Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2023 i BBC Music Magazine

This month we reveal the 25 most popular British composers, as chosen by 167 of today’s leading conductors, composers, singers and instrumentalists. But why put together such a list – aside from that very human desire to rank the achievements of our fellows? Certainly, we’re not holding up our poll as a definitive countdown of artistic achievement – for how can you possibly pit the wonderful symphonies of Elgar against those of Vaughan Williams, for example? But what this list does reveal is a snapshot of attitudes towards British composers today – and a musical landscape that embraces the era-defying achievements of Purcell and Byrd alongside contemporary voices such as Thomas Adès and James MacMillan, and female composers, for so long ignored, including Ethel Smyth, Elizabeth Maconchy and Judith Weir.…

Broken chords Your story about Stefan Jackiw and his broken string (Full Score, July) reminds me of an experience over 65 years ago. In October 1956, Josef Krips was conducting the LSO in a Brahms programme in the Royal Festival Hall. Isaac Stern (right) was playing the Violin Concerto and had the audience rapt in the first movement cadenza when, suddenly, a string broke. The gasp in the hall was like a massive burst tyre – total deflation. Almost without missing a beat, Stern grabbed the leader Hugh Maguire’s violin and started the cadenza again. At the end of the movement, he retrieved his instrument, disappeared briefly then resumed with the slow movement as though nothing had happened. Sadly, though, the magic had gone. This came back to my mind…

Nikita Lukinov Pianist Born: Voronezh, Russia Career highlight: Studying at the Verbier Academy, where students interact with some of today’s most influential artists, listen to their performances and perform for incredible personalities during masterclasses. Plus, releasing my debut album, Kaleidoscope, with KNS Classical. Musical heroes: It constantly changes, largely depending on the music I am performing myself. Right now, my heroes are pianists Ivo Pogorelich and Mikhail Pletnev – both eccentric personalities, whose interpretations never leave me indifferent. Dream concert: At the Berlin Konzerthaus, a solo recital followed by a concerto performance with the Berlin Philharmonic. Reginald Mobley Countertenor Born: Florida, US Career highlight: Becoming the first Black person to lead the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston in its 200th anniversary year, which was also the 150th anniversary of…

American ensemble Telegraph Quartet marks its tenth anniversary with a new album on Azica Records. Divergent Paths is the first release in a new series called 20th Century Vantage Points, through which the quartet wants to ‘display the works of composers with unique visions that also speak to the zeitgeist of their time, musically or beyond.’ The first entry, out in late August, features quartets by Ravel and Schoenberg. Staying in San Francisco, the Cantata Collective is immersed in a new series of JS Bach recordings for Avie. The ensemble brought in conductor Nicholas McGegan to preside over a run of five performances and recordings, the first of which was the St John Passion (just out), followed with a live recording, in March, of the B minor Mass (out next…

AI: it’s not artificial, and it’s not intelligent. That’s a paraphrase of the computer scientist and composer Jaron Lanier’s take on AI as a work-replacing, culture-consuming and composer-destroying technology. Yet how can Lanier be right? Because AI’s virtual tentacles are already grasping into the real musical world: if we can generate deepfake Drake and artificially resurrect John Lennon, what are the possibilities for classical cultures? Algorithmically induced Bach? Virtually composed Smyth? Network-synthesised Brahms? In fact, the technology to do all that is already out there, and not only to replace composers, but to replace us listeners. Seriously. It’s not only that AI programs can create their own music, they can also ‘listen’ to their own tracks on streaming services, creating as many plays as possible to generate income for the…

With any poll such as this, the names who didn’t make it inevitably tend to raise as much of an eyebrow/scream of horror (delete as appropriate) as those who did. Among those who might consider themselves unlucky not to make the top 25 are the late-19th-century stalwarts Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) and Hubert Parry (1848-1918), whose operettas and choral music remain as popular as ever (plus Parry’s list of pupils reads like a who’s who of British composing). Heading into the early 20th century, concert hall favourites Frederick Delius (1862-1934, pictured left) and Arnold Bax (1883-1953) are notable by their absence, as is the sublime songsmith Gerald Finzi (1901-56). Infamously snotty about her peers, Elisabeth Lutyens (1906-83) herself seems to have received similar treatment from today’s musicians – not a single…

Esther Abrami Violinist Smyth, Angela Morley, Shirley Thompson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rachel Portman Paul Agnew Conductor Benjamin Britten, William Byrd, John Dowland, Henry Purcell, Thomas Tallis Marin Alsop Conductor Britten, William Walton, Edward Elgar, James MacMillan, Roxanna Panufnik John Andrews Conductor Byrd, Peter Maxwell Davies, Purcell, Ethel Smyth, Arthur Sullivan Katya Apekisheva Pianist Purcell, Elgar, Britten, Frank Bridge, Thomas Adès Peter Auty Tenor Elgar, Purcell, Herbert Howells, Byrd, Britten Ryan Bancroft Conductor Elgar, Grace Williams, Gavin Bryars, Rebecca Saunders, MacMillan Matthew Barley Cellist Thomas Adès, Harrison Birtwistle, Tallis, John Tavener, Walton Mark Bebbington Pianist Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Michael Tippett, Bridge, Arnold Bax Michael Berkeley Composer Dowland, Birtwistle, Purcell, Tippett, Britten Mary Bevan Soprano Britten, George Frideric Handel, Vaughan Williams, Purcell, James MacMillan Sophie Bevan Soprano Britten, Byrd, Elgar, Purcell, Tallis…

‘My hair was still growing back – but I needed to show the singing world that I was back in action’ Sarah Connolly is back in warrior mode – and this time it’s for real. Having played kings, emperors and heroes on the opera stage, she is going into battle for two organisations at the heart of British culture, ones that shaped her life and her career and which are now under threat of cuts and cancellation. One is the BBC Singers, of which she was a member for five years; the other is English National Opera, temporarily reprieved from its banishment to ‘outside London’, but still facing an uncertain future. ‘I sang at ENO for 27 years,’ says Connolly with fire in her eyes. ‘I cut my teeth on…

When Sakari Oramo (above) arrived from Helsinki to be chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1998, few expected quite how he would explore the highways and byways of British repertoire. ‘I’ve made some wonderful discoveries among British composers,’ the Finn told BBC Music Magazine ten years later at the end of his tenure. ‘John Foulds, Constant Lambert, Frank Bridge and so on are all great composers in their own right. I would say that Foulds, in particular, has sprung up the league table of British composers in the last five years.’ Few, indeed, had even heard of John Foulds (1880-1939) before Oramo and the CBSO’s recordings of Three Mantras, Lyra Celtica and Dynamic Triptych introduced them to a remarkably forward-looking yet highly accessible composer. It was,…

‘Shocking news!’ tweeted Alexandra Dariescu in May. ‘Next week I was supposed to perform the Florence Price Piano Concerto, but hiring the sheet music for a female composer is five times more expensive than the Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini I was coupling it with, so Price is cancelled!’ The Romanian pianist’s tweet was met with an outpouring of similar stories: tales of published editions of music by female composers riddled with errors, of hire costs being ten times more expensive than for works by male counterparts, of full scores not matching up to orchestral parts. While copyright may well be a factor when it comes to the current price of playing Price, Dariescu’s tweet tapped into one of the all-too-real problems facing any performer who wants to…

Mussolini’s relationship with opera was murky. While he saw opera as a vehicle for nationalist pride, it’s not clear that he actually enjoyed it. Being dubbed ‘a favourite of Il Duce’ might have helped singers domestically in the short-term but caused them problems after the war, at home and abroad. Some had no say in the matter, while others actively courted Mussolini in order to advance their careers. Beniamino Gigli, the superstar of his generation, claimed to have no interest in politics but was happy enough to record the Fascist Anthem and mix with high-ranking fascists, Hitler included (above). Giacomo Lauri-Volpi liked fascism so much he eventually left Italy to live in Franco’s Spain, while Muzio Giovagnoli took to using Mussolini’s secretary to secure roles at La Scala and Rome,…

SPECIAL OFFER Your first 3 issues for £5* Continue at just £9.70 every 3 issues by Direct Debit – SAVING 35% Never miss an issue of your favourite magazine Free UK delivery direct to your door Subscribe online at buysubscriptions.com/GIH23 or call our subscriber hotline on 03330 162114† †Calls from landlines will cost up to 9p per minute, depending on provider. Calls from mobile phones will cost up to 55p per minute, but are included in inclusive call packages. Lines are open 8am-8pm weekdays and 9am-1pm Saturdays. Overseas readers call +44 1604 973722. *Three issues for £5 is available for UK subscribers paying by Direct Debit only. After your first 3 issues, your subscription will continue at £9.70 every 3 issues saving 35% thereafter. If you cancel within 2 weeks of…

Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in August are: 31 July – 4 August Anniversary Special: Composers in Conversation 7-11 August Monteverdi 14-18 August Henriëtte Bosmans 21-25 August Liszt 28 August – 1 September Icons of British Light Music A book on the Onslow family published in the 1950s gives the composer George Onslow short shrift. His music, we are told, ‘has a dry and fireless amateur competence; and surely it is remarkable that a musician of any sort could thus have appeared as an offshoot of the Onslow tree’. Certainly, that tree had produced figures of considerable distinction in their own field – pre-eminent among them Arthur Onslow who was a universally admired Speaker of the House of Commons for…

Charles Dutoit (conductor) Charles Dutoit’s recording of El Amor Brujo was made in 1981, just as his golden period with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal was beginning. It’s a typically virile reading, more conventionally ‘symphonic’ in sound than Heras-Casado’s leaner version, with a big, transparent soundstage framed by Decca’s expert engineering team. Occasionally, the performance seems a touch overdriven and rhythmically dogmatic. But it benefits from the spirited contribution of Canadian mezzo-soprano Huguette Tourangeau, who injects a welcome element of earthiness into her vocal delivery. (Decca 410 0082) Igor Markevitch (conductor) The Ukrainian Igor Markevitch, a marvellous conductor, made his recording with the Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra in 1966. It’s a performance which deserves to be much better known, with a tensely atmospheric ‘In the Cave’ and a…

If you’re on the lookout for great recordings of music by some of our top 25 British composers, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve a dazzling Walton Violin Concerto (see Concerto Choice), a feast of choral works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a bit of Byrd song and host of Handel – including a knockout performance of Serse, our Opera Choice. There’s some Elgar, Howells and Tallis too, plus other Brits you’ll know – and some you may not, but who might hope to make a future top 25… But it’s not just homegrown composers we’re celebrating. Florence Price takes the top spot thanks to the Chineke! Orchestra (see right) and she also features in our Choral & Song Choice: Because, by the brilliantly talented US countertenor Reginald Mobley. Michael Beek…

Tchaikovsky The Voyevoda; The Tempest; Francesca da Rimini; Cherevichki – Overture and Polonaise BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Alpesh Chauhan Chandos CHSA 5300 (CD/SACD) 78:12 mins Alpesh Chauhan evidently has a tremendous flair for Tchaikovsky. Supported by stunningly responsive playing from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, his interpretations brilliantly project the music’s theatrical excitement as well as its subtle and sophisticated orchestration. Such qualities combine to especially powerful effect in The Voyevoda, a startlingly original work unaccountably rejected by the composer after its first performance in 1891. After a hair-raisingly fast opening section, Chauhan vividly encompasses a wide gamut of emotions within a relatively short time, moving seamlessly from eerie passages for bass clarinet to a brief yet impassioned love theme before shattering gunshot sounds bring the work to a brutal close.…

Franck Hulda Jennifer Holloway, François Rougier, Véronique Gens, Judith van Wanroij, Edgaras Montvidas, Marie Gautrot, Matthieu Lécroart; Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège; Chœur de Chambre de Namur/Gergely Madaras Bru Zane BZ 1052 156:10 mins (3 discs) César Franck meets Wagner by way of Grieg in this splendid opera, presented here by the Palazzetto Bru Zane centre for French Romantic music. This is the second recording of Hulda – a five-act version was issued by Naxos in 2021. Here, Bru Zane presents the opera in four acts and restores cuts made for its premiere in Monte Carlo in 1894. An impressive cast is led by Jennifer Holloway as Hulda, the Norwegian maid embroiled in a blood feud with her family’s rival clan. She skilfully scales the gamut of vocal characterisation, from…

Because Traditional songs and spirituals, plus works by Burleigh, Florence Price, Strong and Trotignon Reginald Mobley (countertenor), Baptiste Trotignon (piano) Alpha Classics ALPHA 936 55:26 mins Countertenor Reginald Mobley has forged a stellar career across Baroque and Classical repertoire, and this outstanding album finds him on glittering form as an exponent of the Spiritual. In 1925, the Johnson Brothers compiled and edited the first volume of their two books of Spirituals, which they deemed to be ‘unsurpassed among the folk songs of the world and, in the poignancy of their beauty, unequalled’. The selection is shaped around these remarkable songs, most of them in deft and bittersweet jazz arrangements by the album’s pianist Baptiste Trotignon. Among many highlights, ‘Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child’ fizzes with urgency and quickly…

Brahms Variations on a theme by Schumann in F sharp minor, Op. 9; Variations on an Original Theme in D, Op. 21/1; Variations on a Hungarian Song in D, Op. 21/2; Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel Vladimir Feltsman (piano) Nimbus NI 6418 76:52 mins Vladimir Feltsman, the Russian-born pianist long resident in the US, is not a frequent visitor to UK concert halls, but records plentifully at Wyastone Leys for the Nimbus label. Here he has assembled a rewarding programme of Brahms variations, an idea which might look samey but in practice works very well, thanks to the contrasts between the different sets and the sense of progression towards the composer’s pinnacle in the form, the Handel Variations, Op. 24. The Variations on a Hungarian Song are…

August round-up Another renowned son of Senegal is Seckou Keita, whose African Rhapsodies is a stonking collaboration with the BBC Concert Orchestra, which finds Keita’s Mande harp-lute confidently conversing with their classical brass, woodwind and string sections. It’s hard to guess how much of this album’s brilliance is down to double-bass player Davide Mantovani’s arrangements, which include such inspired touches as the inclusion of softly funking kit drummer/percussionist Suntou Susso. African Rhapsodies could be as big a hit as Clychau Dibon, Keita’s breathtakingly elegant debut with classically trained Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, which they revisit with all the poetry of one dancer drawing grace from another’s moves on ‘Bamba, the Light of Touba’. It seems clear all three of their collaborations were essential apprenticeship for these beguiling rhapsodies. (Claves 50-3078)…

Bacewicz Music for String Orchestra Primuz Chamber Orchestra/Łukasz Błaszczyk DUX DUX1793 The Concerto for String Orchestra showcases Bacewicz’s rhythmic vigour; the Symphony for Strings dripfeeds out the tension. Surprises are everywhere: Poland’s Primuz Chamber Orchestra is alive to all of them. (SW) Britten • Bruch Violin Concertos Kerson Leong (violin); Philharmonia Orchestra/Patrick Hahn Alpha Classics ALPHA946 Leong plays with a penetrating tone that suits the Britten well, his intense vibrato adding to its anxious energy. In Bruch’s In Memoriam, he relaxes into the work’s warmer expansiveness, and the Finale of the Bruch Concerto is great fun. (CS) Nigel Clarke Symphony for Violin and Orchestra Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin); ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Neil Thomson Naxos 8.579127 Clarke’s The Prophecies of Merlin is based on the writings of 12th-century cleric Geoffrey of…

AUGUST’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see BBC Sounds and iPlayer 1 TUESDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Essential Classics 12-1pm Composer of the Week Composers in Conversation: Steve Reich/Meredith Monk 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-5pm Afternoon Concert. Prom 14 (rpt) 5-7pm In Tune 7-9.15pm Radio 3 In Concert live from the Royal Albert Hall. Prom 22. Isata Kanneh-Mason (piano), BBC NOW/Ryan Bancroft 9.15-10pm Free Thinking (rpt) 10-10.15pm The Essay 10.15pm-12am Prom 23. Dee Dee Bridgewater (vocals), Sean Jones (trumpet), National Youth Jazz Orchestra/Sean Jones. 12-12.30am Night Tracks Mix 2 WEDNESDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Essential Classics 12-1pm Composer of the Week Composers in Conversation: Birtwistle/Henze 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-4pm Afternoon Concert. Prom 15. Anna Lapwood (organ) 4-5pm Choral Evensong 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio…

✦ Receive your first 3 issues for only £5*✦ After your trial, continue to save over 30% on the shop price when you pay by Direct Debit✦ Expert advice on getting the most from the night sky every month✦ In-depth features, stargazing guides and equipment reviews Subscribe online at www.buysubscriptions.com/SKYHA23 Or call 03330 162119† and quote SKYHA23 *All savings are calculated as a percentage of Basic Annual Rate. The UK Basic Annual Rate is £71.88, which includes event issues (issues charged higher than standard cover price) published in a 12-month period. This special introductory offer is available to new UK subscribers via Direct Debit only and is subject to availability. Offer ends 31 December 2023. The magazine shown here is for illustrative purposes only. Your subscription will start with the next…

Rebecca Franks Journalist and critic ‘I first got to know Fanny Hensel’s music thanks to her string quartet and piano cycle Das Jahr. But she was an incredibly prolific song writer – and it was exciting to hear how 239 of her songs have been made freely available online.’ Page 54 Christopher Gillett Tenor and author ‘While working at Rome Opera I became fascinated by the story of Nicola Ugo Stame, who had stood up to fascism on the very stage where I was singing, and I’m now writing a book about this incredibly heroic Italian tenor.’ Page 58 Misha Donat Writer and musicologist ‘Playing through one of George Onslow’s four-hands piano sonatas with a friend led me to investigate this 19th-century gentleman-composer’s other music. Completely unknown today, some of…

10 … miles down the road. With Leeds Town Hall being refurbished, the 2024 Leeds Internatioal Piano Competition will take place in nearby Bradford. 4 … instrumental soloists, two singers and a string quartet named as BBC New Generation Artists from September. 15 … Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra concerts conducted by Marin Alsop, enough to convince both parties to make the relationship permanent. 2,950,000 … pounds for the Somerset house (above) once owned by composer Arthur Bliss. Complete with a separate Grade II-listed music room, it is currently on sale at themodernhouse.com.…

Anna-Maria Helsing (left) has been named the new chief conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra, filling a position that has been vacant since the death of Bramwell Tovey last year. A graduate of Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, Helsing is by no means the first Finnish conductor to hold a major post with a BBC orchestra, as a quick scout around will reveal… It was Osmo Vänskä who first got the BBC setting its sights on the Finnish line when, in 1996, the Sääminki-born clarinettist-turned-maestro headed over to Glasgow to become chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, adding the role to his post of chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Maybe Vänskä had a quick word with Jukka-Pekka Saraste, his old classmate at the Sibelius Academy, as from 2002-05,…

This month: EDWARD HIGGINBOTTOM Conductor MY FINEST MOMENT Early One Morning The Choir of New College, Oxford/Edward Higginbottom Erato 0630 19065 2 (1997) I added up my New College recordings the other day and we’re on 120 albums, so it’s quite difficult to find one which stands out. Session work is demanding; you have to keep to schedule and have something decent in the can after three hours and move on, so there’s no slouching. The kids are real pros; it’s extraordinary what they can do. I like this folk-song collection we did in 1997 because it’s not the normal thing. We don’t get the chance, ordinarily, to do this kind of secular music, so it was a nice chance for the men and the boys – the boys in…

‘What is the end of Fame?’ Lord Byron wrote in Don Juan. ‘Tis but to fill a certain portion of uncertain paper.’ What he meant, I think (with poetry it’s always hard to know), is that striving for lasting fame is pointless because we have little idea of what the future will look like, or whether posterity will have any desire to celebrate our achievements. That thought struck me when looking at the fascinating poll published in this magazine. Some 167 leading musicians were asked to name their five favourite British composers from any era, and the results have been collated into a popularity league table. I was pleased to see some unexpected names among the top 25. Elizabeth Maconchy, for instance – arguably the most undervalued of 20th-century British…

Henry Purcell by Roderick Williams (baritone and composer) I think Purcell could have made it onto this even if he’d written nothing other than Dido’s Lament from Dido and Aeneas. As well as being hugely expressive and emotive, it is also written on a ground bass, which satisfies the musician as well – he’s a composer’s composer, but makes people feel amazing too. Also, as he shows in works such as the aria Music for a while, he sets words perfectly, and I would challenge anyone to sit still during his dance music! He could do everything from bawdy tavern house fun to the Funeral Music for Queen Mary, and in his era could easily stand among any of his peers from across Europe. Edward Elgar by Ryan Bancroft (conductor) Edward…

‘I bet I was the only person to have voted for John Browne!’, reflects Peter Phillips when asked to comment on his choices for our poll. The founder and conductor of the Tallis Scholars is not wrong, though Browne, a prominent name in the influential 15th-century Eton Choirbook, is by no means the only composer to have mustered just a single vote. Renaissance greats John Sheppard and Thomas Tomkins had sole champions in conductor Harry Christophers and composer Paul Mealor, while Victorian choral stalwart Samuel S Wesley (above) was able to count on the vote of conductor Robert Hollingworth… but no-one else. While one-vote wonders such as George Butterworth, Ivor Gurney and Michael Nyman (voted for by pianists Nicholas McCarthy and Simon Crawford-Phillips and violinist Francesca Dego respectively) are well…

I find Dora Pejačević (left) and Alma Mahler’s songs quite challenging in that they use the whole range of the voice – but they are incredibly rewarding. The four songs by Pejačević I’m presenting are quite varied; the two Schmetterlingslieder (Butterfly Songs) are airy and light-hearted, as you’d imagine. Verwandlung is quite a grave song, very lyrical and romantic. She has a lovely style, it’s very Second Viennese School and Chopinesque in places, with some elements of Zemlinsky. I don’t like to compare composers but they are as technically demanding as a Strauss song. I find them very appealing, and I hope other people will want to sing them. So far there is no piano reduction of the orchestral score but I’m one of these lucky people who can look…

‘None of the songs on Hensel: Lieder were published in her lifetime,’ says Timothy Parker-Langston, ‘and 19 of them, as far as I can tell after doing quite extensive research, have not been publicly recorded before. The recording was made in Leipzig at the Mendelssohn-Haus – Felix’s city, really, but the Hensel house in Berlin is no more. Leipzig is such a magical place to be, and there’s the presence of Bach who was so huge in her musical voice and life. The house has the original staircase, so quite possibly on one of her many visits she would have been walking on the same steps. ‘We recorded in the Garden House, across a long strip of garden from the main house. The recording room is a recital space with…

If you were to do a vox pop on the streets of Glasgow or Edinburgh asking for recommendations of musical destinations, the small town of Cumnock in the south west of Scotland would probably not be top of the resulting list – but it should be. It was the childhood home of composer Sir James MacMillan, and since 2014 it has been the home of The Cumnock Tryst, the festival he founded with the aim of giving something back to the community where he grew up. ‘Tryst’ is an old Scots word for a meeting place, or romantic rendezvous; Cumnock itself is a geographical meeting place between the Glaisnock River and Lugar Water, and its Gaelic name, comunn achadh, means ‘place of the confluence’. As long ago as the 1980s,…

Minor keys Onslow’s melancholy disposition led him to compose an unusual number of works in minor keys. Of his 34 string quintets and his 20 piano trios, more than half are in the minor. In his remaining chamber works the slow movement more often than not is in the minor, and the E flat major Quintet Op. 1 No. 2 actually begins with a slow introduction in a lugubrious E flat minor. Rich basses Himself a cellist, Onslow had a liking for bottom-heavy textures. His string quintets are mostly scored with two cellos which often play a leading role in the music. There are also four quintets where the second cello is replaced by a double bass. Theatrical gestures Onslow’s music is shot through with dramatic gestures and his slow…

Born in Cadiz in 1876, Manuel de Falla forged his early career in Madrid. It was, however, the culture of his Andalusian birthplace which above all would infuse the works that made his name. A seven-year stay in Paris from 1907 saw him mix with the likes of Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky plus impresario Serge Diaghilev, who would later commission El sombrero de tres picos for the Ballets Russes. For the majority of the 1920s and ’30s he lived in Granada but, following Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War, he took the decision to move to Argentina. He died there, aged 69, in 1946. 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.…

What are your recollections of working with Chineke! on this? It was one of the first concerts that we were doing in the midst of the pandemic in the autumn of 2020. When the orchestra met it was quite stressful, because a lot of the key players from the orchestra couldn’t get to Britain. We did the entire live performance of this recording in a distanced orchestral set up, so the experience of working with the orchestra for this project was exciting, of course, but it was also a moment where we were trying to find each other again. Does the Symphony propose any specific challenges? I think it’s understanding and incorporating the style of the Negro Folk idiom into the music. You have the spirituals, you have the blues,…

Czerny Piano Concertinos, Opp 78 & 650; Fantaisie et Variations brillantes sur une Romance de Blangini, Op. 3 Rosemary Tuck (piano); English Chamber Orchestra/Richard Bonynge Naxos 8.574458 75:41 mins Amateur pianists d’un certain age may know Carl Czerny (1791-1857) as the author of those dry-as-dust keyboard exercises they used to avoid if humanly possible. Yet attentive recent listeners may have registered the fact that pianist Rosemary Tuck and conductor Richard Bonynge have released four recordings of his piano-and-orchestra music – this new one is their fifth. Czerny was, in fact, a prodigy who could play all Mozart’s piano works and many of Beethoven’s before he was ten. He so impressed Beethoven that he was taken on by him as a pupil for three years, and, although being a prolific composer…

Handel Serse Emily D’Angelo, Lucy Crowe, Paula Murrihy, Mary Bevan, Neal Davies; The English Concert/Harry Bicket Linn Records CKD709 172:38 mins (3 discs) With his ravishing, hilarious and profound recording of Serse, conductor Harry Bicket once again puts all rivals in the shade. Handel re-invented pastiche in this genre-busting 1738 work, heightening satire with virtuosity and spinning ‘borrowed’ melodies – mostly from the 1694 Il Xerse by his early career rival Giovanni Bononcini – to show off his own dazzling invention. As Romilda, soprano Lucy Crowe is a prodigy both technical – can any singer match her improbable dance in the vocal stratosphere? – and dramatic. Buffeted by the unwanted desire of the tyrant Serse and the jealousy of his sister Atalanta, who desires Romilda’s lover Arsamene, Crowe’s Romilda runs…

JS Bach The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (arr. quartet); Chorale Prelude, BWV 668 ‘Vor deinen Thron’ Cuarteto Casals Harmonia Mundi HMM902717 68:26 mins Though its instrumentation is unspecified, the most successful recordings of Bach’s The Art of Fugue must surely be those by instrumental ensembles with homogenous timbres. Interpretations for string quartet have appeared in the catalogue since the 1980s, and Cuarteto Casals’s new release for Harmonia Mundi can confidently assume its rightful place amongst these varied but distinguished approaches. The collection dates from Bach’s final years in Leipzig, and was published posthumously in 1751. We hear Bach as both artist and craftsman in these fugal compositions which range across 14 simple fugues or contrapunctus movements in three or four parts, three canons and the chorale BWV 668 ‘Vor…

Handel’s Attick – Music For Solo Clavichord Works by Arne, Ebner, Froberger, Handel, Kerll, D Scarlatti, Weckmann and Zachow Julian Perkins (clavichord) Deux-Elles DXL1191 75:33 mins The title of this album is inspired by an event recorded by Handel’s first biographer John Mainwaring. Handel’s father wanted his son to study law, but was so alarmed by his insatiable appetite for music that he banished all musical instruments from the house. However, the boy, in Mainwaring’s words, ‘found means to get a little clavichord privately convey’d to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep.’ Julian Perkins has chosen an eclectic variety of pieces ranging from the first half of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century. New…

Baaba Maal Being Baaba Maal, General Paco Lenol, Esau Mwamwaya, Rougi, Mamadou Sarr et al Marathon Artists MA0381D The unlikely Senegalese icon Baaba Maal may be familiar from his recent appearance in an interview on Channel 4 News to promote this, his latest album Being. A remarkably accessible song cycle boasting a canny track sequence that makes perfect musical sense, it’s a significant comeback from an artist whose star seems to have faded from view a little in recent years – perhaps dissipated by his involvement in several high-profile collaborations, humanitarian and environmental campaigning. His strident and striking voice is complemented here by those of well-chosen guests, including Mauritanian rapper General Paco Lenol, Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and budding local diva Rougi. So uniquely rich in vocal charisma is Maal’s…

August round-up A good starter collection of the music of the Swiss-American Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) focuses on those works on Jewish themes that made his reputation, in particular the ‘rhapsodie hébraïque’ Schelomo which has remained one of his best known compositions. The eloquent cello soloist is Zara Nelsova, who was particularly associated with the piece. She collaborates with the Utah Symphony under Maurice Abravanel, who also deliver an impassioned account of the Israel Symphony, while the New Zealand Symphony under James Sedares demonstrate the colourful variety of the Trois Poèmes Juifs. (Alto ALC 1477) From the Royal Swedish Opera comes a live performance of Strauss’s Elektra. May 4 1996 marked the official farewell of the protagonist, dramatic soprano Laila Andersson-Palme, who had sung 100 roles with the company. Her interpretation…

Choice items For Prom 38, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and conductor Iván Fischer will arrive with more than 200 classical pieces ready to play at a moment’s notice. Just what will be heard on the evening will be down to the audience. Radio 3 In Concert, Audience Choice, 13 Aug, 2pm Game over Samuel Beckett’s absurdist one-act play Endgame gains a thrilling new lease of life in György Kurtág’s 2018 opera adaptation Endgame (Fin de partie), performed at the Proms for the first time by Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish Symphony. Radio 3 In Concert, 17 Aug, 7.30pm By George I’m excited to hear the brilliant Jean-Yves Thibaudet in George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto. It’s part of a colourful programme that also includes Ravel’s La valse, Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Carlos…

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 388/August 2023, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 8 Aug 2023 (solution in Nov 2023 issue). ACROSS 1 Leaders of British orchestral musicians, accepting deprivation, show signs of growth (7) 5 Anniversary composer, small, enjoys unsettling one (7) 9 Opening note – trio upset about it (5) 10 A frailty possibly linked to Medtner’s second Skazka? (5,4) 11 Fugue beginning to ramble before I act with care, possibly (9) 12 Small image showing popular concert items (5) 13 We hear strings producing combinations of notes (6)…

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 Otto delight I read with interest A titan without ego, Andrew Green’s article about the German conductor Otto Klemperer (July issue). This evoked so many memories I have of watching Klemperer when I was a teenager in the 1970s. I notice the article mentions the programme of the concert of 26 September 1971 which was originally planned as Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. I have the Testament recording of that concert, where the Mozart was replaced by Beethoven’s King Stephen Overture. A worthy tribute to Dr Klemperer. Andrew Thorpe, via email Striking alternative As a postscript to Terry Blain’s July issue Timepiece feature about the BBC Proms’ cancelled opening…

I started writing music for Peter Kosminsky’s programmes in my thirties – and, with some gaps along the way, I’ve been working with him ever since. Peter has been hugely influential to my composing process, so to call him a hero is no exaggeration. All of Peter’s projects have been very inspiring to work on. For example, I loved working with him on Wolf Hall, the TV adaptations of Hilary Mantel’s eponymous novel and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. I was given the scripts at a very early stage. Normally, a composer is brought in right at the end of the production process, when everything has been filmed, edited and is ready to go. With Peter, I get involved at the start: he shows me the scripts and we…

Susan Bullock Soprano I’ve spent some months in Paris working on Missy Mazzoli’s opera Breaking the Waves. I’m always struck by the amazing colours that she brings to her music, and the way she combines instruments to create extraordinary soundworlds. Her styling is very eclectic: the way she uses voices, in almost sprechstimme style, evokes mystical or religious chanting. For her latest release, Dark with Excessive Bright, she has reverted to Baroque influences. Once again, she finds unusual combinations that just seem to work, creating incredible atmospheres. Being in Paris switched me back onto lots of beautiful French music. Branford Marsalis’s lovely album Romances for Saxophone with Andrew Litton and the English Chamber Orchestra contains so many of my favourite French pieces – Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Fauré’s Pavane, Debussy’s…

When, in 1904, the German critic Oscar Schmitz described Britain as ‘Das Land ohne Musik’ (The land without music), he was possibly trying to stir. However, he did have a bit of a point – for all the efforts of Parry, Sullivan and co, Britain’s output over the past century or two had been fairly paltry compared to that of his own country. Schmitz’s timing, though, proved deliciously misguided. His fellow German Richard Strauss had already started to sing the praises of Elgar – from whom two symphonies and a Violin Concerto would shortly follow – and within the next decade, Vaughan Williams would write his own first two symphonies plus the groundbreaking Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, while Holst would begin work on The Planets. At the…

Fireworks: Whizzes and bangs aplenty in George Frideric Handel’s celebratory suite of 1749 A lark: The bird that Ralph Vaughan Williams ascended towards worldwide fame in 1914 Hiawatha: The hero gave Samuel Coleridge-Taylor his greatest moment of fame Powder Her Face: The title of Thomas Adès’s scurrilous breakthrough opera in 1995 Royal orb: As familiar to Judith Weir, Master of the King’s Music (see also Walton, 1953) Scallop: Artist Maggi Hambling’s tribute to Benjamin Britten, located on Aldeburgh beach A lutenist: The beneficiary of many of John Dowland’s finest pieces of music A tiger: With words by Blake, one of seven Creatures depicted by Elizabeth Maconchy A penguin: The unlikely subject of a five-minute ballet composed by Herbert Howells Beer: Beloved by Henry Purcell, late-night carouser and master of the…

Music, we’re often told, is an international language. If a composer is viewed as having a distinctly national voice, this can be a strong selling point in other countries; yet it can work the other way, leaving even the sympathetic listener with the sense that performances outside a composer’s own patch can somehow lack a certain authenticity. That seems to have been the fate of a lot of British orchestral music for a large part of the 20th century – but, and this needs to be stressed, not for all of it. Take Edward Elgar for example, for many quintessentially, even problematically, English. Yet at the height of his fame, during the Edwardian era, it was quite different. Having famously flopped at its 1900 Birmingham premiere, Elgar’s The Dream of…

Fifty years on, and following some seismic shifts in the musical landscape, I find that my original Taverner Choir (instigated by Michael Tippett in 1973) has evolved into a very different animal – a chameleon-like body capable of exploring music not only in performance (recorded or otherwise) but also as vivid history, through symposia (lively ones!) and even, most recently, in published form with The Pursuit of Musick. Music-making, of course, remains at the heart of the enterprise. Certain events stand out: the Salzburg Festival (its first invitation to a period-instrument group), various BBC Proms (notably, the extravagant 1589 Florentine Intermedi in 1986), recording EMI’s first historically informed Mass in B minor, and in 2018 taking the St John Passion to Moscow and St Petersburg. ‘Early’ music, a generous slice…

‘The composer as hero is possibly epitomised by those who became deaf,’ writes Jonathan Noble in That Jealous Demon, My Wretched Health: Disease, Death and Composers. Hearing loss can be felt in a variety of ways and through several causes – for example, Smetana’s deafness was due to syphilitic nerve destruction and had a fairly sudden onset. Beethoven’s own deafness was gradual – it is thought that the Fifth Symphony was probably the last work he substantially heard but, as Czerny noted, even as late as 1808 Beethoven corrected mistakes heard in a concert of his Choral Fantasy. Sadly, by 1824, Czerny writes that his mentor was relying on an ear trumpet at the premiere of the ‘Choral’ Symphony. The gradual deterioration that comes later on in life has affected…

Scotland’s national bard was born in a cottage in the village of Alloway, 12 miles from Cumnock, in 1759. Now a museum, it houses many relics of the poet’s life, including the manuscript of ‘Auld lang syne’, just one of the 350 songs Burns either wrote or revived for inclusion in The Scots Musical Museum, a six-volume collection of folk songs and tunes published between 1787 and 1803. Burns was responsible for around a third of the songs for the project, which was influential in bringing Scottish folk music to the attention of classical composers, including Beethoven.…

Pablo Heras-Casado (conductor) Marina Heredia (singer); Mahler Chamber Orch. Harmonia Mundi HMM902271 This 2019 recording was the Mahler Chamber Orchestra’s first of Spanish repertoire, but their exceptionally vibrant performance belies their relative inexperience of the idiom. Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado is a major factor in the success of the interpretation. Spanish himself, and like de Falla an Andalusian, he has this music in his bones and communicates its swirling passions to the orchestra with total conviction. Heras-Casado has a particularly acute ear for woodwind detail. The flute, piccolo and oboe lines lend an appealing edge of sharpness in the brief ‘Introduction’, while the solo clarinet in the gypsy cave has a pleasingly guttural quality, and the oboe fibrillates sensually in the lead-in to the ‘Song of Suffering Love’. The songs bring…

Price Symphony No. 1 in E minor; Ethiopia’s Shadow in America – Andante^; Piano Concerto in One Movement*^ *Jeneba Kanneh-Mason (piano); Chineke! Orchestra/Roderick Cox; ^Leslie Suganandarajah Decca 485 3996 59:07 mins Florence Price, although she enjoyed considerable recognition in her lifetime, was largely forgotten after her death in 1953, her legacy not just neglected but literally abandoned. In 2009, the new owners of what had once been her summer house in St Anne, Illinois, discovered a treasure-trove of her manuscripts in the derelict property, where it had awaited rediscovery for more than half a century. As The New Yorker’s Alex Ross wrote: ‘That run-down house … is a potent symbol of how a country can forget its cultural history.’ Last year, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin recorded Price’s Symphonies…

Beethoven Symphony No. 4 in B flat, Op. 60; Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 National Symphony Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda National Symphony Orchestra NSO 0009 61:03 mins Gianandrea Noseda’s Beethoven 5 doesn’t hang around. No portentous pauses interrupt its dynamic progress, pushing forwards with a thrilling impetuosity that drags the listener along. With his big-boned National Symphony Orchestra of Washington (the booklet lists 26 violins, though I guess not all played in both symphonies), Noseda manages to achieve remarkable clarity. He even approaches Beethoven’s own swift and much-disputed metronome marks in some movements, which is tricky with a modern orchestra of this size and weight. I admire Noseda’s trademark energy and drive, especially in the first bustling Allegro of the Fourth Symphony, but the issue is then how to…

Respighi • Walton Walton: Violin Concerto; Respighi: Violin Sonata Liya Petrova (violin), Adam Laloum (piano); Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Duncan Ward Mirare MIR 670 60:26 mins Liya Petrova’s new recording of Walton’s Violin Concerto grips you from the outset. Her phrasing of the opening material ideally combines singing tone with subtle inflections of pulse and dynamic, the phrasing supple and pleasingly coherent. A sense of mystery is present, as well as unmistakable intimations of yearning. Her virtuosity in the central Presto is spectacular, its super-tricky mix of harmonics, pizzicatos and jittery tarantella rhythms dispatched with bounding athleticism and pinpoint intonation. More importantly, Petrova brings sharply into focus the borderline disturbing emotional instabilities beneath the surface fireworks. The finale’s lyrical episodes highlight Petrova’s probing sense of poetry, and her intelligently modulated use of…

Kerensa Briggs Requiem; Prelude on ‘Pange lingua’; The Windsor Service; Inner Light; Psalm 121 ‘I will lift up mine eyes’ The Choir of King’s College London/Joseph Fort; Richard Gowers (organ) Delphian DCD34298 55:57 mins Kerensa Briggs may only be in her early thirties, but this resplendent first portrait album is fruitful evidence of a long immersion in choral singing. Having grown up around cathedrals thanks to her organist father, Briggs is now enriching the choral repertoire herself. Much of her writing develops from chant, whether Gregorian in the Requiem or Anglican in The Windsor Service. Briggs is consummate in controlling the way the harmony moves out of, then back into focus in the touching Inner Light or pacing the increasing radiance of ‘I will lift up mine eyes’. The Requiem…

Dvořák Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor; Violin Sonatina in G; Slavonic Dances – selection (arr. Kreisler) Hagai Shaham (violin), Raphael Wallfisch (cello), Arnon Erez (piano) Nimbus NI 5952 68:59 mins Both Dvořák’s F minor Piano Trio and Seventh Symphony were intended to display his seriousness as an artist with an eye on sophisticated audiences in Vienna, Berlin and London, and both were extensively revised and refined before reaching their final version. The Trio may lack the intoxicating lyricism of the Symphony, but its concentration and driving impetus, in the right hands, can be both inspiring and rewarding; luckily, the Shaham-Erez-Wallfisch Trio are just that. Their passionate engagement with the work’s stirring rhetoric is evident throughout and the flexibility of their approach avoids the rather effortful stiffness that mars…

Get BBC Science Focus delivered direct to your door for half the price when you subscribe! Every issue is packed with news, details of the latest discoveries and the breakthroughs affecting our future, helping you to stay up-to-speed with the fast-moving world of science. £5.50 £2.75 AN ISSUE* Subscribe today to BBC Science Focus for HALF PRICE! VISIT: BUYSUBSCRIPTIONS.COM/SFHA23 PHONE: 03330 162 113+ (PLEASE QUOTE SFHA23) + UK calls will cost the same as other standard fixed line numbers (starting 01 or 02) and are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff). Outside of free call packages call charges from mobile phones will cost between 3p and 55p per minute. Lines are open Mon to Fri 9am-5pm. If calling from overseas…

• Try your first 3 issues for just £5!* • Continue to pay just £19.99 every 6 issues – saving 33% on the shop price • Free UK delivery direct to your door in our new paper wrapping • Never miss an issue of your ultimate guide to the British countryside! Subscribe online or call us www.buysubscriptions.com/CFH23 03330 162112† Quote code CFH23 †UK calls will cost the same as other standard fixed line numbers (starting 01 or 02) and are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff). Outside of free call packages call charges from mobile phones will cost between 3p and 55p per minute. Lines are open Mon to Fri 8am – 6pm and Sat 9am – 1pm. *3 issues…

Goodbye Russia – Rachmaninoff in Exile Fiona Maddocks Faber 304pp (hb) £25 When Rachmaninov left Russia for good at the end of 1917, he effectively had to reinvent himself in the completely different cultural environment of the West. Financial necessity prompted him to become a travelling virtuoso pianist, giving a staggering number of recitals throughout the US and Europe until his death in 1943. It’s little wonder, then, that he had neither the time, nor perhaps the inclination, to resume compositional activity on the same level as before, only managing to complete six entirely new works within the space of 25 years. Fiona Maddocks provides an extremely insightful and thoroughly readable appraisal of the trials and tribulations that he faced during this problematic period. In attempting to get closer to…

Proms set for TV broadcast during August (exact dates tbc) include Prom 22, featuring Isata Kanneh-Mason performing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto; Prom 24, which sees horn virtuoso Felix Klieser make his Proms debut with Mozart’s sunny Concerto No. 4; and Prom 37, in which an all-Hungarian cast (the Budapest Festival Orchestra, conductor Iván Fischer and pianist András Schiff) give us Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony No. 3. Head to classical-music.com for broadcast updates. This month also sees the return of the National Eisteddfod of Wales (12-18 August), a unique celebration of Welsh culture. This year’s Eisteddfod takes place on the Llŷn Peninsula and features eight days of performance and competition, from literature and music to poetry and the visual arts. Choirs, brass bands, singers, instrumentalists and dancers will…

Edinburgh-born Sir Donald Runnicles is, among other titles, the general music director of Deutsche Oper Berlin and conductor emeritus of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He has a lifelong passion for the music of Wagner and will be conducting Tannhäuser both at the Edinburgh Festival on 25 August with Deutsche Oper Berlin, and then at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in November and December. My earliest musical memories are of singing as a choirboy in my father’s church choir – he was the organist and choirmaster of an Episcopal church in Edinburgh. Church and choral music had a profound effect on me: I loved above all the purity of the Baroque and Renaissance repertoire, the beauty of singing in a choir and the selfless nature of being part of…