Innholdsfortegnelse for October 3023 i BBC Music Magazine

Sharing and innovation. These two themes form a connective thread that runs throughout our October issue – from our cover star, guitarist Sean Shibe, whose adventurous spirit finds expression through boundary-pushing collaborations that make the case for his often sidelined instrument, to pianist Kit Armstrong, whose artists’ colony in Northern France and research into AI have defied early expectations for the former musical and mathematical child prodigy. Then there’s the English Concert’s Handel for All project, which under the auspices of music director Harry Bicket is well on the way to achieving its goal of recording and making available every one of Handel’s works for free online. And Clemency Burton-Hill’s Year of Wonder series, the inspiration for a new book club launched by the Boise Philharmonic, which is doing much…

Durham University has renamed its Assembly Rooms Theatre in honour of its former chancellor. From now on, the Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theatre will pay homage to a man who, as well as serving in his university post from 2012‑22, is probably known better by many readers as one of the world’s great opera singers. The baritone (left) is not the first great musician to have his or her name enshrined in a university building… Since 2012, concert-goers in the Midlands have been able to head to Birmingham University, where the 419-seat Elgar Concert Hall (also known as The Bramall) celebrates the composer who was at the heart of the city’s musical life for many years. And the person who made probably the most famous recording of Elgar’s Cello…

RECORDING OF THE MONTH POSTCARDS FROM ITALY ITALIAN MUSIC FOR FILM Marco Albonetti | Roma Sinfonietta | Paolo Silvestri For his third album for Chandos, the saxophonist Marco Albonetti turns to the rich tradition of film music from his native Italy. The masterpieces composed by two Italian film composers in particular, Nino Rota and Ennio Morricone, embody the cultural identity of most Italians and they have become recognised and loved by audiences around the world. CHAN 20291 CHAN 20165 WEINBERG DAWN • SYMPHONY NO. 12 BBC Philharmonic | John Storgårds On the first album in a new series of recordings of Weinberg symphonies, the BBC Philharmonic and John Storgårds couple the Twelfth Symphony with the symphonic poem Dawn (Zarya), Op. 60. CHAN 20246 MOZART PIANO CONCERTOS, VOL. 8 Jean-Effam Bavouzet…

‘I always find it funny when labels come out with a new guitarist and say they’re the inheritor of the legacy of Bream or Segovia,’ says Sean Shibe, ‘regardless of whether or not the guitarist wants to be riding on their coat tails, but posing them in this way for the market. Legacies are not really inherited, they’re made. I always found Bream’s work really inspirational in many ways, but I never felt like I was part of his legacy; I was just a fan of what he did.’ Part of it or not, Bream’s story certainly chimes with Shibe’s. The English guitarist (1933-2020) persevered with the instrument when all around him said he shouldn’t – even the Royal College of Music asked him to leave it at home when…

‘He lives in a world he has created for himself, a world where culture engenders worth and beauty,’ reflects Kit Armstrong about his teacher, pianist Alfred Brendel. ‘I am a scientist by training, growing up in the Californian outdoors, and to be able to also spend time in his world has been incredibly enriching. ‘What specific lessons did I draw from him? Watching us together, one might notice at first a wealth of small things: to accent the note before the climax of a phrase; or playing a legato melody as detached notes with the pedal depressed, which helps him realise his ideal of a touch that simultaneously sings and speaks. ‘These aren’t the most important things, but they are examples. In an analogy to cooking, you could say that…

Sally Beamish’s Opus California (1999) was inspired by the state’s beaches, boardwalks and bridges, while Esa-Pekka Salonen’s LA Variations (1996) is a splashy salute to the ‘virtuosity and power’ of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and John Adams’s Hallelujah Junction (1996) is named after a truck stop near the California-Nevada border. Adams has portrayed his adopted home state in other pieces including The Dharma at Big Sur, a jazzy electric violin concerto composed for the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Girls of the Golden West, an opera that upends the romantic myths surrounding the California gold rush. California’s colonial past has inspired at least two works: Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’s D’Colonial Californiano (2021) and Lou Harrison’s Pacifika Rondo (1963), which includes a movement titled ‘In Sequoia’s Shade’. Finally, California’s flora…

Do you have new insights into the Fifth since you last recorded it? It was the first symphony I conducted when I was young, and every time I open the score there’s something new to discover. I think it’s a lifetime process; if I have the chance to live in 20 years it might change again. I am extremely detail oriented; I want to find out the secrets and the mysteries in every piece. Why did you choose to arrange the Schulhoff Five Pieces? I heard it in a concert by the Clarion Quartet and I was blown away. I immediately felt that this is a piece that Schulhoff might have loved to hear in an orchestral version. There are wonderful colours in it, but it’s also full of surprises,…

Glazunov • Saint-Saëns Glazunov: Violin Concerto in A minor; Saint-Saëns: Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor Rudolf Koelman (violin); Sinfonietta Schaffhausen/Paul K Haug Challenge Classics CC72951 45:53 mins There’s no doubting the pedigree of Rudolf Koelman’s latest album. The sometime leader of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra learned the Glazunov with his teacher Jascha Heifetz, who in turn studied the piece with Leopold Auer, the concerto’s dedicatee charged with its 1905 premiere. As a teenager Heifetz performed it with the composer and twice recorded it, but Koelman pays double homage to his teacher by coupling it with the Saint-Saëns Concerto No. 3, a work Heifetz reportedly regretted never having recorded. As if with nothing to lose by way of comparison, uninhibited, it’s ironically the Saint-Saëns that comes off best. Sleeves…

Puccini Il Trittico Asmik Grigorian (soprano) et al; Wiener Staatsopernchor, Vienna Philharmonic/Franz Welser-Möst; dir. Christof Loy (Salzburg, 2022) Unitel DVD: 808908; Blu-ray: 809004 181 mins I’d not had an opportunity to watch Asmik Grigorian before, but in the space of three short hours she had jumped effortlessly to the top of my list of favourite singer actresses. Though not every aspect of this production is perfect, a performance like Grigorian’s here cannot conceivably be given less than five stars, for she is a sensation – each heroine entirely distinctive, every expression psychologically nuanced, her singing matched only by the unbridled playing of the Vienna Philharmonic. Director Christof Loy gives us three operas of spartan simplicity, all updated to periods from the 1940s (Il tabarro) to the near-present. Grigorian’s emotional collapse…

Chaminade • Poulenc • R Schumann Poulenc: Cello Sonata*; R Schumann: Papillons; Violin Sonata No. 1 in A minor†; Chaminade: Piano Trio No. 1*† Martina Consonni (piano), †Sarah Jégou-Sageman (violin), *Jeein You (cello) Erato 5419764269 70:09 mins Gautier Capuçon’s foundation for emerging young musicians is an admirable initiative which includes the opportunity to record an album; this instalment presents three graduates of the 2022 programme. Bringing them together is Chaminade’s Piano Trio No. 1, a substantial and dramatic work in the Brahmsian mode which shows off their virtuosity to the full, and shows what Chaminade might have achieved in larger forms had she not been diverted into (albeit highly successful) miniatures. Here it’s the leaping arpeggios of the first movement and the brightly dancing scherzo that give the work its…

JS Bach Partitas & Sonatas, BWV 1001-1006 Bojan Čičić (Baroque violin) Delphian DCD34300 146:01 mins (2 discs) In 1754 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach first documented the importance of his father’s Partitas and Sonatas to those intent on mastery of violin. Composed in 1720, these works are now synonymous with artistic and technical virtuosity. After Sergiu Luca’s pioneering 1977 recording major figures in historical performance followed suit, including Kuijken, Schröder, Huggett, van Dael, Wallfisch, Podger, Holloway, Beznosiuk, Ibragimova and Biondi. Bojan Čičić rightly joins such distinguished company, and his interpretations are both visceral and thoughtful, underpinned by a magisterial virtuosity. Disc one displays commanding immediacy in Partita one’s Allemande, breathtaking technique in the Double II, and thoughtful fluency in Partita two’s Courante and Gigue. Čičić gifts the monumental Chaconne with an…

Antheil Violin Sonatas Nos 1-4 Tianwa Yang (violin), Nicholas Rimmer (piano) Naxos 8.559937 Often associated with wackier tendencies, Antheil plays a more orthodox game in his four violin sonatas. The angularity of, say, Bartók is here, but there’s also lyricism, folksiness and even a hint of jazz. Tianwa Yang and Nicholas Rimmer are expert guides to these fascinating works. (JP) Beethoven The Creatures of Prometheus (Beethoven for Kids) Freiburger Barockorchester DHM G010005048797X The Freiburger Barockorchester delivers a deliciously transparent, dramatic rendition of Beethoven’s only ballet, punctuated by spirited narration. A sense of fun and mischief pervades the whole enterprise, as it should. A fruitful classical gateway for younger audiences. (SW) Dirk Brossé Seven Nocturnes Daniel Blumenthal (piano) et al Etcetera KTC1785 Blumenthal recorded Brossé’s meditative solo piano cycle in 2011…

1. The title character of which Puccini opera sings the famous aria ‘Vissi d’arte’? 2. Which is the only one of Beethoven’s nine symphonies not to consist of four movements? 3. Consisting of six movements and taking around 100 minutes to perform, which is the longest of Mahler’s completed symphonies? 4. Better known today as a conductor, who is the double bassist pictured above? 5. Who, at the turn of 17th century, said he would publish (but never did so) a Seconda Pratica, overo Perfettione della Moderna Musica (The Second Style, or Perfection of Modern Music) to explain his composing method? 6. Which Romantic poets’ words are set in the following works: a) Parry’s Good night; b) Finzi’s Intimations of Immortality; c) ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’, the third movement…

Tim McInnerny has worked with the RSC, sang Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show and played Lord Percy and Captain Darling in the BBC TV series Blackadder. More recently, he appeared as Sir Robett Glover in Game of Thrones, as actor Simon Gould in Ten Percent and has just filmed an end-of-days musical, The End, with Tilda Swinton. He joins pianist Lucy Parham for Elégie, a musical portrait of Rachmaninov, at the London Piano Festival at Kings Place in October. Imagine the conductor tapping his baton, about to begin conducting TCHAIKOVSKY’s 1812 Overture. Now imagine it’s a 12-year-old boy, tapping a knitting needle before the Karajan recording begins on the Dansette in his bedroom in Stroud. The bells, the cannon fire, the 12-year-old drenched in sweat by the glorious end…

Michael Beek Reviews editor ‘It was great to meet Sean Shibe; unpretentious, adventurous and seemingly never happier than when he’s making music with friends, he’s one of the most interesting artists to emerge in the last decade.’ Page 26 Terry Blain Journalist and critic ‘Stanford is still known by many mainly as a teacher. But with his death centenary approaching in 2024, and important new recordings appearing, it’s time to reconsider his humane and immaculately crafted music.’ Page 76 Amanda Holloway Writer and editor ‘Thanks to the screenwriters’ and actors’ strike, I got to talk to Tim McInnerny, who was due to be in Malta filming Gladiator 2, about his bedroom performances of the 1812 Overture, conducted with a knitting needle!’ Page 122…

Stay a while Arts Council England has announced a grant of £24m to English National Opera (ENO) from April 2024 to March 2026 to allow the company more time to finalise its relocation from London, the completion date for which is now set at March 2029. The decision to move ENO from its Coliseum base was made in February last year but, although the names of five potential new home cities have been suggested, no firm plans have been revealed. Colourful playing Yuja Wang will paying homage to one of her favourite artists by performing six recitals at the David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) exhibition at London’s Lightroom from 28-30 September. Revealing that she has been a Hockney fan for many years, the pianist explains…

Pianist Alexandra Dariescu on why we simply must celebrate the colourful and exciting music of Dora Pejacˇević Dora Pejačević has emerged into the spotlight this year, as the centenary of her death has drawn some long-overdue attention to her remarkable music. Born into a Hungarian-Croatian noble family, Pejačević was the first Croatian composer to write both a symphony and a piano concerto. Her music is characterised by its vibrant energy, rich colours and an exceptional ability to develop and sustain musical ideas over great lengths. It is exciting, intriguing and deserves to be heard! Pejačević wrote 58 works, including the magnificent Symphony in F sharp minor (performed at this year’s BBC Proms), a piano concerto, the Phantaisie concertante, over 20 pieces for solo piano, several songs for voice and piano…

If you had a time machine and a guaranteed return ticket, into what era would you like to be whisked? Despite the dentistry and the prospect of getting a terribly itchy scalp from wearing those gigantic wigs, I would plump for early 18th-century London – as long as I could summon the creative geniuses of the age to the mother of all dinner parties. Who would get an invitation? Well, the three great Hs – Handel, Hogarth and Hawksmoor – for a start. Then some of those brilliant women, the likes of Henrietta Howard and Sarah Churchill, who acquired huge influence and considerable fortunes by outwitting the men who were supposedly their ‘masters’. And finally a few waspish wags – Addison, Pope, Swift – to keep the conversation mercurial and…

Sometimes a book changes your life. That was the case when Amy Granger came across Year of Wonder, written by the broadcaster and journalist Clemency Burton-Hill. Featuring a single, short piece of classical music for every day of the year, this treasury offers a personal guide through the art form across the centuries. ‘My aunt found it in the library, grabbed it – and she became enamoured. She bought copies and sent them to everybody. My mum got one, and it sort of grew, and we now have this huge network of people in my family who have this book,’ says Granger. ‘When I read the introduction, honestly, it was like stars, rainbows and lightning bolts were shooting out of the book into my brain.’ That’s lovely, you might be…

Italian opera was on the slide in London during the 1730s and Handel’s fortunes were in a tailspin. Fortunately, the composer had something up his sleeve. Back in 1718, he’d turned the biblical tale of Esther into an English masque to be played before the Duke of Chandos. Fourteen years later, a pirate production staged in a London tavern proved quite a hit. Keen to see it, the Princess Royal, who could hardly pop into her local pub, asked Handel to stage it in one of the venues where Italian operas were given. Alas, the Bishop of London put his foot down – bible stories were not permitted in the theatre. Undeterred, Handel revised Esther for six concert performances (poster pictured above). Result: £4,000 in his pocket. In 1737, the…

What’s the most beautiful sound in the world? When an old Irish chieftain asked each of his men for an answer, the legend goes, they replied with some pretty standard stuff: the song of a lark, the laugh of a maiden, the clash of spear and shield. The free-thinking chieftain was having none of it. For him, the most beautiful sound was ‘the music of what happens’. Irish composer and performer Jennifer Walshe has used this story as an introduction to her own work. Her bold, good-humoured multimedia performances draw from the dreams and detritus of the everyday, often featuring improvisation, electronics and Walshe’s own amplified voice. Despite her frequent journeys into her country’s real and imagined pasts, she is a fantastically 21st-century artist whose often surreal work holds up…

Weeks after his 50th birthday in September 1902, Charles Villiers Stanford went to Buckingham Palace to be knighted, as part of Edward VII’s coronation honours list. He already had seven operas, five symphonies, important choral works and a multitude of other compositions to his credit; a professor at both the Royal College of Music, London and the University of Cambridge, he was also in high demand as a conductor. As a new century opened, his standing within the British musical scene could scarcely have been higher. A hundred years later, we encounter a very different verdict on his achievement. ‘Posterity has not so much neglected Sir Charles Villiers Stanford,’ wrote the Australian musicologist Robert Stove in 2003, ‘as derived malicious satisfaction from ostentatiously yawning in his face.’ Stove’s pithy words…

If you’re like me then you’ll turn to music as a distraction from the woes of the world. It’s lovely to escape into a symphony, lose yourself in a string quartet or get embroiled in an opera. Sometimes, though, music directly responds to global issues too large to ignore, and I applaud composers who attempt to make sense of war, social injustice or the warming planet. Whether the likes of this month’s Songs for Our Times (Orchestral) or Karl Jenkins’s One World (Brief Notes) actually have a discernible impact remains to be seen, but the very least we can do is listen. Also this issue we’ve double helpings of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, a sparkling Instrumental Choice from violinist Bojan Čičić and a Barbie/Oppenheimer free visit to the movies. This month’s critics…

Bruckner Symphony No. 8 Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Paavo Järvi Alpha Classics ALPHA987 81:36 mins The partially becalmed segment of music at the heart of the Eighth Symphony’s opening movement tells you much of what you need to know about Paavo Järvi’s Bruckner. Wind and brass solos interleave eloquently, string pizzicatos commentate and every bar seems fresh with necessary communication. There’s no sense that the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich’s excellent players are in any way marking time or waiting for the next big tutti, as sometimes happens in Bruckner. That sense of corporate buy-in pervades Järvi’s performance, and makes it tingle with interest and excitement. The Scherzo darts and jibes restlessly, the string accents sharp and primed with nervous energy. String playing of chamber-like sensitivity graces the magnificent Adagio, where Järvi’s patient, humane probing of…

Mozart Piano Concertos, K107†, K175*; Church Sonata No. 17, K336*; Concerto Mov’t in G major† Robert Levin (harpsichord, organ); Academy of Ancient Music/*Laurence Cummings; †Bojan Čičić (violin) AAM AAM042 62:33 mins The tenth of 13 releases marking the long-standing collaboration between the Academy of Ancient Music and soloist Robert Levin ventures further into the enchanting milieu of historical keyboards. We hear Levin, not as fortepianist, but on harpsichord and organ. The repertoire affirms Mozart’s musical bonds with his father and sister, and his admiration for JC Bach, whom he first met in London in 1764. First up, Levin’s reconstruction of No. 51 from Nannerl’s notebook brings a depth to this very early work, which Florian Birsak’s solo version (Decca, 2009) cannot reveal. Levin’s choice of organ (George England’s 1760 instrument,…

Brahms Brahms Songbook, Vol. 1 – Die schöne Magelone; Regenlied Thomas Oliemans (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano) Linn Records CKD693 62:42 mins Brahms’s lieder are some of his most personal compositions, yet can be periodically baffling. The song cycles here are full of beauties; still, they have long been regarded as problematic, chiefly due to the lack of a coherent overall narrative. It’s likely that Brahms never specifically intended the Magelone songs to be performed together; Oliemans calls the set a ‘spinoff’ rather than a ‘retelling’, drawn from Ludwig Tieck’s version of the medieval legends of Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne. Despite the distant origins, the emotions that Brahms finds in his chosen poems are both immediate and satisfying. This is one of the few Romantic song cycles that…

E Mayer String Quartets in G major, A major and E minor Constanze Quartett CPO 555600-2 71:41 mins A ‘diary, the story of his soul’, was how Shostakovich’s string quartets were once described, and so often the quartet is where composers turn to explore something personal. Emilie Mayer (1812-83) had eight symphonies to her name but, after finding that her gender hampered her orchestral music gaining public performances, she turned to chamber music. The string quartet offered, perhaps, a place for her to forget the restrictions of 19th-century society. Whatever the impulse, the result is a joy to discover. Mayer is thought to have written seven quartets, three of which, from the 1850s, appear on this wonderful recording. The Constanze Quartett has done a fine job in showing this music…

October round-up The story of Joseph Bologne (Chavalier de Saint-Georges) was ripe for screen adaptation – virtuoso violinist, composer, fencer, a Black artist and icon seemingly rubbed out of music history. Chevalier is a glossy dramatisation (think Amadeus-meets-Bridgerton), its soundtrack album working both as a useful introduction to his music and a snapshot of the film’s original score by Kris Bowers. Composer Michael Abels oversaw the on-screen music, working with violinist Randall Goosby among others to bring it to life, while Bowers creates a far more contemporary, emotional and dramatic underscore, his orchestral palette the connecting tissue between soundworlds. (Hollywood Records – digital only) Emotions run high in Lamya’s Poem, a stunning animated feature film about a 12-year-old girl caught up in the Syrian conflict. Having fled with her family,…

October round-up Vox’s ‘Elite Recording’ of Gershwin Works for Piano and Orchestra – from 1974 – is a reminder of better times in the record industry. Not just in the freshness of the playing under Leonard Slatkin’s baton, but also in the quality and sumptuous length of its commentary: Edward Jablonski’s excellent liner note is reprinted from the original LP cover. Jeffrey Siegel stands in brilliantly for the composer at the keyboard, bringing out the sly charm of the ‘I Got Rhythm’ variations, and showing how close the piano writing is to classical pianism in the Concerto in F. No wonder Gershwin’s fans included Ravel, Bartók, Berg, Schoenberg and an unlikely Vaughan Williams. (VOX-NX-3018CD) SOMM’s Mahler Pioneers brings the first commercial releases of Das klagende Lied, Symphony No. 4 and…

Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: music@classical-music.com Social media: contact us on Facebook and Twitter LETTER of the MONTH Songs to inspire In the Archives reviews of your September issue, I came across your comments about the first recording of Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel – the ‘incomplete’ version [minus the as yet undiscovered final song] – and was intrigued. Visiting Manchester around my birthday many years ago I was given two gifts: a first recording, by John Shirley-Quirk, of the complete set (on the Saga label), in mono, accompanied by Viola Tunnard; and a ticket to hear a very similar recital given by him in the Friends’ Meeting House. I had sung as a treble at school and had recently graduated to…

Juliette Journaux Pianist Born: Paris, France Career highlights: A Mahler lieder recital I gave with the baritone Liviu Holender at the Philharmonie de Paris. The last piece was ‘Revelge’, the story of a drummer boy whose regiment falls in a trap during the night. The boy’s fiancée discovers him dead at dawn. The intensity of the piece made this concert very special for me. Musical heroes: Pianist Radu Lupu. His Schubert Impromptus album tore me apart as a child, and still does now. His piano sound is from another planet: it’s powerful, intense and dense but always with an infinite poetry, even vulnerability.  Dream concert: Playing Fauré’s Piano Trio in Monet’s garden in Giverny. Matteo Hager Violinist Born: Prague, Czech Republic  Career highlights: The performance of a piece I composed…

We reveal who’s recording what and where… Tenor James Gilchrist is recording an album of songs by the British composer Thomas Pitfield (1903-99). Alongside pianist Nathan Williamson, Gilchrist will record over 20 pieces (all in premiere recordings) at Cobham’s Menuhin Hall in early November. Divine Art plans to release the collection in early 2024. Gil Rose’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project has championed contemporary American composers for 26 years, and its BMOP/sound label followed suit with a run of great releases. Forthcoming albums include works by Joan Tower, Tobias Picker and Lukas Foss, ahead of its 100th album, out in December, which features the complete ballet music of John Alden Carpenter, recorded in Boston and Worcester, MA in 2019/21. Two Lully operas are to be recorded at Versailles’ Opéra Royal. Atys,…

Charlotte Smith Editor Despite the rail and tube strikes, I made it to the ‘Impressions of Spain’ BBC Prom where I heard rising violin star María Dueñas, in a shimmering red dress, give a magnificent performance of Lalo’s fiendishly virtuosic Symphonie espagnole. Notwithstanding a slightly nervy start, by the time she hit her stride this talented 20-year-old was almost certainly channelling the great Sarasate, the work’s dedicatee. Fabulous stuff! Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Singing bass in the new Festival Voices choir at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral was an experience I will cherish for a long time. With its 7/4 time signatures and frequent fiendish intervals, Graham Fitkin’s The Age of Aspiration was an exercise in rapt concentration, but during Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs I was able…

It’s 1 January, and you’ve just finished reading Burton-Hill’s Year of Wonder. But you’d still like a fresh fix of classical music this year, to expand your listening and discover new composers and pieces. Where do you turn? Well, there is, of course, Another Year of Wonder, the 2021 sequel (Headline Home, above), and Journal of Wonder is due out at the end of December. ‘I have chosen pieces I love, or think historically interesting, or which have some resonance for me personally or in the world,’ explains Burton-Hill. ‘But what matters is what you think; how they make you feel as you listen.’ Or you could try Music for Life by Fiona Maddocks (Faber & Faber, above), music critic of The Observer, which arranges 100 pieces of classical music…

As Europe’s artistic luminaries flocked to Los Angeles after Hitler came to power in 1933, they found themselves in a thriving, if sometimes incongruous, cultural landscape. Drawn by the climate, Hollywood industry and the promise of creative freedom, they purchased homes in Beverly Hills and on the mountainous lanes of Laurel Canyon. They rubbed shoulders with movie moguls and starlets. They learned how to drive and play tennis. The writer Thomas Mann dubbed this environment ‘German California’. It was where Schoenberg and philosopher Theodor Adorno met up while grocery shopping, where Stravinsky discussed a film project on Charlie Chaplin’s patio, and where Rachmaninov applied his large hands to gardening. Brentwood Arnold Schoenberg 116 North Rockingham Avenue A faculty post at UCLA in 1936 prompted Arnold Schoenberg and his wife Gertrud…

I experienced the full force of free improvisation for myself at Berlin’s Transmediale festival earlier this year. On stage at the city’s Akademie der Künste, Jennifer Walshe ‘conducted’ a group of six musicians while her regular collaborator Jon Leidecker transformed, looped and sampled their playing from his laptop. The result was a wall of human and digital noises made all the more uncanny by the peculiar sounds of an alto trombone, contrabass clarinet and Walshe’s own voice. At one point, she used this throbbing mass of energy as the backdrop for a story about a Whatsapp group that learns what its members are thinking before they do. Free improvisation grew from free jazz, the ‘chance’ music of composers like John Cage and the interdisciplinary ‘fluxus’ movement that shifted focus from…

LIGETI 100: Celebrating the genius of György Ligeti in his centenary year Sat 7 Oct | 12pm Ligeti: The Devil’s Staircase Piano works with Danny Driver, Clare Hammond, Charles Owen & Katya Apekisheva London Piano Festival 5-8 Oct Sat 7 Oct | 3pm Ligeti Masterclass with Danny Driver London Piano Festival 5-8 Oct Wed 11 Oct | 7.45pm Diotima Quartet Ligeti String Quartets No. 1 & 2 Master Series Thu 16 Nov | 8pm Ligeti: Lux Aeterna VOCES8 & VOCES8 Scholars Sound Unwrapped Book tickets at kingsplace.co.uk 90 York Way, King’s Cross, London N1 The cultural pulse of King’s Cross…

Seiji Ozawa (conductor) Stanley Kolk (tenor), Evelyn Mandac (soprano), Sherrill Milnes (baritone); New England Conservatory Chorus and Children’s Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra RCA 82876594172 How did Orff himself think his Carmina Burana should sound? For this, we can turn to two versions that we know had the composer’s personal stamp of approval – Eugen Jochum’s from 1967 (see above right) and Herbert Kegel’s refined MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra recording from 1960, complete with background birdsong (presumably intentionally included) at the start of ‘Primo vere’. Both Jochum and Kegel display the keen sense of rhythm that is of vital importance in Carmina Burana – it is always worth remembering that Orff wrote it intending dance to be part of the mix. Similarly, there also needs to be a feeling of…

Schulhoff ● Tchaikovsky Schulhoff: Five Pieces (arr. Honeck/Ille); Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/Manfred Honeck Reference Recordings FR-752 (CD/SACD) 59:04 mins Manfred Honeck began his long association with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra way back in 2006 by conducting a critically acclaimed performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony that was subsequently released on CD on the Exton label. Returning to this work after many years, his interpretation has, if anything, become even more compelling and here enjoys the benefits of a far superior recording with a wide dynamic range and a wonderful richness of sound. As before, Honeck’s overriding objective has been to revivify a work that in lesser hands can easily lose its freshness and originality. To achieve this, he has followed Tchaikovsky’s carefully delineated performance instructions to the letter,…

Jennifer Higdon Duo Duel*; Concerto for Orchestra *Matthew Strauss, *Svet Stoyanov (percussion); Houston Symphony/Robert Spano Naxos 8.559913 59:59 mins Jennifer Higdon’s Concerto for Orchestra forms the bulk of the music on this virtuosic recording, featuring full symphony orchestra with a huge percussion section, harp and celeste. Using challenging techniques, she makes specific demands on the percussionists, producing lovely colours such as bowed vibraphone. The The whirlwind opening in the first movement instantly sets the high-energy mood, though is anticipatory rather than menacing. After the string based jig of the second movement, the piece really settles in the third, and here the orchestration is spectacular; harmonics on the upper strings, coupled with glockenspiel and tubular bells, lovely ‘falling away’ sounds in the violins and, later, a vibrant use of different timpani…

Fabrice Bollon • Janáček Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen (arr. Bollon); Šárka (arr. Bollon); Fabrice Bollon Twelve Lilies for Leoš Samantha Gaul, Irina Jae-Eun Park (soprano) et al; The Lily’s Project/Fabrice Bollon Naxos 8.660526-27 138:18 mins (2 discs) Fabrice Bollon made his chamber orchestra arrangement of The Cunning Little Vixen as a cheaper alternative for those who want to perform ‘an opera that works as well for adults as it does for children … yet because of the large orchestra it is only affordable for big companies.’ His version requires just 12 players: string quartet, double bass, flute, oboe/cor anglais, clarinet, bassoon, harp, keyboard and percussion. Inevitably a good deal is lost – including not only some of the score’s magic but also some of its punch (there’s no brass):…

Sirens’ Song Works by Finzi, I Holst, Maconchy, Stanford, Sullivan and Vaughan Williams The Sixteen/Harry Christophers CORO COR16198 63:01 mins Stanford’s partsong ‘The Blue Bird’ is widely performed and recorded, but the seven other songs in the Op. 119 collection it is drawn from are not. The Sixteen’s beautiful performance is an ideal way of getting to know them. Immaculate vocal blend and intelligent phrasing are a given when The Sixteen sing, and make their ‘Blue Bird’ one of the most mellifluously attractive on record. But it’s the way the technically difficult corners – the staccato accents in ‘The Witch’ and the abrupt rhythmic hairpins in ‘The Train’, for instance – are executed, combining minimal fuss with maximum exactitude, which truly sets their interpretations apart as exceptional. Imogen Holst’s Welcome…

Mozart Mozart Recital – Gigue in G major, K474 ‘Eine kleine Gigue’; 12 Contredanses for Count Czernin (Nos 1, 2, 3 & 12), K269b; Sonata No 9 in D major, K311; Sonata No. 12 in F major, K332 Su Yeon Kim (piano) Steinway STNS30211 68:35 mins In 2021, Su Yeon Kim won the Concours Musical International de Montréal. Recording this album was part of her prize. Yet it’s the listener who is the real winner here. The South Korean pianist’s playing is a joy, and this album, which is simply titled Mozart Recital, reveals her as a Mozartian through and through. It’s a beautifully constructed programme, full of contrasts: serious, playful, extrovert, introspective, dancing, operatic. On the one hand, there’s the rustic joy of four of the 12 Contredanses for…

Vaughan Williams 49th Parallel – The Complete Music Written for the Film BBC Concert Orchestra/Martin Yates Dutton Epoch CDLX7405 (CD/SACD) 81:01 mins Vaughan Williams was 60 when he embarked on this, his first feature film score in the early 1940s. Powell and Pressburger’s 49th Parallel (aka The Invaders) was actually commissioned by the Ministry of Information as part of the War effort, its tale of Nazis evading capture in Canada by heading to the US likely designed to scare Americans into action. This glorious recording of the composer’s complete contribution to the project – a lot of which was either not used or dialled down in the sound mix – comes thanks to painstaking work by Martin Yates, who pieced the whole thing together thanks to pouring over manuscripts and…

The Gerry Mulligan 1950s Quartets Alyn Shipton OUP 264pp (pb) £12.99 This latest volume in OUP’s series Studies in Recorded Jazz examines barit one saxophonist Gerry Mulligan’s piano-less quartets, widely regarded as the first jazz groups to dispense with chordal instruments (although there weren’t many keyboards or strings in New Orleans marching bands) and as important contributors to the development of ‘Cool Jazz’ which, initially at least, was a mainly West-Coast-white genre. Shipton describes the roots of the quartets’ style as they were fostered during Mulligan’s early stints (generally more valued as composer and/or arranger than player) with, among others, Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill and Gene Krupa, as well as his association with Gil Evans and Miles Davis. The essence of this series is musical analysis, and there are plentiful…

Fauré Requiem; Messe des Pêcheurs de Villerville (with Messager) Agnès Mellon (soprano), Peter Kooy (baritone); La Chapelle Royale; Ensemble Musique Oblique/Philippe Herreweghe Harmonia Mundi HMM931292 56:15 mins To those who asked about the genesis of his Requiem, Fauré replied that it was composed ‘for no particular reason – for sheer pleasure, if I may venture to say so’. He wanted it to express his personal concept of death as a happy deliverance, ‘not a painful passing away’. And this recording by the Chapelle Royale under Philippe Herreweghe remains as definitive now as it was when it was made in 1988. Its orchestration was so original (no violins or woodwind) that Fauré’s publisher assumed it was unfinished, and it spent several years in limbo before being re-orchestrated by Roger-Ducasse. This release…

OCTOBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see BBC Sounds and iPlayer 1 SUNDAY 7-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Sunday Morning 12-1pm Private Passions 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert rpt 2-3pm The Early Music Show 3-4pm Choral Evensong 4-5pm Jazz Record Requests 5-5.30pm The Listening Service 5.30-6.45pm Words and Music 6.45-7.30pm Between the Ears I Remember Joe Brainard 7.30-9pm Drama on 3 The Brummie Iliad (rpt) 9pm-11pm Record Review Extra 11pm-12am Sun Night Series 12-12.30am Classical Fix 2 MONDAY 6.30-9am Breakfast 9am-12pm Essential Classics 12-1pm Composer of the Week José Maurício Nunes Garcia 1-2pm Lunchtime Concert 2-4.30pm Afternoon Concert 4.30-5pm New Gen Artists 5-7.30pm In Tune plus Mixtape 7.30-10pm In Concert EBU 10-10.45pm Music Matters 10.45-11pm The Essay Rainsong in Five Senses (rpt) 11pm-12.30am Night Tracks 3 TUESDAY…

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 390/October 2023, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 3 Oct 2023 (solution in Xmas 2023 issue). ACROSS 1 Be undecided about a new name for authentic band (7) 5 Various claims about you, ultimately, in description of this magazine’s readers (7) 9 Recalled standard in modern genre (3) 10 A bitterness possibly arising from source of the blues? (5,6) 11 Excitedly claps a USA cellist (3,6) 12 Stravinsky performances, perhaps, having some spirit, essentially (5) 13 Literary-agricultural overture? (4,3,7) 17 Concertante work reinterpreted by lush red…