Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i BBC Music Magazine

‘As a personality, I always need a bit of resistance – I need to do it the hard way,’ says this month’s cover star, violinist Vilde Frang. In today’s world of instant gratification, and our twin desire for instant success, that’s quite a statement. A sensitive musician, Frang has, she admits, a tendency to overanalyse – a challenging psychological burden when combined with an extrovert life on the stage. But it’s a character trait that has also allowed her to become a singularly outstanding interpreter, in repertoire from Mozart to Stravinsky – and her recent release of Elgar’s monumental Violin Concerto is no exception. It’s a work of epic proportions that Frang likens in concept to a physically exhausting skiing expedition in her native Norway. Yet don’t be fooled by…

Charlotte Smith Editor A trip to the Proms offered the chance not only to hear the wonderful Paul Lewis in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, but also Kazuki Yamada at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. On the programme was Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in the thrilling but rarely heard orchestration by Henry Wood. It was made all the more exciting by the loudest bells – played from high on the balcony – I have ever heard. My ears are still ringing! Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Unlike Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which quotes the Tudor composer’s ‘Why fum’th in sight?’, the source of Howells’s majestic 1940 organ work Master Tallis’s Testament is harder to pin down. Cue, then, exhaustive research listening…

There are many similarities between football and classical music – as Shostakovich, that fanatical footie fan, might have observed. In both fields, not everything goes according to form. If Arsenal were drawn in the FA Cup against, say, Enfield Town, you would bet your house on an Arsenal win. But every year some Premier League club plays awfully and gets knocked out by lowly opposition. It’s the same with composers. Buy a ticket to a Beethoven concert and you expect (and nearly always get) a certain quality. It’s called genius. But even Beethoven had off-days. Years ago, someone decided it would be fun to perform his Wellington’s Victory beside the Wellington Arch in the middle of Hyde Park Corner in central London. What a disaster! Around the performers the traffic…

Though the Oval Office may not always be occupied by a Jefferson, Truman or Nixon, there have been others in the White House who can supply the chords and arpeggios. For instance, the current secretary of state Antony Blinken has been known to strum a few notes on his guitar. Blinken (below) plays left-handed like Paul McCartney, though, say critics, that is where any comparison begins and ends. An altogether higher calibre of musician can be found in Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state under George W Bush from 2005-09. After majoring in music, Rice harboured plans to pursue a career as a concert pianist until a stay at the Aspen Music Festival and School convinced her that others possessed a greater talent. However, she continued to play…

In 1985, the BBC aired a documentary called A Will to Win featuring a young percussionist called Evelyn Glennie. She was unique in so many ways: a female percussionist and a brilliant musician with an undeniable work ethic. Perhaps what was most special of all, however, was her unmovable ambition to raise the profile of percussion as a serious set of instruments. Up until this point, the study of percussion was generally reserved for those considered to be the least musical and least educated, or failed pianists. To some extent, this attitude still lingers – percussion teachers are often asked in schools to take on a child who is ‘a bit of a handful’, ‘not very bright’ (although that is more carefully worded these days), and ‘doesn’t have a very…

As with literary braille, the tactile communication system created by French inventor Louis Braille in 1829, braille music – adapted some years later in 1837 – uses raised dots on a page read by touch. A six-dot cell is split into two rows of three, with the top two rows representing pitch and the bottom row used for rhythm. Braille music uses 64 possible dot combinations to represent not only notes but also dynamic markings, key signatures, articulation marks and any other instructions in the score. As a result, each dot combination can mean several different things depending on its context. Unlike staff notation that simultaneously presents multiple aspects of the music, braille music is in a linear format, so the reader learns pitch, fingering, dynamic and articulation markings on…

‘Tallis is dead, and music dies’. So runs the final line of Ye sacred muses, a consort song composed by William Byrd to mourn the passing of his friend and mentor Thomas Tallis in 1585. Probably a pupil of Tallis at one point, Byrd was not alone in considering him the greatest choral composer of his era. Tallis was, as one writer puts it, ‘the first important English composer’, and pieces such as the tender anthem If ye love me and the intricate 40-part motet Spem in alium are among the many works from his extensive output still performed today. Yet while the broad pillars of Tallis’s achievement are obvious, detailed facts about his life are notoriously hard to come by. He may or may not have been born in 1805,…

The work As we remember Puccini at the centenary of his death, it is worth giving particular thought to the opera with which he was preoccupied at the time. Turandot, in many respects the composer’s most ambitious and adventurous work, consumed his efforts for the final four years of his life and was proving most troublesome. The 1910s had been a decade of experiment for Puccini, as he turned his back on the crowd-pleasing formula he had developed around the turn of the century in La bohème, Tosca and Madam Butterfly, and began to emulate his contemporaries north of the Alps. His works of this decade were the unusual American-themed, Debussy-inspired La fanciulla del West, the light, operetta-like La rondine and Il trittico, a trio of contrasting one-act operas. No…

Why was this the right time to record this repertoire? Julius and I have played together since I was 18 and we’ve played those pieces and thought about them, talked about them, so much. In fact, the Schumann Romances were the first pieces we played together. Those major statement pieces have to be done at the right time; I think people record them too young, or before they’ve really lived with them for a long time. So in a way it’s a testament to having played them together for more than 40 years. What is Julius like as a performing partner? Playing with him is extraordinary because you get this feeling of being held, or embraced by the sound; it’s beautiful and a wonderful feeling to play with. These pieces…

George Benjamin Picture a day like this Marianne Crebassa (mezzo-soprano), Beate Mordal, Anna Prohaska (soprano), Cameron Shahbazi (countertenor), John Brancy (baritone); Mahler Chamber Orchestra/George Benjamin Nimbus NI8116 60:09 mins At the heart of George Benjamin’s new opera – his fourth with the playwright Martin Crimp – is a composed silence that robs you of words. In an aria, his heroine on a quest to find a button from a happy person which may bring her dead child back to life, despairs. Quarrelling lovers, a suicidal worker propped up by drugs and a composer fearful for her reputation have all failed her with their unhappiness. Snapping strings and a quiet tolling bell match her despair. And then the music stops. When this fable continues nothing is quite the same. An obsessive…

JS Bach Wunderkammer (Harpsichord Works) Bertrand Cuiller (harpsichord) Ramée RAM2402 70:29 mins This engaging collection ranges from the Capriccio ‘On the departure of a beloved brother’, one of Bach’s earliest keyboard works, through the profound rigours of the C sharp minor Fugue from Book 1 of ‘the 48’ to the delightfully extravert Italian Concerto. Bertrand Cuiller performs on a copy of a 1722 harpsichord by Gräbner, large in scale and sound with two manuals well suited to the contrasts needed in the Italian Concerto and G minor English Suite, as well as the huge expressive range of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. There is plenty of bounce in Cuiller’s performance of the first movement of the Italian Concerto, but also a degree of poise in his shaping of the opening…

Jeremy Pound BBC Music’s deputy editor ‘Is Kamala Harris a wiz at the flute? Does Donald Trump secretly indulge in daily tuba practice? Possibly not. My explorations into world leaders from history, however, have revealed that some did indeed have significant musical talents.’ Page 38 Anne Templer Conductor, percussionist, writer ‘Years of teaching has meant observing the rise in profile of percussion repertoire and percussionists – which have developed at great speed! It was lovely to share thoughts with colleagues about this.’ Page 50 Alexandra Wilson Academic and author ‘Puccini is the man of the moment in the centenary year of his death, and listening to the many available interpretations of Turandot made me pause to reflect on what an imaginative, forward-looking composer he truly was.’ Page 66…

A press release telling us about Berio’s Turandot has us conjuring up ideas of a previously unknown opera by the late, great modernist. In fact, the Berio in question is not composer Luciano, but Filippo, renowned producer of high-quality olive oil. Coinciding with the centenary of Puccini’s death, the Lucca-based company has launched a ‘Turandot’ edition, complete with the icy princess’s scowl glaring extra-virginally from the tin (above). It goes perfectly with a freshly prepared Calaf (see p66).…

For seven glorious years from his first appearance in 1928, the cartoon character Mickey Mouse was the toast of movie-going America, a star of 70 comic shorts and spearhead of a lucrative merchandising business. By the mid-1930s, however, Mickey’s creator Walt Disney was growing anxious about his lovable rodent. Recent surveys had suggested Mickey was now less popular than his Disney stable-mates Donald Duck and Goofy the dog, or even the spinach-eating sailor Popeye. What to do about this lamentable situation? Disney quickly conceived an answer. He would showcase Mickey in a special episode of his long-running ‘Silly Symphonies’ series, where humorous animations were matched to pieces of music. Snatches of classical music had featured in the ‘Silly Symphonies’ before, but Disney had a bolder notion – Mickey’s episode would…

Elgar, Stravinsky, Korngold: no one can accuse Vilde Frang of taking it easy with her choice of violin concertos this season. And that’s merely before Christmas. But Frang has never shied away from intensity, risk or hard work. They practically define her playing style and help to explain why she’s one of today’s most individual and compelling players. ‘As a personality, I always need a bit of resistance – I always need to do it the hard way,’ she explains. ‘Once I start to coast or get the feeling that things are going my way, or people are being positive, I don’t know how to handle that. It unsettles me, because it’s not supposed to be easy.’ Not yet 40, Frang is on top of the violin world, with her…

The Unknown Puccini Plácido Domingo (tenor), Julius Rudel (piano) Sony, 88691958482 (2012) One of Puccini’s greatest modern interpreters sings many of his songs including Avanti, Urania!, and Vexilla regis prodeunt, a hymn for male voices and organ. Puccini: Orchestral Music Radio Symphonie Orchester Berlin/Riccardo Chailly Decca, E4757722 (2006) The Capriccio sinfonico, with its prefiguring of La bohème, the Preludio sinfonico and an orchestral arrangement of Crisantemi are among the works featured alongside orchestral moments from Puccini’s operas. A te, Puccini Angela Gheorghiu (sopano), Vincenzo Scalera (piano) Signum SIGCD780 (2024) Released at the beginning of this year, this album of Puccini rarities sung by the great Romanian soprano includes the world premiere recording of the recently discovered song ‘Melanconia’. Puccini: Complete Organ Works Paolo Bottini (organ) Da Vinci Classics C00815 (2024)…

Polyphony Few composers knew better than Tallis the art of weaving multiple strands of music together to create a complex vocal tapestry. In works such as the seven-part Missa Puer natus est nobis and the famous 40-part motet Spem in alium he hits glorious heights of intricacy and invention. Intimacy While much of Tallis’s music grandly communicates the fervour and veneration involved in acts of Christian worship, he is also capable of more intimate emotions. His well-known anthem If ye love me has a disarming sense of tenderness, while the Lamentations of Jeremiah is notably melancholic and introspective. Melody While shifting waves of harmony and rich, multi-layered textures are often more important in Tallis than individual melodies, concise, memorable tunes were also part of his armoury. The nine settings he…

Puccini’s love of fast cars could easily have led to us marking the centenary of his death 21 years ago rather than this month – a spectacular crash in 1903 nearly ensured that the likes of Madam Butterfly (1904), La fanciulla del West (1910) and Il trittico (1918) never saw the light of day. The Lucca-born composer’s racy lifestyle was funded by the huge success of Manon Lescaut (1893), La bohème (1896) and Tosca (1900), a notable contrast to the preceding Edgar (1889), which had failed to capture the public imagination. His later years saw him enjoy international celebrity, though his roots remained firmly in Tuscany.…

C Schumann R Schumann R Schumann: Three Romances, Op. 94; Fantasiestücke, Op. 73; Three Pieces from ‘Fünf Stücke im Volkston’, Op. 102; Liederkreis – Mondnact, Op. 39 No. 5; Three Duos; Adagio und Allegro, Op. 70; C Schumann: Three Romances, Op. 22 Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Julius Drake (piano)  Chandos CHAN20295 75:41 mins Robert Schumann only wrote one work for oboe – but that hasn’t stopped oboist Nicholas Daniel drawing together a gorgeous album of his music. Played with such warmth and eloquence, the arrangements chosen here often feel as if they were tailor-made for the instrument, while the sensitive programming paints a loving portrait of the Schumann household. Through the prism of the oboe, we hear pieces written for an array of other instruments – violin, clarinet, horn and the…

Bruckner Symphony No. 9 Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich/Paavo Järvi Alpha Classics ALPHA1068 61:15 mins This is the third recording of Bruckner’s Ninth to have appeared recently, and the finest by a substantial margin. Indeed, as Paavo Järvi suggests, his peerless Swiss ensemble ‘has everything needed for Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 – technically, musically, and in terms of sound,’ and impressive as they both are, neither François-Xavier Roth’s account with the Gurzenich-Orchester (Myrios) nor Jakub Hrůša’s Bambergers (on Accentus) can eclipse this spellbinding orchestral playing, nor Järvi’s clear-sighted yet spiritually chastening interpretation. Amply reverberant yet clinically detailed, the spatial realism of this recording, with its massive dynamic range and pin-sharp instrumental focus captures the majestic solemnity of the superlative Zurich orchestra – one of Europe’s best, whatever they might think in Berlin or…

Brett Dean Rooms of Elsinore Jennifer France (soprano), Lotte Betts-Dean (mezzo-soprano) et al; Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Brett Dean BIS BIS-2454 79:18 mins It is all about Hamlet, though Hamlet does not feature. This compelling album presents five works prompted by writing an opera on Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy. Each stands on its own, yet they obliquely inhabit its world. The opening song cycle, And once I played Ophelia, breathlessly plunges straight into the psychologically fraught atmosphere. This Ophelia is no frail, pale wallflower, with soprano Jennifer France imperious one moment, ethereally untethered the next, and Ophelia’s torment incisively mirrored by the strings of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. The five shorter songs of Gertrude Fragments reflect the growing anxiety of Hamlet’s mother, conveyed with profound empathy by mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean. Mezzo Lotte Betts-Dean…

Etienne Charles Creole Orchestra Feat. Etienne Charles, Jumaane Smith (trumpet), Michael Thomas, John Ellis (saxophones), Alex Wintz (guitar), René Marie (vocals) Culture Shock EC010 Today’s big bands and their leaders rarely enjoy the wild popularity of golden era antecedents like Goodman, Shaw, Ellington and Basie. It’s thanks to innovators through the ages like Quincy Jones, Carla Bley and Maria Schneider that the large ensemble remains relevant. Now the Trinidadian trumpeter Etienne Charles has picked up the baton. Making his name as a soloist with small combos after training at Juilliard in New York, Charles revealed a gift for writing and arranging large canvas works for others relatively recently. His new album, Creole Orchestra, is a 22-piece, multi-hybrid melange of genres that ranges from old school big band to hiphop –…

NOVEMBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see BBC Sounds and iPlayer 1 FRIDAY 6.30-9.30am Breakfast 9.30am-1pm Essential Classics 1-4pm Classical Live 4-5pm Composer of the Week Liszt 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm Classical Mixtape 7.30-9.45 Friday Night is Music Night 9.45-10pm The Essay 10-11.30pm Late Junction 11.30pm-12.30am ‘Round Midnight 2 SATURDAY 6.30-9am Saturday Breakfast 9am-12noon Saturday Morning 12noon-1pm Earlier… with Jools Holland 1-2pm Music Matters A View from the Organ Loft 2-4pm Record Review 4-5pm Sound of Cinema 5-6pm This Classical Life 6-9.30pm Opera on 3 9.30-10.30pm Music Planet 10.30pm-12.30am New Music Show 3 SUNDAY 6.30-9am Sunday Breakfast 9am-12pm Sunday Morning 12-1.30pm Private Passions 1.30-3pm Music Map 3-4pm Choral Evensong 4-5pm Jazz Record Requests 5-6pm The Early Music Show 6-7.15pm Words and Music 7.15-8pm…

THE QUIZ You’ll need to be in your element for this month’s quiz 1. Featuring a ‘chromola’ (a colour organ), whose tone poem Prometheus: The Poem of Fire was premiered in Moscow, March 1911? 2. And in November of that same year, Bruno Walter conducted the posthumous premiere of whose Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) for two voices and orchestra? 3. For which British monarchs did Handel compose: a) The Water Music (1717); b) Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749)? 4. ‘When I am laid in earth’ is the most famous aria from which opera, premiered in 1689? 5. Which Master of the King’s Music was commissioned in 1954 to write the theme for the BBC TV series War in the Air, celebrating Britain’s success…

One of Britain’s most beloved pianists, Kathryn Stott has performed as a soloist with orchestras worldwide and in recital with regular partners including pianist Noriko Ogawa, trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and, especially, cellist Yo-Yo Ma. After four decades, Stott is retiring from public performance this autumn, touring for the last time with Yo-Yo Ma in October and November, and giving a solo recital series, ‘Musical Postcards’, which ends in Liverpool on 11 December. She also talks about her relationship with Fauré’s music in a BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature on 3 November. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but when they had any spare they bought records – often tenors singing Italian opera. I was about eight when I heard Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill singing the ‘Au…

Bruckner dishonour The photograph of Hitler ‘honouring’ Bruckner (What’s wrong with Bruckner?, October) was sickening. Hitler may well have liked Bruckner’s music, but Bruckner was a devout Catholic and wrote music ‘ad majorem Dei gloriam’ – for the greater glory of God. Hitler was born Catholic but he came to despise Christianity as it opposed his idea of a ‘master race’. He saw ‘Christian teaching as standing in the way of natural selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest’ (Alan Bullock – Hitler, a Study in Tyranny) and even declared in 1937 that Christianity was ripe for destruction. I cannot help thinking that poor Bruckner would have been appalled to be honoured by the godless Hitler. Gavin Young, Temple Sowerby To see or not to see? In your…

Readers of a certain generation may remember the launch of BBC2 in April 1964. Shortly after came Jazz 625, a flagship programme that showcased the likes of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Cleo Laine in the 1960s – the ‘625’ referred to the channel’s hi-tech 625-line UHF signal, as opposed to the bog-standard 405-line VHF. To mark 60 years since the programme’s first outing, Jazz in the Round at EFG London Jazz Festival will be presenting ‘Jazz on The Box’ on 20 November, recreating the sounds and sights of that heady era. Though most of the stars of the 1960s are now long gone, bassist Dave Green (right), who appeared on the original programme, is still with us and will be playing at the programme’s modern-day reincarnation, led by pianist…

Despite the Cello Concerto’s greater popularity today, Elgar considered the Violin Concerto to be among his best works. ‘It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it,’ he once declared. It was Fritz Kreisler who, in 1905, persuaded Elgar to compose his Violin Concerto. Over the next five years, Kreisler and London Symphony Orchestra concertmaster William Henry Reed made recommendations as the sprawling, 50-minute work took shape. Kreisler declared the finished article the ‘greatest violin concerto produced since Beethoven’s’ and premiered the work in London, with Elgar conducting, in November 1910. It was an immediate success, and although there were plans for the two to record it, these eventually fell through, and Elgar instead recorded the Concerto with a young Yehudi Menuhin in 1932 (pictured left). So popular was…

Waley-Cohen first met Oliver Knussen when he came to give a masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music, where she did her postgraduate studies. He eventually became her main teacher, and she would visit him in Snape, where he lived, to work on her music. ‘He’d give me these three- or four-hour, incredibly inspiring lessons,’ she says, ‘and I could call him at any point to talk through an orchestration or whatever it was. And then after I finished my PhD, we stayed close friends.’ When it came to writing a piece in his memory, Waley-Cohen had all sorts of ideas. ‘I was thinking about all these tiny, beautiful things in nature, which feel connected to the idea of someone’s spirit still being around. I’d been reading the poem Come…

Ostrava is embracing and reinventing its industrial past in much the same way as Sheffield or Dundee. Dolní Vítkovice, that enormous former steelworks, has been reborn as an arts venue and the site of the annual Colours of Ostrava pop and world music festival. The showpiece is the Gong Auditorium, a gasometer transformed into a 1,500-seat theatre and concert venue. Those unafflicted by vertigo should also head up the Bolt Tower, an 80-metre former blast furnace that houses a panoramic café, with views of the forest-clad Beskid Mountains.…

Zubin Mehta (conductor) Joan Sutherland (Turandot), Luciano Pavarotti (Calaf), Montserrat Caballé (Liù) et al; London Philharmonic Orchestra Decca 478 7815 For the perfect Turandot, you would want a gorgeously lyrical Calaf, a delicate, heartrending Liù, a Turandot who can navigate the character’s psychological complexities, and a conductor capable of bringing out the subtleties of this most symphonic of opera scores. When the ideal interpreters are scattered across a number of recordings, compromise is inevitable. Conductor Zubin Mehta’s long-revered interpretation from 1972 now faces fierce competition from the slick 2023 Pappano set (see right) but ultimately ticks more boxes in terms of overall satisfaction. Joan Sutherland is often remarked upon as being an odd choice for Turandot. However, she is surprisingly impressive: less strident than some interpreters but with no sacrifice…

We appear to be rather en pointe this month with a flurry of ballet and dance music, but there isn’t a swan or fairytale princess to speak of! We have works written for leaps and bounds from Gershwin and his lesser-known contemporary John Alden Carpenter, a set of Khachaturian classics, a complete Don Quixote by Roberto Gerhard and a ride on Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel (replete with its ballet segment). And then there’s two brand new works by unlikely ballet composers RZA (of Wu-Tang Clan fame) and JB Dunckel (from French pop duo Air). If you prefer the page to the stage then we have works inspired by Tennyson, Shakespeare (Brett Dean’s brilliant Rooms of Elsinore) and classic myths and legends from Persephone to the Ring. This month’s critics John…

Anna Clyne Shorthand Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Avi Avital (mandolin), Pekka Kuusisto (viola) et al; The Knights/Eric Jacobsen Sony Classical G010005317132W (digital) 60:12 mins Anna Clyne has built up a formidable reputation over the past few years, attracting a fine line-up of soloists to perform on this album which covers over two decades of her string compositions. Her style seems rather instinctive, often cinematic in scope, and takes inspiration from many sources, be it poetry, painting or other music. The album is framed by Shorthand, a haunting piece for cello and strings. Yo-Yo Ma is miraculous in generating a mesmeric mood into a very simple idea which deliciously slides upwards. This forms a contrast to a sharply depicted klezmer-like theme, delivered with impressive rhythmic drive. Three Sisters features mandolin soloist Avi…

Mendelssohn Piano Trios Nos 1 & 2 Jeremy Denk (piano), Joshua Bell (violin), Steven Isserlis (cello) Sony Classical 19802832482 60:37 mins Three star musicians, great friends and colleagues over many years, reunite here for a feast of Felix Mendelssohn. Steven Isserlis is a distant relative of the A composer and his long-standing identification with the warmth, sensitivity and elan of the music is undimmed. He, Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk may be wellestablished collaborators, but the result still feels like a musical crossroads for very different performers, rather than the streamlined effect you might expect from a full-time group. That can be an advantage, though: they’re in excellent sympathy, yet each has individual qualities to bring to the musical table. Denk is supremely fiery at the piano. Bell offsets him…

Bruckner Symphony No. 4 The Cleveland Orchestra/Franz Welser-Möst Cleveland Orchestra TCO 0012 In this live performance, the sumptuous-sounding Clevelanders provide just what you’d want from Bruckner’s hunting-inspired symphony: a stirring sunrise, a sense of mystery and trepidation as we head into the dark unknown, a dash of lunchtime jollity and, for all these welcome diversions, a clear sense that we are always riding in the right direction. (JP) JA Carpenter Krazy Cat; The Birthday of the Infanta; Skyscrapers (Complete Ballets) Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose BMOP/Sound 1100 For the first time, all three of Carpenter’s ballet scores are assembled on a single album, and it’s a joy. Overshadowed by the younger Gershwin, Carpenter (1876-1951) was a trailblazer in injecting the rhythm and hue of ragtime and jazz into his…

Olivier Messiaen – A Critical Biography Robert Sholl Reaktion Books 208pp (hb) £25 Robert Sholl’s new biography of Messiaen eschews a day-by-day, what-happened-next approach to chronicling the composer’s life. Instead, Sholl takes a more selective approach, focusing on key people, events and influences in the composer’s world. He is more comprehensive when it comes to Messiaen’s music, where all the major works receive a detailed critical appreciation. Much of Sholl’s succinct, penetrating commentary is immediately accessible to the general reader, but there’s an appreciable amount – a table of ‘symmetrical permutations’ for the orchestral Chronochromie, for instance – which seems aimed at a more academic audience. The treatment of Messiaen’s personal life is also frustratingly sketchy. There’s little analysis of his first marriage to the eventually invalided Claire Delbos,…