its early teachers. Since then, the Conservatory has given us the likes of Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky, as well as Serge Diaghilev, Jascha Heifetz, Mariss Jansons and many others. Rubinstein also managed to become a major musical figure, despite being Jewish at a time when Jews were discriminated against in Russian culture. As a composer, for example, he has a massive output – concertos, symphonies and some fantastic but rarely performed operas. Most importantly of all, Rubinstein really believed in creating, in making things, and in ensuring a future for music –…

Consone Quartet Magdalena Loth-Hill (violin): I have been listening to the album The Goat Rodeo Sessions, featuring violinist Stuart Duncan, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, double-bassist Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile on the mandolin. It’s such a clever and addictive mix of classical and folk music. I saw Chris perform live at the Southbank Centre as part of the London Jazz Festival and was blown away – he has infectious energy and enthusiasm, and seems equally at home playing solo Bach and Bartók as he does bluegrass. Agata Daraškaitė (violin): I have a deep love for Schumann, and the recordings I keep returning to are the complete lieder by baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber. The way they shape phrases and colour is so natural, expressive and intimate – it’s chamber…

RAH = Royal Albert Hall CH = Cadogan Hall = Television broadcast = Radio broadcast FRIDAY 14 JULY PROM 1 7pm RAH First Night of the Proms: Sibelius Finlandia, Bohdana Frolyak new work (BBC commission: world premiere), Grieg Piano Concerto, Sibelius Snöfrid, Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Paul Lewis (piano), actor tbc, BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Dalia Stasevska SATURDAY 15 JULY PROMS AT LONDONDERRY 2pm Guildhall, Derry Byrd Emendemus in melius, O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth, Sing joyfully, Ave verum corpus, Laudibus in sanctis, Morley Domine Dominus noster, Philips Ecce vicit Leo, Tomkins Too much I once lamented. Stile Antico PROM 2 8pm RAH Keep the Faith – Northern Soul: Singers tbc, BBC Concert Orchestra/Edwin Outwater SUNDAY 16 JULY PROM 3 11am RAH…

The time has finally come for Simon Rattle to step down from the LSO podium and head to Munich and the open arms of the Bavarian Radio Symphony. He’ll make his last appearances as music director with two concerts at this year’s Proms. The first, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri in its first complete performance at the Proms, features the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with an international cast including Magdalena Kožená (aka Mrs Rattle). The second sees the conductor preside over Mahler’s Ninth, which is rather fitting as it was the composer’s own farewell (albeit a rather more permanent one). Remarkably, Rattle’s appearance on 27 August will mark his 78th Prom Rattle’s appearance on 27 August will mark his 78th Prom, which is a remarkable record – indeed…

Take a look through Eric Whitacre’s published works, and you won’t find much that isn’t composed for choirs. ‘I’ve done some orchestral pieces and some pieces for concert band, but that’s pretty much it,’ he agrees. ‘I can’t imagine not spending most of my time writing for choirs.’ So, what is it that makes choral music occupy his attention nearly every time? ‘To me, nothing has the palette of colours like voices do – there is an endless richness of timbre. Partly, this is due to all the different sounds that the human voice can make, but it’s also about the ways that a text can be set. The words themselves somehow contain within them a magical path to somewhere or something that I can’t define.’ And part of the…

So, you have settled upon an unusual opera to spring upon an unsuspecting audience. Will you perform it in its original language or in a translation? In 1982, when I was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood, I remember Erich Leinsdorf insisting you should never conduct a piece in a language you didn’t speak, which would have left me with just some ropey French and Italian. Today’s opera-goer doesn’t need a translation to get them through Carmen or La traviata, but what about the less familiar or totally unknown? Are you giving the audience a helping hand singing in translation? Or, by removing the work from the sounds of the language the composer would have heard, are you uprooting it from the imaginative universe unique to every language and misrepresenting it…

Themes and Developments For Mahler, a symphony’s theme is its hero, whose developments are life experiences. An upward-straining three-note motif in the Fifth Symphony sounds a cry of anguish, leads an impassioned but doomed quest for transfiguration, then, cunningly masked, launches the crazed waltzing of the Scherzo, only to return at the very end in apparent triumph. Signs and Symbols Funeral marches are clearly death, hymns are faith. Military fanfares, dance tunes, folksongs and church bells are humanity en masse; birdsong, animal cries and cowbells (above) are nature in varying stages of articulateness. Irony and Sarcasm The Sixth’s first movement ends in noisy triumph, but with the grim Scherzo and catastrophic Finale still to come, we know it can’t really be what it claims to be. In the Ninth’s ‘Rondo-Burleske’…

Having shown prodigious musical talent from a very early age, Bartók studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. In 1903, aged 21, he wrote his first major work, the symphonic poem Kossuth. Richard Strauss, Debussy and Stravinsky were all major influences on his work before he found his own voice through detailed research into the folk music of his native Hungary and from further afield. Prior to his emigration to the US, his major works included the opera Bluebeard’s Castle (1911), the ballet The Miraculous Mandarin (1926) and six string quartets. 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.…

Tell us about your approach to Mahler… We want to play well, and we want to lead with all the emotions which are written there. I think my way of working, and how I understand the music, is very much to go for the detail, and I think Mahler is the best example of a composer who has written a lot of details. When this is the goal, I need a producer who is helping to take care that all the details are there, and a recording engineer who is making sure we are able to hear them. For me, Rob Suff [BIS’s artistic director] is the best producer in the world, and the orchestra has 100 per cent trust in him. I think that this whole project has been…

Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 3 & 4 Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano); Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse/Tugan Sokhiev Warner Classics 5419726309 72:44 mins One of the last surviving Russian-born pianists in the line of Richter and Gilels, Elisabeth Leonskaja has lately been recording solo and chamber music – so this new concerto album is welcome. While never making an ugly sound, her playing is weighty and forceful. She voices Beethoven’s writing with total clarity and a natural sense of phrasing. Yet the Third Concerto’s humour and drama is underplayed: its first movement’s architecture is secure, but tempos verge on the deliberate: the central Largo feels as if it will never move beyond its opening chord, the flute/bassoon exchanges too strung out at this speed. The last movement is perfectly articulated, but…

Mercadante Il Proscritto Ramón Vargas, Irene Roberts, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Sally Matthews, Goderdzi Janelidze; Opera Rara Chorus; Britten Sinfonia/Carlo Rizzi Opera Rara 9293800622 124:04 mins (2 discs) It’s a mystery why Mercadante’s Il Proscritto from the 1840s should have been banished to the archives. Salvatore Cammarano’s well-structured libretto transports us confidently to the invented Scotland of Donizetti and Bellini, while Saverio Mercadante cocks an intelligent ear in the direction of a young Verdi. However, Mercadante is no faithful follower of fashion, as Carlo Rizzi, who rediscovered the opera in the Naples Conservatory archives, demonstrates in a vivid performance. We know from Opera Rara’s earlier recordings of his music that Mercadante was a consummate orchestrator with an ear for telling instrumentation. There are trombones for the tomb that awaits Malvina, torn between…

CPE Bach Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin Rachel Podger (violin), Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano) Channel Classics CCSSA41523 (CD/SACD) 73:01 mins Had JS Bach lived another 15 years what would he have made of his son CPE’s four sonatas for keyboard and violin written in 1763? The musical world they inhabit is some distance from that of the G minor Sonata H542.5 which opens this album – a sonata once thought to be by ‘Papa’ Bach but now considered likely to be a collaborative effort. Across the later sonatas Kristian Bezuidenhout and Rachel Podger savour the qualities of coaxing, pleading, playfulness and arresting quirkiness that signal their identification with the so-called Empfindsamer Stil. But nothing is ever cut and dried. The keyboard opening of the B minor Sonata, composed some three decades…

Fantasie – Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards Works by CPE Bach, JS Bach, Busoni, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schnittke Alexander Melnikov (harpsichord, fortepiano, tangent piano, piano) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902702 68:24 mins Alexander Melnikov is a multifaceted artist at the best of times, but his achievement here is quite remarkable. This programme of fantasias ranges from Bach to Schnittke, each performed on an instrument of an appropriate vintage. Several of the instruments are from Melnikov’s own collection. After playing JS Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue on a rich, glittery two-manual harpsichord (a modern copy of a German 17th/18th-century one), he moves on to an astonishing tangentenflügel (tangent piano) for CPE, an instrument that offers a startlingly wide, dreamlike range of colour. After Mozart on a copy of a 1795 Kern, Mendelssohn’s…

Steve Banks Emboldened Steve Banks (guitar), Sam Crockett (sax), Rebecca Nash (piano), Henrik Jensen (bass), Mark Whitlam (drums) Stoney Lane records SLR 1981 Given the abundance of eclectic, exotic and experimental music threaded through this month’s selections I may be considered timid in my choice of the relatively conventional Emboldened as pick of the month, but I’m happy to justify this decision, both on grounds of performance and composition quality as well as what they signify. Banks was motivated by concern at how 2020 developed: not just the pandemic but also the events that prompted the Black Lives Matter and Me-Too movements, the climate change emergency and the general atmosphere of shock and frustration. The Emboldened suite, occupying four of the seven tracks here, is a chronicle of hard-won optimism…

Composing Myself Andrzej Panufnik Toccata Press 300pp (pb) £60 The lively and engaging memoirs of the Polish-born, British-domiciled composer Andrzej Panufnik (1914-91) have long been out of print. So their reappearance under the Toccata Press imprint is welcome, more especially as this handsomely produced book is the first of two projected volumes, with a second devoted to articles and programme notes from the Panufnik archive due to follow. The new edition features copious (and rare) illustrations plus detailed footnotes, augmenting the sometimes broad-brush impressions left by an author who protested he was not a man of words and addressing details such as those (queried by the musicologist Adrian Thomas) of his dramatic defection from communist Poland. Originally published in 1987, the book is also brought up to date with a…

July round-up Thomas Beecham recorded little Richard Strauss, despite their long musical relationship, so it’s good to have his live 1955 performances of Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan. The RPO is on top form, although Beechamesque elegance is sometimes tempered by harddriven tempos: in the less-often-heard Macbeth, a year later, his dramatic approach is better suited to the febrile character of the music. More familiar are the numbers from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, with outstanding solo work from Alan Civil and Philip Jones in the brass. And despite a few mishaps, the Dance of the Seven Veils reaches a tumultuous erotic climax. (SOMM ARIADNE 5021) ★★★★ Viennese Night with the Hallé and John Barbirolli was a regular Proms feature in the 1950s and 1960s. There was usually a classical symphony before…

Sam Jackson, the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this July Piano man Cédric Tiberghien treats us to some superb pianism live from Wigmore Hall. The captivating programme includes George Benjamin’s Shadowlines and Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11, K331, with its third movement Rondo alla turca. Radio 3 In Concert, 5 July, 7.30pm Mountain high I’m excited to hear the UK premiere of Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer’s opera Everest, recorded at the Barbican in June. Based on a true story, Everest follows four climbers stranded in a blizzard atop the world’s highest peak. This UK debut features the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra. Opera on 3, 8 July, 6.30pm Byrd calls Donald Macleod presents a series exploring one of Britain’s greatest…

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 387/July 2023, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 11 July 2023 (solution in Oct 2023 issue). ACROSS 9 Old theatre group backing a stage work with music (5) 10 German dance: male led dancing involving one (9) 11 Here’s me, working with diary, to find roughly when the Proms occur? (3-4) 12 The writer brings in American composer for Dietrich? (7) 13 Equal disruption amongst scoundrels in hired audience (9) 14 Musical notes left in seat (3-2) 15 Porter standard, live, the big genuine broadcast (5,3,7)…

Paul Lewis CBE is known worldwide for his epic performances of Beethoven’s sonata cycles and concertos, as well as for playing Haydn, Liszt, Brahms and Schubert. His recordings have received numerous awards, and he finds time to play chamber music and Lieder recitals with artists including tenor Mark Padmore. He performs at the First Night of the Proms on 14 July and, the following weekend, will be playing Schubert sonatas at Music at Paxton’s Summer Festival of Chamber Music. Igrew up in Huyton, near Liverpool, and spent a lot of time in the local library, where the librarian had a taste for classical music. I don’t know why I was drawn to it – perhaps because I wanted to discover something different from my father’s John Denver LPs! That’s where…

María Corte Maidagan Illustrator and designer ‘Though a challenge to illustrate, Berio’s Sinfonia is an abstract, powerful masterpiece, a collage that incorporates musical quotations and cultural references showing his need to challenge history and music itself.’ Page 20 Charles Peebles Conductor and researcher ‘A couple of times recently, I have been caused to dip again into one or two of the pieces I disgorged in 20 years of running University College Opera. An article on those discoveries was perhaps always just round the corner.’ Page 50 Stephen Johnson Writer, composer and broadcaster ‘Mahler’s rich and complex music defeats verbal commentary. But struggling to grasp it has deepened my appreciation, and I’m off to the Leipzig Mahler cycle with refreshed ears and mind.’ Page 60…

Euan Shields Conductor Born: Osaka, Japan Career highlight: Conducting Elgar’s Enigma Variations with the Hallé at the finals of the Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition was unforgettable – especially considering the orchestra’s rich history with the composer. Musical heroes: David Robertson has been so influential as my conducting mentor at the Juilliard School. He often quotes Robert Schumann: ‘There is no end to learning.’ Dream concert: I would love to conduct a concert in Osaka, so I can invite my grandparents. They supported me when I came to the US and encouraged me to pursue my dream of becoming a musician. Sara Övinge Violinist Born: Norrköping, Sweden Career highlight: It’s difficult to choose from some very different experiences, but Patientia, my release on LAWO Classics, is a highlight. I’m so…

Ever the champions of lesser-known gems, Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset will record Louise-Angélique Bertin’s opera Fausto at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June. The work, which premiered in 1831 and enjoyed just three performances, was thought lost – apart from a piano reduction score. Thankfully, the orchestral score was rediscovered by Palazzetto Bru Zane and the revival recording, featuring Karine Deshayes in the title role, will be released by Bru Zane in the near future. Sticking with French music, Couperin’s Pièces de Clavecin will occupy Andrew Appel for the forseeable future as the American harpsichordist undertakes an ambitious recording cycle for Orchid Classics. The complete set will be recorded over the next two years, with the label aiming to release one Ordre each month, digitally. The first two…

What piece, composed in 1968, connects all of the following: the death of Martin Luther King, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony and a cavalcade of music quotations from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony to Debussy’s Lamer? The answer is the Italian composer Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, his ‘symphony’ that takes the roots of the word seriously: the Greek origins of ‘symphony’ means ‘sounding together’. Berio’s Sinfonia for orchestra and amplified voices makes all of that, and much more, sound together in a piece that’s as vertiginously thrilling as it was 55 years ago. Bernstein commissioned Sinfonia for the New York Phil; it originally had four movements – Berio conducted his revised five-movement version at the Proms in 1969. Sinfonia’s prophetic power comes from…

Charlotte Smith Editor This year’s Proms launch in Soho featured a surprise appearance from members of the Chineke! Orchestra, including founder and artistic director Chi-chi Nwanoku on the double bass. The group of just five string players performed a stripped-down arrangement of Coleridge-Taylor, plus Dvo?ák, and defied the dry acoustics to have the crowd enthralled. A great opportunity to see these talented performers in an intimate setting. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor The arrival of summer inevitably means chatting with friends about where we might go for a long walk or two – if I can get them to go for a route with a musical link, so much the better. I have my eye on a circular jaunt near Salisbury that begins and ends up in Harnham, an area well…

Proms at Sage Gateshead22 July Missy Mazzoli, Mozart and Brahms I’ve gone for the evening Prom at Sage Gateshead on Saturday 22 July, featuring the Royal Northern Sinfonia and its principal conductor Dinis Sousa. The programme is a very tasty one: it pairs possibly my favourite Brahms symphony (the sunny No. 2) with possibly my favourite Mozart piano concerto (the moody, dramatic No. 20). But I’m most drawn by the prospect of hearing American composer Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) performed live. This ten-minute symphonic poem is, in the composer’s own words, ‘music in the shape of a solar system, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit’. Hearing it is a mind-expanding experience – and, within the wonderful timber-clad acoustics at Gateshead’s…

Nicholas Collon’s Aurora Orchestra is no stranger to The Proms, having given several memorable performances from memory, including Stravinsky’s The Firebird in 2021. But the composer’s Rite of Spring presents hitherto untested challenges. ‘This type of rhythmic, theatrical music works so well from memory,’ says Collon. ‘We don’t talk about the memorising aspect of what we do very often, nor think about it in such technical terms, but the sheer demands of performing The Rite from memory make it a hugely exciting undertaking. It’s leagues more difficult than The Firebird, as it’s genuinely difficult to remember, with its myriad metre changes and repeats. Part II’s “Sacrificial Dance”, for example, which is repetitive without being systematic in nature, is always off-putting, even for ensembles performing with the music.’ ‘The demands of…

The first Horrible Histories Family Prom took place in 2011, inspired by the CBBC television series which itself is based on the books by Terry Deary (text) and Martin Brown (illustrations). Composer Richie Webb’s songs from the TV show were interspersed with music by composers such as Henry VIII, Lully and Mozart, with actors from the cast joining the Aurora Orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon. This year, the Chorus and Orchestra of English National Opera conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson will dive into ’Orrible Opera, introducing their young audience to dying divas and spellbinding sorceresses, ghosts, gypsies and generals as they uncover the stories behind some of opera’s best-loved tunes in the company of characters from the TV series. Horrible Histories: ‘Orrible Opera takes place on Saturday 22 July, performed at…

Severe damage had been done to Klemperer’s career, and the scene was being set for a ‘Triumph Against All Odds’ denouement Do you scowl, as I do, at the phrase ‘Based on a True Story’? So, the movie or TV company warmed to a real-life narrative sufficiently to want to bring it to the screen, but only if ‘enhanced’ by made-up stuff? Well, if any musical life-story offers more than enough by way of unvarnished, gripping truth to satisfy even the pickiest screenwriter, it’s the one navigated by conductor Otto Klemperer. The action would get under way (I reckon) in 1941, with Klemperer observed sneaking out of the New York psychiatric institution where he’s long been held as a patient. He’s been suffering from severe bipolar-related depression (a lifelong affliction),…

After their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban once again announced a ban on music in public because it was ‘un-Islamic’. Despite what the Taliban say, there’s nothing in the Quran that explicitly forbids music. There are sophisticated Islamic music traditions in Indonesia, Central Asia, across the Persian, Turkic and Arabic world and into north and west Africa. Iran, the most proscriptive regime after Afghanistan, still forbids female singers performing to mixed audiences. The Taliban argue that music – citing in particular romantic songs and dancing – is a distraction from God. Under the previous Taliban regime, the only music permitted on Radio Sharia was unaccompanied patriotic songs and religious chants. In Kabul, Rahmatullah, a Muslim cleric but not a Taliban member, outlined to me his objections to…

In 1979, one of San Diego’s darkest moments left its mark on musical history. On the morning of 29 January, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on those waiting to get into Grover Cleveland Elementary opposite her house, killing the school principal and a custodian. When asked why, she replied ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.’ The grim incident caught the attention of Bob Geldof, lead singer of The Boomtown Rats, whose song ‘I don’t like Mondays’ went to No. 1 in the UK singles chart for four weeks that summer.…

Iván Fischer (conductor) Budapest Festival Orchestra Philips 476 7255 The Budapest Festival Orchestra recorded the Concerto for Orchestra under its founder and chief conductor Iván Fischer in 2005, and if any contemporary account has it all, it’s this one. First, Fischer observes every detail in both letter and spirit, which is not always the case elsewhere. The opening is rivetingly mysterious, its gathering of forces brilliantly paced, the soft semiquaver entries in the brass offering Hungarian-style impetus on the first note (interestingly, some other Hungarian orchestras avoid this articulation, perhaps deliberately). The allegro shines and dances, while the brass playing is so radiant that that alone could almost have secured this version top billing. The ‘Game of Couples’ – or ‘Presentation of Couples’, as conductor Georg Solti once spotted in…

Mahler Symphony No. 9 Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä BIS BIS-2476 (CD/SACD) 81:32 mins Towards the end of their lives, some of the great composers seemed to develop a sixth sense that allowed them to gaze onto otherworldly vistas of imagination – a kind of ‘beyond’, exploring new and remote musical territory that only they could perceive. Beethoven’s late sonatas and string quartets come to mind, as do Bruckner’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies, and Bach’s A Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue. In the same company are Mahler’s ‘song symphony’ Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) and his Ninth Symphony – his last completed work before his death in 1911, aged just 50. Commentators on the symphony have often read much into Mahler’s heart condition – a…

Bartók Concerto for Orchestra; Four Orchestral Pieces Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Karina Canellakis Pentatone PTC 5187 027 63:15 mins This enticing and brilliantly engineered release, celebrating the debut recording partnership between the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and their chief conductor Karina Canellakis, opens in a particularly auspicious manner with a superbly committed account of Bartók’s unaccountably neglected Four Orchestral Pieces. Originally composed in 1912 and orchestrated nine years later, this stunning work inhabits the same darkly coloured soundworld as the opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and the ballet The Wooden Prince, although the second movement Scherzo’s aggressive writing foreshadows the slightly later ballet, The Miraculous Mandarin. Canellakis projects the slow ‘Preludio’, ‘Intermezzo’ and ‘Marcia Funebre’ movements with full-blooded passion, securing a wonderfully warm string tone from her orchestra, and unleashes tremendous energy and…

Bacewicz Piano Concerto; Concerto for Two Pianos*; Overture; Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion Peter Jablonski, *Elisabeth Brauss (piano); Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon Ondine ODE 1427-2 62:27 mins The bustling orchestral Overture whips up excitement for what’s to come. Why isn’t this natty five-minute number played in far more concerts? Full marks, too, for the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s energy, with the build-ups of tension expertly handled by conductor Nicholas Collon. The bulk of this brilliantly played album is given over to two concertos by the Polish composer. The Piano Concerto (1949) might well appeal to those who enjoy Prokofiev and Bartók, though its sweep, energy and internal logic are entirely Bacewicz’s own. Peter Jablonski, whose recording of the composer’s solo piano works was shortlisted for a BBC Music…

JS Bach – Trinitatis Cantatas, BWV 47, 60 & 78; Trio Sonata No. 2 in C minor, BWV526; Prelude, BWV546 Céline Scheen (soprano), Thomas Hobbs (tenor), Benoît Arnould (bass); Le Banquet Céleste/Damien Guillon; Maude Gratton (organ) Alpha Classics ALPHA945 73:58 mins Flanked by two Trinity cantatas in G minor, not to mention organ interludes cast in C minor, Cantata 60’s sunburst of D major cuts a welcome dash. But context apart, framed as a dialogue between fear and hope, what a remarkable conception that work is, its opening masterfully entwining fretfulness and reassurance as the organ reinforces the embedded chorale melody. Even the closing chorale is ear-turning, its harmonisation transcendental (incorporated by Alban Berg so hauntingly into his Violin Concerto). And before it, how modern-sounding the bass interpolation of ‘Selig…

Beethoven Violin Sonatas: No. 2 in A, Op. 12 No. 2; No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23; No. 9 in A, Op. 47, ‘Kreutzer’ Antje Weithaas (violin), Dénes Várjon (piano) CAvi-music AVI 8553512 75:45 mins Bizarre as it seems now, there was a time when it used to be said routinely that Beethoven had no sense of humour. Clearly we could have done with performances like these back then. Humour, wit, playfulness – they all explode into life in the artful hands of Antje Weithaas and Dénes Várjon. Granted, the playfulness can be more tiger-like than kittenish (or even devilish in the first movement of the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata), but there’s a delicate touch as well. Then on top of that there are those breath-stopping moments (for example in parts…

Borodin • Vassallo • Vella Orchestral Works Malta Philharmonic Orchestra/Sergey Smbatyan Navona Records NV6393 For something new, there’s Malta and Rebbieha, two short orchestral works by Maltese composers Vassallo and Joseph Vella that are respectively sunny and dramatic. The Borodin Second Symphony tends to drag, particularly in the third movement. (JP) ★★★ Bruckner Symphony No. 4 (1874 version) Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne/François-Xavier Roth Myrios MYR032 Roth chooses the Fourth’s less-performed original version. Missing in action is the famous ‘hunting horn’ Scherzo: its predecessor is less cohesive and exciting. The first movement trades the grandeur of Wand or Böhm for an unexpected impulsiveness. (SW) ★★★★ Grieg • Maier • Röntgen String Quartets The Zilliacus Quartet dbProductions dBCD207 String quartets from three close friends, all rich in melody and quartet interplay. There’s a beguiling folkish lilt…

Piano – 2013 & 2016 Works by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Liszt Boris Giltburg, Mateusz Borowiak, Lukáš Vondráček, Alberto Ferro (piano) et al Queen Elisabeth Competition QEC-DUO 21 273:36 mins (4 discs) You can see video of these winners on the Queen Elisabeth Compeition’s own website, but this compilation of highlights comes with better sound. Giltburg was first-prize winner in 2013, and his Mozart Concerto K450 is classically poised and elegant, in contrast to Beethoven’s Op. 90, romantic and flexible; and the Liszt Sonata, emotional but never hectoring. Borowiak won the audience prize that year, and again there’s contrast between a pianistic, imaginatively ornamented Bach C minor Partita, a lithe Mozart Concerto K271, and the restrained virtuosity of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit. In 2016, Vondráček was the…

1. The fate of which lothario inspired an opera by Mozart, a ballet by Gluck, a tone poem by Strauss and the second movement of Sibelius’s Second Symphony? 2. Which piano work of 1874 did Sir Henry Wood orchestrate and partly record in 1920, only to abandon it on hearing Ravel’s orchestration? 3. Who composed his Alto Rhapsody for contralto, male chorus and orchestra as a wedding gift for Julie Schumann in 1869? 4. Dressed as a mermaid, the contralto Clara Butt gave the premiere of which work by Elgar on 5 October 1899? 5. The contralto pictured above died of cancer aged just 41 on 8 October 1953. Who is she? 6. Who wrote the librettos for Verdi’s Otello and Falstaff and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda as well as composing…

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 Sadly missed I was sorry to read of the death of Christopher Gunning (Farewell to…, June). As you rightly say, he was well known for his Poirot theme on television and he also composed a wonderful concerto for saxophone and orchestra called On Hungerford Bridge, which John Harle recorded some years ago. I have not been able to listen to it, as well as most of my CD collection, following a stroke in 2020, but this piece is one of the memorable ones which I do miss! Ian Morgan, Malvern Link Red light Ravel I’d be glad to know what evidence, other than hearsay, Oliver Zeffman has for…

700 … years of the history of Vilnius (below) marked by seven new works, performed as part of the Lithuanian capital’s Music for Vilnius project. 1,000 … weeks for Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man (left) in the UK Official Classical Artist Albums Chart, a record spell. 5 … world premieres of new commissions, conducted by Brett Dean at the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Debut Sounds concert at the Southbank on 13 July. 12 … hours of non-stop piano playing by Peter Auker, a piano teacher from Luton, to raise money for Dementia UK.…

Every few months I get a message from an excited reporter at the newspaper where I pretend to work. Scientists in Japan (it’s usually Japan or California) have used a computer to complete Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony! Or the machine has written a new Mozart concerto, or some more waltzes for Swan Lake. Would I see if I can tell the difference between this and the real thing? I always say yes, because I find the experience strangely heartening. The gap between what human genius can achieve and what computers can fake, even when programmed by people who are themselves geniuses in their field, is – at least in this specific area – still vast. If fed with enough music, it’s true, computers can now ape the rules of composition and…

The Royal Albert Hall regularly appears on BBC Music Magazine’s July cover as the iconic symbol of the BBC Proms, but London does not hog all the fun – this year sees 12 concerts staged in various towns around the UK. Indeed, the Proms first travelled outside London back in 1944, when the prospect of German bombs prompted a temporary move to the comparative safety of Bedford for much of the season. After that, it wouldn’t be until the early 2000s that the Proms spread its roots further, this time with the introduction of Proms in the Park events to co-ordinate with the Last Night – first in Gateshead, then with the likes of Belfast, Swansea, Glasgow and Manchester joining the party. This year sees 12 concerts staged in various…

Marin Alsop is excited to be conducting this year’s Last Night of the Proms. Excited, but not overawed. It will, in fact, be her third time leading the Proms’ traditional closing extravaganza: the first came exactly a decade ago, when she made history as the Last Night’s first female conductor. ‘I’m thrilled to be working with Lise Davidsen and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who’s now a good friend and regular collaborator,’ she enthuses. ‘And it’s always a big party – when people come to a concert expecting the best, there’s always a great atmosphere.’ So, how do Alsop and the team go about putting together the programme for such a well-loved fixture? How much is bolted down already, and how much is up for discission? ‘It’s always a big party and there’s…

‘I always try to be as thoughtful as possible and go as deep as I can into the subject that I am writing about’ It’s not really the done thing to go into fan mode during an interview. You’re there to do a job, so keep it professional – no autograph requests, no selfies. On this occasion, however, I’m going to make an exception. Midlife Choirsis, the choir I sing with in Cheltenham, has been learning one of Eric Whitacre’s pieces. Would he be kind enough to film a quick message for them? ‘Hey gang! Eric Whitacre here!’ he beams into my phone. ‘Midlife Choirsis – that’s the best name I’ve ever heard! Thank you all so much for performing Seal Lullaby…’ Why do I get the feeling he might…

I caught Klemperer near the end of his career, when he had become the wise Old Testament prophet of his latter days. I attended 36 of his London visits to the concert hall and opera house between 1963 and his last concert in 1971. On a good night, the experience was electrifying, which made his occasional off nights all the more perplexing. At six foot six inches, he was a towering figure on the podium, even while seated. A curt nod of acknowledgement before and after a concert was all we got – in between, his clenched right fist and fluttering left hand performed their magic. Watching him, I felt he had more control without the baton, which he decided to take up again in 1967 for a recording of…

Choosing an opera wisely was crucial. We all had to live by that choice and had to be able to cast the piece Between 2001 and ’22, I was tasked with finding a ‘rarely performed’ opera on an annual basis for University College Opera’s yearly production in March. The invitation to take down a piece from the shelf that few, if any, had ever seen, then putting it on the stage, must count as one of the most desirable assignments one could have. The model was professional principal cast, director, designer, plus student chorus and orchestra, for four performances in University College London’s Bloomsbury Theatre. Choosing the piece wisely was crucial. We all had to live by that choice. The students needed the right level of stimulation and challenge; you…

‘In England, everything you hear about Northern Ireland is about politics, which gives you no sense of how big the contemporary music scene is,’ Hannah Peel says of the nation she moved back to in 2018. It should take inspiration from Iceland, she suggests, which has developed global renown as an exporter of cutting-edge soundscapes. Peel readily names several fellow composers: ‘Brian Irvine, Ed and Xenia Bennett, Conor Mitchell – there are so many of us just in Bangor, the seaside town where I live. But of course, we all have to travel to Britain to work.’ Last year, public investment in the arts came to just £5.44 per capita in Northern Ireland, compared with around £7.50 in England and down by almost half over the past decade. In the…

Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in July are: 3-7 July Byrd 10-14 July Jaëll 17-21 July Barber 24-28 July Tailleferre 31 July – 4 August Anniversary Special: Composers in Conversation Sometimes the music really is like the man – the one the composer Ethel Smyth compared to ‘a bomb cased in razor-edges’. Listening to Mahler’s music, and especially to those huge, outrageously ambitious symphonies, can be like being at the centre of a controlled explosion. But Smyth is describing Mahler’s ‘work face’ – the face he adopted for coercing, seducing, even terrifying singers and orchestral musicians in pursuit of his vision. There was also Mahler the doting father, Mahler the meditative, exultant Alpine walker and cyclist, the Mahler whose exquisite…

Georg Solti (conductor) Georg Solti and the LSO give the BFO a run for their money in a splendidly played recording from 1965 that has rightly become a classic. Solti pulls no punches, but there’s subtlety too: for the first movement’s oboe-focused second subject, he offers a remarkable new colour, almost like a change of lighting. The second movement balances folksiness with classical poise; the ‘Elegia’ shivers with windswept nightmares, then evaporates as if awakening. After an excellent Shostakovich ham-up, the finale, even if on the scrambled side, is high on exhilaration. (Decca 467 6862) Serge Koussevitzky (conductor) The recording of the broadcast second performance, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Koussevitzky on 30 December 1944, is from the horse’s mouth, and uses the original ending. Koussevitzky’s interpretation is all…

I’m sure you’ll be poring over the BBC Proms listings, making plans to attend or wishing you could. This month’s reviews pages feature a good many artists paying a visit to the Royal Albert Hall this season, so why not whet your appetite and dive into some of their recordings? Orchestra-wise we have both the London and Liverpool Philharmonics, plus Bremen’s Kammerphilharmonie and the Britten Sinfonia. Conductors include Nicholas Collon, Paavo Järvi, Edward Gardner, Domingo Hindoyan and Vladimir Jurowski, while taking centre-stage are pianists Isata Kanneh-Mason and Alexander Melnikov, violinist María Dueñas and baritone Michael Spyres. All that, plus the usual archives roundup, Brief Notes and books. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, Geoff Brown, Michael Church, Christopher Cook, Martin Cotton, Christopher Dingle, Misha Donat,…

Wagner Tristan und Isolde – An Orchestral Passion (arr. Henk de Vlieger) Staatskapelle Weimar/Hansjörg Albrecht Oehms Classics OC 1729 58:02 mins Wagner reductions for orchestra are now almost commonplace. A few months ago in these columns, I praised Andrew Gourlay’s brilliant 45-minute orchestral ‘construction’ of his Parsifal Suite out of Wagner’s 270-minute opera, with creative liberties successfully taken in the ordering of the work’s sections. Tristan und Isolde is another popular site for reductive plunder, the most extreme example of which was Leopold Stokowski’s 28-minute ‘symphonic synthesis’ in the 1930s of the Prelude, the love duet and the finale. In 1994 the Dutch composer and arranger Henk de Vlieger embarked on a much more ambitious project – a through-composed hour without a break and without voices, which nevertheless sought to…

Marais Ariane et Bacchus Véronique Gens, David Tricou, Mathias Vidal, Judith van Wanroij; Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles; Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet Alpha Classics ALPHA 926 126:25 mins (2 discs) Now remembered mainly as a master player and composer of viol music (and as a pupil of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe – as depicted in the 1991 film Tous les Matins du Monde), Marin Marais was also a serious opera composer. He first learned his trade as one of Lully’s composition pupils, and then as the older composer’s music assistant. Lully’s influence is strongly evident in this world-premiere recording of Marais’s 1696 tragédie en musique, Ariane et Bacchus. Urgent tempos, glowing choruses and spirited dance sections are all there. So are languorous recitatives, some shapeless arias and…

My Soul, What Fear You? Lieder and arias by JS Bach, Eisler, Mahler, Pfitzner, Schubert, Schumann, R Strauss and Weill Christopher Purves (bass-baritone), Simon Lepper (piano) King’s College KGS0067 55:54 mins Christopher Purves and Simon Lepper have designed an admirably ambitious programme with, one suspects, the help of Richard Stokes, Britain’s living encyclopedia of lieder and song. It’s not simply the range of the repertoire, which travels from Bach to Weill via Schubert, Schumann, Strauss and Hanns Eisler, but the thematic links that bind these songs together – the imminence of last things, the prison cell as tomb and exile as a cultural death. Yet, My Soul, What Fear You?, the quotation from Hans Pfitzner’s setting of a monologue for the Protestant radical Jan Hus condemned to be burnt, gives…

JS Bach Partitas Nos 1, 5 & 6 Nils Anders Mortensen (piano) Lawo Classics LWC1249 70:23 mins Bach’s Six Partitas are the weightiest of his three sets of suites for harpsichord. Published in 1731 with the rather dry-sounding title of ‘Keyboard exercises’ (ClavierÜbung) they contain not only some of his most dramatic preludes, but also racier items such as ‘Scherzo’ and ‘Burlesca’ (both in Partita No. 3) alongside the standard French dances. A substantial two-manual harpsichord with its range of textures is the ideal instrument for these demanding works, but under the right fingers the modern piano can certainly provide an effective range of contrasts and, when all is said and done, the quality of performance is what counts. In the three Partitas presented here, the result is mixed. The…

July round-up View From Above is the debut album from percussionist, session musician and producer Tristan Banks. He’s said he wanted to push the acoustic quartet format to its limits. I’m not sure that he’s quite done that but it’s certainly an arresting session. It was recorded ‘as live’, which may at least partly account for its impressive sense of immediacy. While coherent well-structured development is never neglected, rugged piano, bass and drums from John Crawford, Davide Mantovani and Banks himself drive ten of Banks’s compositions forward with a determination sometimes bordering on ferocity, while Paul Booth’s reeds and woodwind ride the waves with aplomb. (Ubuntu Music UBUO1331CD) ★★★★★ Another debut comes from Multi-Traction Orchestra. Reactor One, like many albums conceived during the Covid lockdowns, was created by linking the…

JULY’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 1 SATURDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9-11.45am Record Review 11.45am-12.30pm Music Matters 12.30-1pm This Classical Life 1-3pm Inside Music 3-4pm Sound of Cinema 4-5pm Music Planet 5-6.30pm J to Z 6.30-10pm Opera on 3 from ROH. Verdi Il Trovatore. 10pm-12am New Music Show 12-1am Freeness 2 SUNDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Sunday Morning 12-1pm Private Passions Jeremy Deller 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert rpt 2-3pm The Early Music Show 3-4pm Choral Evensong 4-5pm Jazz Record Requests 5-5.30pm The Listening Service 5.30-6.45pm Words and Music 6.45-7.30pm Sunday Feature 7.30-9pm Drama on 3 Emperor and Galilean, Part 1 9pm-11pm Record Review Extra 11pm-12am Sun Night Series 12-12.30am Classical Fix 3 MONDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Essential Classics CHOICE 12-1pm CotW Byrd 1-2pm…

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