Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2024 i BBC Music Magazine

When Sir Andrew Davis died on 20 April, the outpouring of affection from the musical world spoke for itself. Davis was not only a gifted and charismatic conductor, but a witty and warm human being, whose dozen turns leading the Last Night of the Proms were distinguished by memorably sparky addresses from the podium. That he died less than a week before the launch of the 2024 Proms season seemed somehow grossly unfair – especially as the pre-printed programme poignantly listed his intended appearance as conductor laureate of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky, Schumann and Steve Reich on 30 August. Shortly before he died, Sir Andrew spoke to Amanda Holloway about the works that shaped his life and career for our Music That Changed Me feature; read his typically…

Olivia Warburton Soprano Born: Lincolnshire, UK Career highlight: Performing the title role in a new production of Frid’s Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank for solo soprano and orchestra – undoubtedly my most challenging yet rewarding role to date. Musical heroes: I have always been inspired by mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter’s ability to adapt to so many different roles and styles while staying true to herself. I’m also a huge fan of singer and songwriter Jacob Collier, who shows such uninhibited freedom in his music making. Dream concert: I would love to have a role written for my voice by a contemporary opera composer. Being involved in creating something brand new would be so exciting. Curtis Stewart Violinist/composer Born: Helsinki, Finland Career highlight: Premiering a movement from my new Violin…

Pick a theme… and name your seven favourite examples Born in London, Robin Ticciati trained as a violinist, pianist and percussionist before taking up conducting aged 15 under the guidance of Sir Colin Davis and Sir Simon Rattle. Awarded an OBE in 2019, he marks his tenth anniversary as Glyndebourne’s music director in 2024. There, he leads a new production of Bizet’s Carmen this summer, and on 29 July will conduct Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Richard Wagner Tristan und Isolde – Act II Like the changing of seasons, my operatic preferences are constantly in motion. Today, soon after the birth of my daughter, these are some portrayals of love that spring to mind… Wagner’s writing in Tristan und Isolde is intoxicating, but it was only when…

Few of the world’s major maestros can boast of a light carbon footprint. It’s hardly compatible with orchestra-hopping, yet some conductors manage better than others. Despite his busy international schedule, Sakari Oramo succeeds at least on a local level: whether in Helsinki or London, I’ve never known him not to turn up for an interview on a bicycle, and he still has his helmet in hand when we meet in the foyer of the Royal College of Music (RCM) before a preliminary rehearsal there for one of his 2024 BBC Proms programmes. ‘It should be possible to combine an international career with teaching – that’s for everyone’s good’ It helps that the Finnish conductor has in recent years focused the most substantial part of his work in Helsinki, his home…

Flag-waving and the Proms go together like a horse and carriage. Traditionally, it was a Union flag that most people clutched, raising colours to the air for the now-contested ‘Rule, Britannia!’ sing-a-long, a tradition born out of the Second World War. Then, as the festival became more international, other flags began to appear, decorating the red, blue and white with splodges of yellow, black and green, among others. The red, blue and white fractured into its original component parts: white and blue; red and white, and, especially when Bryn Terfel sung in 2008, there be dragons too. The yellow-starred blue has featured more prominently in recent years, particularly since 2016, with certain factions even handing out their preferred flag to audience members to sway the overall colourway. But it wasn’t…

The work It never hurts to have friends in high places, and in the case of Antonín Dvořák that friend was Johannes Brahms. It was on the older German composer’s advice that, in early 1878, Dvořák sent his Moravian Duets for soprano and piano to Brahms’s influential, and financially canny, Berlin publisher Fritz Simrock. Knowing a good thing when he saw it, Simrock promptly asked Dvořák to write two books of dances for piano duet in the style of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances. Within two months, eight pieces for four hands were on the publisher’s desk, followed soon after by orchestrated versions of both. In this latter form, the Slavonic Dances would become a staple diet of orchestras all over the world while – latching onto the boom in popularity of…

Enescu Symphonies Nos 1-3 Orchestre National de France/Cristian Maˇcelaru Deutsche Grammophon 486 5505 160:21 mins (3CD) This first recording of George Enescu’s music on DG is something to celebrate. It’s indeed a long time since a major label has paid comprehensive attention to Enescu’s large-scale works – we have to go back to Lawrence Foster’s series for EMI – even though there have always been such testimonies as that of Pablo Casals, who held Enescu to be ‘the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart’. A towering violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher, Enescu spent much of his life in Paris, dying there in exile in 1955; now that the Orchestre National de France is under the music directorship of the dynamic Romanian conductor Cristian Maˇcelaru, it’s a good moment for the French…

Schoenberg Expressionist Music – Erwartung, Op. 2 No. 1; Madchenlied, Op. 6 No. 3 etc Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano) Orchid Classics ORC100306 60:50 mins The neglect of Schoenberg’s substantial output of lieder, in the recital room and on recordings, remains something of a mystery. Perhaps the composer’s reputation as an uncompromising modernist has much to do with it. Although openly acknowledging Schoenberg’s problematic reputation, Claire Booth and Christopher Glynn have come up with an ingenious way of presenting his music in the most accessible and vivid manner. Their solution is to create a kind of songbook focused around eight central themes that are directly related to some of the composer’s paintings. To make the link seem more tangible, illustrations of the relevant works are reproduced in the booklet.…

July round-up Arguably John Coltrane is revered as much as a spiritual mentor as a musician. His widow, Alice Coltrane followed a similar path. Not long after The Carnegie Hall Concert 1971 she began to gradually withdraw from the jazz scene, setting up a Vedantic Centre in California. For me, this is one of her most enthralling performances, with fine support from an all-star band, including Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Jimmy Garrison and Ed Blackwell. The first disc offers pieces from her post-John repertoire, while the second features tunes that he recorded, and which are given intense, almost intimidating workouts. (Impulse! 4588286) A fan of Charles Lloyd since the mid-’60s, I have enjoyed following his work as it continuously developed and refined. As demonstrated at last year’s London Jazz Festival, his…

JULY’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see BBC Sounds and iPlayer 1 MONDAY 6.30-9.30am Breakfast 9.30am-1pm Essential Classics 1-2pm Live from Wigmore Hall 2-4pm Classical Live 4-5pm Composer of the Week Richard Strauss 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm Classical Mixtape 7.30-9.45pm Radio 3 In Concert from Barbican, London. Dallapiccola Three Questions with Two Answers, Nono Canti de vita e d’amore, Bruno Maderna Oboe Concerto No. 3, Berio Sequenza IXc, Sinfonia. Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Thomas Lessels (bass clarinet), Anna Dennis (sop), BBC SO/Martyn Brabbins 9.45-10pm The Essay Song Diary of a Dying Man 10-11.30pm Night Tracks 11.30pm-12.30am ‘Round Midnight 2 TUESDAY 6.30-9.30am Breakfast 9.30am-1pm Essential Classics 1-4pm Classical Live 4-5pm Composer of the Week Richard Strauss 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm Classical Mixtape 7.30-9.45pm Radio 3…

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 400/July 2024, PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 9 July 2024 (solution in Oct 2024 issue). APRIL SOLUTION No. 397 APRIL WINNER Irene Hicks, Inverclyde Our Media, publisher of BBC Music Magazine, may contact you with details of our products and/or to undertake research. Please write ‘Do Not Contact’ if you prefer not to receive such information by post or phone. Please write your email address on your postcard if you prefer to receive such information by e-mail. We abide by IPSO’s rules and regulations. To…

Conductor British conductor Sir Andrew Davis, who died on 20 April 2024, was a national treasure, popular with soloists, orchestras and audiences everywhere. As conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, his inspiring performances and humorous speeches at a dozen Last Nights of the Proms were beamed round the world. He led orchestras from Glasgow to Toronto, was music director at Glyndebourne and Chicago Lyric Opera, and in the year of his 80th birthday had a full calendar, including a performance of Richard Strauss’s Capriccio at the Edinburgh Festival, due in August 2024. He gave this interview to BBC Music Magazine two weeks before he died. As a boy, I studied the piano at the Royal Academy on Saturday mornings and played the organ for the parish choir in Watford. I…

John Allison Editor, Opera magazine ‘Though we meet just across from the Albert Hall, where he conducts four Proms this summer, conversation with Sakari Oramo is far from South Ken-centric: the Finnish maestro has a stimulatingly wide view of the world.’ Page 34 Clare Stevens Writer and editor ‘Full disclosure: I’ve known Roger Wright since he and my husband used to lob Maltesers to each other over the bookshelves when working at the British Music Information Centre. It was a joy to reflect on his contributions since then.’ Page 56 Leah Broad Academic and author ‘Elizabeth Maconchy’s works deserve so much more recognition than they currently enjoy. It was a joy to explore her life, especially her friendships with fellow composers Vaughan Williams and Grace Williams!’ Page 62…

It’s 60 years since I attended my first BBC Prom. I was, I hasten to add, barely a toddler at the time. And since then? Probably 40 every year since my teens, so around 2,000 concerts in all. I’m not claiming a record. Some dedicated prommers must be way ahead of my tally. But my 60th anniversary does prompt me to ponder which of those 2,000 evenings have been most memorable. I don’t mean the best musically, though many have been that too. I mean the ones that live vividly in my memory, even though a lifetime and several marriages have slipped by… Last Night, 1967 Incredibly, my first Last Night (I was treated to a ticket by a rich aunt) was Malcolm Sargent’s last. Ravaged by cancer, he hadn’t…

Paris 2024 will see the French capital richly adorned with music. From May to the final day of the Paralympics in September, the Cultural Olympiad will feature nine high-profile events, each themed to highlight the city and its big sporting occasion. One of these is Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade, staged at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées from 20-23 June. Set near the site of Olympia at the time of the Games, Vivaldi’s tale of love and betrayal stars Baroque music’s own vaulting Pole, the breakdancing countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński (above). At the Opéra Bastille on 1 July, meanwhile, David Lang’s Crowd Out will feature 1,000 untrained singers as the American composer conjures up the thrill of a stadium in full voice. Concerts at either end of the Cultural Olympiad mark the transition of…

‘You are only as good as the work you do, the people you work with, and the audiences you serve’ How to sum up Roger Wright CBE’s 10 years at the helm of what is now Britten Pears Arts (BPA), the Suffolk-based charity that embraces Aldeburgh Festival, Snape Maltings Concert Hall and the Red House, former home of composer Benjamin Britten and singer Peter Pears? One of Wright’s senior colleagues responds succinctly: ‘Roger kicked open the doors’. A local conductor concurs, explaining that over the past decade, but particularly in response to the pandemic, BPA has made it possible for regional choral societies and youth music groups to use the world-class facilities at Snape in a way that they couldn’t before, through favourable hire charges and sometimes free access to…

‘For me,’ Elizabeth Maconchy confessed, ‘a musical argument must always be an impassioned one.’ Passion, debate, argumentation, ‘sensitive and moving musical logic’ – these were the elements that Maconchy believed made ‘true music’. Every single one of her works is alive with what she called ‘intellectual passion’, from the thundering rhythms of her 1929 orchestral work The Land to the taught, concise abstraction of her last string quartet, the ‘Quartetto Corto’ of 1982-3. Born in 1907 to Irish parents, Maconchy was one of the most significant composers working in Britain and Ireland during the 20th century. Her works include operas, ballets, concertos, choral works, orchestral pieces, chamber works, songs and a monumental series of 13 string quartets, earning her relatively consistent recognition as one of the foremost composers of the…

Karel Šejna (conductor) Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Supraphon SU 1917-2 001 A number of conductors have recorded all nine of Dvořák’s symphonies, and several fine Fifths lurk within those complete cycles: the likes of Otmar Suitner, Rafael Kubelík, István Kertész, Witold Rowicki, Libor Pešek and Jiří Bělohlávek are all highly recommendable. And should you be up for a little detective work, Zdeněk Mácal’s recordings from his time at the helm of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (1986-95) are difficult to track down but they, too, have a strong following among die-hard collectors. Frustratingly, Charles Mackerras, one of the greatest champions of Czech music of the late-20th century, never got round to recording Dvořák’s Fifth. Nor, surprisingly, did the great Karel Ančerl, chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra from 1950-68 (beware of…

Elgar The Dream of Gerontius Nicky Spence (tenor), Anna Stéphany (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Foster-Williams (bassbaritone); Polish National Youth Choir; Gabrieli Consort, Roar and Players/Paul McCreesh Signum Classics SIGCD785 95:14 mins (2CD) This Gerontius sounds different from the start, as conductor Paul McCreesh intends it to. The mainly gut strings and delicately toned French woodwind of the Gabrieli orchestra, playing instruments of Elgar’s own period, have a less plushly upholstered, more vulnerable sound than usual in the Prelude, with a rawer edge in tutti. This suits Nicky Spence’s Gerontius well. His is an anxious, existentially fearful account of the dying protagonist, tremulous and trepidatious at his first entry. Spence can, though, make a searing impact when needed – his ‘Take me away,’ as The Soul ecstatically enters Purgatory, is a moment of…

Beethoven Triple Concerto; Folk Songs* Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), Nicola Benedetti (violin), Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), *Gerald Finley (bass-baritone); Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali Decca 485 4624 56:12 mins There are surely no more charismatic young performers in this country today than violinist Nicola Benedetti, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, and together they make a stellar team, bursting with energy and expressive precision. Kanneh-Mason launches the opening movement wistfully, with a gentle portamento in the first phrase, while Benedetti answers with a steely, shining tone and not a hint of a slide. But they match perfectly in the energetic passagework that can be so often clouded in live performance but is super-clear in this recording, while Grosvenor mediates perfectly between them with luminous playing and little rhythmic hesitations that map out the…

The Muses Restor’d Works by Blow, Handel, Locke, Purcell et al Rachel Podger (violin); Brecon Baroque Channel Classics CCS46324 80:42 mins This is a captivating programme offering proof, if it were needed, that England is far from ‘a land without music’. In a generous album, violinist Rachel Podger and her period ensemble Brecon Baroque journey through 17th-century English consorts to virtuosic solo music from the early Georgian period. The ensemble is a coterie of some of the finest early musicians on the scene today – friends who evidently relish the art of musical conversation, the guiding ethos of the English consort tradition. Matthew Locke’s Little Consort ‘for several friends’ encapsulates the essence of this congenial idiom, with its fleeting musical dialogues, light and transparent as sparkling crystals, all eloquently rendered.…

Bartók The Wooden Prince, Divertimento and Romanian Folk Dances BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard Onyx ONYX4233 Though The Wooden Prince is generally performed in its fulllength version, this recording reflects the composer’s desire to lose much of the music relating to specific stage cues. It’s a good decision that makes for a tighter, more potent experience. The orchestra conveys a satisfyingly dark heft – and the Romanian Dances are also a joy. (CS) Brahms • Cherubini • Mozart Requiems Klassische Philharmonie Stuttgart et al/Frieder Bernius Carus CAR83054 Three big hitters of the requiem repertoire, varying markedly in style, in one set. All are performed with considerable polish, though the strict mathematical precision of Frieder Bernius’s approach sometimes comes at the cost of sheer visceral thrill. Of the three, the Cherubini…

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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 A great Elgarian I was lucky enough to meet the Elgar scholar Jerrold Northrop Moore (see Obituaries, p23) more than 15 years ago, at a study weekend on Elgar and the Great War near his home in Broadway, Worcestershire. I had known of his work for years prior to that, thanks to 20 years of voluntary work in the archives of The Elgar Birthplace Museum. Researchers will be forever grateful to him for his scholarship, which often helped me out when I couldn’t read one of the composer’s original letters! I was lucky to have had afternoon tea with ‘Jerry’, as his friends knew him, and we went…

Musicians set the right tone for Downing Street future A moment of sweet harmony occurred at the heart of British government recently, as the first concert in a new series called ‘Notes from Downing Street’ filled No. 11 with the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Gershwin and David Schiff. Performed by players from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the concert was enjoyed by an audience in the State Room of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s residence – including, we hope, Larry the Downing Street cat – and on Classic FM too. Details of further instalments in the series have yet to be announced, but we will be watching the comings and goings at the famous address with a keen interest in months to come. Crunchy Apple leaves a very bitter taste Apple…

Natural talent will only get you so far, so finding the right teacher to guide a musical child is of paramount importance. ‘The really crucial thing is finding a teacher whom the child feels understands them and who wants the same things as they do,’ says Laura van der Heijden. ‘When I first went to see my teacher Leonid Gorokhov (above), I felt he got me and said the right thing at the right time in the right way. Sometimes there is a communication barrier, where you hear something but you don’t understand what’s being communicated, so that’s very important. He helped me a lot with technique and being able to play the things that were in my mind. ‘I did a lot of practice when I was younger, and…

The pianists – partners both on and off stage – pirouetted through Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, the instruments nestled together among the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Pavel Kolesnikov’s off-beat staccato phrases melded with Samson Tsoy’s ascending motif; acerbic interjections shifted into poignant lyricism. It followed on from the catchy overture to Bernstein’s Candide, which featured alongside the premiere of Julian Anderson’s Echoes, with bass-baritone Davóne Tines as the soloist. ‘It was a classic Barbican concert in many ways,’ recalls conductor Oliver Zeffman of last year’s performance. Indeed it was – except there were rainbow-coloured drapes behind the ensemble, the stage lights winked a bright shade of pink, and there was a greater proliferation of glitter. This was Classical Pride, the first event of its kind in the UK…

Witold Rowicki (conductor) Conductors Witold Rowicki and István Kertész recorded complete sets of the Dvořák symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra that are roughly contemporaneous and both admirable. However, in the Fifth Symphony, Kertész’s pioneering 1965 stereo recording just yields to Rowicki’s 1967 account, which finds more poetry in the Andante, an extra lilt in the Scherzo and wins hands down in the Finale, a whirlwind of virtuosic orchestral playing. Recorded in pretty good sound quality, it is the highlight of the Pole’s Dvořák cycle. (Decca 478 2296) Otmar Suitner (conductor) The Swiss conductor Otmar Suitner and the Staatskapelle Berlin began their splendid Dvořák cycle with the Fifth Symphony in 1979. Suitner’s love of the score is obvious – perfectly sculpted, warmly phrased, gloriously played and with first and second…

This project has been a long time coming, hasn’t it? It’s one I’d wanted to do for many years and in fact we scheduled it twice and cancelled it twice. So this is third time lucky! It has been a labour of love; I knew I had something I wanted to say. Having said that, you’re very aware of the dozen-or-so great British conductors who’ve already recorded it in the most amazing ways over the years, and that weighs heavily on your shoulders. Why was it important to use period instruments for this? Why would you not? If you feel that a Baroque oboe works better for Bach then there’s a pretty good chance a beautiful 19th-century or early-20th-century oboe will work better for Elgar. And I think that’s something…

John Adams Girls of the Golden West Julia Bullock (soprano), Davóne Tines (bass-baritone), Paul Appleby (tenor) et al; Los Angeles Philharmonic/John Adams Nonesuch 7559790049 123:26 mins (2CD) Like The Death of Klinghoffer, Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, John Adams’s new opera Girls of the Golden West considers a critical moment in American history: the gold rush that inspired the California Dream – and all the dazzling inequality that went with it. The timing is interesting. Since the 2008 financial crash there has been renewed interest in gold, a fascination that plays out in reality TV shows such as Aussie Gold Hunters that follow enterprising – and often eccentric – metal detectorists attempting to find nuggets left behind by the first mining wave. Librettist Peter Sellars draws from original sources…

Four Hands Works by Brahms, Ravel, Fauré et al Alexandre Tharaud & Friends (piano) Erato 5419793352 63:31 mins In this charming box of surprises, Alexandre Tharaud ropes in 22 friends to showcase the marvels of the fourhand piano repertoire. Its heyday was the mid-19th century, when middle class families played music at home: for most it was the only way they would ever hear orchestral works – recording hadn’t been invented. Four-hand pianism today survives mostly in music schools, or in families when piano-playing siblings are induced to show off. Yet as Tharaud points out in his liner note, this is the most intimate form of chamber music: there’s something very sensual, he says, about your proximity, which allows you to experience the most secret, and most profound aspects of…

Cecil Sharp and the Quest for Folk Song and Dance David Sutcliffe Ballad Partners 497pp (pb) £20 At the centenary of Cecil Sharp’s death, here’s a long overdue modern assessment of the legendary folk music collector’s life and work. David Sutcliffe, a folk singer himself, does an immaculate job of showcasing someone who’s languished as some kind of ‘unknown known’. Yet Sharp, as Sutcliffe demonstrates, was the very opposite of monochrome. His boundless enthusiasm for the tasks he set himself made him the most prolific of all British folk music collectors and champions. As well as making reference to how classical composers have borrowed Sharp-harvested tunes, Sutcliffe also shows how the act of gathering and publishing this material was underpinned by Sharp’s classical music training. Indeed, Sutcliffe travelled to Australia…