Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2023 i BBC Music Magazine

A musician’s life isn’t easy – the pressure of public performance and the twin demons of competition and perfectionism are not for the faint-hearted. Of course, the wonderful trade-off is a life immersed in music and, more so, the opportunity to create and interpret those marvellous sounds for others’ enjoyment. To everyone who encounters organist Anna Lapwood, that joy is apparent – and particularly to her army of fans on Instagram and TikTok, where she has amassed a staggering 545,000 followers and 1.6 million ‘likes’ for her infectiously enthusiastic and personable videos. This is especially impressive when you consider that TikTok is designed to grab the attention of users for just a precious few seconds before guiding them on to the next ‘fix’. But Lapwood is hardly superficial – her…

Tim Anderson Conductor Born: London, UK Career highlights: Conducting a Sciarrino world premiere in Klagenfurt during lockdown; the 30th-anniversary production of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek in London in 2018; and working with the phenomenal and fearless musicians of Klangforum Wien. Musical heroes: Wagner, because there is no other composer in whose music I can so completely lose myself. And Ella Fitzgerald! Dream concert: When I grow up, Tristan und Isolde. Meanwhile, I’m about to conduct two operas from my bucket list: Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face for Semperoper Dresden, and Brett Dean’s Hamlet in one of the world’s most iconic opera houses. Geneva Lewis Violinist Born: Auckland, New Zealand Career highlights: Performing with the Auckland Philharmonia in February. It was my first time home since 2005, and it was incredibly moving…

Deutsche Grammophon recently announced its signing of German conductor Joana Mallwitz. The news comes just ahead of her first season as chief conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, with whom she will be focussing her efforts for the ‘Yellow Label’ – their first recording releases will be Symphonies Nos 1 & 2 by Kurt Weill and Haydn’s The Creation. Also joining the stall of Universal artists is young singer Malakai Bayoh, who wowed the judges (and audiences) as a finalist on the most recent series of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent. A debut album by the 14-year-old chorister, called Golden and just released, features arias and songs by Puccini, Handel, Bernstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber. The roots of Flamenco have occupied First Hand Records of late, with a new…

There’s nothing like Ravel’s Boléro: just two tunes, repeated throughout the orchestra, over and over again. It’s a 15-minute piece ‘without music in it’, as Ravel himself said. There’s no thematic development in Boléro, none of the conventional ways of making and sustaining a piece of orchestral music, even in the experimental decade of the 1920s. In fact, Boléro’s popularity on classical favourites playlists is one of the strangest things about it. It’s made only of obsessive repetitions – one of the orchestra’s two side-drummers has to play the same two-bar rhythm 170 times, turning into an orchestral automaton: the only changes in the piece comes from how Ravel orchestrates the two tunes, the way he structures the piece as a single, gigantic crescendo, and the surprise modulation at its…

Charlotte Smith Editor The Breakers, perhaps the largest and grandest of the stately homes in Newport, Rhode Island, provided the sumptuous backdrop for a beautifully fleet-footed account of JS Bach’s Six Cello Suites by 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition winner Zlatomir Fung in July. One of 27 concerts at this summer’s Newport Classical Music Festival, the performance included a short break to tune down the cello A string to G for the Fifth Suite’s scordatura – the perfect start to my short stay in the venerable city. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor When a local micro-brewery serves a beer called Magazine Cover, it makes sense for a journalist such as myself to be a regular customer. All the more so when, as part of the Cheltenham Music Festival, it hosts a ‘Mixtape’ concert…

From the stirring sounds in the cadenza of the Water Passion to the splish-sploshing heard in the Water Music, liquid-based instruments provide literal splashes of colour to Dun’s timbral palette. Percussionists are used to playing unusual materials – Gregor A Mayrhofer’s Recycling Concerto features strummed plastic bags and poured bottle-tops; Mahler famously employed cowbells. But Evelyn Glennie faced unusual challenges when performing Dun’s atmospheric Water Concerto at the 2004 Proms, wearing a special waterproof outfit to protect both modesty and comfort as she struck a variety of basins and bowls. Large, timpani-sized vessels are sometimes lit from below, with sieves used to create drips and streams, making the water a visual as well as auditory feature of performances (the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance with percussionist David Cossin and Dun…

Although music is hard to beat as a showcase of soft power, diplomacy by orchestra has had few major successes in recent decades. Take, for example, the Iraqi National Orchestra’s 2003 visit to Washington, and the Tehran Symphony Orchestra’s 2018 European tour – or the New York Philharmonic’s now scarcely conceivable trip to North Korea in 2008 (above, conductor Lorin Maazel arrives at Pyongyang Airport). However, the fact the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine has chosen the UK for its first single-country tour since the war began shows that performers may still have a role to play. The difference is that Ukraine already has the UK on side, leaving the orchestra to deepen an existing relationship rather than build an improbable new one. A planned 2024 trip to the US,…

As a leading singer in charge of an opera company, countertenor Michael Chance is a bit of a rarity. A former choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, he began his opera career in Cavalli’s Giasone at Buxton Festival and was soon performing across the world. Though particularly accomplished in Baroque opera, he sings much besides that, and roles written for him include Orpheus in Birtwistle’s The Second Mrs Kong (1994). Chance is also often to be found performing recitals, not least alongside the viol consort Fretwork. He received a CBE in 2009.…

Karel Ančerl (conductor) Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Supraphon SU 36842 Not a name immediately associated with Janáček, Otto Klemperer was largely responsible for promoting the composer outside Czechoslovakia and he conducted the New York and Berlin premieres of the Sinfonietta in 1928. His German Expressionist view of the work with the Concertgebouw Orchestra (1951) is more than just a historic musical document. However, it was the Pro Arte Orchestra’s pioneering recording of 1959 in all-important stereo, the first of the Australian Charles Mackerras’s three accounts, which alerted music-lovers and record companies to Janáček’s genius, and today the catalogue boasts a healthy number of Sinfonietta recordings. Karel Ančerl’s 1961 recording for the Czech Supraphon label was one of the first to enter the lists, setting a standard in terms of performance that…

Recordings and books rated by expert critics Herrmann Wuthering Heights – Suite; Echoes for Strings* (both arr. Hans Sørensen) Keri Fuge (soprano), Roderick Williams (baritone); Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Mario Venzago, *Joshua Tan Chandos CHSA 5337 (CD/SACD) 80:41 mins See the name Bernard Herrmann and most will recall the film scores the American composer (1911-75) wrote for Alfred Hitchcock, that thrillingly inventive music with more than an edge of brooding darkness and chaotic intensity. He was famously hard-nosed, but behind that cantankerous façade was a man with a great passion for romance and a deep love of all things English, especially our great works of literature. Turning Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights into an opera was perhaps a logical step for him in 1943 (he’d just scored Fox’s Jane Eyre), though…

Bruckner Symphony No. 7 Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Lahav Shani Warner Classics 5419761966 63:06 mins On the basis of this impressive live recording, conductor Lahav Shani’s five-year tenure at the helm of the Rotterdam Philharmonic seems to be reaping considerable artistic dividends. The Dutch orchestra may not possess that glorious Central European warmth of string tone you get from hearing either the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonic in this music. Nonetheless, the string playing is both subtle (with some beautifully soft chorale playing in the Finale) and where necessary, suitably fervent. Also praiseworthy is the Rotterdam’s brass section which projects a powerful presence in those awe-inspiring climaxes, and with the entry of the Wagner tubas at the opening of the slow movement, gives us a wonderful depth of sound, beautifully captured in the…

Airat Ichmouratov Piano Concerto; Viola Concerto No. 1 Elvira Misbakhova (viola), Jean-Philippe Sylvestre (piano); London Symphony Orchestra/Airat Ichmouratov Chandos CHSA 5281 (CD/SACD) 75:53 mins A versatile leader, arranger and clarinettist, Airat Ichmouratov brings many talents to his work as a composer. And his background as a Volga-Tatarborn Canadian guarantees a rich cultural mix. Moreover, both the works here have been ‘edited’ by their soloists, who are also their dedicatees, so that mixture thickens even further. The Piano Concerto Op. 40 sat in a drawer for a decade until a soloist was found who could ‘do it justice and add finishing touches’, as the composer puts it. The soundworld of both works is tonal, with Rachmaninov-style moodiness evoked in the opening bars of the Piano Concerto, before pianist Jean-Philippe Sylvestre and…

Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera Commissioned by Naples’s Teatro San Carlo in 1857, it wasn’t until 1859 that Verdi’s opera finally received its premiere, albeit in Rome. Based on the 1792 assassination of Sweden’s King Gustav III, Verdi and librettist Antonio Somma bumped heads with local censors who felt it didn’t chime well with rising Nationalist leanings and demanded many changes. Taking the opera elsewhere helped, though changes persisted – a Count instead of a King, the US instead of Sweden. Later productions restored the Swedish regicide, under the title Gustavo III.…

Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G minor Though it was premiered in a concert by the City of Birmingham Choir in December 1922, Vaughan Williams’s Mass was written for a liturgical setting. Composed for double choir and four soloists, the piece was commissioned by Richard Runciman Terry, the first music director of Westminster Cathedral – Terry’s interest in Byrd, Tallis, Palestrina and other 16th-century composers inspired him to seek out new works in that vein. Dedicated to Holst (and Thaxted’s Whitsuntide Singers),it quickly became a firm fixture in the liturgical repertoire.…

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September round-up There’s nothing like a new Ceramic Dog album to sweep away one’s predilection for contrived links (unless I’ve just contrived one anyway), so maybe that’s an indicator that this month’s selection of delightfully disparate releases should simply be allowed to stand by and for themselves. Zoe Rahman’s recent album Colour of Sound does this at so many levels. Quite apart from reminding us of her skills as a fluent and imaginative pianist, this set foregrounds her remarkable talents as a composer and arranger. The octet can be an awkward beast, too small to be a sectional big band and too large to allow the traditional task allocations of the mainstream small group, but Rahman nudges everything into place with panache on this mixture of stylish, life-affirming originals featuring…

SEPTEMBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see BBC Sounds and iPlayer 1 FRIDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Essential Classics 12-1pm Composer of the Week: Icons of British Light Music 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-4.30pm Afternoon Concert Prom 42 (rpt). Seong-Jin Cho (piano), Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali 4.30-5pm The Listening Service 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm Radio 3 In Concert live from Royal Albert Hall. Prom 61. Aaron Azunda Akugbo (tpt), Chineke!/Anthony Parnther 10-10.45pm The Verb 10.45-11pm The Essay (rpt) 11pm-1am Late Junction 2 SATURDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9-11.45am Record Review 11.45am-12.30pm New Generation Artists 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 6.30-7.30pm Programme tbc CHOICE 7.30-10pm Radio 3 In Concert live from Royal Albert Hall.…

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 389/September 2023, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 5 Sept 2023 (solution in Dec 2023 issue). ACROSS 1 Party attended by brother with steel guitar (5) 4 Modern style not in Chopin Op ten, possibly (9) 9 Tuning note’s lower in two pieces? (7) 10/11 1973 premiere, title claiming thus in translation (1,6,5,5) 12 The sound of German composer’s early music instrument (4) 14 Place for kids to perform with band (9) 16 Later presentation missing a fugal subject (5) 18 Problem work recalled by series…

Nicholas Kenyon Former controller, Radio 3 ‘In the history of the early music movement, which I’m researching, a vital year is 1973 when Christopher Hogwood assembled his Academy of Ancient Music for the first time: the beginning of five decades of adventure!’ Page 36 Clare Stevens Writer, editor, publicist ‘After a few days researching UK composer courses, I felt the topic deserved a thesis rather than a magazine article! It was inspiring to discover that there are so many different pathways to success for young composers.’ Page 46 George Hall Music journalist ‘Haydn’s operas come round rarely in the theatre today. But if you are lucky enough to encounter them, there are some real gems to be discovered – as I confirmed by listening to some fine representative examples on…

30,000 …euros now residing in the bank account of Italian conductor Giuseppe Mengoli (pictured above), winner of this year’s Mahler Competition in Bamberg. 5 …happy historically informed instrumentalists, as Ensemble Augelletti is named as Radio 3’s New Generation Baroque Ensemble for 2023-25. 10 …feet of bear (not a real one) for sale, when English National Opera recently held a sale of old costumes and props. 10 …years of regular appearances at Wigmore Hall by jazz bassist Christian McBride, recognised with the award of the Wigmore Medal in July.…

Making a not entirely unexpected appearance at the First Night of the Proms were Just Stop Oil, two of whose protestors unfurled a large orange banner before being guided off stage to a mixture of boos and applause. Sibelius’s Snöfrid duly began, and the brief incident became the latest in a history of raised voices disrupting the otherwise smooth course of the Proms… The protest to have the greatest impact on the Proms came in 1980, when proposed cuts to BBC orchestras led to a strike organised by the Musicians Union – in all, 20 concerts were lost. No-one is exactly sure why, in August 1998, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group’s Late Night Prom was briefly halted by the sound of rape alarms plus leaflets floating down from the Albert…

It’s a typically trivial journalist’s question, but which are Anna Lapwood’s favourite organs? ‘The one I’ve recorded the album on, at the Royal Hospital School in Suffolk, is incredible,’ she replies. ‘It’s a Hill, Norman and Beard instrument. The combination of its sheer volume, its 32ft reed stop and the acoustics of the building make it unlike any other instrument I’ve ever heard or played. ‘But I guess my favourite at the moment would have to be the Royal Albert Hall organ. That’s the instrument for which I wrote most of my transcriptions. It’s not just the huge spectrum of colours it has, including of course the carillon, the bass drum and a set of tubular bells. It’s also the character of the building it’s in. Organists often say that…

I had sung Ethel Smyth’s Mass at the Proms a few years ago, so I was overjoyed to have a look at the score of Der Wald (The Forest), which I didn’t know before the recording. It can come over as quite foursquare in the piano score, but the grandeur of the orchestra changes the world we’re in. It’s a really interesting balance between the intimate and the epic. Most of the scenes are between two characters yet there’s this huge orchestra. I don’t think it’s Wagnerian in sound, but, like Tristan und Isolde, intimate, loving things are said between two people on a very big scale. If it’s like anything, it might be Strauss, but there’s a more homely purity to it than that. Smyth’s style has a lyrical…

When we think of Haydn, what comes to mind? Maybe the two late, great oratorios: The Creation and The Seasons. Or his vast number of symphonies, or his string quartets, or the masses. Not, perhaps, the baryton trios (of which there are more than 125); nor, for that matter, the operas, though again there are plenty. To a degree Haydn’s operas – and those by a host of his late-18th-century contemporaries, successful in their day but obscure in ours – have been sidelined due to our understandable fascination with Mozart’s and, to a lesser degree, our admiration of Gluck’s. Many composers of the Classical period specialised in opera. Though in his enormous and comprehensive output, Haydn could be said – paradoxically – to have specialised in everything, he would have…

The work In 1904, the 50-year-old Leoš Janáček enjoyed his first triumph on home ground with Jenůfa, a tragic opera of rustic life, the musical score of which closely followed the speech-rhythms of his native Moravia. This set the pattern for almost everything that followed. It was premiered to great acclaim in Janáček’s native city of Brno, but because of his longstanding dispute with Karel Kovařovic, director of Prague’s opera house, Jenůfa wasn’t heard in the capital until 1916. Productions in Vienna and Cologne, albeit in a bastardised German translation, took place in 1918, the year which saw the birth of Czechoslovakia and Janáček’s belated appearance on the international stage. The Sinfonietta is a celebration of everything Czech and, in some way, also a self-portrait His late great works were…

Rafael Kubelík (conductor) Rafael Kubelík’s studio recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon is superb in all respects, but this live Orfeo account from 1981, very well recorded in Munich’s Herkulessaal, has an extra injection of adrenalin and risk which tips the balance in its favour. The opening brass and timpani fanfares raise the highest expectations which are triumphantly met, woodwind solos are delicious and the string and brass playing is simply phenomenal. What’s more, it is coupled with a fabulous performance of Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony. (Orfeo C 552011) Charles Mackerras (conductor) His third and best, this Charles Mackerras 2002 live recording rates above his famous 1981 Decca version, mostly because of its sound quality. Whereas Decca made strong claims for the superiority of digital over analogue,…

I think writing a review is as much about sharing passion as it is offering a definitive critique. That’s why I make no apologies for indulging myself in this issue’s Recording of the Month. Bernard Herrmann is a legend of the silver screen, but as chief conductor of the CBS Symphony he opened up the ears of American radio audiences to all kinds of composers, from fellow-American Ives to Brits like Finzi, Delius and Vaughan Williams. He was so much more than a film composer, and it’s heartening that Chandos has shone some light on his only opera (see opposite). Continuing the American theme, we also have new music from Kenneth Fuchs and Christopher Cerrone, plus double helpings of Philip Glass and Caroline Shaw. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas…

Vaughan Williams Job – A Masque for Dancing; Old King Cole; The Running Set Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Manze Onyx ONYX 4240 75:32 mins Vaughan Williams’s ‘masque for dancing’, Job, though rarely seen on a theatre stage, has been fortunate on record, with excellent recordings by Adrian Boult, Vernon Handley, Andrew Davis and Mark Elder to choose from. Following his highly successful cycle of VW symphonies with the RLPO, Andrew Manze now adds another. Trepidation stalks Manze’s Job from the outset, the ostensibly pastoral opening shaded by an undertow of dark foreboding. The RLPO’s playing bristles with malevolent intent in ‘Satan’s Dance of Triumph’, and the ‘great wind’ which strikes Job’s sons dead in Scene 3 is spearheaded by implacably weighty contributions from the brass section. There’s more impressively articulate…

Christopher Cerrone In a Grove Lindsay Kesselman, Chunyuan Liu, Andrew Turner, John Taylor Ward; Metropolis Ensemble In a Circle ICR028 50:30 mins Of the many adaptations inspired by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s crime-mystery tale In a Grove, the most celebrated is Rashōmon, Kurosawa’s searching 1950 film about the nature of truth and justice. Shifting the location to an eerie, post-wildfire Oregon forest, composer Christopher Cerrone and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann set the story in 1921 – around the time it was first published – and focus no less piercingly on its liminal qualities. Described as ‘an opera in seven testimonies’, the fallibility of human perception is rendered in a taut, mesmeric soundworld featuring a strikingly expressive use of electronics. Eight characters are assigned to four excellent singers who, combined with a subtle-hued Metropolis…

Hensel Lieder Jennifer Parker, Stephanie Wake-Edwards (mezzo-soprano), Tim Parker-Langston (tenor), Jâms Coleman, Genevieve Ellis, Ewan Gilford (piano) First Hand Records FHR148 82:25 mins This recording is a labour of love and scholarship for tenor Tim Parker-Langston (full disclosure – I contributed to the crowd-funder). He spearheaded the project, co-produced the album, sang many of the songs and created the beautiful album artwork. The other contributors are similarly impressive individuals, with achievements both within and alongside song performance. Whether such a valuable document of Lieder by such a gifted musician should still require such vast effort to be funded, is moot. I am grateful for it, especially for the premiere recordings. By the fourth song ‘Der Abendstern’, Hensel’s distinctive style emerges, especially with Ewan Gilford’s sensitive accompaniment. The Hölty settings at…

Bacewicz • J Mendelson Bacewicz: String Quartet; Quatuor (à cordes); J Mendelson: String Quartet No. 1; Oboe Quintet* Karolina Stalmachowska (oboe); Silesian Quartet; *Piotr Sałajczyk (piano) Chandos CHAN 20181 56:00 mins One of Poland’s greatest 20th-century composers, Grażyna Bacewicz, is paired here with one of its many forgotten ones, Joachim (sometimes known as Leon) Mendelson. Both were active in 1930s Warsaw’s musical life, and both spent time studying in Paris at the beginning of that decade. Bacewicz (1909-69) survived the war and composed prolifically; one generation older, Mendelson (1892-1943) was murdered by the Gestapo in the Warsaw Ghetto. Just five of his works survived at the Parisian publishing house of Max Eschig, including the two heard on this new release. Mendelson’s First String Quartet was published in 1938 and is…

JS Bach Partita No. 3 in A minor, BWV 827; French Suites: No. 2 in C minor, BWV 813; No. 3 in B minor, BWV 814; No. 5 in G, BWV 816 Christian Zacharias (piano) MDG 90322806 (CD/SACD) 60:48 mins Composed in the early 1720s when Bach was writing mostly instrumental music, these four keyboard suites are outwardly conventional, but replete with a complex range of mood and manner. Pianist Christian Zacharias is clearly alive to their wealth of nuance and technical intricacy. The A minor Partita provides the greatest challenges in figuration and ornamentation. Zacharias’s way with the work is unfussy: he neither attempts to emulate the harpsichord, though he uses judicious punctuation with some carefully-placed spread chords; nor does he allow modern piano sonority to take over. His…

Manchester Beethoven Studies Ed. Barry Cooper and Matthew Pilcher Manchester University Press 368pp (hb) £90 Academe grinds slow but fine: the essays in this book arose from a three-day symposium 11 years ago, and although its readership will be limited to scholars, it does touch on matters of wider – and even regional – interest. Beethoven never visited Britain, but his interest in Scotland, stimulated by his correspondence with George Thomson and his reading of Walter Scott’s novels, is here nicely delineated by editor Barry Cooper. Essays cover Beethoven’s religious beliefs and his expression marks, and three dwell on the composer’s work in Bonn, focusing on his relationship to his teacher Christian Gottlob Neefe, on his works for wind instruments and on his sets of variations. But one theme which…

September round-up Jascha Heifetz’s 1947 Carnegie Hall performance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto, shortly after he’d given its premiere, has greater urgency than his later studio recording, especially in the luscious slow movement. From the same concert comes Mozart’s ‘Turkish’ Concerto, where his constant use of vibrato now sounds dated, and the finale rushed rather than poised. On the other hand, taking the first moment of the Beethoven at a decent Allegro does it the world of good, and this 1959 performance holds its own with his studio versions. Sound is generally acceptable, but execrable in bootleg audience recordings of Conus’s Concerto, and the Brahms Double with Piatigorsky. (Rhine Classics RH 025) ★★★ Also sonically challenged, but historically fascinating, are two off-air recordings of Rachmaninov from 1937. The energetic first British…

Monteverdi Choir Royal Albert Hall, London, 3 September Web: bbc.co.uk/proms Writ large across five imposing acts, Berlioz’s operatic masterpiece Les Troyens is as epic as its literary source: Virgil’s Aeneid. John Eliot Gardiner conducts a concert performance uniting his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique plus a formidable cast including Paula Murrihy as the ill-fated Dido and Michael Spyres as Aeneas. Heath Quartet and Steven Osborne Concert Hall, Perth, 3 September Web: bbc.co.uk/proms The BBC Proms’ final chamber music ‘away-day’ culminates in Shostakovich’s wartime Piano Quintet, which brings together the Heath Quartet and pianist Steven Osborne. In the first half, they pursue separate paths, with Haydn’s early String Quartet Op. 9 No. 2 prefacing Tippett’s Piano Sonata No. 2. Welsh National Opera Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, from 9 September…

Know your Rites I’m excited to welcome back the Aurora Orchestra for two Proms performances of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Aurora will deliver a world premiere: a very first performance from memory, preceded by a newly created dramatic and musical introduction. Radio 3 In Concert, Prom 63, 2 Sept, 7.30pm About Last Night We’re thrilled to have Marin Alsop back to conduct her third Last Night of the Proms. The repertoire includes Strauss’s Don Juan and Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, with performers including soprano Lise Davidsen, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the BBC Singers. Radio 3 In Concert, Prom 71, 9 Sept, 7pm Hey Dude Our broadcast from the Edinburgh International Festival features Gustavo Dudamel and his fellow Venezuelans, the Simón Bolívar Orchestra. They begin with a pair of pieces evoking…

1. ‘The garden is mourning’ is the opening line of ‘September’ by which composer, who himself died on 8 September 1949, the year after it was written? 2. A particularly famous recording of ‘September’ was made by the soprano pictured above, who was born on 15 September 1945. Who is she? 3. Which composer was born at Pittville Terrace, Cheltenham on 21 September 1874? 4. What appeared at the BBC Proms for the first time ever on 12 September 1947? 5. ‘September Song’ is a famous number from Knickerbocker Holiday, a 1938 musical by which composer? 6. Set in four different locations ranging from the Indian Ocean to Peru, Les Indes galantes is an opera premiered in 1735 and composed by whom? 7. ‘Lodron’, ‘Lützow’ and ‘Jeunehomme’ are the popular…

Alar Karis trained as a molecular geneticist and developmental biologist, and after a distinguished academic career became director of the Estonian National Museum. In October 2021 he was elected as the sixth president of Estonia. Travelling for work, he listens to classical music and subscribes to BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone for recommendations. My parents encouraged me to play piano and violin, and my mother especially was keen to take me to musical events, including the opera. I was about five when I was taken to Verdi’s Rigoletto, and the old ladies behind me said, ‘Why do the parents bring this young boy to the opera? He doesn’t understand a thing.’ They were probably right, but I did cry at the end and I remember trying to copy the arias…

Tuneless Britten Benjamin Britten is the greatest British composer of all time and Delius does not even make the top 25 (August)? Sir Thomas Beecham must be turning in his grave! I very much doubt if most concert-goers would agree with the views of the professional musicians. In its 2013/2014 season, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra played numerous works by Britten to mark his centenary, and many concertgoers voted with their feet and stayed away. The reason for the dislike for many of Britten’s works can be found in the view of Rachmaninov in your April issue: ‘Melody is the supreme ruler in the world of music.’ Too many of Britten’s compositions are devoid of melody. Brian Axcell, Warrington Frederick snubbed I’m astounded that no one selected Delius for a…

Stormy Schubert A recent concert at Sheffield Cathedral was brought to a premature end by a typically furious bout of Yorkshire weather. The performance by Sheffield Music Hub’s senior orchestra was accompanied first by the ambient sounds of thunder and then by an unexpected water feature, as rain poured in through the roof before flooding through the main door. The piece being played at the time? Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony… Blazing fiddles Similar weather also made its mark in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. While Johnny Murphy, owner of Braid River Violins, was looking after a couple of customers, their conversation was interrupted by a very unmusical bang, with the shop’s lights being set on fire and sockets bursting from the walls. ‘With so much timber in the building, it would be a…

1st: The National Theatre is inaugurated in Oslo. After an opening ceremony featuring music by Grieg and works by Ludvig Holberg, the next two days feature Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s Sigurd Jorsalfar as the first major plays to be staged at the venue. 6th: Having previously enjoyed victory in the 2,000 Guineas and Epsom Derby, Flying Fox wins the St Leger Stakes at Doncaster, thus securing the Triple Crown. Owned by Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, who dies three months later, the three-year-old colt is notoriously difficult to handle and at the end of the season is retired and sold to a stud farm. 13th: Three months after the world premiere in London, Elgar conducts the revised version of his Enigma Variations at…

György Kurtág is the most important guide in my musical life – he is my musical father, as Bartók is my mother tongue. I had the good fortune as a violin soloist and chamber musician to learn from Kurtág from the age of 14. I don’t think we can approach Kurtág’s music purely from the perspective of contemporary music. Rather, it was through his music that I was drawn closer to the old masters. In class, he led me through all the violin concertos that I was playing at the time. Perhaps the greatest life lesson I learned from him was that, when I was no longer able to tolerate bending this way and that, twisting and turning but not being able to attain my desires, he suddenly said: ‘Stop,…

Rakhi Singh Violinist and composer There are so many different recordings of Vivaldi’s concertos, and whether I like something or not can vary depending on the interpretation. Sometimes, he is performed in quite a Romantic way, but I tend to lean towards performances where there’s a real focus on the rhythm. And for that reason, I’ve been really enjoying the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin’s recording of the Concerto Grosso in G minor RV 156 – their playing here has so much energy and groove to it. We are surrounded by birds all the time and usually hardly notice them, but if you do take time to listen to them, it’s very special. Each movement in Cassandra Miller’s Warblework is influenced by birdsong, and I particularly like the opening movement, ‘Swainson’s…

As I was interviewing the organist Anna Lapwood for this issue (p26), a memory flashed through my brain. It was of a conversation many years ago with a wise old public relations man who was explaining to me his ‘concentric rings’ approach to marketing music. ‘Say you are selling your next album,’ he said, ‘you know it’s going to be bought by your family, friends and diehard fans. That’s the first ring, and it doesn’t need any marketing effort. You would also hope that you could market the album fairly easily to connoisseurs of the style of music you are performing. That’s the second ring. ‘The third ring comprises general music fans. They take more persuasion, because there are many new albums competing for their money. But the real prize…

‘When I see a rainy day, I think that nature is crying. A tide is nature breathing’ The contrast between the two voices – one gravelly and earth-bound, the other high and gurgling – was extreme. The colours were further enhanced by the range of instruments on the Royal Festival Hall stage; the London Philharmonic Orchestra – with alto flute, celeste and no fewer than four percussionists – supplemented by a xiqin, a traditional Chinese three-stringed bowed instrument played vertically like the cello. The player was Batubagen, a musician from the Inner Mongolian area of Bairin Right Banner. He was one of several special guests that composer – and tonight’s conductor – Tan Dun had invited to give the UK premiere of Buddha Passion, the 2018 work co-commissioned by the…

For the choristers of New College, Oxford, in the mid-1980s, recording a new disc was considered hardly a big deal. When it came to Handel’s oratorio Athalia with the AAM, though, the reaction was a little different. Singing the part of Joas, we were told, was Aled Jones, superstar choirboy who had recently been in the charts with ‘Walking in the Air’ – would he come and say hello, we wondered, or even join us for a lunchtime kickabout? In fact, he did neither (our schedules didn’t overlap) though soprano Emma Kirkby (Josabeth), countertenor James Bowman (Joad) and Christopher Hogwood himself came to chat to us between takes. The casting of the evil Athalia herself, meanwhile, was what really got those in the know talking. Though no slouch in Handel,…

Opera seria Italian opera seria was regarded as the most important theatrical genre of the day, but perhaps due to the taste of his Esterházy employer, Haydn had relatively few opportunities to tackle it. The largely lost Acide e Galatea (1762) was followed by his final Eszterháza opera Armida (1783; costume design below) and, lastly, L’anima del filosofo, composed for London in 1791. Opera buffa Across Europe, a lighter and more popular form than opera seria was opera buffa, which explores humorous plots with a wider social mix of characters. Haydn turned to texts by the influential playwright/librettist Carlo Goldoni for three examples, including Il mondo della luna (1777), today one of his most frequently staged operas, in which an amateur astronomer is fooled into believing that he has travelled…

Born in 1854 in Hukvaldy (near Ostrava), Janáček was a late developer as a composer, and his earlier adult years were spent as an organist and teacher, as well as devoting himself to the study of Moravian folk music. Though he travelled to both Leipzig and Vienna to study, he returned home from both having achieved little. It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that his compositions started to win acclaim. But even then, his progress was hindered by a scathing review he had written back in 1887 about the opera The Bridegrooms by Karel Kovařovic, who still held a grudge (see right)… 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.…

Were you aware of the opera before you took this role on? No, it was all so new to me, but it’s just so luscious. It’s so densely orchestrated and the sound in the hall when I first heard the orchestra play some of the interludes was just so amazing. You can hear the moors as well, the way he has written it; it’s incredibly cinematic – which isn’t surprising given who he was – and you can hear that somehow. I sing a lot of Baroque repertoire, so it was nice to delve into something meatier. It’s a style of music that people can be a little bit snooty about, and we aren’t used to singing any more, but it’s really lovely. And what about your Heathcliff? It was…

JS Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050; Harpsichord Concertos BWV 1053 & 1056; Concerto for Harpsichord & Two Recorders, BWV 1057 The Hanover Band/Andrew Arthur (harpsichord) Signum Classics SIGCD764 68:34 mins This recording completes The Hanover Band’s survey of Bach’s concertos for solo harpsichord with ensemble. Additionally, this second volume includes the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto whose concertino writing for harpsichord and sparkling first movement solo makes its presence apposite in the present company. Andrew Arthur enlivens Bach’s scores with clearly articulated solo playing and conversational dialogue with the instrumental group. This is especially important in the Brandenburg where the keyboard shares the limelight with traverso flute and violin. Rachel Brown and Theresa Caudle respectively contribute to a well-balanced texture which is especially rewarding in the essentially trio…

Verdi Un ballo in maschera Freddie De Tommaso, Saioa Hernández, Lester Lynch, Annika Gerhards, Elisabeth Kulman; Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden; Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo/Marek Janowski Pentatone PTC 5187 048 (CD/SACD) 131:05 mins (2 discs) The British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso is the star attraction on this new recording of Verdi’s tale of amorous intrigue. Tommaso made headlines when he was asked to step in mid-performance as Cavaradossi at Covent Garden a couple of years ago, becoming the youngest tenor and the first British singer to sing the role there in 60 years. Two solo recital albums later, this marks a first step in recording complete works. Happily, De Tommaso turns out to be the real deal, singing with a confidence and ease that seem astonishing for a singer who was only…

MacMillan • Tavener • Vaughan Williams James MacMillan: Mass of St Edward the Confessor etc; Tavener: Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (Collegium Regale) etc; Vaughan Williams: Mass in G minor etc The Choir of Westminster Abbey/James O’Donnell Hyperion CDA68420 69:15 mins James O’Donnell left Westminster Abbey after 20 years as director of music to take a position at Yale. This, apparently his last recording at the Abbey, sustains the remarkably high standards he and his choir consistently achieved during his tenure. A special sense of intimate devotion suffuses the opening Kyrie of Vaughan Williams’s Mass, the singing restrained but immaculately controlled technically, the four voice-parts interleaving sensitively with one another. Where some choirs go hell-for-leather in the expanded eight-part writing of the Gloria, O’Donnell is expressively more nuanced, allowing his excellent…

Jazz Akhunov: Jazz; Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps – Louange à l’Éternité de Jesus; Poulenc: Violin Sonata Julia Igonina (violin), Maxim Emelyanychev (piano) Aparté AP 329 63:11 mins This is not jazz. The album’s title comes from Sergey Akhunov’s cycle Jazz, commissioned by violinist Julia Igonina and pianist Maxim Emelyanychev. Akhunov’s prompt was Henri Matisse’s book of the same name, featuring cut-out paper collages. Akhunov thought it would be interesting to likewise ‘compose music that has nothing to do with jazz, and to call it “Jazz”’. Rather than depicting the pictures themselves, the 15 pieces take Matisse’s titles as starting points, any kinship coming from an ability to create compelling miniatures from deceptively simple means. There is a general mood of mildly melancholic reflection, notably in the stillness…

Ysaÿe Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27 Hilary Hahn (violin) DG 486 4176 61:56 mins Hilary Hahn’s teacher at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute was Jascha Brodsky, himself a pupil of Eugène Ysaÿe. As she tells us in her engaging booklet note, she had not heard Ysaÿe’s own recordings for many years, and when she did, between sessions of recording these Sonatas, she found that aspects of her playing nonetheless resembled his: ‘It felt like rummaging around in your grandparents’ attic, opening a box of family photos, and seeing your own face gazing at you from the image of an ancestor.’ Inadvertently, her remark also gives an idea of the level her interpretations reach here. Ysaÿe’s Six Solo Sonatas are a technical pinnacle of the violin repertoire, yet their dazzling range…

JS Bach Cello Suite No. 1 Luis Cabrera (double bass) Luis Cabrera (digital release) Historically-informed recordings of Bach are a dime a dozen – but the Cello Suites on double bass, with a Baroque bow to boot, are far rarer. Cabrera produces a sensitive and graceful performance which brings an earthy quality to this well-known masterwork. (CS) ★★★★ Beethoven Moonlight, Tempest and Waldstein Sonatas Julian Jacobson (piano) Willowhayne Records WHR087 A nicely presented programme, from moonlit night to the first rays of dawn with a storm in between. The ‘Moonlight’ Sonata’s finale is not as hair-raising as some might like, and the ‘Waldstein’’s sunrise is oddly belligerent – why so aggressive? – but there’s much to enjoy here too. (JP) ★★★ Coates Orchestral Works, Vol. 3 BBC Philharmonic/John Wilson Chandos…

Mozart’s Requiem Opera North and Phoenix Dance Theatre partner with South African companies Jazzart Dance Theatre and Cape Town Opera to present a staged reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem – the composer’s final, unfinished composition. Capturing the live theatrical performance from June 2023, the film showcases the production’s raw emotive power, combining Mozart’s thrilling choral masterpiece with the intense physicality of two leading contemporary dance ensembles. Conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic, it uses Mozart’s music to honour those who have been lost, and to examine what life means for those left behind. Led by choreographer Dane Hurst, conductor Garry Walker, set and costume designer Joanna Parker and lighting designer Peter Mumford, the production is performed by nine dancers, joined by the full orchestra and 36 singers of the Chorus of Opera…