Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i BBC Music Magazine

‘Being a pianist is a very solitary job,’ says this month’s cover star Yuja Wang. Indeed, she admits, if she had her time again, she might have chosen another career path. Not that Wang isn’t grateful for all that she has achieved, as she tells Clive Paget on page 24. But being a top musician – even of the collaborative type – involves a great deal of independent thought, and the capacity to delve deeply into the score. Such solitary study is crucial when memorising music, as five great soloists explain on page 46. Practising a piece repeatedly may train the hands to perform those tricky passages – but in moments of stress, when standing in the spotlight on a darkened stage, muscle memory alone can fail. On page 42,…

7th: US Golfer Ben Hogan wins the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, hitting a final round of 68 to triumph by two shots. The win is Hogan’s fifth in golf’s four major annual championships, and will be followed by another two months later when he successfully defends the US Open. 11th: As the Korean War heads towards stalemate, US President Harry S Truman relieves Douglas MacArthur of his position as Commander of the Far East. The increasingly insubordinate MacArthur has recently been critical of Truman’s strategy in a letter sent to Joseph W Martin Jnr, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives. 18th: At the Treaty of Paris, France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands sign the Europe Declaration, establishing the European Coal and Steel…

My mother was born in Vienna in 1941. Her father, a music professor, was captured in Normandy on D-Day. She didn’t meet him until the age of six. Instead, she was a ‘Red Cross child’ – malnourished, homeless, and put on a train to neutral Switzerland. Some time later, my mother went to university back in Vienna and then took a PhD, which included a year in Oslo studying Nordic myths and traditions. She met a Norwegian man and moved to Norway, where she has been ever since. She learned Norwegian in a couple of months. A teacher for many years, she later became a researcher in Nordic traditions and has published several works on the subject. My mother has two sides that I recognise in myself. First is her…

Pick a theme… and name your seven favourite examples Hailing from Canada, James Ehnes is one of the world’s most renowned violinists, and has performed with orchestras all over the globe. A devoted chamber musician, he leads the Ehnes Quartet and is artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society. He is also a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and, since August 2024, a member of the faculty at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His recording of Bach’s Complete Violin Concertos with the National Arts Centre Orchestra is out on the Analekta label on 28 March. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto I’ve had personal experiences of playing this piece a lot in big outdoor settings; I’ve played it in Central Park twice and…

In a black-and-white photo taken in Brescia in 1948, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli stares into the camera, supporting a slightly frail-looking Alfred Cortot. The older man’s hand grips the younger man’s elbow, a touching picture of mutual respect. The Italian’s tailored jacket and tie contrasts with the French pianist’s battered hat and bowtie, reflecting the generation gap. Yet despite differences, they hold a special place in the hearts of many pianists today, including Yuja Wang. Cortot, born 1877, was known for his expressive interpretations of Romantic repertoire. It’s less well known that in 1902 he conducted the Paris premiere of Götterdämmerung. In 1925, he made the world’s first commercial electrical recording of classical music playing Chopin and Schubert. After WWII, he was found guilty of collaborating with the Vichy government and…

Chamber-Scale Composition Sarah Lianne Lewis - letting the light in Lewis’s work for solo prepared piano is a reflection on new motherhood, premiered by Siwan Rhys. Lewis explores navigating change, balancing a freelance career with caregiving, and its impact on her disability. Conductor Kazuki Yamada Music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra since 2023, Yamada is also artistic and music director of Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. The Japanese-born conductor continues to work and perform in his homeland with the NHK Symphony Orchestra every season too. Gamechanger NMC Recordings Recognised for ‘inspirational work breaking new ground in classical music’, this year’s Gamechanger is NMC Recordings, which for over 35 years has been dedicated to ‘the promotion of exceptional contemporary classical music from Britain and Ireland’. Impact Re:Discover Festival – Streetwise…

‘A novel which sparkles from the first page to the last is pretty sure not to be a great book. Nor have the lives of great men been exciting except at a few great moments… Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of the sort that would look exciting to the outward eye… ‘The capacity to endure a more or less monotonous life is one which should be acquired in childhood. Modern parents are greatly to blame in this respect; they provide their children with far too many passive amusements, such as shows and good things to eat, and they do not realise the importance to a child of having one day like another, except, of…

Edward Kennedy ‘Duke’ Ellington was without doubt one of the most remarkable musicians of the 20th century. Universally regarded in the jazz world as one of the finest creative talents the music had ever seen, he also garnered considerable respect from classical musicians for his sophisticated compositions which, although obviously ‘jazz’ in their constant delight in rich, expressive timbres and a deep engagement with African-American music, were so impressive on a purely compositional level that they left both critics and musicians dumbfounded at the consistently high level of his artistry. Critics and musicians were left dumbfounded at the consistently high level of his artistry Ellington was notoriously ambivalent about the value of improvisation in jazz – not a view, perhaps, that would naturally endear him to jazz die-hards. When he…

Christophe Rousset (conductor) Nadja Michael (Médée), Kurt Streit (Jason) et al; Les Talens Lyriques BelAir Classiques BAC076/476 (DVD or Blu-ray) Filmed at La Monnaie in Brussels in 2011, director Krzysztof Warlikowski’s thrilling staging is sung in French, though with a new spoken text by the director and Christian Longchamp, which generally works well. Broadly in modern dress – there are only sporadic and tokenistic visual references to ancient Greece – the production is sharply and convincingly directed, conveying the ancient drama in a modern setting and with some references to the opera house where it is performed. Warlikowski spares the audience nothing of this dark tale and his cast commits entirely to the piece and its production. Preceding the opera proper is a grainy old video featuring two small boys…

There’s a thrilling feeling of rediscovery this month, with albums of music subject to censorship, arias and a cello concerto lost to time, and a book reframing the role of Black women artists in shaping Chicago’s classical music story. We also have the first ever recording of Michael Tippett’s final opera, New Year, not to mention works given new leases of life – or recast, if you will. Those include Bach Lute Suites transcribed for piano, and Holst’s mighty The Planets suite played on the organ of Salisbury Cathedral. We have ‘New Baroque’ too, a piano concerto composed by Stephen Hough, a wonderful new cantata by British composer Gavin Higgins, plus plenty of old favourites and a trip around the latest World Music releases. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas…

Lalo Widor Cello Concertos Graham du Plessis (cello); Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin/Māris Kupčs Solaire SOL1019 59:42 mins Widor’s Cello Concerto of 1877 was premiered in 1882 but appears to have only had one performance. It’s possible that the work was considered to be old fashioned in comparison with the sparkling First Concerto of 1872 by Saint-Saëns or Lalo’s more melodramatic Concerto of 1876. Whatever the case, Widor’s Concerto is definitely worth hearing, particularly as the original manuscript is used for this recording which offers numerous differences to the printed cello part, in terms of both tessitura and invention. Graham de Plessis’s technically brilliant and persuasively eloquent reading is well characterised, and the contribution from the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin under Māris Kupčs is neat and strongly supportive. Graham du Plessis gives a…

Górecki Complete Works for String Quartet Silesian Quartet Chandos CHAN20383(2) 124:35 mins (2CD) The belated success of Górecki’s Third Symphony was possibly more of a curse than a blessing. Dawn Upshaw’s 1992 recording suddenly skewed perceptions not only of the 1975 ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ but indeed of Górecki’s wider output. Although spirituality was always a part of Górecki’s make-up, so was a strong vein of Polish intellectualism. He began as a tough avantgardist, as any complete survey of his music reveals. The Silesian Quartet play with a mixture of stillness and attack When it comes to his works for string quartet, that survey begins about halfway through his career – dating from 1988, the String Quartet No. 1 predates the composer’s worldwide fame. ‘Already it is Dusk’ owes something…

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Anthony Cheng Writer, producer & filmmaker ‘When in conversations with Andrew Keener he enraptures you with his passion for record producing. His craft is not only his job but his whole sense of being. His erudition of classical music record history is truly second to none.’ Page 34 Ariane Todes Writer and editor ‘How many people are put off classical music by the feeling that they have to pay constant attention in concerts? I often think about this as my mind wanders during a performance, so I wanted to shed light on a taboo subject.’ Page 58 Mervyn Cooke Professor of music ‘Whether accompanying an exotic dance routine at Harlem’s Cotton Club or impressing at a Carnegie Hall concert, Duke Ellington’s music was among the most original and sophisticated ever…

More than the usual number of classical music stories have made it onto our screens recently, from Cate Blanchett’s conductor-skewering Tár to Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, his love-letter to Leonard Bernstein; from Stephen Williams’s Chevalier, on the astounding life of Joseph Bologne, to Angelina Jolie’s vividly stylish turn as Maria Callas. Too much of a good thing? Impossible – Hollywood’s just getting started! Expect all of these soon… Dmitri Shostakovich: the real Die Another Day. Denounced by Stalin. Interrogated by the secret police. What happened when Shostakovich was questioned by Stalin’s henchmen? What battles of the soul played out in that bunker in 1937, as Shostakovich fought for his life, answering accusations that he was involved in a plot to overthrow Stalin? And what was the miracle that meant he survived…

Elsewhere in this issue, Ariane Todes writes about what she calls a ‘taboo’ subject: being bored in a concert of classical music (see p58). It’s an intriguing matter. The natural impulse when your mind starts wandering in a concert is to blame the music or performers. But remember Dylan Thomas’s remark: ‘Someone’s boring me. I think it’s me.’ In other words, is the source of boredom what’s going on (or not going on) inside your own head? Ours is an age that likes easy answers. Social media is full of people who apparently have a quick solution for every problem, even though they have no relevant expertise. Inevitably, the cultural world is affected too. Superficial assessments and instant verdicts are the modern way. If a piece of art or music…

I enter a windowless room on the ground floor of Andrew Keener’s home, tucked away on a street in New Malden, London. CDs and books fill almost all the spaces. Stacks of them on the coffee table tower above me, including CDs he’s produced himself. In front of loudspeakers, in the middle of the room a long wooden desk is stationed bearing laptop and headphones and a laid open, heavily annotated score with all the colours of the rainbow marked across the pages. The room exudes the aura of a command centre where all the artistic magic happens. He ushers me in with a wide open-palmed gesture. ‘Welcome to my safe space! It’s my retreat. It’s a room where I can leave worries at the door.’ This office has been…

Ah, the magnificent soloist… Whether virtuoso violinists with flying fingers, dazzling pianists dashing off crashing chord clusters or stupendous sopranos defying the limits of the human vocal cords with thrillingly high coloratura, these superhuman musical performers never fail to entertain and enthral us with their moving interpretations. But how often do we think about their feats of memorisation as we sit in our comfortable stalls seat, enjoying their performance without a musical score? When you consider the sheer number of notes in the average concerto or opera, the human capacity for recollection is nothing short of miraculous. As with all incredible achievements, however, behind the seemingly effortless performance are hours of practice, planning and thought – plus various techniques developed over the course of a long career. So, as we…

Some musicians’ backstage riders are notorious – Pavarotti liked fresh pasta to be made available; Madonna has reportedly insisted on new toilet seats to be installed in her dressing room – but for performances of Nunu (2003), the star performers need a fruit basket. Mira Calix’s (above) quirky piece is scored for cicadas, crickets and/or wasps, whose sounds are amplified and mixed with electronics and more traditional instruments. The insectile crackle is appealing for its own musical merit, a phenomenon that is a burgeoning area of research. ‘Zoomusicology’ – a term coined in 1983 by French composer François-Bernard Mâche – focuses on the musical aspects of animal sounds and questions the idea that only humans can be inherently musical. For example, while some birdsong is ‘useful’ – consider a robin…

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How would you describe the music of the Bantu people? The Bantu are such a diverse range of people, from one of the most diverse groups in the world, geographically. And I think that speaks to the universality of where and how things connect us. So the music represents a kind of universal connection that everybody feeds on; ways of building community, ways of remembering our ancestors and using our voice as a powerful tool to survive in the world. Your gigs are full of energy. How do you distil that in a recording? I work in the moment. I feel like I need to be somewhat hot-headed or unhinged in my expression, if that’s what is needed for the music. I try not to think of it as a…

The Ghosts of Hamlet – Lost Arias from Italian Baroque Operas Arias by Carcani, Handel et al Roberta Mameli (soprano); Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu/Franck-Emmanuel Comte Arcana A574 68:04 mins Stonking performances and brilliant programming unite in this solo album. Hamlet – not Shakespeare’s character, but the prince of the 12th-century history of Denmark, Gesta Danorum – became, in the 18th century, the hero of a libretto by Apostolo Zeno. This recording brings together numbers from various settings of Zeno’s Ambleto. Roberta Mameli’s singing burns with passion and virtuosity, aided by the inspired direction of Franck-Emmanuel Comte. Comte and Le Concert de l’Hostel Dieu are pure joy Mameli conjures fully realised dramatic characters, some of whose best music is by Francesco Gasparini. ‘Stelle, voi che de’ regnanti’ (1705) is a…

Field Complete Nocturnes Alice Sara Ott (piano) DG 486 6238 73:22 mins John Field has spent his posthumous life in a state of permanent eclipse, with Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt all pushing him into the role of a mere walk-on – good only for an occasional encore, in the great stream of music history. But as Alice Sara Ott observes, in Russia – where he spent most of his life – he was a megastar. It’s now time, she believes, for a reappraisal. With its pearlised touch, Alice Sara Ott’s pianism is a delight His most often played Nocturne is the fifth in B flat major, with its freewheeling melody and charming effects, but when these pieces are listened to as a complete set, the impression one gets…

The Beauty & the Bow (Rhine Classics RH-034) is an eight-disc collection of rare recordings by the American cellist Christine Walevska, once hailed as the ‘Goddess of Cello’. While she made many recordings for Philips, this set features gems from her own private collection. They include performances recorded for radio and home recordings, captured 1958-2014. It’s a broad view of her celebrated career and international appeal; indeed, there are concert recordings from the US, Japan, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Germany, France, Belgium and Spain. It’s a wide range of music, too, with Walevska taking on everything from Bach to lesser-known works by Popper, William Schuman and Bolognini. It remains one of the greatest ever conductor and orchestra partnerships, and in Herbert von Karajan – Live in Berlin 1953-1969 (Berlin Phil BPHR 240291)…

1 TUESDAY 6.30-9.30am Breakfast 9.30am-1pm Essential Classics 1-4pm Classical Live 4-5pm Composer of the Week Mel Bonis 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm Classical Mixtape 7.30-9.45pm Radio 3 In Concert from Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. Nørgård Symphony No.8, Grieg Piano Concerto, Sibelius Symphony No.3. Paul Lewis (piano), BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds 9.45-10pm The Essay 10-11.30pm Night Tracks 11.30pm-12.30am ‘Round Midnight 2 WEDNESDAY 6.30-9.30am Breakfast 9.30am-1pm Essential Classics 1-3pm Classical Live 3-4pm Choral Evensong 4-5pm Composer of the Week Mel Bonis 5-7pm In Tune 7-7.30pm Classical Mixtape 7.30-9.45pm Radio 3 In Concert live from Royal Festival Hall, London. Prokofiev Semyon Kotko Suite, Mussorgsky Songs and Dances of Death, Lyatoshynsky Symphony No.3. Matthew Rose (bass), LPO/Vladimir Jurowski 9.45-10pm The Essay 10-11.30pm Night Tracks 11.30pm-12.30am ‘Round Midnight 3 THURSDAY 6.30-9.30am Breakfast 9.30am-1pm Essential Classics 1-4pm Classical Live…

Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: music@classical-music.com Social media: contact us on Facebook and X(Twitter) LETTER of the MONTH Cocking a snook Stephen Johnson’s article on political satire in music (When music bites; January) was most enjoyable and I would like to mention another work that fits: Rimsky-Korsakov’s last opera, The Golden Cockerel. The composer, who had served for many years in the Russian Navy, was bitter after the Tsar sent it to its annihilation in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. His disenchantment with the government increased when it put down protests by brutal force in 1905. In 1906, he began writing The Golden Cockerel, based on a story about the foolish Tsar Dodon. When Rimsky-Korsakov submitted the opera to the Tsar’s censors…

THIS MONTH Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha soprano CONCERT HEAVEN Mendelssohn Elijah Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha (soprano), Sarah Connolly (mezzosoprano), Gerald Finley (baritone), Allan Clayton (tenor); London Symphony Orchestra/Antonio Pappano Barbican, London (January 2024) There are many wonderful concerts and it’s so difficult to choose my highlight! But perhaps I would select a concert at the Barbican last year with the London Symphony Orchestra, when we recorded Mendelssohn’s Elijah. I love the music, and it felt like a spiritual experience. I just enjoyed it so much. That was my debut appearance with the LSO (they are a wonderful orchestra) and also my first time singing the Mendelssohn, so it was all very exciting. I worked on my part at the Royal Opera House, because I was a Young Artist there, and I got…

Andrew Keener’s ears whirr at high gear in the recording booth – and he has always been a careful and sensitive listener, even during his very earliest days of attending recording sessions before taking on his official role as a record producer. Renowned British cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (pictured above) was in awe of Keener’s aural abilities during their early encounters. ‘We first met when he turned pages for my pianist during a recording of Debussy and Rachmaninov sonatas in London,’ he remembers, adding that the Rachmaninov was incredibly difficult to balance between the piano and cello. In between page turning, and listening intently to the session, Keener was able to give some invaluable feedback: ‘He made very pertinent comments, despite him not being the producer on the day. And…

I play many things from memory, but never my own compositions! Unsurprisingly, a lot of people ask, ‘If you wrote the piece, why do you need a score?’ One reason is that when I’m performing my own music, I want to separate completely the person playing the work from the person who wrote it. I don’t want it to seem like I’m walking out onto the stage and half-improvising it. My pieces are a bit like, say, a sculpture – I’ve put down the chisel and it’s done. Now they’re published, I can’t change them even if I wanted to, and they’re there for other people to play. I don’t want it to seem like I’m walking onto the stage and half-improvising Also, both in my own music and in…

I have a confession. It’s probably an inadvisable one for a classical music writer to make in these illustrious pages, but I’m going to make it anyway. Sometimes I go to classical concerts and, while the musicians are giving their all for the works of great creative masters, my mind drifts. I think about what I’m going to eat later, or wrestle with something said to me earlier in the day. Sometimes I barely notice the music at all. It may happen in music I don’t know at all. It may happen in music I know very well. It may just happen. In these moments, I might even admit that what I was experiencing was boredom. Now, this is a taboo subject in classical music. ‘Boring’ is so often the…

Shortly before Christmas, my resident contact in Barcelona sent me an exciting photo: proudly displayed outside the Liceu opera house on the city’s famous Ramblas were posters advertising a new production of Verdi’s Madam Butterfly. Really? Blimey. This was big, big news. Time to find out more. Alas… false dawn. The Madam Butterfly in question was in fact the famous one by Puccini. My report on a newly discovered Verdi opera would have to wait – someone in the Liceu poster department had simply had a bad day at the office. Tsk. But let’s be fair. Highlighting that howler is a little mean, as the classical music scene in Barcelona is really rather classy, as even a brief visit will reveal. A couple of months later, in fact, I’m at…

Hymns of Bantu Works by JS Bach, Marais, Abel Selaocoe et al Abel Selaocoe (cello, vocal); Bantu Ensemble; Manchester Collective et al Warner Classics 2173245895 55:34 mins ‘When you come from a diverse mix of cultures,’ says Abel Selaocoe, South African cellist, vocalist and composer, ‘you don’t choose how things come together and how the DNA congeals, but in this land of incredible rhythm all of this stuff becomes part of your ancestral memory.’ Selaocoe has been making waves ever since bursting onto the classical music scene in 2016 with his genre-breaking ensemble Chesaba. Fusing the musical heritage of South Africa with Western classical repertoire and techniques, Selaocoe has created a distinct and beautiful soundworld, which this ambitious new album takes to a new level. Hymns of Bantu is grounded…

Stravinsky Kelly-Marie Murphy Stravinsky: Pulcinella; The Fairy’s Kiss – Divertimento; Kelly-Marie Murphy: Curiosity, Genius, and the Search For Petula Clark Toronto Symphony Orchestra/Gustavo Gimeno et al Harmonia Mundi HMM905384 75 mins Everything on this album is so fine and focused, so let me get the only caveat out of the way. Gustavo Gimeno writes in the booklet note that he has ‘always been attracted to pieces that are very popular in suite form but rarely presented in their entirety’ – then goes and gives us, yes, the complete Pulcinella ballet, but only the Divertimento from The Fairy’s Kiss. So the question is would it have been better to have the whole of Stravinsky’s very piquant and loving homage to Tchaikovsky instead of Curiosity, Genius, and the Search for Petula Clark,…

Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On Works by Brahms, Debussy, Halfvén, Ravel, Schubert, Vaughan Williams et al The King’s Singers et al Signum Classics SIGCD887 63:27 mins This is the last recording The King’s Singers made before the departure of bass Jonathan Howard. It bears all the familiar hallmarks of a well-loved vocal team that has honed its style over half a century: every line of polyphony is given its proper weight, every word of text is cherished, consonants impeccably placed and vowels homogenous throughout the texture. The overall impression is of a single organism, comfortable in its skin, moving and breathing as one. Anyone who wants to hear a cappella singing at its best will not be disappointed The programme features music that spans national traditions drawn from…

The Bear and the Piano – 10th Anniversary Edition David Litchfield Frances Lincoln 30pp £7.99 If you’re not acquainted with this totally charming children’s book written and illustrated by David Litchfield, then its new tenth anniversary edition is your chance. A bear stumbles across an odd contraption in the forest, one which makes noise. With curiosity, time and persistence he begins to make it sing, develops a real talent (despite his bulk and the size of his paws on the keyboard) and is ‘discovered’ by human passers by. Bravely stepping out of his comfort zone to try and make it in the big city as a concert pianist, our ursine virtuoso follows his dreams and becomes the talk of the town. But despite sell-out concerts, album deals and the adulation…

THE QUIZ Time to test yourselves with this month’s ten questions… 1. Which great choral work was first performed at the Musick Hall in Dublin on 13 April 1742? 2. ‘Snowdrop’ represents the month of April in which composer’s 12-movement solo piano work The Seasons? 3. The action of which Britten opera begins on 10 April 1900, with a meeting about the selection of the May Queen? 4. Which April 1912 event is the subject of Nielsen’s wind band work Nearer, My God, to Thee? 5. ‘Ah, that tastes good!’ were reportedly the last words of which composer, on enjoying a glass of wine shortly before his death, aged 63, on 3 April 1897? 6. Premiered in 1923, The Perfect Fool is a one-act opera by whom? 7. Anything but…

You may well know him from the Hollywood blockbusters Jurassic Park, Independence Day and Wicked, but you may not realise the American superstar also knows his way around a piano. With his Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, Goldblum has played Glastonbury and Ronnie Scott’s, and their fourth album is out on 25 April on Decca. When I was 15, I got it in my head to get the telephone book, look up ‘Cocktail Lounges’ and cold call them: ‘Hey, I heard you need a pianist…’ Some said, ‘We don’t even have a piano,’ but others said, ‘Yeah, how old are you? Come on over and let’s hear you play.’ And I got a couple of jobs that way. I had been playing piano since about the age of nine or ten; our…