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io e p
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tin 2
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1V2IE0WS
A new era begins RE
CDS, DVDS
& BOO5KS
see p6

LANG LANG
Roll over Rachmaninov! Eerie sounds
I’m making way for Mozart… The weird and
wonderful world
of the theremin

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Charles Dutoit
We interview the great conductor
Creative sparks
Who are today’s real-life muses?
Allegri’s Miserere
Leo⌃ JanáΩek
Berg’s
The Violin
Czech Concerto
opera genius explored
Strauss’s Don
Hurrah Quixote
for Horatio!
and many more
The best Nelson Mass on disc
 LAURENCE EQUILBEY
INSULA ORCHESTRA DEBUT RECORDING
ACCENTUS
MOZART REQUIEM
1 CD - V5370

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART 1756-1791

REQUIEM IN D MINOR KV 626

sandrine piau SOPRANO | sara mingardo CONTRALTO

c julien mignot
werner güra TENOR | christopher purves BASS-BARITONE
accentus
insula orchestra ON PERIOD INSTRUMENTS
laurence equilbey CONDUCTOR

LOG BOOK
MOZART’S REQUIEM AT CHÂTEAU DE VERSAILLES
DISCOVER CLASSICAL MUSIC BACKSTAGE IN A NEW WEBSERIAL!
Lorenzo, an unconditional fan of Mozart and conductor Laurence Equilbey, manages to get himself invited to the recording session
for the Requiem at the Versailles Palace in France…
www.goo.gl/vj8329

Co-founded by Laurence Equilbey in 2012, Insula orchestra’s artistic project is built around a repertoire ranging mainly from
the Classical to the Romantic eras, with symphonic programmes as well as programmes with choir and soloists.
The orchestra plays on period instruments, working on sonority appropriate for today’s large concert halls.
The musicians - gathered around a small group of renowned and experienced section leaders - are recruited among the young
generation graduating from European specialised higher education institutions.

LAURENCE EQUILBEY WITH ACCENTUS a selective discography

HAYDN
transcriptions: the seven last words
BARBER, MAHLER, CHOPIN… with akademie für alte musik berlin

FAURÉ MENDELSSOHN
requiem christus, cantatas
with orchestre national de france with orchestre de chambre de paris
 DECEMBER 2014 THE MONTH IN MUSIC

THE MONTH IN MUSIC

The recordings, concerts, broadcasts and websites exciting us this December

ON STAGE A big hit

Few works written in recent years have
matched the popularity of Veni, Veni,
Emmanuel, James MacMillan’s 1991
concerto for percussion and orchestra.
So, when MacMillan’s new Percussion
Concerto is unveiled at the Southbank’s
Metal, Wood, Skin festival this month,
interest will be huge. The Philharmonia
and soloist Colin Currie join forces. See p98

ON AIR Holy order

King’s College, Cambridge may have the
BBC monopoly on Nine Lessons and Carols,
but it’s near neighbours St John’s that is
chosen to mark the start of Advent on
Radio 3. Andrew Nethsingha leads the
choir and organ scholars in a varied and
beautifully performed fare of sumptuous
hymns, stunning anthems and thunderous
organ music. Choral Evensong; 30 Nov, 3pm

ONLINE Digital minimalism

For the 50th anniversary of Terry Riley’s
(pictured) seminal minimalist work
In C, ChampdAction and Concertgebouw
Brugge have produced an app that makes
the piece playable on smartphone, tablet
or computer. The music may not be
everyone’s cup of tea, but the choice of
instruments and the app’s social function
will engage new audiences. itunes.com

ON DISC Web of intrigue

The shadowy corners of the internet
collide with real-life murder in the plot of
American composer Nico Muhly’s opera
Two Boys, now out on disc for the first
time. It’s a recording from the 2013 New
York Metropolitan Opera production
conducted by David Robertson, and
starring tenor Paul Appleby and mezzo-
GETTY

soprano Alice Coote. See p76

 page 28:
Charles Dutoit prepares
to talk to James Naughtie

page 22:
Lang Lang and Nikolaus page 32:
Harnoncourt discuss the history of the weird
Mozart performance and wonderful theremin

CONTENTS
EVERY MONTH
3 A Month in Music
What we’re all looking forward to in December
6 Letters
10 The Full Score
The latest news from the classical music
world: Alan Davey named as Radio 3 controller,
Daniele Gatti heads for the Concertgebouw, Air
Canada’s viola saga, and LPO maestro stays on
42 Composer of the Month FEATURES
Jan Smaczny explores the life of Leo≥ JanáΩek,
folklorist, teacher and 20th-century pioneer 22 Lang Lang
The pianist is abandoning Rachmaninov for his
56 Building a Library old friend, WA Mozart, he tells Jessica Duchen
George Hall hoists the flag for the best
recordings of Haydn’s stormy ‘Nelson’ Mass 28 James Naughtie meets…
Conductor Charles Dutoit
96 Audio
A guide to the best new hi-fi, plus expert advice 32 The theremin
The early electronic instrument’s bizarre
98 Live Events history is unravelled by a curious Geoff Brown

21 Richard Morrison 102 Radio & TV 36 Music and its muses

The task facing Radio 3 controller Alan Davey
40 Musical Destinations
Mikel Toms heads to Brno in the Czech Republic,
a city teeming with top-level musical events
Helen Wallace on who inspires today’s composers
106 Crossword and Quiz
61 Ten Pieces
108 Music that Changed Me Our children’s guide to the final
Australian tenor Stuart Skelton movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4

4 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
 Su e p8 stic
Se anta
bs for offe
f

cri o r
THIS MONTH’S DECEMBER REVIEWS

be ur
CONTRIBUTORS The important new recordings,

Jessica Duchen
Writer, author and critic
‘I drew the lucky
straw and got the
Lang Lang interview.
And lucky it certainly
was. Talking to the
virtuoso pianist
was a delight and
an inspiration: nobody in our time
has surely done more to popularise
the piano.’ Page 22
Geoff Brown
Journalist and critic
‘My fascination
with weird musical
sounds maybe began
in my mother’s
womb. It’s certainly
deeply ingrained,
and the theremin
carries the added cachet of an
inventor whose life is as intriguing
and strange as his instrument.’ Page 32
Jan Smaczny
Critic and lecturer
‘JanáΩek’s music,
in particular the
operas, can seem
like an emotional
roller-coaster. The
challenge and joy
of writing about
this extraordinary composer is getting
to grips with the depth that underlies
the intensity at the surface.’ Page 42
VISIT CLASSICAL-MUSIC.COM FOR THE
LATEST FROM THE MUSIC WORLD
COVER: JAMES CHEADLE THIS PAGE: RICHARD CANNON, ARENA PAL, HARALD HOFFMANN
!
DVDs and books reviewed
Welcome
It’s not terribly often I use the
editor’s letter to talk about
a feature coming up in the
following issue. But I know
the choral singers and directors
among you will by now be
in the thick of planning,
66 Recording if not already starting, to
rehearse your carol concerts
of the Month and services. So I wanted to alert you to a carol we’ve
Shostakovich specially commissioned from brilliant composer Thomas
Symphonies 6 & 14 Hewitt Jones, the score of which we’ll be printing in our
Christmas issue. I won’t ruin the surprise completely,
but the carol, written for four-part a cappella choir, will
68 Orchestral be dedicated to the readers of BBC Music Magazine, so
74 Concerto we’d love you to learn and perform the piece during the
76 Opera Christmas season – your very own world premiere! You’ll
find full details next issue, on sale on 26 November.
82 Choral & Song Much as we’d like, we simply can’t report on every
84 Chamber classical music event around the world. It’s rare, for
86 Instrumental
91 Brief Notes We’d love you to learn and perform
92 Jazz our carol during the Christmas season
94 Books
instance, that we get a chance to write about some of the
most exciting and intimate concerts in far-flung corners
of the UK or in concert halls on remote Scandinavian
islands, for instance. But this is where you come in – we’re
launching a weekly (or perhaps daily) web feature called
‘You Review’ where we’ll be inviting you to email us your
experiences of a classical music concert, whether you live
in, say, Anchorage or Stevenage. The review would ideally
be no longer than 300 words – it can, of course, be shorter

– and photographs of the venue (not taken during the

n Download a free track every week from one of the best
reviewed recordings from a recent issue
n Read the latest classical music news
n Listen to clips from BBC Music Magazine’s choice recordings
n Listen to the fortnightly BBC Music Magazine podcast
n Discover more about the lives of the great composers
n Plus: the official chart, interviews, competitions, radio and TV
highlights, a preview of our monthly cover CD and much more!
performance, naturally) can be emailed with your words.
We’ll then publish the best each week on our website at
www.classical-music.com. So get booking those tickets –
and then get scribbling!
Lastly, one more ‘call to action’! Do any of you own a
theremin? This month, Geoff Brown explores the history
of this bizarre Russian instrument (I don’t know which
is odder – the instrument or the story…) and we’d love to
hear from those of you who have one either lurking in a
loft or taking pride of place in the sitting room. If you can
play it and send us over a quick video, that would be even
better! Email us at music@classical-music.com.

The licence to publish this magazine was acquired from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company
on 1 November 2011. We remain committed to making a magazine of the highest editorial quality, one
that complies with BBC editorial and commercial guidelines and connects with BBC programmes. Oliver Condy Editor

BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 5
 LETTERS
Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Tower House, Fairfax Street,
Bristol, BS1 3BN or email: music@classical-music.com
STARTER FOR TEN
LETTER OF THE MONTH It was with delight that I swung
into action with your page on the
BBC’s Ten Pieces (November). I
noticed it was aimed at 4-11 years
old, and thought ‘Wow, I can
do this! I’m 47!’ as I had already
listened to Beethoven’s Fifth
numerous times. Question 1?
Fine, I can count as good as the
next man. Question 2: what is the
instrument on its own? No idea.
Question 3: another instrument on
its own. No idea. I’m now feeling
the stress. Question 4? It’s a drum;
I can cope with that. Question 5?
I loved the music, but know I have
a long way to go on my journey.
You may have gathered I am new
to classical music and come from
a half life-time of pop. To all
romantic hero: other newbies out there: have a
Frank Shipway was under- go at the Ten Pieces, it’s great fun.
appreciated in Britain
Enjoy, listen and learn. Delve into
a piece’s history, understand its
construction, examine what was
FRANKLY WONDERFUL going on at the time and in the
How sad to read of the death of Frank Shipway (Full Score, October). composer’s life. Breathe life into it
He was one of the great British conductors of his time in Strauss, and it will refresh you, make you
Mahler and the late Romantics, but latterly worked very little in happier and ultimately give you a
this country where he remains virtually unknown (largely, it is said, sense of achievement.
because he could be autocratic and was not the easiest to work with). Adrian Wykes, Leicester
Many readers may remember his series of concerts in the 1980s with THE EDITOR REPLIES: I couldn’t
the Forest Philharmonic in Walthamstow and at the Festival Hall – a have put it better myself! I hope
semi-pro band but with a sprinkling you enjoy this month’s Mozart
of familiar faces from major London instalment (p61).
orchestras, and with big-name
soloists: forces with which he achieved UNFAIR COMPARISON
astonishing results. His recent well- I enjoy reading Richard Morrison’s
received recording of Strauss’s Alpine forthright, and sometimes
Symphony showed what the UK had controversial, column but putting
Every month the editor will been missing all these years and gave Caracas on the same plane
award a SolarDAB 2 Roberts one to hope that this was the start of a as Beijing and Qatar is quite
CLIVE BARDA/ARENA PAL
radio (retail value £80 – see
www.robertsradio.co.uk) to the series of recordings and that he might wrong and somewhat insulting
writer of the best letter received. return to a major UK venue. Alas it (November). The achievements
The editor reserves the right to
shorten letters for publication.
was not to be. of Venezuelan musicians has
Edward Houghton, London been generated by El Sistema, the
programme of music training of
6 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
youngsters initiated over 35 years
ago and now being copied in many
countries including the US, Brazil
and the United Kingdom. The
worldwide success of the Simon
Bolívar Orchestra, and particularly
conductor Gustavo Dudamel,
may have put them into music’s
Premier League, while El Sistema
is basically a grass-roots system
with approximately 350,000 music
students. This is very different
from Qatar’s ‘money is no object’
approach of buying a symphony
orchestra from around the world
and then building a concert hall
to house it.
Alec Russell, Malton
CALLAS IN PERSON
I much enjoyed Michael Tanner’s
excellent article about Maria Callas
(September 2014), surely one of
the greatest singers of our time. I
was lucky enough to hear her at
Covent Garden in her prime, and I
also went to her Royal Festival Hall
recital with Giuseppe Di Stefano
in 1973 to which the article refers.
After the end I went to see Callas in
the artist room, just to express my
thanks and congratulations. She
thanked me but added: ‘…but
you know, and I know, that it is
no longer good enough. But they
still want me, so what can I do?’
The touching response of a truly
great artist.
Claus Moser, House of Lords
(London)
WAGNER APPEAL
Wagner’s music attracts or repels
(Richard Morrison, October)
because it is so directly expressive
– it is about something. It is not
an abstract symphony you can
add your own story to. Tristan
and Isolde are full of sensual
longing and barely restrained
sexual passion and, famously, so
is the music. The Mastersingers
are pompous pedants, full of their
own self-importance and yet
warmly regarded – it’s all there
in the Prelude to Act 1. Parsifal
is full of pain, sickness, guilt and
the need to be made whole and
so is the music, especially that of
Amfortas, and ultimately, healing,
wholeness and redemption fill
the air – try the ‘Good Friday
music’. In the Ring, the characters
are not ordinary people and their
music is accordingly super-heroic
on a grand scale and in a deeply
satisfying sense. All this ‘no-holds
barred’ music and drama is bound
to be too much for some, maybe for
many, but for those of us who do
succumb, we forgive Wagner the
long sits and the boring ‘longueurs’
because the denouements are so
overwhelmingly cathartic.
Ian France, Penrith
RAVEL ROLLS ON
It is not my place, as a layman,
to debate matters of medical
etiquette and practice with a
doctor of Jonathan Noble’s very
considerable experience and
expertise (see Letters, October).
Part of my job, as a biographer, is
simply to record, as accurately as
possible, who said what to whom,
when, and in what context. As
to accuracy, Dr Zwang is in fact
acknowledged in my biography
as the editor of Madeleine Grey’s
memoirs. Dr Noble may indeed
be right in regarding syphilis as
an irrelevance in le cas Ravel, and
any further investigation of the
whole case as superfluous. All
I’m saying is that, over the 66
years since Alajouanine’s seminal
article, interest in the question has
continued (witness the 31 articles
in my bibliography) with no
theory ever commanding universal
acceptance, that such acceptance
clearly does not exist in 2014, and
that therefore it seems reasonable to
expect further theories in the years
to come.
Roger Nichols, Herefordshire
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EDITORIAL
Editor Oliver Condy
Deputy editor Jeremy Pound
Production editor Neil McKim
Reviews editor Rebecca Franks
Digital editor & staff writer
Rosie Pentreath
Cover CD editor Alice Pearson
Listings editor Paul Riley
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Office assistant Polly Bartlett
Thanks to Jenny Price, Rob Speed,
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PUBLISHING
Publisher Andrew Davies
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Managing director Andy Marshall
BBC WORLDWIDE MAGAZINES UNIT
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Eva Abramik
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
Peter Alward, Mary Allen,
Graham Dixon, Greg Sanderson
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 TheFullScore
OUR PICK OF THE MONTH’S NEWS, VIEWS AND INTERVIEWS
Alan Davey to run Radio 3
Arts Council chief executive to take the controller reins at Broadcasting House in January
take a bow:
Alan Davey,
Radio 3’s new boss
A
lan Davey is to be the new
controller of BBC Radio 3.
Currently the chief executive
officer of Arts Council England,
Davey will begin in his new role in
January, filling a chair that has been
vacant since the departure of Roger
Wright at the beginning of the 2014 BBC
Proms season. Wright was performing a
double role as both controller of Radio 3
and director of the Proms, but Davey
will concentrate his efforts on just the
former position.
Talking about his new job, Davey says
that it is ‘an honour to be asked to lead
GETTY, BBC
this wonderful institution. I stumbled
upon Radio 3 when I was a teenager,
10 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
and it opened a door to an endlessly
fascinating world of sound and thought
that has nourished me ever since. I want
everyone to have that chance and am
proud to be able to make sure they will.’
With seven years at the top
of the Arts Council, Davey will
have developed a tough hide
Davey takes on arguably the highest
profile job in classical music in the UK,
but also one that is highly open to
criticism, as opinions about how the radio
station should be run vary wildly from
one person to the next and are rarely
held lightly. However, with seven years at
For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com
In the hot seat
Past Radio 3 controllers
1967-71 Howard Newby
1972-78 Stephen Hearst
1979-87 Ian McIntyre
1987-92 John Drummond
1992-98 Nicholas
Kenyon (left)
1998-2014 Roger Wright
the top of the Arts Council under his belt,
he will at least have developed a tough
hide – the Council is responsible, among
other things, for the difficult task of
deciding which arts organisations across
the country should receive government
funding, and to what extent. As Davey
weathered the inevitable consequences
of some of the toughest economic
conditions in years, his seven years have
been generally considered a success.
While the responsibilities of the role
have changed over the years, the position
of Radio 3 controller dates back to the
founding of the station itself in 1967,
and nearly all have made their mark in
one way or the other – John Drummond
was a major champion of new music,
while for his successor, Nicholas Kenyon,
greater accessibility was all-important.
Speaking to BBC Music Magazine in
January, Roger Wright reflected how
much of the challenge of his time in
charge had been to bring Radio 3 into the
digital era, with people now listening not
just over the airwaves but also online and
on an ever-increasing range of devices.
What challenges lie ahead for Davey,
and how he chooses to address them,
remains to be seen… See Comment, p21
 TheFullScore

WIN! A two-night
stay at Schloss Elmau
Relax in luxurious style and enjoy
world-class chamber concerts
We’ve teamed up with Schloss Elmau, an idyllic
hotel and spa set within the stunning south
German Alps, to offer readers the chance to win a
two-night stay for two people. The lucky winners
will stay in a double deluxe room during the
Schloss’s Chamber Music Week (11-17 January 2015),
a series started by Benjamin Britten in 1959.
alpine music: Schloss Elmau is one of the Leading Hotels of the World, and has a
Schloss Elmau, nestled superb concert hall within its grounds, hosting the finest names in music.
beneath snowy peaks Violinist Janine Jansen, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and soprano
Mojca Erdmann (above) will be appearing during Chamber Music Week.
Winners will have access to all spa facilities and concerts during their
stay. For more info, visit schloss-elmau.de. Travel not included.

To enter, simply answer the following question:

Benjamin Britten’s partner was a celebrated English tenor. Who was he?

Send your answer on a postcard with your name, address, email and
phone number to: BBC Music Magazine, Schloss Elmau Competition,
PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA or email bbcmusicelmau@musiccomps.
co.uk. Closing date: 26 November. For terms and conditions, see p107.

RISING STAR Great artists of tomorrow

violin that really spoke to me and inspired me.
Esther Yoo So I started playing the violin as well!’
Violinist A move to Belgium due to her father’s work
brought the Carnegie and Lincoln Center dates to
Some top musicians enjoy telling of how, born an end, but by then the spark had been well and
into non-musical families, they landed in their truly lit. Early concert appearances of her own,
profession almost my accident. Not so Esther plus competition success – first prize in the junior
Yoo. ‘I was born very close to New York city, and section of the Wieniawski Violin Competition in
my whole family were music fans,’ she says. ‘It 2006, and prizes in the 2010 Sibelius Competition
was pretty natural for me to and 2012 Queen Elisabeth
start learning the piano at ‘It was the voice Competition – cemented
the age of four, and because her ambition.
we lived so close to the city,
of the violin that Now, at 20, Yoo’s career
my parents would take me really spoke to me’ is in full swing. Recently
to a lot of concerts at venues named as a Radio 3 New bbc talent:
like Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center.’ Generation Artist, she has enjoyed close working Esther Yoo joins
the NGA roster
It was, however, not the pianists that grabbed relationships with two of the world’s great
Yoo’s attention, but those wielding their magic conductors – the late Lorin Maazel and, now,
on four strings. ‘At orchestral concerts, I would Vladimir Ashkenazy. It is with the latter and the festive. I have grown up with the Sibelius over
always find myself looking at the violin section, Philharmonia Orchestra that she has recently the years and going through different phases
and I also loved hearing solo violinists,’ she recorded the Sibelius and Glazunov Violin of my life, while the Glazunov is a concerto that
MARCO BORGGREVE

remembers. ‘I heard players such as Midori and Concertos, to be released next year. ‘The Sibelius Maestro Maazel himself recommended to me
Sarah Chang really at their peak, and there was is so internal – every expression you feel the – he thought I would play it really well. So both
also Itzhak Perlman, who was wonderful. But pit of your stomach,’ she explains. ‘In contrast, concertos are very close to me.’
no matter who I saw play, it was the voice of the the Glazunov is much more exuberant and Interview by Jeremy Pound

For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 11
BBC Music Recording news
THE OFFICIAL CLASSICAL CHART
The UK’s best-selling specialist classical releases
Chart for week ending 4 October

HNEW 1 Shostakovich Symphony No. 13

RLPO/Vasily Petrenko
Naxos 8.573218
Well-deserved top spot for the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic’s final Shostakovich instalment

HNEW 2 Todd Lux et Veritas

Tenebrae; English Chamber Orchestra/
Nigel Short Signum Classics SIGCD394
Sweetly scored choral music for a modern age – gift wrapped:
Will Todd’s music is stunningly performed Alamire sing
16th-century music

HNEW 3 JS Bach Art of Fugue

Angela Hewitt (piano)
Hyperion CDA 67980
Some might say this is a benchmark recording of
Choral espionage
JS Bach’s mysterious but wondrous set of fugues The complete music contained within a choirbook that was
a present to King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of
Aragon, has been recorded for the first time. The beautifully
HNEW 4 Vivaldi Concertos for Two Cellos
Julian & Jiaxin Lloyd Webber (cello);
European Union Chamber Orchestra/
illuminated pages of Royal MS 8.g.vii, as the manuscript was
labelled in the British Library, hold 34 motets by composers
Hans-Peter Hofmann Naxos 8.573374 including Jean Mouton, Pierre de la
Wonderfully performed Vivaldi arrangements Rue and Josquin des Prez. Dubbed the
‘The Spy’s Choirbook’, the collection

5 Stella di Napoli was created by Petrus Alamire. He was

_

Joyce DiDonato (mezzo); Opéra National one of the finest 16th-century music
de Lyon/Riccardo Minasi Erato 2564636562 scribes but also, among other things,
A bel canto treat from the divine mezzo, a spy for Henry VIII, possibly even
featuring world premieres and rarities a double agent. David Skinner has
brought together his choir, Alamire, and the English Cornett

6
_

Fauré Requiem and Sackbut Ensemble for this CD, out now on Obsidian.
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge/
Stephen Cleobury KGS0005
An ‘authentic’ performance that manages to Sea symphony
sound gorgeously smooth and seductive Become Ocean, the 40-minute orchestral evocation of the
sea that won John Luther Adams (not to be confused with
_

7 Voice of the Turtle Dove

The Sixteen/Harry Christophers
Coro COR16119
John Adams) the 2014 Pulitzer Prize has been released
on disc. ‘Its three huge crescendos suggest a tidal surge
washing over all barriers,’ wrote Alex Ross of the piece
A stunning disc of music from the golden age in The New Yorker. ‘It may be the loveliest apocalypse in
of polyphony by Davy, Sheppard and Mundy musical history.’ It’s been recorded for Canteloupe Music
by conductor Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony
HNEW 8 Oswald • Napoleão Piano Concertos
Artur Pizarro; BBC National Orchestra
of Wales/Brabbins Hyperion CDA 67984
Orchestra, who commissioned the work and premiered
it in 2013. The CD and DVD set, with both stereo and 5.1
surround sound, also includes a slide show of ocean images
Hyperion’s acclaimed series of Romantic by National Geographic photographers.
piano concertos is now on its 64th volume…!

Baroque birthday
HNEW 9 Porpora Arias
Franco Fagioli (countertenor);
Academia Montis Regalis/Alessandro
As Dutch conductor, harpsichordist and organist Ton
Koopman blows out 70 birthday candles this autumn,
de Marchi Naïve V5369 Challenge Classics is releasing two celebratory box-sets
Stirring stuff by the teacher of castrato Farinelli of his recordings. His BBC Music Magazine award-winning
Bach Cantata series with his Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
_

10 Brahms Symphonies Nos 1-4

Gewandhaus Orchestra/
Riccardo Chailly Decca 478 5344
An extraordinary recording of Brahms orchestral
music that everyone should have in their library
Visit our website at www.classical-music.com for
weekly chart updates, and download the regular
Radio 3 specialist chart podcast from iTunes
will be out as a 67-CD set, bringing together for the first
time all the recordings made over the decade-long project.
Koopman’s Buxtehude recordings – which feature the
complete surviving vocal, organ, harpsichord and chamber
works – are also being released as a 29-CD and one-DVD
set. ‘Groundbreaking, ear-opening, comprehensive and
scholarly,’ wrote our critic of the latest Buxtehude volume.
‘Bravo, Buxtehude – and thank you Ton Koopman!’

12 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com

__ REWIND Artists talk about their past recordings…
THIS MONTH
TABEA ZIMMERMANN
Tabea Zimmermann is one today’s finest viola
players. Composers including Ligeti, Beamish and
Goehr have written pieces for her, and her disc of
Hindemith concertos was a finalist in last year’s
BBC Music Awards. Her latest disc, Romances
oubliées, is out this autumn on Myrios Classics.
My finest moment
JS Bach Cello Suites Nos 1 & 2 • Reger Three
Suites for Solo Viola
Tabea Zimmermann (viola)
Myrios MYR003 (2009)
This is important to me because it was the first
solo CD I’d done. It was my first CD with Myrios
Classics, and I’m really proud of it. It also matched
my inner state as I wanted to do something by
myself – I was an adult at 40, finally! I’m one
of six children and being on my own was never
the norm for me. Even as a soloist you have an
orchestra or conductor to relate to. It’s different
being on stage or in a studio alone. For a solo
performance you have to be at peace with
yourself; you have to be sure what you want. But
I did enjoy it, and with this CD I was able to be
part of the whole process from beginning to end.
I was able to create the conditions I wanted with
Myrios in a way I hadn’t
JAMIE JUNG, MARCO BORGGREVE
been able to do on major
labels. With them there
was never enough time,
and the editing wasn’t
always as I wanted. That
is also why this recording
was so satisfying.
For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com
My fondest memory
Beethoven’s Bratsche:
Beethoven Notturno, Op. 42; Hoffmeister
Etudes; Hummel Viola Sonata in E flat
Tabea Zimmermann (viola),
Hartmut Höll (fortepiano)
Ars Musici AM 1350-2 (2003)
Recording on Beethoven’s viola was a very
special experience. Beethoven played this
instrument in the Bonn Hofkapelle as a young
man. It’s now kept in the Beethovenhaus in
Bonn, and they had
the idea of bringing
it back to life. I
hardly had any time
to get to know the
instrument before
the recording as it
couldn’t be taken out
of the museum. It’s
very different from
my usual viola – much smaller and with a strong,
brilliant soprano side. I had to use gut strings
and play without a shoulder or chin rest. On any
other instrument I would get my own sound
with a little bit of work but I felt very humble in
front of this instrument. It felt like time travel.
The recording was very spontaneous in feel, but
I think it came out very well.
I’d like another go at…
Mozart Sinfonia Concertante;
Symphony No. 40
Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Frank Peter
Zimmermann (violin); Stuttgart Radio
Symphony Orchestra/Gianluigi Gelmetti
EMI 754 1962 (1991)
I was of course very happy with Frank Peter
Zimmermann on this recording of the Mozart
Sinfonia Concertante, but I also feel we didn’t
deliver our own potential because of limited
conditions. We didn’t have long with the
orchestra and I don’t think we found a common
interpretation with them or the conductor.
I’d like to do it again with more time, thought
and preparation.
Also Mozart wrote
the viola part in
scordatura: I’ve
always played it
in E flat major, but
Mozart actually
wrote it in D major
and had the strings
tuned up half a tone.
I’ve never played it like that so far. It’s a problem:
after 250 times on stage playing it in E flat
major, can I relearn it in D major? It might be
easier to play it on a different instrument than
relearning it on my own viola.
TheFullScore
STUDIOSECRETS
We reveal who’s recording
what, and where
cello again: Alisa Weilerstein
Alisa Weilerstein, who won top
gong at the BBC Music Magazine
Awards for her performance of Elgar
and Carter Cello Concertos, has been
back in the studios recording Chopin
and Rachmaninov Cello Sonatas with
pianist Inon Barnatan, for Decca.
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Leclair’s
Tambourin Sonata and Tartini’s Devil’s
Trill Sonata feature on James Ehnes’s
recently recorded disc for Onyx. He’s
joined by the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra for the Vivaldi, recorded
in Angel Hall, Sydney, and pianist
Andrew Armstrong for the Leclair and
Tartini, recorded in Potton Hall, UK.
Ian Venables’s songs have been
described as ‘genuinely personal and
at times profound’. Baritone Roderick
Williams and pianist Iain Burnside
have put together a recital of the
contemporary British composer’s
songs, recording in St Michael and
All Angels in Oxford.
Robin Ticciati and the Swedish
Radio Symphony Orchestra and
Chorus have recorded Berlioz
in Stockholm, for Linn. With an
acclaimed L’enfance du Christ already
under their belt, the team has turned
to the composer’s Roméo et Juliette.
Diana Damrau has been inspired
by bel canto arias for her latest CD
for Erato, recorded in the Teatro
Regio in Turin. The German soprano
has chosen music from operas by
Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini and
Leoncavallo. She performs with the
Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino under
Gianandrea Noseda.
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 13
 TheFullScore

#50 cadence DISCOVERING MUSIC introduction to Verdi’s ‘La donna è

REGULAR READERS of this
column may experience a faint prickle
of déjà vu. Haven’t we done this one
before? No, we did cadenza. But as
I pointed out then, the Italian word
‘cadenza’ also stands for what English-
speaking musicians call ‘cadence’,
and Germans ‘Schluss’ (or at least
sometimes). So in Italy a word that can
mean an opportunity for a soloist to
hog the spotlight and put on a display
of acrobatics can also signify that
most solidly un-sensational of musical
formulae, the concluding choral ‘A-men’.
Does that say something fundamental
about Italian values? Is it inherently
Protestant to want to distinguish
between devotion and diva-like display?
One thing is clear: ‘cadence’ preserves
the essence of the Latin root-word
cadere more transparently than ‘cadenza’.
Cadere means ‘to fall’, and the feeling of
falling – not vertiginously into empty space,
but reassuringly back to earth – is what a
cadence is about. Music that doesn’t float
freely (like an Islamic muezzin’s call to
Stephen Johnson gets to grips with
classical music’s technical terms
prayer) or repeat motifs hypnotically (like
minimalism), usually involves some kind of
travelling: vocal phrases, for example, that
have a more or less clear sense of a beginning,
a middle and an end. Some phrases just stop,
of course, left suspended in the air, like the
not-quite complete tune in the orchestral
mobile’. But in others, especially in
Western tonal music, there’s a feeling
of something finished, resolved, either
partially or wholly. The end of the
phrase corresponds with a sense of the
harmony having come back home – or
at least stepping onto the threshold of
home. It’s the chords – usually two,
sometimes three – that bring about that
return that are termed the cadence.
The commonest types of cadence
are the ‘A-men’, or ‘plagal’, and the
‘perfect’ – think of the last two chords
or ‘God Save the Queen’. If, instead of
simply ‘the Queen’, it’s ‘Save the Queen’
we’re talking about, then those three
chords are called a ‘6/4 cadence’ – for
reasons too complicated to go into here.
Cadences which sound as though they’re
going to deliver us safely onto solid
ground but land with a mild bump on
the wrong chord are, logically, ‘interrupted’
– the equivalent of ‘God save the Queen?’ If
it lands on the home chord a beat too early
and then bounces off back into space, it’s
‘imperfect’. There are plenty of others, but let’s
leave such enticing by-ways for the moment.

Gatti goes Dutch APP REVIEW

Every issue we explore a recent digital product
Users not signed up to these
can listen to 30-second clips
of the recordings and choose
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while in the app. What gives
it added value is the wealth of
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holland ace: accompanies the music. There
Daniele Gatti moves
is a video introduction from
to Amsterdam
president of the label Don Was,
a superb timeline that plots
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has recordings in an easy-to-view
named Daniele Gatti as its chief conductor.
carousel, biographies of its roster
The Milan-born maestro will take up his
of legendary recording artists
new post, one of the most prestigious,
in a user-friendly A-Z, and a
in 2016 – he will be taking over from the
Latvian Mariss Jansons, who has been with
Blue Note 75 Free section for full-length features and news.
the Amsterdam orchestra since 2004. At 53, To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the The label’s anniversary has also been
ILLUSTRATION: ADAM HOWLING

Gatti’s CV includes principal conductorships
in London and Rome with the Royal
Philharmonic and Accademia Nazionale di
Santa Cecilia orchestras. One can expect his
stay in Amsterdam to be a long one – the
Concertgebouw’s entire 126-year history has
been overseen by just six chief conductors.
renowned jazz label Blue Note Records has
released a new app for iPad. Developed
with app makers PlayDEF, it is primarily
a way for users to stream Blue Note
recordings they already own through
iTunes, or access the catalogue through
paid-for Spotify, Rdio or Deezer services.
celebrated with the re-release of 100
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and packed with fascinating content,
Blue Note 75 is a must.
Rosie Pentreath HHHHH

14 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com

Violists air complaints
alto-tude:
violas don’t do very
well at 30,000 ft
As if the subject of carrying musical instruments on aircraft
wasn’t already thorny and tangled enough, Air Canada
recently added yet another twist when it banned violas from
being taken on as hand-luggage in the cabin. Violins were
fine, but not their darker-toned, two-inch-longer cousins,
which had to be checked in first and sent ingloriously to
the hold, where all manner of misery – from the damaging
effects of extreme temperatures to rough treatment by
baggage handlers – could await. While lovers of viola jokes
were quick to congratulate the airline on its good musical
taste, more serious protests arose on social media over such
instrumental discrimination. Air Canada has since had a
rethink, and says it plans to ‘make changes’ to the policy.
TWITTER ROOM
Who’s saying what on the micro-blogging site
@Bryn_Terfel Went to Pichler winery
and bought three homemade apricot
jam jars. Security took them this
morning in Vienna. My fault entirely.
Bass-baritones can’t be asked to put
their voices in the hold, but Bryn Terfel
(left) isn’t immune from airline woe
@violincase Hilary whipped up a smoothie of black-
bean-avocado brownies, rice milk, frozen cherries, hemp
hearts, and ice. Then got brain freeze.
Hilary Hahn’s violin case gives us an update on
its owner’s elaborate culinary expertise… and its
subsequent effects
@jjohnstonmezzo If there’s one marking in an opera
score that can inject dread through my whole person it’s
DANCE #polka #wozzeck
Jennifer Johnston (below right) reveals what can
give a mezzo-soprano sleepless nights
@RevRichardColes Controversy at
JAMES CHEADLE, THINKSTOCK
Finedon: the organ’s been tuned
to Neidhardt’s 1732 temperament
#handbags
Eek. Rev. Richard Coles risks having
the Werckmeister temperament mob
baying at his St Mary the Virgin door
TheFullScore
Notes from the piano stool
David Owen Norris
W
hen I went to Nashville I was
amazed to see the Parthenon
from my taxi. Turns out it’s
‘the only full-size replica of the Parthenon
in the world’, a phrase that somehow
implies scores of replicas elsewhere,
perhaps only slightly smaller. If you
want to see the Elgin Marbles in situ,
not to mention the lost statue of Athena,
Nashville’s the place to go. Passing over
the replica of the Crystal Palace in Dallas, let us turn to the replica of
Stonehenge in the state of Washington, which has become important
in the burgeoning field of archaeoacoustics.
Bristol University’s Centre for the History of Music in the British
Empire and Commonwealth practised its own bit of chronological
imperialism with a conference called The Sounds of Stonehenge back
in 2009. The published proceedings range from bone flutes to John
Ireland, from ironic film music to speculation on what might have
been heard by a worshipper, or possibly a patient, or then again
perhaps an astronomer, at Stonehenge 5,000 years ago. Tess of the
D’Urbervilles makes her contribution, with Thomas Hardy an
Sound played its part in the design
of Stonehenge, when most acoustic
spaces were small and wooden
important pre-internal-combustion witness to the hum of the wind –
now confounded with the A303, which has a hum of its own.
Rupert Till deploys his scholarship in the service of his imagination,
and vice versa – he’s the first to have thought of making scientific
use of the American replica. It seems that sound played its part in the
design of Stonehenge, at a time when most acoustic spaces would have
been small and wooden or wattled. Tess and Angel Clare, in the pitch
dark, apprehend the place by its acoustic, Hardy putting his musician’s
finger on the nub of the place there. It probably enjoyed a whispering
gallery effect, and could have acted a bit like a loudspeaker, especially
for percussive sounds at Stonehenge’s critical frequency of 152Hz.
Twice a week I pass by a Neolithic henge at whose centre stands a
ruined Norman church. Bearing witness to the enduring nature of the
spiritual impulse, the yew grove at the henge’s entrance is hung with
ribbons and photographs, keepsakes and prayers – or are they wishes?
Hardy would have enjoyed the question, as he would have
appreciated Stonehenge’s solar alignment. He liked designing sundials.
The one on his house bears the words ‘Quid de nocte?’ (‘What of
the night?’), a question Isaiah 21:12 answers with weary realism:
‘the morning comes, and so does the night’, before continuing more
optimistically: ‘If you are seeking, seek on.’
Hardy was no optimist. He didn’t begin the construction of the
sundial till he was dying, and he never saw it. n
David Owen Norris is a pianist, composer and radio presenter
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 15
TheFullScore
MUSIC TO MY EARS
What the classical world has been listening to this month
OUR CHOICES
The BBC Music team’s
current favourites
Oliver Condy
Editor
Choral
Evensong on
Radio 3 is a
welcome oasis of calm every
Wednesday – all the more
welcome should the Psalm
singing be top notch. Happily,
it is just that on Volume Six of
Priory Records’ series of the
complete Psalms, currently
being recorded by cathedral
choirs around the land. This
excellent instalment features
stylish fiddler: the Choir of Lincoln Cathedral
Roby Lakatos inspires under Aric Prentice, who
Tamsin Waley-Cohen has dug out some splendid,
lesser-known chants.
Jeremy Pound
TAMSIN WALEY-COHEN violinist Deputy editor
I can’t get
enough of
I’ve been listening to Schubert’s
Tamara-Anna
Winterreise in the famous Dietrich Cislowska’s new recording
Fischer-Dieskau and Alfred Brendel of the complete solo piano
recording. I absolutely love it. I grew works by Peter Sculthorpe,
up with these songs and heard them who died in August. The
pieces range from early,
a lot as a child, but at the moment there’s something Debussy-like miniatures
about that particular recording that appeals. Fischer- such as Falling Leaves and
Dieskau is so natural, it’s as if he’s speaking every Evocation to the much later
word, and Brendel is the same. There’s an honesty of and longer Riverina, which
has all the evocations of the
expression to it – it’s human condition music. I could Australian landscape that we
listen to this recording endlessly. associate with this uniquely
QRecently I’ve got back to listening to gypsy violinist colourful composer.
Roby Lakatos. I listened to him loads as a teenager
Rebecca Franks
and I’m now listening again to that first disc of his – Reviews editor
In Gypsy Style. He’s having so much fun, and there’s I’ve always
such an ease and glamour in his sound. Everything assumed that
is so tasteful but there’s a dash of joie de vivre the Debussy’s
Sonata was pretty much the
whole time. I think we classical violinists can learn
only great work for the line-
a lot from him: to have more fun up of flute, viola and harp.
with what we’re doing. How wrong I was. There’s
QI’ve been listening to loads of actually lots of wonderfully
Beaux Arts Trio recordings. I adore evocative music that plays
with this soundworld of
the complete Beethoven cello and silvery brightness and elusive
piano works with the trio’s cellist shadows. A new CD from
and pianist Antonio Meneses and the group Tre Voci opens the
Menahem Pressler. It’s so natural, door to this realm, featuring
works by Takemitsu and
detailed and nuanced. There’s an amazing sound Gubaidulina alongside the
from both of them and they bring the music alive in Debussy itself.
a way that’s totally new for me. There’s lightness and
16 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com
playfulness in the Variation sets and it also comes
through in the serious Sonatas.
QThere are so many great artists of Billie Holiday’s
era, but I just love her voice. I could never forget
her sound in songs like ‘Strange Fruit’ – she has
raw emotion, which I find so inspiring and moving.
I often think if I can get near to that directness
in sound then I’ll be happy. There is, of course,
wonderful line and mellifluousness in her voice but
what’s important to me is that she makes every note
have meaning – it’s not just there to be beautiful.
Tamsin Waley-Cohen’s new recording of Vaughan
Williams’s Violin Concerto and The Lark Ascending
will be reviewed in our January issue
ANDREW GANT composer & conductor
Recently I gave away all my LPs… and
immediately regretted it. So I started
re-discovering some of the recordings
online, in particular Handel’s Saul,
conducted by Charles Mackerras. In
terms of instruments and size of chorus, the
performance is about as far from the authentic
movement as you can get, but Mackerras has such a
feel for Handel that you can hear him trying to make
his big forces play in a light way. And with operatic
soloists such as Donald McIntyre and Margaret Price,
the theatricality is wonderful.
QSticking with the Baroque period, but on a very
different scale, is the Choir of Magdalen College,
Oxford’s recent recording of Buxtehude’s Membra
Jesu Nostri. Its subject matter is rather morbid – it
focuses on the various parts of the body of the dying
Christ – but Buxtehude made fantastic music out of
it. It’s very expressive, very original and beautifully
written for choir, with an incredible variety of
texture within a very short space of time. It’s
gorgeous stuff.
QI discovered Sir Peter
Maxwell Davies’s opera The
Lighthouse from a student
production when I was at
university and I was blown
away by it. There’s now quite an
old recording of it which I listen
to. The story, which is about three men stranded on
a lighthouse, is perfectly matched to Max’s ability to
concentrate rather sinister emotions into his music
and, above all else, his sense of theatre. The sort of
claustrophobic, tense character that you get from
the piece is mind-blowing.
 QA few years ago, I was given a British Library OUR CHOICES
compilation CD of poets reading their own work,
taken from the historical archive. The first one is The BBC Music team’s
Tennyson reading The Charge of the Light Brigade – current favourites
it’s mostly scratches, but just in the background you Neil McKim
can hear this Victorian voice reading his poem in a Production
editor
very English accent! There’s also Robert Browning, I’ve been
WB Yeats and, one of my favourites, TS Eliot reading enjoying
Prufrock – you can just about hear a little hint of his a brand new release on
New England accent. It’s great fun. Erato by violinist Renaud
Capuçon and pianist Khatia
Andrew Gant’s new book and CD, Christmas Carols Buniatishvili – the Franck
from Village Green to Church Choir, will be reviewed Sonata, in particular, has
in our Christmas issue all the Gallic passion you’d
expect from such a dynamic
pair of musicians. It’s also
ANGEL BLUE soprano great to see these two superb
musicians champion a lesser-
To prepare for my appearance in known work such as Grieg’s
Puccini’s La bohème, I have been Violin Sonata No. 3.
listening to Maria Callas’s recording
Rosie
of ‘Mi Chiamano Mimì’. Her phrasing Rentreath
is perfect and she knew exactly how Staff writer
to express her feelings through song. What I most On a trip to
appreciate about her voice, in this piece especially, Oldenburg,
Germany, I was lucky to hear
is that the tone and volume is even, from the bottom
the Bamberg Symphony
of her range to the top – something I have been Orchestra under Jonathan
working on recently myself. She is the soprano to Nott. Their performances of
listen to for interpretation. Ives’s Unanswered Question,
Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’
QThe German-American
Symphony and Beethoven’s
violinist David Garrett Seventh were sublime: on full
starred in a 2013 film about display were the glistening
Paganini called The Devil’s brass textures and rich
Violinist (above). I have been sound that this orchestra
is renowned for, plus some
listening to the song ‘Io ti immaculately controlled and
penso amore’ from the film, astonishingly quiet tuttis.
which he recorded with
former Pussycat
Dolls singer Nicole
Scherzinger. For
me, it embodies
everything a
great classical
piece should be
while still being
accessible to
people new to
the genre or who
prefer to go back
and forth between
classical and pop.
QMy father, Sylvester Blue, used to sing a song
called ‘The Statue of Liberty’. My brother recently
heard it playing late at night on the radio and
recorded it onto my iPod and I have been listening
to it ever since. It has helped me with my own
singing because I can hear the things that he does
with his voice and remember what he taught me
as a child. Every word meant something when he
sang, and he knew exactly how to get feelings across
to the listener.
QI am obsessed with a track by electro house
producer Zedd called ‘Hourglass’, featuring a singer
called Liz. Zedd comes from a classical background
and even though everything is sped up to make it
sound electronic, it incorporates plenty of classical
elements: I can easily imagine it being sung by a
classically trained singer. I listen to it on repeat for
ten minutes every day, usually when I wake up to
help me get my mind together and focus.
Angel Blue’s ‘Joy Alone’ will be reviewed in our
January issue

AND MUSIC TO YOUR EARS…

You tell us what you’ve been enjoying on disc and in the concert hall
Andrew Lothian
Edinburgh
I have been listening
to Five Bagatelles by
the contemporary
Australian composer Carl Vine on
a CD by the young Scottish pianist
Christina Lawrie. The music is lucid,
accessible and intriguing, and has
introduced me to someone whose
work was quite new to me. The rest of
the disc includes seven varied pieces
by Rachmaninov and a remarkable
late work by Brahms, Seven Fantasies
Op. 116, all played with freshness and
authority by a remarkable soloist.
Katarina Vournasos
Athens, Greece
I find all of cellist
KATIE VANDYCK
at the Verbier Festival which I watched
on medici.TV in July this year. On the
programme was Britten’s Third Suite
for Solo Cello, Op. 87, and it was such
exciting, fascinating, captivating and,
simply, extraordinary music-making.
Isserlis’s intensity, power of expression
and passion were unbelievable and he
was completely at one with Britten’s
thoughts and emotions. I didn’t
breathe until the end!
Neil Price London
I cannot stop playing
Pizzetti’s Requiem,
having got to know
it during a wonderful
singing holiday in Umbria with
conductor Paul Spicer and the Oxford
Singers. We performed it in Cortona,
Pizzetti wrote his plainsong-inspired
work in 1923, about the same time as
Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G minor.
Both works have leanings to the
Renaissance and earlier.
Martyn Marsh
Farnborough
Elgar’s Starlight Express
is a whimsical work
that takes you away
to another place. There are a number
of aspects that I find engaging, not
least the railway carriage transporting
the children to fairyland and the
characters they meet on the way.
Even grown-ups can still dream! My
recording, in which Sir Andrew Davis
conducts the Scottish
Chamber Orchestra
along with soprano
Elin Manahan Thomas,
baritone Roderick
recordings that only add to my
enjoyment.
Neville Dean
Cambridge
I’ve subscribed to
BBC Music Magazine
since the beginning
and still have all the CDs. Recently, I
decided to back-up my collection as
a safeguard and took the chance to
listen again to some of the recordings.
One of the greatest delights has been
the Vladimir Horowitz Royal Festival
Hall Recital (September 2013 issue)
which I didn’t take much notice of
until now. I particularly enjoyed the
Schumann Kinderszenen. Clearly I
need to listen again
to more CDs from
the collection!
Tell us what concerts or
recordings you’ve been

Steven Isserlis’s CDs where it drew a standing ovation. A Williams and Simon enjoying by emailing us
magnificent, but in quiet man, and a master contrapuntist Callow as narrator, also at musictomyears@
particular I will never forget his recital who lived in the shadow of Respighi, includes some premiere classical-music.com

For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 17
 TheFullScore
NEWSINBRIEF
abbey racket:
Bath’s buskers have
caused a rumpus
DROWNED IN BATH
All is not quiet in Bath, home of the
country’s most obtrusive buskers. So
obtrusive, in fact, that they recently
brought Evensong at the Abbey to a
premature halt. With choir practices
regularly disrupted by over-amplified
strummers, scrapers and yowlers, the
Rev. Edward Mason finally decided his
service couldn’t continue. ‘We have
suffered long enough,’ he said.
VLAD TO STAY ON
Vladimir Jurowski has extended
his contract as principal conductor
and artistic adviser of the London
Philharmonic Orchestra until at least
2018. Good news indeed for LPO
concert-goers – since the Russian,
42, began in the post in 2007, they’ve
enjoyed not just his brilliance on
the podium but also his rare gift
for imaginative programming.
COLSTON CREW
Better news, though, from down
the road in Bristol, where the
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
has been announced as the Orchestra
of Colston Hall. While the West
Country’s biggest city has no
permanent professional symphony
orchestra of its own, the BSO is a
regular, much-loved guest – its 500+
performances at Colston Hall are
unmatched by any other ensemble.
SHINING BRASS
Are you an inspiring brass player, aged
GETTY ILLUSTRATION: JONTY CLARK
between 16 and 21? BBC Radio 2 is
looking for talented players to enter
its Young Brass Award 2015, which
offers a broadcast with a major group
as its first prize. The closing date for
entries is 28 November, and you can
find details on the Radio 2 website.
18 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
New York’s pool of talent
Hotel drops classical music in at the deep end
Splash, splash, splash, splash… Nothing lap pool. Those indulging in a little
is quite as dull as ploughing up and breaststroke, backstroke or crawl (no-one
down a swimming pool, length after sensible does the butterfly) can now
spirit-crushing length. So, a big, dripping- do so to the accompaniment of works
wet hand to the Park Hyatt New York specially selected at nearby Carnegie
Hotel, which is alleviating the boredom Hall – Britten’s Four Sea Interludes and
by playing classical music through Ravel’s Jeux d’eau are just two of the
under-water speakers at its 20-metre pieces chosen to serenade the sploshers.
Brilliant, we say,
but why not take
it further? How
about inviting a
local musician,
such as violinist
Joshua Bell, say, to
give live in-pool
recitals? Especially if
he invites his friend
cellist Steven Isserlis
along for the gig!
Then again, the
latter’s magnificent
mane might clog
the pool filters. We’ll
have a rethink…
AFTER HOURS spin doctors:
Ranaan Meyer and
Musicians and their hobbies (left) Zach DePue
RANAAN MEYER
Double bassist
ULTIMATE FRISBEE
Ultimate frisbee is the coolest sport ever. It
involves seven people against seven, and is
a bit like football with a frisbee – the basic
aim is to score in the other team’s end zone.
I was about 25 when I started playing. I was
in a park in Philadelphia when I saw
a bunch of students playing it. I was
fascinated, and when they saw me
watching, they invited me to play! I people. I’m very
played twice a week for a few years competitive, as
and was finally convinced to join a is Zach (DePue),
league – but as I tour for half the while Nick
year, I’m not the most reliable team (Kendall) is more
mate, so now I just play occasional gracious. There’s
‘pick up’ games. When I’m on tour not much contact,
with my trio, Time for Three, I’m always trying except when the frisbee is in the air, and it’s a
to coax the other two into a game of ‘Hot great hobby if you don’t want to hurt yourself.
box’ which you can play with as few as three That said, I have broken my foot twice…
For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com
 TheFullScore
e
Farewell to…
early master:
Christopher Hogwood
with the Handel and
Haydn Society in 1996

CHRISTOPHER HOGWOOD
Born 1941 Conductor and harpsichordist
A hugely influential figure in early music performance, Christopher
Hogwood founded the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) in
1973. He went on to tour extensively with the ensemble, whose
raison d’être – to perform works as closely as possible to how the
composers themselves would have heard them – earned them a
legion of fans and inspired countless similar performing groups.
Together they made over 200 recordings, including of the first ever
complete cycle of Mozart’s Symphonies on period instruments.
Born in Nottingham, Hogwood studied at Cambridge University
before joining the Academy of St Martin in the Fields as a continuo
player and then co-founding the Early Music Consort with David
Munrow in 1967. It was Munrow who enjoyed the lion’s share of
fame resulting from the Consort’s success, but Hogwood soon
made himself a household name with the AAM – by 1983, he was
being dubbed ‘the Karajan of early music’. There was more to him
than just early music scholarship, however. Equally passionate
about music of the 19th and 20th centuries, he also held posts
with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Handel and Haydn
Society in the US, the Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Beethoven
Academie, Antwerp. As a solo keyboard player, meanwhile, he
made a number of notable recordings of composers, including
Handel, Gibbons, Byrd and CPE Bach.

KENNY WHEELER
Born 1930 Jazz trumpeter and composer
Self-effacing in the extreme, Kenny Wheeler’s quiet modesty
hid behind it a jazz trumpeter of exceptional virtuosity and a
superlative composer and improviser. Born in Toronto, Canada,
Wheeler moved to Britain as a young man, making his name in
the late 1950s as part of the John Dankworth Orchestra. Over
the following years, he worked in partnership with many of the
leading jazz names of the era, not least the pianist John Taylor
and singer Norma Winstone in his own Azimuth trio. He recorded
extensively for the ECM label, as did bassist Dave Holland,
with whom he went on to form a long-standing musical
partnership. Asked on one occasion to describe his own music,
Wheeler said ‘Everything I do has a touch of melancholy and a
touch of chaos to it.’
GETTY
 New Releases
Disc of the Month
Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
The Nutcracker
Here is the concluding recording in a series devoted to Tchaikovsky’s three great ballets
performed by Neeme Järvi and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. This complete, uncut
version of The Nutcracker on one 85-minute CD re-explores Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece in
order to offer a completely new experience of one of the most-performed ballets in musical
history. It follows The Sleeping Beauty (CHSA 5113(2)) and Swan Lake (CHSA 5124 (2)).

CHSA 5144

Szymanowski
Symphonies Nos 1 and 3 Panufnik
Love Songs of Hafiz Messages
Edward Gardner returns with the The Brodsky Quartet celebrates
BBC Symphony Orchestra to the Sir Andrzej Panufnik’s centenary with
intoxicating orchestral music of Messages. The recording includes
Karol Szymanowski in their third disc the three quartets by Sir Andrzej,
devoted to the composer. Described in Memories of My Father, a Brodsky
BBC Music as ‘one of the finest non- Quartet commission, by his daughter,
Polish interpreters of Szymanowski’, Roxanna, and the sextet Modlitwa, a
Gardner is joined in two works by the joint father-daughter composition.
rising star Ben Johnson. CHAN 10839
CHSA 5143

Fauré / Lekeu /
Simon Keenlyside
Ravel
Something’s Gotta Give
French Violin Sonatas
Simon Keenlyside, one of the world’s
Tasmin Little explores three great most charismatic and sought-after
French violin sonatas, after a much operatic baritones, presents an album
revered recording of British violin devoted to well-loved songs from
sonatas in 2013. She and the pianist musicals. It features two leading
Martin Roscoe immerse themselves artists of musical theatre, the soprano
in music of eminent late-nineteenth- Scarlett Strallen and conductor David
century French composers: Gabriel Charles Abell, with the BBC Concert
Fauré, Guillaume Lekeu, and Maurice Orchestra.
Ravel.
CHAN 10838
CHAN 10812

www.chandos.net STAY I N TH E K NOW

www.theclassicalshop.net (24-bit studio quality, lossless, MP3) New releases Reviews t Special offers t Artist features
t

Chandos Records, Chandos House, 1 Commerce Park, Commerce Way, Colchester, Essex CO2 8HX. Tel: 01206 225200

PPA Columnist of the Year
The Richard Morrison column
What are the challenges
facing the new controller
of BBC Radio 3?
I
t is quite simply the most
powerful job in classical music,
at least on this sceptered isle.
I’m talking about the position just
awarded to Alan Davey, the former
chief executive of Arts Council
England. In the New Year he
will succeed Roger Wright (albeit
after a six-month interregnum)
as controller of BBC Radio 3. He
will have responsibility for four
in-house symphony orchestras,
Britain’s only full-time professional
chorus (outside the opera houses),
8,760 hours of broadcasting a
year, dozens of commissions to
composers and, of course, the
Proms – for the next, yet-to-
be-announced Proms director
will be chosen by, and report to,
him. Who knows? It could even
be Davey himself, for the new
controller could decide to merge
the two jobs again, as they were
when Wright did them. In these
cost-conscious times that option
might appeal to Tony Hall, the
BBC’s director-general.
Even without the Proms,
however, the job is still vitally
important, especially with the
BBC’s public-service remit and
finances under intense scrutiny.
Looking in from the outside (and
I can declare, with some relief,
that I haven’t been on the staff
of the BBC since 1975) I would
say that Davey faces three great
challenges. The first is internal
reorganisation. The second is
audience-building. And the third
is fighting serious music’s corner
within the Byzantine maze that is
BBC management.
For more news and artist interviews visit www.classical-music.com
The first task will be the most
difficult. By internal reorganisation
I don’t just mean shuffling
producers and programmes
round the schedule, but a radical
redirecting of Radio 3 and all its
resources to reflect and lead the
21st-century musical world. The
most exciting work in classical
music today is being done by bold
young orchestras and ensembles
presenting unconventional mashes
of repertoire in unlikely venues to
new audiences who may not have
much knowledge but equally also
have no preconceptions. Tied to
Davey must fight to preserve
Radio 3’s reputation for
musical excellence
its four identically constituted
symphony orchestras, the BBC
isn’t best placed to join this
invigorating revolution, and I
don’t underestimate the difficulty
of changing the status quo. What
Rupert Murdoch did, brutally but
necessarily, for Fleet Street would
never be contemplated at the BBC.
Yet the status quo must
somehow be changed if the
BBC’s music resources are not to
look increasingly old-fashioned,
presenting conventional concert-
hall performances mostly in
cities that have plenty already. It’s
incredible, for instance, that the
country’s best-resourced classical-
music network has so little impact
on the teaching of music in schools
TheFullScore
– the biggest challenge facing the
musical world. One reason why
Davey got the job, I believe, is that
he offered persuasive new thinking,
and he has a track record at the Arts
Council of making bold but sane
decisions and seeing them through.
Without Radio 3 re-establishing
its place at the cutting-edge of
British musical life, and as classical
music’s most persuasive advocate
to young people, Davey will find it
much harder to achieve the second
and third tasks. Last July, Radio 3’s
ratings dipped below the BBC’s
niche pop-music station 6 Music
for the first time. Not in itself a
mighty blow, but psychologically
difficult for Radio 3’s staff, because
6 Music was targeted for closure
by the BBC only four years ago
because it was perceived to be
failing. My feeling is that Radio 3
has been aiming at the wrong
target. It has been obsessing
about Classic FM. That has led it
into what sometimes sound like
desperate attempts to imitate the
ingratiating cosiness of Classic’s
presentation, which is surely
designed to ease listeners aged 50
and above through our declining
years. It would surely make more
sense to woo younger listeners and
families who are eclectic in their
musical tastes but would never
switch on Radio 3 because they
imagine that its tone and content is
for classical connoisseurs only.
If Davey can find ways of
breaking through into that market
he would be in a much stronger
position to deal with the third
task, which is to fight tooth and
nail within the BBC to preserve its
reputation for musical excellence,
adventure and seriousness. The
BBC’s unique funding by what
is in effect a national tax (though
still quaintly called the ‘licence
fee’) imposes the obligation to
provide the sort of intellectually
challenging programmes that
its commercial rivals don’t.
That should work to Radio 3’s
advantage. But it needs a controller
who can persuade his bosses in
BBC management that he also
understands the BBC’s other
fundamental obligation: to produce
programming that appeals to as
many of the 25 million licence fee-
payers as possible. I’m not sure that
Roger Wright enjoyed such trust
from his bosses in his final year.
The appointment of Davey
offers some reassurance in this
respect. He may be a Whitehall-
honed bureaucrat with absolutely
no experience of working in
broadcasting, but he is also a
serious, pleasant, fair-minded
man. Let’s hope he proves to be
a great controller. If he doesn’t
succeed, the possible consequences
for musical life in Britain are too
ghastly to be contemplated. n
Richard Morrison is chief music
critic and a columnist of The Times
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 21
mozartian alchemy:
‘What I like about Nikolaus
Harnoncourt is that he’s such
a free, spiritual person’

22 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
 LANG LANG COVER FEATURE

The
MOZART
effect
PHOTO G R A PH Y J A ME S C HE A DL E

It may have been the big Romantic repertoire that

made Lang Lang his fame and fortune, but in his
early days it was Mozart that kept him grounded.
Now, he tells Jessica Duchen, the time has come
for him to be once again seduced by his old friend >

BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 23
 eyes wide shut:
Lang Lang and Nikolaus
Harnoncourt wallow
together in Mozart
s heroes and villains go, Lang Lang
A holds a unique position as, possibly,
both. To many, this dynamic
former prodigy turned global
superstar is a one-man revolution: in what has
become known as the ‘Lang Lang Effect’ he
has inspired tens of millions of children in his
native China to take up the piano. He reaches
audiences of whom other musicians can only
dream – the young, the hip, the sports-aware;
he has even created a foundation to encourage
a resurgence in music education and is a UN
Messenger for Peace.
To his detractors, though, it can seem that
he has committed some sort of cardinal sin
by becoming too popular. Some Steinway
pianos, Montblanc watches and even a line of
HARALD HOFFMANN, GETTY
black and gold Adidas trainers have all carried
his name. Traditional piano fans, meanwhile,
cruelly nicknamed him ‘Bang Bang’ for his
somewhat extrovert style of performing.
At 32, Lang Lang himself keeps evolving.
In 15 years he has offered us a roller-coaster
24 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
of different impressions. First there was the
teenager in a turquoise silk jacket playing
Mendelssohn at the Royal Festival Hall with
the delicacy and finesse of a hummingbird;
then the serious young artist whose Wigmore
Hall and Proms debuts offered colour, insight
and magic by the gallon. After that, though,
there ensued untrammelled overprojection,
burgeoning brand-awareness – symptoms,
some might say, of selling out. The halls sold
out too, of course.
Catching up with Lang Lang in Salzburg,
all that seems a very long way off. Clad in
black (Armani) with lime-green trainers, he
beams charisma across the hotel foyer; fans
venture over to ask for autographs and selfies.
He has time for everyone, charming them
with his positivity – but above all, he is here to
play Mozart.
Music does not get much more serious than
recording Mozart with conductor Nikolaus
Harnoncourt. His latest album features two
of Wolfgang Amadeus’s best-loved concertos,
the G major K453 and C minor K491, with
the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by the
elder statesman of historically informed
performance. Lang Lang acknowledges that
they might seem an unlikely match – but he
makes it clear that he reveres the conductor
and is eager to soak up his influence.
‘Many people wondered how Maestro
Harnoncourt and I would work together,’
he says. ‘It’s actually quite smooth. For him
I have 200 per cent respect and when he’s
talking I just like to listen. I love his ideas
and it’s a great learning experience. We are 50
years apart in age, but it feels totally authentic.
‘What I like about him is that he’s such a
free, spiritual person,’ he adds. ‘In music he
never wants to do the same thing twice.
He’s traditional, but he’s always talking
about the soul, about things happening,
rather than about theory. His theory is to
show that music is free.
‘He says what he feels is right and doesn’t
compromise, no matter who he conducts. He

MOZART PIANO CONCERTOS
A quick guide to the repertoire on Lang Lang’s new recording
NO OTHER
COMPOSER in the
second half of the
18th century spent
so much energy on
piano concertos
as Mozart did –
certainly the signs
were there from the
start when Mozart’s
father Leopold caught
his son (or so we’re led
to believe) writing a
harpsichord concerto at
the age of four. Mozart
would go on to write
27 concertos for piano
and orchestra in all – in
a flurry of activity in Vienna between 1784 and
1786, Mozart penned no fewer than 11 of them,
including the two masterpieces that Lang Lang
has recorded with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and
the Vienna Philharmonic.
Both of these concertos contain a wealth of
invention and imagination unrivalled, some
say, by anything else Mozart wrote. Piano
gives his views in the most sincere way. At the
first rehearsal he told the orchestra: “I don’t
want everything to be totally together and I
don’t want it to be clean!” He showed that he
wanted an authentic, grounded sound, rather
than something digital, clear and mechanical.’
Working with Harnoncourt, Lang Lang
says, has completely changed his idea of how
Mozart can and should sound. ‘He gave me
his score so that I had the bowings in front
of me and I tried to do the same phrasing
on the piano,’ he says. ‘He explained to me
how Mozart’s articulations are done, and the
from on high:
Mozart composing
in his hillside study in
Kahlenberg, near Vienna
Concerto No. 17, K453 is an intimate, charming
and inspiring work, packed full of colour. It
was written for the composer’s gifted piano
pupil Barbara Ployer who paid her teacher
handsomely for the work. The uplifting finale
was allegedly inspired by a melody sung by
Mozart’s pet starling. Piano Concerto No. 24
K491, on the other hand, is one of Mozart’s
great tragic creations. Written in C minor, a
key associated with moments of high musical
drama (Beethoven’s stirring Pathétique Sonata
is in C minor, as is JS Bach’s monumental
Passacaglia and Fugue for organ), the opening
movement’s mood echoes the opera Don
Giovanni’s stormier moments. It’s perhaps
the most ambitious in scale of all Mozart’s
Piano Concertos and the final movement,
an Allegretto in variation form, is one of the
composer’s most brilliant. On first hearing it,
Beethoven was said to have exclaimed ‘Ah! We
shall never be able to do anything like this!’
Lang Lang’s new Mozart disc is out now on
Sony Classical and is reviewed next issue.
Levels 1, 2 and 3 of the piano tutor series
Lang Lang Piano Academy: Mastering the
Piano is published by Faber Music.
different styles involved: which part is like
religious music, or country music, or dance
music; which cadence means tears, which
means harmony and heavenliness. He had
an incredibly logical theory using Mozart’s
letters and period instruments, explaining all
this knowledge and precision in the style of
Mozart’s music, taste and drama.
‘This will be a milestone in my career – I
will try to always remember this kind of sound
he produced with the Vienna Philharmonic.
I don’t know how to follow it,’ he adds with a
laugh, ‘but I will always remember it.’
LANG LANG COVER FEATURE
One idea, though, proved a step too far.
‘My first time in Salzburg I played the Bach
Goldberg Variations on a fortepiano for him,’
Lang Lang recalls. ‘It was very difficult,
but I did it – but then he asked if we could
consider using a fortepiano for the Mozart
recording. I said, ‘No, I’m sorry!’ I can have
fun with it, but to make a recording with
a high level of control is too difficult.’ The
fortepiano is a totally different instrument, he
points out, and requires mastering in its own
right: otherwise, ‘it’s like playing football in a
basketball court’.
His demurral appears to have thrown the
project into abeyance for a couple of years; he
says that it was only after he performed the
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 at Carnegie
Hall with Harnoncourt in 2010 that the
conductor agreed to take the project forward
with a modern grand. ‘Then we worked for
another two years,’ Lang Lang adds. ‘I’m
so lucky, waiting years for this – when we
‘I have 200 per cent
respect for Maestro
Harnoncourt’
finished the recording I had the biggest smile
on my face. I couldn’t believe I actually did it.’
Mozart’s music has been with Lang Lang
since the outset. Thinking back to his
childhood, he says that Mozart kept him
on the rails. ‘Once I nearly quit the piano
because I was thrown out by my teacher,’ he
recalls. ‘But at my school in a music class the
other kids asked me to play some Mozart and
I got out the slow movement of the Sonata
K330– and I thought: “This is such beautiful
music, why should I quit?”’ He remained
nervous, he says, about performing the
composer’s works until he was 17 and worked
on the piano duets with one of his mentors,
Christoph Eschenbach, gaining insight into
the music’s sound and style.
His favourite Mozartians are many and
varied: he names pianists Clara Haskil and
Daniel Barenboim as inspirations, besides
Murray Perahia’s ‘beautiful pianissimos’, the
lyricism of Arthur Rubinstein’s recordings
and the originality of Friedrich Gulda and
Vladimir Horowitz. ‘We know there’s a
certain Mozart style, but everyone has their
own understanding of it,’ he says, adding
that Radu Lupu’s Mozart in concert was ‘like
walking on water’.
The Romantic war-horse concertos that
helped to build Lang Lang’s fame are no
longer so vital as the pianist shifts his interests >
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 25
LANG LANG COVER FEATURE

LANG LANG ON DISC at carnegie hall:

Lang Lang (seated, centre) performs
Five recommended recordings with Renée Fleming, Oh Land and
John Legend, plus students from
Prokofiev his Music Foundation
Piano Concerto No. 3
Bartók Piano
Concerto No. 2
Lang Lang (piano); Berlin
Philharmonic/Simon Rattle
Sony Classical 88883732262
£24.99
‘These two high-voltage
concertos from the first
half of the 20th century
seem tailor-made for the
dynamic talents of Lang
Lang.’ (December 2013)

Rachmaninov
Trio élégiaque No. 1
Tchaikovsky
Piano Trio in A minor
Lang Lang (piano),
Vadim Repin (violin),
Mischa Maisky (cello)
DG 477 8099 £14.99
‘Lang Lang turns in
unsurpassably scintillating
transcendentalism and
mazurka charm’
(Christmas 2009)
The Chopin Album
Études, Nocturnes etc
Lang Lang (piano)
Sony Classical 88725449602
£14.99
‘Lang Lang’s playing is
warm and communicative,
beautifully shaped,
luminously projected
and boldly coloured’
(February 2013)
Beethoven Piano
Concertos Nos 1 & 4
Lang Lang (piano);
Orchestre de Paris/
Christoph Eschenbach
DG 477 6719 £14.99
‘These Beethoven
concertos are mostly
idiomatic and stylish [and]
there is some delightful
playing in both works.’
(September 2007)
Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No. 2 etc
Lang Lang (piano),
Orchestra of the Mariinsky
Theatre/Valery Gergiev
DG 477 5549 (SACD) £10.99
‘The Mariinsky strings
GETTY, HARALD HOFFMANN
backwards and forwards in time. His recent
recordings include concertos by Bartók and
Prokofiev and, for the Richard Strauss 2014
anniversary, the Burleske.
‘I forced myself to stop playing
Rachmaninov’s Third,’ he remarks. ‘I haven’t
played it for eight years. I love Russian music
and Chopin, but the older I get, the more I
feel I would like to do more Bach, as much
Mozart as possible and music like the Berg
Sonata, which is
an incredible piece.
Sometimes when we’re
young, people demand
‘I get criticised for being
the big Romantic
concertos – maybe
popular, but there is
audiences will come
and hear them more,
nothing I can do about it’
maybe the record
company will say it will sell more copies. So
you play something for yourself – but also for
other reasons...
‘After you turn a certain age and you know
a little more, you can think more about what
you yourself really should do. You can’t just
play emotional programmes all the time –
you also need to learn the logical stuff. And
maybe as you work, the logical pieces become
emotional as well.’
Lang Lang’s popular image can appear
dominated by high Romanticism and
big gestures. His sometimes shocking
featured the Yellow River Concerto; and
live performances from Carnegie Hall
are captured for posterity.
‘Sometimes you get criticised for being
popular, but there’s nothing I can do about
it,’ Lang Lang shrugs. ‘I just keep playing my
concerts. You cannot change anything. You
do your thing and focus on the music. In the
classical music world there’s a theory that
when you become popular then you’re not
serious enough. But
I think you can be
both, if you go in the
right direction.
‘Those comments
are a good reminder,’
he adds. ‘They push
me more towards
music-making and
show the danger of losing ground. I take it as
something positive.’
Popularity has advantages, he adds: it
gives him a platform to do more for music
education. After the 2008 Olympics he
launched the Lang Lang Foundation with
the mission statement: ‘To inspire and
motivate the next generation of classical
music lovers and performers and to encourage
music performance at all levels as a means of
social development for youth, building self-
confidence and a drive for excellence.’
It offers several key projects at different

perfectly reflect the
pianist’s utterly original,
cool and aristocratic
handling of the big tune
in the finale.’ (April 2005)
autobiography depicts a hair-raising
relationship with his demanding father; his
albums, too, have often told a story in which
he is the central figure. Memories chronicled
his early life, from the Mozart Sonata K330 to
the Chopin B minor Sonata; a Chinese album
levels. Among them are the ‘101 Pianists’; the
Lang Lang Junior Music Camps for 12 gifted
youngsters; a Young Scholars Program; the
Oxford Piano Festival and Summer Academy;
a busy schedule of international masterclasses;
and a new further effort entitled ‘Lang Lang’s

26 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E

Keys of Inspiration’, in which the foundation
works with schools to build up music lessons.
There, Lang Lang stresses, method is the
most vital thing: money would be useless
without it. ‘You can bring money in to buy
instruments, but you need the right method
for teaching and you need more teachers.
Now when I go to a city,’ he adds, ‘I don’t
just play a concert. I meet the local education
people and talk about how we are going to
synchronise; and then at every concert we
meet new potential scholars.’
Next, the foundation wants to take music
into hospitals. ‘This year Maestro Plácido
Domingo challenged me to the Ice Bucket,’
Lang Lang declares. ‘But I’m going to respond
instead by going to play to the patients at the
ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) hospital
in Taipei. I think when you take music into
hospitals you can really change the patients’
lives. You try to make them stronger, to
encourage them and to make them happier
and more comfortable.’
wolfgang up close:
Lang Lang studies the
finer details of Mozart’s
Piano Concerto No. 24
Talk to a British or American pianist
about the classical music scene and one can
sometimes imagine the end of civilisation is
nigh. Lang Lang, though, offers alternative
images: evocations of a world in which music
is flourishing, but in which the centre has
‘Classical music is not
doing badly, but music
education is dying’
shifted east. He says he finds the Lang Lang
Effect ‘quite amazing’.
‘I have friends in Germany whose small
regional conservatory suddenly has a big
line of Asian applicants,’ he says. ‘I think the
Chinese markets are very good for the future
of classical music – and the world needs new
markets. We want to play different stuff
and not just in the great traditional spaces
where we’ve always played before. We need to
think about Peru, Egypt, or secondary cities
in China that have populations of over 10
million. A lot of new concert halls have been
built in the Middle East. Next year I’m doing
a Middle East tour and I’m looking forward to
seeing how classical music is moving on there.
‘I did a big tour in South America this
year because of the World Cup. The markets
are amazing, there are some very fine young
conductors coming through, and the most
beautiful theatre of all is in Buenos Aires, the
Teatro Colón!
‘Coming back to Asia, you really feel the
heat for classical music: even in the smaller
cities almost every family has a piano. So
I’m very positive about the future. I think
our market now is very good and very lively:
it’s become much more diversified.’
Lang Lang never stops diversifying. This
autumn Faber Music launched his new set of
five tutor books, Mastering the Piano, and he
is keen to encourage pop and other musicians
– who often have a classical training behind
them – to write classical pieces in their own
way. ‘We need new compositions and today we
are not so boxed in,’ he says. You couldn’t call
someone who has performed with Metallica
‘boxed in’. ‘That’s something I never, ever
thought I would do,’ he laughs, remembering
his star turn with the heavy metal legends at
last January’s Grammy Awards.
‘The younger generation of musicians is
quite lucky,’ he suggests. ‘Fifteen years ago,
when I started, you had to wear a black or
white tie on a CD cover, but now it seems
nobody wears a tie at all – and everybody
likes it. People approve of this because you
can be the person you are, not try to look like
a 90-year-old master you are not. Society has
changed. The only thing that does not change
is the music itself.’ He means this in a good
way. Music remains his fixed star in a dizzying
world. If he ever stops to unwind, he does so by
staying home in New York or Beijing, eating
light and healthy food, feeding his neighbour’s
Koi carp and travelling to the Chinese
mountains to sample freshly picked green tea.
He will doubtless continue to divide
audiences but he may just be the classical
music sphere’s biggest asset. ‘Classical music
is not doing badly,’ he insists, ‘but music
education is dying, disappearing from
schools, so we have to be worried about the
future. Instead of worrying, let’s take action!
Let’s spend our energies in the public system,
talk loudly about education and focus on what
we can do for it. I don’t see any problems if
we really put our minds to making a change.’
Coming the hour, cometh the Lang Lang.
We need him, and we need him now. n
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 27

The James Naughtie interview
CHARLES DUTOIT
In a musical world once dominated by Karajan and Furtwängler, the
Swiss conductor learnt to help his orchestras develop an individual
character. That skill, he says, is still integral to any ensemble’s survival
C
harles Dutoit is not a man
in a hurry.
That’s not to say that
he isn’t flitting hither and
thither like anyone with his reputation,
often living out of a suitcase, and having
homes on four continents. But he
exudes a kind of calm about his business
that’s refreshing. Young conductors
can sometimes be excused for their
impatience, and an enthusiasm that can
seem hard to control, but the aroma of
testosterone is sometimes a little much.
Dutoit inhabits the other end of the
spectrum, and is all the better for it.
He’ll enter his 80th year in 2015 and it
gives him a happy perspective on a career that
began in the 1950s (first, as a viola player)
– the era of the boom in classical recording –
and encompassed the great movements that
we’ve seen in the last half century from the
early music revolution to the arrival – and
the coming decline – of the CD, and the
diminishing power and imagination of the
once dominant record labels. The reason why
a conversation with him is so refreshing, is
that he has no regrets. ‘There seems no limit
today,’ he says. ‘Young people – well, they
seem to me to be capable of anything. I think
it is intoxicating.’
We’re talking in London, where’s
GETTY
Dutoit has arrived to conduct the Royal
THE JAMES NAUGHTIE INTERVIEW FEATURE
PHOTOGR A PH Y R ICH A R D C A N NON
gallic affair:
Dutoit conducts
Delius’s Paris at the
2012 BBC Proms
Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), of which he’s
artistic director as well as principal conductor,
and the orchestra founded by Sir Thomas
Beecham seems a natural home for him.
Over the years it has, through regular visits,
embedded itself in so many venues outside
London that it justly flies the flag of ‘the
people’s orchestra’.
Fortunately that label isn’t an excuse for
silly programming – which it might be – but
for a particular approach to its audiences that
is a matter of justifiable pride. So it’s good to
begin a conversation with Dutoit with the
place of the conductor.
Having spent an important part of his
career in North America, famously lifting the
status of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
during his 25 years at the helm, his
mind naturally turns to the role of a
conductor trying to entice a whole city.
Splendidly, he is not afraid to talk of a
conductor as an educator.
‘If you are a music director in
a city, you have a very important
responsibility,’ he says. ‘Especially in
America you become an important part
of the cultural life of the city. Think
of Chicago or Philadelphia. Over
years you prepare the orchestra, and
you prepare the audiences too. You
teach them, and they learn. Then they
demand new things of you.’
He still spends a good part of his year at
work in the US, and was principal conductor
himself in Philadelphia in the 1990s. Well
aware of the problems facing a number of
American institutions (Philadelphia and
Minnesota being painful recent examples), he
has an undiminished faith in the ability of a
particular ensemble to force itself into the life
of a city, with its own sound and personality.
‘Listen to Chicago from the 1960s,’ he
points out. ‘Could it be anyone else playing?
Cleveland? Even New York. These orchestras
sometimes took on the quality of their own
hall. They sounded at home : you knew what
you were going to hear. This was very good.
‘Forty years ago an orchestra had such
a strong personality. This was partly in >
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 29
THE JAMES NAUGHTIE INTERVIEW FEATURE
in the studio:
‘when you are successful,
people want more’
the schooling from a conductor and partly
from the space in which they played. It was
unmistakable. Things have changed; maybe
that was inevitable, but I remember those days
very well. With great affection.’
It’s less true now, with orchestral
music having undergone its own form of
globalisation, but he thinks you can still hear
the tradition coming through: ‘Compare
40 years of Boston and Philadelphia. They
still have their own sound. We’re talking
about [Leopold] Stokowski and [Eugene]
Ormandy here and you can still hear them at
work. Those lush strings in Philadelphia. It is
incredible, but it’s still there. And in Boston
they had that French-Russian tradition. You
can still recognise the spirit, and hear it.’
So all is not lost. That idea of the
personality of an orchestra was embedded
in him young. For him – and it’s true in the
way he has moulded the RPO – he got an
early lesson from Ernest Ansermet, founder
of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande,
whose rehearsals he often attended as a young
musician growing up in Switzerland.
Ansermet was a stylist who carved out
a different path from the Germanic style
of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert
von Karajan, and I suspect that for Dutoit
that example of distinctiveness – a love of
going against the grain – was an important
influence in his early years as a conductor
30 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
in the late 1950s (when Ansermet was in his
mid-seventies). ‘Every week or so when I was
around, there was a new piece in Geneva. The
repertoire built up. You heard it all. It was a
journey for us all.’
One of the natural enjoyments of the
RPO for him is its commitment to reaching
audiences who haven’t mastered the byways
of the classical repertoire. Rather more readily
‘Karajan was all over
the world. We couldn’t
match Berlin’
than some conductors will say, he sings the
praises of concert programmes that ensure
that well-known parts of the repertoire aren’t
taken for granted, the knowledge assumed.
They must be played.
So naturally we turn to Montreal, where he
arrived in the late 1970s and remained for 25
years. Like a number of his recordings with
the Orchestre national de France in the 1990s,
some of his work with Montreal became part
of every record collection, perhaps because he
was able to fulfil there his ambition to create
an easily-recognisable sound. The hall in
which the orchestra gave most of its concerts
was not a distinguished one, but Decca
found a small church on the edge of the city
where they were able to discover something
quite distinctive.
‘They ran around the city looking at about
40 venues because, to be frank, our home
was not a place for recording. Well, we finally
found the church and the orchestra came to
love that place. The first [Ravel] Daphnis and
Chloe – fantastic! I still love it.’
It was in Montreal that he learned the
business of shaping an orchestra, starting
from ground level.
‘I built on the classical tradition from
Haydn and Mozart, of course. I was trying
to build it like a chamber orchestra, piece
by piece, but there was a problem. What
repertoire do you record? A Beethoven
symphony? Karajan was all over the world.
We couldn’t match Vienna or Berlin. So we
looked at what Ansermet had recorded with
Decca over 35 years and began to revisit that
repertoire. We opened the door wide, and it
was successful. And when you are successful,
then people want more. They always do.’
The Montreal experience came to an ugly
end with the orchestral revolt against the
dismissal of two musicians in 2002. Dutoit
resigned, and resisted the attempts of many
members of the orchestra to get him back.
The atmosphere had soured, and each side
had its version of the background. Maybe it

was inevitable that after a quarter of a century
there would be impatience for a change, and
perhaps on the part of the conductor as well as
the orchestra.
But he had been conducting around the
world for decades (having a particularly
affinity for Japanese audiences) and the
transition away from the idea of the ‘home
orchestra’ which he’d always revered extended
his career and didn’t diminish it.
A peripatetic schedule these days hasn’t
erased those memories which, as with
his recollections of Ansermet, pepper his
conversation. We’re sitting in the penthouse of
a Kensington hotel looking over the park: he’s
amused at having been given the presidential
suite because his usual one is occupied, and
there is more than enough room to walk
around and admire the view. London excites
him (much more than Paris, I suspect, but
his French-Swiss heritage may hold him
back a little…) and it’s exhilarating to have a
conversation that ranges freely through all the
musical epochs that he remembers.
We zip across the years, back and forth.
He recalls how Switzerland didn’t take to
serialism – plus Schoenberg’s unpopularity
there – to the effervescence that was produced
by the arrival of conductors like Roger
Norrington with their commitment to early
instruments, the days when the recording
giants were always hungry for more. And also
GETTY
the days – how strange to remember them
partners in time:
Dutoit with Martha
Argerich at the Fairfield
Halls, Croydon, in 1970 ;
(right) as he is today
now – when the music of Berlioz was hardly
played, even in France.
I am about to attend a production of the
French composer’s Les Troyens in Edinburgh
and for a few minutes Dutoit speaks with
passion about that score. Although he has
conducted in most of the world’s great opera
houses – Karajan first invited him to Salzburg
‘Faster, incidentally,
doesn’t mean deeper…
like a fine wine’
– he doesn’t regard himself as an opera
conductor and, even as he approaches his
ninth decade, talks with some awe about the
peaks of that repertoire, Mozart especially. He
is a conversationalist of verve and fun.
He keeps his private life private, especially
his former marriage to pianist Martha
Argerich, and that’s fair, but I can’t help
thinking afterwards of the coming together
of this conductor driven especially by the
French and Russian Romantic traditions and
that fiery warrior of the keyboard. I hope it’s a
conversation that can be had on another day.
The reason that our encounter is so
enjoyable, is the sense of a musician who
enjoys, most of all, the sweep of his life. There
are still pieces he wants to master, operas he
wants to conduct, recordings – in the French
repertoire especially – that are still crying
out to be made, but there is also the here and
now: the sheer exhilaration of audiences, in
Birmingham and Leeds one week, and maybe
Tokyo the next.
The energy, I suspect, comes from his
excitement about young musicians, with
which we began our conversation. ‘They
drink classical music so beautifully. They
will play anything, and so many of them
play beautifully. Look what happened in
Venezuela! Fantastic. Listen to Lucerne. This
could not have happened when I was young.
We were so influenced by the tradition. It was
difficult to do things differently.’
His respect for Ansermet is clearly in part a
recognition of his desire to put his own stamp
on a repertoire which he didn’t believe should
be moulded too much by Austro-German
habits, and the principal difference that
Dutoit finds in the new century, is that it is
not so difficult to express that individuality.
‘There is also the playing,’ he says. ‘Let’s
be quite honest. It is so much better, so very
much better in almost every orchestra. This
has been one of the great changes in my time.
And it is still going on.’
But at last, I find one smidgen of regret.
We are talking about the young, the
multitude of ways in which they can enjoy
music, and the speed of their lives. ‘It is so
very fast. Very fast. And that is exciting. I
share that feeling. But that means we are
becoming a society of information. There is
more and more of it. And everything goes
faster. Faster, incidentally, does not mean
deeper… like a fine wine.’
‘A society of information is not the same as
a deeply cultured society, like the one I was
lucky to discover as a young man. They are
different. And a cultured society is what all
musicians must try to make it.’ n
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 31
 The eerie sound of the theremin can be heard throughout
music of the 20th century – but if you think its sound is
weird, says Geoff Brown, just wait till you hear its story…
T
he instrument, one critic said, suggested
‘a cow in dyspeptic distress’. George
Bernard Shaw thought he’d heard better
noises from a child blowing through
a tissue-covered comb. Other voices in the
1920s rhapsodised about ‘the greatest musical
wonder of our time’, whose wavering melodies
recalled the sound of ‘a violin from the hand
of one of the old master craftsmen’.
Of course you’ve guessed the chameleon
in question. It’s the amazing and fascinating
theremin – the world’s first electronic musical
instrument, played by hands touching nothing
but air, and named after the westernised
version of its inventor’s surname. More
physicist than musician, Lev Sergeyevich
Termen (1896-1993) tumbled onto its core
elements in Soviet Russia while working
on a burglar alarm – a fitting birth for an
instrument whose history keeps taking
surprising turns, frequently toward the absurd.
In the course of its convoluted career,
magisterially documented in Albert Glinsky’s
2000 biography of Theremin, his invention
has been both a Communist trophy and
capitalist plaything. Born in 1920 in
Petrograd’s Physico-Technical Institute, the
instrument later found homes in concert halls,
Manhattan salons, the Beach Boys’ recording
studio, and Hollywood films about unhinged
40 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
podiatry clinic in a Los Angeles department
store. This is an instrument that has lived.
Nor is the theremin remotely dead in
our digital age. The monophonic wonder
still has fans and practitioners, prized as
much for its pioneering technology as its
unique tone of voice – spooky, saccharine,
often coated in vibrato. A new CD features
a recent theremin concerto, Eight Seasons,
by the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho, and
its promotional YouTube video offers a
useful illustration of this creature in action.
Two antennae, one vertical, one horizontal,
extrude from a component centre much
changed from Theremin’s original design.
But the operating principle still
stands. Carolina Eyck, the Aho
concerto’s accomplished soloist,
uses her right hand to control
the pitch, which rises as the
humans or intergalactic visitors. hand draws closer to the vertical
Performers have included Clara antenna and spans an amazing
Rockmore, the theremin’s seven octaves. In similar
legendary high priestess, Lucie fashion the left hand,
Bigelow Rosen in the 1920s and, in aimed at the horizontal
her student days, the Bach specialist loop-shaped antenna,
Rosalyn Tureck. It’s also attracted determines dynamics and
the hands of Lenin and the maverick articulation. The rest of
chiropodist Dr Samuel J Hoffman, Eyck’s body does nothing,
the only musician to set up a except possibly pray.

The scientific explanation for the
theremin’s cries is more complicated. It
involves electric circuitry, magnetic fields,
vacuum tubes and the human body’s ability
to retain an electrical charge. Toiling away
for his Soviet masters, Theremin forged his
burglar alarm, dubbed a ‘radio watchman’, as
an invaluable security weapon for a turbulent
revolutionary state. But since he’d taken
lessons on the piano and cello, the whooping
CORBIS, REX FEATURES
sounds of its disturbed magnetic fields also
suggested musical uses. He called the result
the ‘ether phone’. Western journalists preferred
the ‘theremin’, and fell fast for the novelty
when Russia, smelling international trade
THIS MONOPHONIC
WONDER STILL HAS FANS
AND PRACTITIONERS
deals and chances for industrial espionage,
sent the inventor on a foreign tour in 1927. He
visited Germany, France and England, but
Theremin’s biggest sales pitch was saved for
America, where he stayed for 11 years.
In the giddy months before the 1929 Wall
Street crash, manufacturing rights were
THE THEREMIN FEATURE
enchanting sounds:
Lucie Bigelow Rosen works her
magic in the 1920s;
(far left) a poster for Steven
M Martin’s documentary
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
secured by the Radio Corporation of America.
‘An absolutely unique new instrument anyone
can play’: that was RCA’s ballyhoo. Unique it
certainly was, and remained so even when two
close cousins snapped at its heels – the honey-
voiced ondes Martenot from France, and the
German trautonium, whose sound suggested a
clarinet giving birth.
But contrary to the advertisements, playing
the theremin could never be called easy.
Months of dedication and sweat were needed
to stop its vibrato wobbling like jelly. The
theremin, too, was a fussy creature. It didn’t
like heat or heavy humidity, and could only
operate on an AC electric current. Even today >
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 33
THE THEREMIN FEATURE
you hum it…:
Lev Termen (left) demonstrates
his invention to conductor
Sir Henry Wood (middle) and
physicist Sir Oliver Lodge in 1927
it needs treating with respect. Note
the health warning on the CD Music
from the Ether: ‘The extreme frequency
range of the theremin may damage
some speaker systems’. No surprise,
then, that RCA’s sales figures stayed
modest. Playing the gramophone or
switching on the wireless was so much
safer.
Carnegie Hall, at least, was
penetrated. So were the concerts of
the Philadelphia Orchestra; their
conductor, Stokowski, was a particular
fan. But most of the instrument’s early
champions ignored its true potential.
Theremin, after all, had created an
instrument that in theory was able
to wander at will, abandoning scales,
slithering through microtones, seeking
a music of the future. The maverick
Percy Grainger picked up on this in two
slithery miniatures from the mid 1930s.
Edgard Varèse did his bit too, slipping
two theremins into the dissonant
hothouse of Ecuatorial. But what did
Theremin and his acolytes play? Saint-
Saëns’s ‘The Swan’ from The Carnival of
the Animals, Massenet’s Élégie, Glinka’s
The Skylark: the melodious salon music
of Theremin’s youth. Even the music
newly commissioned, mostly from minor
composers, tended to cling to the neo-
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Romantic. Beware especially the fusty
concerto written by Mortimer Browning
in 1938 for Lucie Bigelow Rosen, a New
York society matron who practically
34 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
aerial flights:
theremin virtuoso
Carolina Eyck
Carolina Eyck on playing the theremin
‘I STARTED TO PLAY THE THEREMIN when I was
seven. I had been playing the violin and the piano, but
my parents introduced me to this new instrument after a
friend had told them about it. It’s very fun to start with,
because you can play around with your hands in the air,
but you do need another instrument such as the piano
so that you can learn the theory of music. It is also an
extremely good instrument for musical training, because
your sense of pitch has to be very accurate and that means
you learn to listen very carefully – obviously, that is also
something that can make it quite hard if you don’t have a
certain level of natural talent.
‘There are two antennae on a theremin. One controls
pitch, like an invisible string, and the other, on the left
side of the instrument, controls the volume. You can be
incredibly expressive and shape the tone as you want
it – I find it easier to play than, say, the violin because you
don’t have to be aware of how hard to press the bow or
anything like that. With the theremin, you just move your
hand, and it makes the sound as you want it!’
made Theremin her religion, probably
helped by the magnetic attraction of
the creator’s piercing blue eyes.
The 1940s proved the pivotal
decade for the instrument’s fortunes.
A theremin masterpiece was finally
written: Martin∞’s Fantasia for
theremin, oboe, piano and string
quartet, a bubbly delight. Outside
the concert hall, wider audiences
started recognising its gliding tones
in cinemas, on the radio and records,
usually played by Dr Hoffman,
the podiatrist with a show biz itch.
His were the waving hands on the
soundtracks of Spellbound, The Lost
Weekend, and The Spiral Staircase
– the three films that did most to
build the instrument’s reputation for
suggesting psychic distress and the
unearthly. Hoffman also created a
briefer fashion for theremin-coloured
easy listening with Perfume Set to
Music and other popular 78rpm
sets. In a world recovering from the
Second World War they offered the
aural equivalent of a bubble bath.
And where was Theremin
during this boom? Certainly not
taking a bubble bath. After his
American fortunes had dwindled,
with theremin sales few and new
inventions making limited progress,
he had returned to Stalin’s Russia in
1939, but not to a hero’s welcome.
Tried and found guilty of vague

Further listening, watching and reading
Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage
The biography by Albert Glinsky (below)
features 400 detailed and fascinating
pages placing the man and his invention
in a global context through the 20th
century’s twists and turns. Glinsky is
writing the biography of Robert Moog.
Music from the Ether
This CD from the brilliantly expressive
performer Lydia Kavina, one of Theremin’s
relatives, features Martin∞’s intriguing
Fantasia, some ear-stretching Grainger,
and more recent theremin
creations. Watch out for your
speakers. Mode mode76
Spellbound!
Another Lydia Kavina CD, with
a stirring memento of Rozsa’s
influential score for Hitchcock’s
Spellbound, more Grainger, and Howard
Shore’s loopy music for Ed Wood,
the film biography of Hollywood’s
worst director. Mode mode199
The Art of the Theremin
Famed for her technique of ‘aerial
fingering’ that cleaned the transitions
between pitches, Russian-born Clara
Rockmore was the first to make the
theremin sound like a serious instrument.
Produced n 1977, this CD recital reflects her
conservative repertoire, but she certainly
makes the invention sing. Delos DE1014
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
Steven M Martin’s 1993 documentary
captured Theremin in action just in time;
he died one day after its premiere on British
television. Interview footage with Theremin
and Rockmore, archival performance extracts,
exotic information, a bizarre human drama:
a lot to take in.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The theremin may be sparsely used in
this classic 1951 film, but every note counts
in Bernard Herrmann’s gripping and quirkily
orchestrated score as it shadows
the activities of Klaatu and Gort,
two visitors from an unnamed
planet who don’t find Earth
particularly welcoming.
thrilling: Gregory Peck and Ingrid
Bergman in Hitchcock’s Spellbound;
(top) a poster for the 1951 film The
Day the Earth Stood Still
charges of treason, he was quickly swept into
a secret new life as a captive employee of the
state. The theremin’s basic principles were
now rejigged to serve bomber planes, radio
beacons and various surveillance devices,
including a tiny spying antenna undetected
by America’s embassy in Moscow for seven
years. Hearing nothing of his activities, his
friends in America, including his mixed-race
wife Lavinia, gradually presumed him dead.
News of his survival finally reached the
West in 1967 after Harold C Schonberg,
the New York Times music critic, found
him working in an acoustics lab at the
Moscow Conservatory. But Soviet Russia
remained distrustful; life remained hard and
constricted. Eventually the glasnost of the late
1980s brought renewed chances for foreign
travel. Hence his appearance in Steven M
Martin’s essential documentary Theremin: An
Electronic Odyssey (1993), where he touchingly
shuffles round Manhattan’s garish lights like
a bemused visitor from another planet or Rip
Van Winkle awoken from sleep.
L@=J=EAFK>JA=F<K
IN AMERICA ASSUMED
HIM TO BE DEAD
And Theremin had slept through so much.
He’d slept through Hollywood’s sci-fi boom
in the 1950s, when every other robot or
intergalactic creature walked to the theremin’s
spooky serenade. He’d slept through his
creation’s tie-dyed period in the swinging
sixties, when it popped up, throbbing, in the
Beach Boys classic ‘Good Vibrations’ and
Captain Beefheart’s first album Safe as Milk.
More to the point, he’d also slept through the
development in the 1960s of Robert Moog’s
synthesisers – transistor-based devices that
more than any others served to harness the
theremin’s elements and package them in
ways reliable, user-friendly, safe as milk.
And now, in death, this mysterious man
is still sleeping through much he’d find of
interest. I’m sure he’d appreciate elements in
Kalevo Aho’s Eight Seasons: a score consistently
melodic and atmospheric, without being
clogged by the habits of the past. He might
even smile on Imogen Heap, the English
songwriter and singer who currently performs
wearing micro-chipped gloves that
convert gestures into sounds. For a
dyspeptic cow that wilts in the heat,
doesn’t like rain and can’t play chords,
Theremin’s invention and its legacy are
proving remarkably robust. n
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 35
COMPOSERS’ MUSES FEATURE
CREATIVE
SPARKS
Performers don’t necessarily just play or
sing works. In some cases, they’re the
stimuli for the music itself. Helen Wallace
meets some of today’s most outstanding
performer-composer collaborations
W
e think of composers locked away in
their garrets – or sheds, or windswept
islands – conjuring music of dizzying
abstraction in glorious isolation. But does the
Muse always arrive in ethereal form? By no
means. One has only to think of Handel’s creative
response to the voices of castrati Senesino and
Farinelli, or Brahms’s late outpouring of music for
clarinettist Richard Muhlfeld, or the inspirational
effect of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich on a host
of composers, to realise what a powerful role
performers can play.
Some partnerships between performers and
composers become life-long conversations in music, as
those between Richard Strauss and soprano Pauline de
Ahna, or Britten and the tenor Peter Pears. Sometimes
a masterwork is born out of love and practical need, like
Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto, written for his wife to
earn an income after he died. For George Benjamin,
whose recent love-affair with the human voice has
produced two operatic masterworks, composing with
a specific artist in mind presents a welcome constraint.
‘With the expanded rhythmic and harmonic landscape
of music today,’ he says, ‘one appalling challenge faces
36 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
musical pairs:
Barbara Hannigan and Gerald
Barry; (below left) Nico Muhly
and Iestyn Davies; (bottom)
Peter Erskine (sitting) and Mark-
Anthony Turnage (on the left)
the composer at the start of every page – an excess of
choice… I find it both useful and inspiring to shape the
contours of my scores around the concrete talents of the
singers for whom the works are conceived.’
But that constraint by no means dictates that the
resulting work can only be performed by the musician
for whom it was crafted, as composer Nico Muhly
observes. ‘The metaphor of tailoring is useful here,’ he
says. ‘The magic of music – as opposed to clothes – is
that something expertly tailored for one person can, in
fact, fit others as snugly.’
So who are the muses of today?
Which current performers are
motivating myriad composers
by their exceptional technique,
reckless curiosity, low boredom
threshold and the sheer force of
their personalities? Here are some
of the finest. Some have acted
as catalysts, others have been
active participants in the creative
process, some have even received
the rare honour of having their
names enshrined in music…
 Barbara Hannigan (soprano)
‘You couldn’t not be taken by Barbara,
she’s so there,’ says composer Gerald Barry.
‘A true virtuoso, and fearless – the ideal,
rare combination.’ Gerald Barry is just
one of many composers to have written for
soprano Barbara Hannigan, including Henri
Dutilleux, George Benjamin, Unsuk Chin
and Hans Abrahamsen. Hannigan, in turn,
encountered Barry through his music. ‘I
was rendered breathless by the sheer, exotic
whirlwind [of it],’ she says. ‘I felt changed.’
Hannigan sang Gabriella, the daughter, in
his coruscating opera The Bitter Tears of Petra
von Kant. He later developed her ‘hysterical
teenage girl solos’ in La Plus Forte: ‘I knew
I could go all the way in any direction with
Madame X, and that Barbara would devour
FEAST OF MUSIC, LEBRECHT
the part and spit it out in all its incontinence.’
Then came the role of Cecily in his comic
opera The Importance of Being Earnest –
‘Cecily and Barbara have the same kind of
ecstasy and extremeness so it was a natural
match. Barbara has a surreal humour, and so
do Cecily and I.’ And he’s currently writing a
new opera, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
for her. So how does the magic work? ‘We
Skype, he runs things by me, we laugh,’
says Hannigan. ‘I can’t wait to get the score.
Gerald has become a touchstone in my
creative life. He is like a new drug: addictive,
probably untested and probably illegal…
but I know he will make me better.’
RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Barry The Importance of Being Earnest
BCMG/Thomas Adès
NMC NMCD197 £13.99
Iestyn Davies (countertenor)
‘I always feel that, as a composer, writing is
really a process of self-effacement,’ reflects
Nico Muhly; ‘what you should be doing is
making the performer look great. That’s
how the music itself has legs: if people want
to play it.’ Muhly has always written for
musician friends, including violist Nadia
Sirota, violinist Thomas Gould and cellist
Oliver Coates. A piece for countertenor
hadn’t occurred until he met Iestyn Davies:
‘I love the sound in the choral context,
but writing for one felt strange. Now I’m
obsessed. Getting to know Iestyn’s voice has
been one of the greatest pleasures of the last
few years. You start with the personality,
and work through the sound.’ The pair
performed Muhly’s folksong arrangements
in New York (‘haunting, with a spare piano
part using drones’, says Davies, ‘exemplifying
his freedom in performance.’) and were then
thrown together when Muhly’s opera Two
Boys was running at English National Opera
concurrently with Britten’s Midsummer
Night’s Dream, in which Davies was singing
Oberon. ‘Nico is a multifaceted artist: he
forms, re-forms, he works in the moment,
with people,’ says the singer. ‘We share an
Anglican church music background, but
he brings something urban and virile to it.’
They collaborated closely on the lute song
Old Bones, about the unearthed bones of
Richard III: ‘Nico would send the music
and if I said it’s hard to start on an open >
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 37
COMPOSERS’ MUSES FEATURE
vowel on a low note, he’d change it. He’s
fidgety unless I’m happy.’ Code-breaker Alan
Turing is the subject of Muhly’s new work
for Davies, Sentences. ‘I think I’m going to
be multi-tracking my own voice, which is
exciting,’ enthuses Davies. Muhly himself
is enigmatic: ‘We’re using both the poetic
and mathematical possibilities of code as
compositional devices and libretto tics.’
Muhly’s ‘Sentences’ is premiered by Iestyn Davies
and the Britten Sinfonia at the Barbican in June
Leila Josefowicz (violinist)
‘No, I don’t wake up in the morning wishing
I was playing Beethoven!’ laughs Leila
Josefowicz. ‘I’ve never wanted to fit that
mould. When I was 20 I started learning
John Adams’s Violin Concerto, and made
a decision: I’m going to live like this for the
next 40 years. This is my path. I immerse
myself totally in a new score for eight to 12
months until it’s in my bones; it’s incredibly
hard work but so rewarding.’ Composers fall
over themselves to write for Josefowicz, whose
repertoire now consists of many significant
contemporary violin works: Steve Mackey,
Colin Matthews and Luca Francesconi have
written concertos for her, while her feisty
spirit propelled Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Out of
Nowhere, complete with rock drum-kit. She
plays Oliver Knussen’s Violin Concerto and
Thomas Adès’s Concentric Paths from memory
and, through her, John Adams discovered new
things in his own Concerto and The Dharma
at Big Sur. ‘Leila projects a unique energy, a
combination of mental intensity and natural
physical connection to the music,’ he says.
‘Many deliver performances of contemporary
music that are honest and even probing, but
we rarely encounter one who “lives” the music
as fully as she does. When she performs a new
concerto the audience forgets it’s new music.
We composers unfortunately know how
seldom that occurs.’ Small wonder he’s writing
a new concerto both for and with her: ‘Over a
full year we’ve worked together to shape and
refine the writing of Scheherazade.2, and her
input has not only been technical but formal
and dramatic. Not surprisingly it turns out
to be a portrait of Leila, both as a woman and
an artist.’ ‘We’ve had a ball,’ says Josefowicz;
‘once we get going, there’s no stopping us.’
RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Out of Nowhere
Leila Josefowicz (violin); Finnish Radio
Symphony Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen
GETTY, REINHARD FICHTINGER
Deutsche Grammophon 479 0628 £14.99
Mark Padmore (tenor)
Thomas Larcher’s publishers feared the title
A Padmore Cycle would discourage
other singers. The Austrian composer is
38 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
YESTERDAY’S MUSE
Great inspirations from the past
better together:
Bartók and Szigeti
(below); Berio’s muse
Cathy Berberian
WITH THE DECLINE of the
composer-performer, the 20th century
is studded with performers who
built their careers on collaboration
and advocacy: would we have
Bartók’s great violin works without
Josef Szigeti (1892-1973), or those of
Stravinsky without Samuel Dushkin
(1891-1976)? Perhaps some of the
closest relationships occur when a
composer finds a singer who becomes their
‘voice’: Pauline de Ahna’s (1863-1950) soprano
unrepentant: ‘Mark is a great artist; others
will be honoured to sing works written
for him.’ Larcher had not been drawn to
composing for voice before he met Padmore.
‘I couldn’t stand opera singers,’ he says.
‘They over-projected, were rhythmically
vague, covered everything in vibrato. What
I love about Mark is the uniquely tender
Composers fall over
themselves to write
for Leila Josefowicz
quality in his voice – I hear it when he sings
the Evangelist [in the Bach Passions], and
the way he can sing very quietly, without
vibrato, at the edge of silence. In my cycle,
the poems are twisting apart, some are just
splinters, but I knew the sheer intensity
of his listening would would carry the
performance.’ Padmore himself tells of a
punishing mountain bike ride he took with
Larcher: ‘It was extremely steep! That helped
me understand something about him; he’s
Tyrolean, in a profound sense, and the cycle
is woven into the very DNA of
Richard Strauss’s operas and
songs, while Francis Poulenc’s
close friendship with baritone
Pierre Bernac (1899-1979)
produced over 100 dedicated
songs, including the masterly
Tel jour telle nuit. In tenor Peter
Pears (1910-86), Britten found
not just a life partner, but
an artistic collaborator and a
voice who could express his
most profound and personal
conflicts. Cellist Mstislav
Rostropovich (1927-2007), who
had already proved inspirational
to Shostakovich and
Prokofiev among others,
burst into Britten’s life and
inspired three towering
masterpieces, as did his
wife, Galina Vishnevskaya
(1926-2012), in whose dark
soprano Britten found
the ideal voice for his War
Requiem and The Poet’s
Echo. The unique vocal art
of soprano Cathy Berberian
(1925-83), meanwhile, is
enshrined in Berio’s Epifanie, Visage, Circles,
Folk Songs and Sequenza III.
is about the claustrophobia of the valley and
the compulsion to get up into the higher
air.’ New music is becoming an important
part of Padmore’s life as he enters his 50s: ‘It
needs a lot of time, it doesn’t pay well, but
it’s so absorbing.’ Ryan Wigglesworth wrote
Echo and Narcissus for him and Pamela Helen
Stephen last year and Huw Watkins the lovely
In My Craft for tenor and string quartet, while
Padmore’s performance in Birtwistle’s The
Corridor inspired the composer to set David
Harsent’s Songs from the Same Earth for him.
‘That was really tough to learn, tough to
sing, but so wonderful,’ he says. ‘I’m boringly
focused on getting the text across, and I think
that’s interesting to composers.’
RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Thomas Larcher A Padmore Cycle
Mark Padmore (tenor),
Thomas Larcher (piano)
Harmonia Mundi HMU 907604 £14.99
Kronos Quartet
Terry Riley helped to secure the Kronos
Quartet as quartet-in-residence at Mills
College, Oakland in 1978; leader David
Harrington then persuaded Riley to write
quartets. Thirty-six years and 27 quartets later,
inspiring session:
tenor Mark Padmore and
composer Thomas Larcher
in the recording studio
they’re still friends. ‘I’d been deeply engaged
with Indian music and improvisation when I
met David, and wasn’t notating music,’ says
Riley. ‘He just scheduled a concert, so I was
almost forced to start again.’ From 1983, a
deluge of quartets flowed, from The Wheel
and Mythic Birds Waltz and Cadenza on the
Night Plain to the mesmerising Salome Dances
for Peace. Riley has never looked back: ‘I
think the quartet medium is ideal: there are
just enough players to create a really good
conversation.’ In return, says Harrington, the
composer also informed a whole new playing
style: ‘I remember the moment it happened.
We were working on The Wheel, and Terry
wanted us to make this pure, vibrato-free
sound which was also incredibly expressive.
One day we just got it, our vocabulary was
enlarged, the bow became the breath, pitch
and tone operated in a new realm.’
Some of Riley’s quartets have been deeply
personal: Requiem for Adam was a memorial
to Harrington’s son who died suddenly
aged 16, while one of their most significant
collaborations was Sun Rings, created using
NASA film and sound, performed with choir.
The Kronos Quartet has literally helped
form the works by playing them. ‘We’ve had
to make a lot of choices; he’s encouraged us
to think like composers,’ says Harrington.
There’s a ritual meeting in a restaurant in San
Francisco’s Chinatown, says Riley, ‘where
we hatch ideas. We play off each other like
musicians improvising.’ For Harrington?
‘Working with Terry has changed my life.’
RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Riley Requiem for Adam;
The Philosopher’s Hand
Kronos Quartet
Nonesuch 7559796392 £18.99
Peter Erskine (drummer)
American jazz drummer Peter Erskine and
British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage
were brought together in the 1990s by Mike
Gibbs of the Creative Jazz Orchestra, but
Turnage ‘was a huge fan of Peter’s playing
from the late 1970s onwards. I wore out my
copy of Weather Report’s 8.30.’ In 1996
Erskine was a key performer in Turnage’s
ground-breaking Blood on the Floor which,
scored for jazz quartet and large ensemble, has
sections of improvisation. Initially, Turnage
‘overwrote’ the drum part: ‘Every note had
a dynamic and an articulation, which didn’t
allow any room for Peter.’ After Erskine’s
input he wrote a freer part, ‘giving him a few
shapes and important rhythmic signals that
he would develop and improvise around.’
It was a lesson Turnage took with him to
the double concerto for Erskine and Evelyn
Glennie, Fractured Lines, and Scorched with
guitarist John Scofield. ‘Mark has proven to
be my door back into classical,’ says Erskine.
‘Reading his music gives both my eyes and
my ears a real workout. It’s refreshing to be
challenged.’ Turnage’s ultimate tribute is
the big-band-style concerto Erskine, whose
movements are named after the drummer and
his family. They conceived it, says Erskine,
in a pizza restaurant in Oslo: ‘We both made
sketches on the paper placemats.’ While
Turnage enthuses about how Erskine’s playing
‘excites me so much’, he also admits that it
can bring its own problems: ‘There are few
drummers of Peter’s calibre in the world; these
pieces can stand or fall depending on how
good the drummer is.’
RECOMMENDED RECORDING
Turnage Blood on the Floor
John Scofield (guitar), Peter Erskine
(drums), Martin Robertson (saxes);
Ensemble Modern/Peter Rundel
Arthaus 100430 (DVD) £22.99 n
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 39
 MUSICAL DESTINATIONS
JANÁ∫EK’S
MORAVIAN HOME
Brno: Czech Republic
As a city that is simply bursting with musical offerings of
the very highest quality, the capital of Moravia is hard to
beat, says conductor and regular Brno visitor, Mikel Toms
B
rno, the Czech city that bestowed
genetics, screaming motorbike races
and the Bren gun on the world,
perhaps doesn’t sit at the apex of everyone’s
‘bucket list’ of musical destinations. There’s
one very good reason, though, that Austrians
refer to the Moravian capital as a ‘suburb of
Vienna’. Just like its glamorous neighbour
across the border, music pours out of it.
‘We stage a couple of hundred opera and
ballet performances each year,’ says Martin
Glaser, the new and dynamic director of the
Brno National Theatre. ‘I’ll get the exact
figure to you.’ The exact figure turns out to
be 227, and with the best seats in the house
eating into a very polite £14 of your travel
LOCAL HERO
Erich Korngold
Born in Brno in 1897,
Korngold’s prodigious
gifts were recognised
early by the likes of
Mahler and Richard
Strauss. By the age of
23, his opera Die tote
Stadt had won him
international celebrity. His legacy, however,
rests on his hugely influential film scores,
in particular The Adventures of Robin Hood
(1938) which won him the first Oscar
awarded to an individual composer. The
impact of his music on later film composers
makes him arguably the most influential
orchestral composer of the 20th century. His
lushly Romantic late Violin Concerto is rightly
one of the most popular in the repertoire.
GETTY
40 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
fund, you can afford to spend your stay here
engaged in an almost uninterrupted round
of Rusalka, Giselle, Jen≠fa and The Nutcracker
and still have plenty of money left over for a
dumpling or four in between.
Smaller productions are given at the
exquisite Mahen Theatre, where most of
JanáΩek’s operas were first performed, and
aficionados of communist architecture can
soak up larger productions and orchestral
concerts at the stately JanáΩek Theatre, proud
owner of the Czech Republic’s largest stage.
The jewel in the city’s
musical life is the
Brno Philharmonic
Leo≥ JanáΩek (Composer of the Month, p52)
is the presiding musical spirit in Brno; the
city was home to the composer for over 40
years. You can visit the quirky little bungalow
he built here and which has changed little
since he died in 1928. On my visit, I was
pleasantly surprised to be allowed to play
JanáΩek’s own piano and thoroughly enjoyed
bashing out, to the very best of my ability,
a few opening bars of his On an Overgrown
Path. The composer’s grave can be visited
at the Brno Central Cemetery just south of
the old town – if, by chance, you happened
to be there at the time of my performance,
it’s almost certain you would have heard the
rumble of the great man as he turned in it.
JanáΩekophiles (as they’re probably not
known) all need to point themselves in the
direction of Brno this autumn for the Fourth
gothic splendour:
the dramatic Cathedral
of St Peter and Paul towers
over Brno’s Petrov Hill
all that jazz:
Chick Corea at last
year’s Jazz Festival
International JanáΩek Festival, a week of
21 concerts, recitals and opera performances,
including the great Sinfonietta and fully staged
productions of four of his operas.
In fact, music festivals are something Brno
does uncommonly well. Festival season kicks
off with JazzFestBrno in March, one of central
Europe’s most important jazz festivals. Artists
range from bright young Czechs to hard-
hitting jazz giants like pianist Chick Corea.
The Easter Festival of Sacred Music in April
occupies an array of Brno’s many beautiful
churches, including the twin-pronged and
gothic Cathedral of St Peter and Paul which
dominates the city’s skyline. Regular guests
include the Czech Philharmonic Choir of
Brno and the children’s choir Kantiléna, both
of which display singing of an extraordinarily
high level. The ⇧pilberk Festival is a summer
season of open-air orchestral concerts in
Brno’s very own hilltop castle; a fledgling

composer storey:
JanáΩek’s bungalow is
preserved as a museum
contemporary music festival is a recent fixture
in late October; and the biennial Moravian
Autumn in November is one of the region’s
major orchestral and chamber concert series.
The jewel in the city’s musical life, however,
is the Brno Philharmonic, a world-class
ensemble that gives around 120 annual
concerts. Mahler-size concerts are performed
at the JanáΩek Theatre while Beethoven-size
ones are given at Besední d∞m, a gorgeous
chocolate-box hall modelled on Vienna’s
Musikverein and the city’s cultural heart,.
The composer Bedπich Smetana said that
‘in music is the life of the Czechs’ and if,
between concerts, ballets and operas, you
find yourself sitting in Brno’s main square,
sipping a cool glass of Starobrno, listening to
the virtuosic buskers or taking in one of the
endless free concerts that unfold just a few feet
in front of you, you’ll almost certainly find it’s
difficult to argue with him. n
BRNO MUSICAL DESTINATIONS
on the musical pulse:
the Brno Philharmonic performs
at venues throughout the city
BRNO 5 MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS
Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
One of the Czech Republic’s most
distinguished orchestras, the Brno
Philharmonic performs around 120 concerts
each year in the city. Catch them in the
summer at their open-air concert series
in Brno’s emblematic ≤pilberk Castle.
filharmonie-brno.cz/en fairy-tale setting:
Brno Janáček Festival Dvoπák’s Rusalka at the
Brno National Theatre
Spend ten days (21-30 Nov) in the company
of Brno’s musical godfather, JanáΩek. This
is a unique opportunity to see Jen∞fa, The JazzFestBrno
Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropulos International stars such as Herbie Hancock
Affair in the city that gave birth to them. take centre stage in this prestigious festival.
janacek-brno.cz/en jazzfestbrno.cz/en
Brno National Theatre Brno International Music Festivals
With over 200 drama, opera, concert and ballet A useful website that has details of the Easter
performances, Brno’s National Theatre (above, Festival of Sacred Music, Moravian Autumn
right) offers a year-round cultural feast. and the Brno Exposition of New Music.
ndbrno.cz/index.php?lang=2 mhf-brno.cz/en
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 41
 COMPOSER OF THE MONTH
LEO⇧ JANÁ∫EK
Czech music’s late bloomer
A composer of extraordinary colour and originality, JanáΩek’s genius took a considerable
while to reveal itself and even longer to be appreciated, as Jan Smaczny explains
S
ixty years ago JanáΩek was seen as a
curious outsider, with nothing like the
status of the great founding fathers
of Czech music, Smetana and Dvoπák.
Apart from occasional performances of
the Sinfonietta – with all its extra brass, an
expensive prospect for concert planners – the
breadth of his genius was all but unknown
outside Czechoslovakia. But the last five
decades have seen JanáΩek emerge as one of
the most powerful composers of opera of the
20th century. Hardly a company in Europe
and the US has not taken at least one of his
operatic masterpieces into its repertoire. While
he certainly was revered after his death in 1928
in his native Czechoslovakia, in particular in
his beloved region of Moravia – as much as a
folk-song collector and teacher as a composer
– it took a breakthrough event to bring him to
a large and unsuspecting public in the West.
This was the Edinburgh Festival of 1964
which had JanáΩek as one of its major focuses.
But there was already a measure of personal
advocacy among enthusiasts that proved
decisive in the discovery of JanáΩek, not least
conductor Sir Charles Mackerras.
Mackerras studied in Prague in the late
1940s with the greatest Czech conductor of
the day, Václav Talich, and he fell in love with
JanáΩek’s operas, bringing this passion back to
England. Among his memorable pioneering
performances was the UK premiere of Kát’a
Kabanová in 1951. His series of recordings of
nearly all of the JanáΩek operas starting in the
late 1970s, alongside performances by Welsh
National Opera and Scottish Opera, brought
JanáΩek to a broad audience.
Given his signal place in the repertoire these
days, it is perhaps surprising that JanáΩek’s
musical background was relatively modest. But
it was entirely typical of musicians working
GETTY
in the Bohemia and Moravia of his day. He
42 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
JANÁCEK’S STYLE
Musical voice
While consciously
avoiding the early
20th-century avant-
garde, JanáΩek built
an astonishingly
original and
predominantly tonal
musical voice. The
music of his friend
Dvoπák touched his
style at an early stage
and there are hints of
Mascagni (right) and Debussy in his
work around 1900, but the majority of his
music stands outside the familiar streams of
20th-century influence.
Folk song and language
As an avid collector of folk song, JanáΩek
made much use of Moravian texts and music,
particularly in his early works. From this
comes the beguiling modality often heard
in his music. He was fascinated by the Czech
language itself, allowing its rhythms, rise and
fall to add authenticity to his vocal settings.
Meaning and music
Virtually none of JanáΩek’s music could be
described as abstract. Even when he was
not setting texts, in such works as the Violin
Sonata, the Pohádka cello sonata and the
two string quartets, there was a powerful
personal and programmatic background.
Fragments
JanáΩek’s mature style often relies on short,
sometimes violently contrasting musical
ideas, the harsh alongside the rich in
sentiment. Repetition and ostinato are often
deployed to build broad musical paragraphs,
but these are always underpinned by a
powerful sense of harmonic direction
building toward hugely dramatic climaxes.
descended from two generations of teachers
and local musicians of standing in their
locality. On a national scale, his early years
might be seen as ones of pottering rather than
achieving, but this would be to underestimate
the huge amount of work he undertook in the
Moravian capital, Brno. Against two periods
of slightly desultory studies in Leipzig (1879-
80) and Vienna (1880) must be set some
remarkable achievements as a conductor and
general musical animateur. From very modest
beginnings, he groomed a humble all-male
choral society into a mixed choir capable of
performing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in 1879
and he gave pioneering orchestral concerts,
featuring the music of his friend Dvoπák, an
early culmination of which was a performance
of the latter’s Seventh Symphony in 1886.
In 1882 JanáΩek became the first director
of the Brno organ school, like its Prague
antecedent an important musical nexus in the
developing artistic climate of Moravia. The
energy he poured into Brno’s musical life was
enormous and inevitably had an adverse impact
on his chances of developing a more national
profile. He had some success in Prague in 1891
with Ráko⌃ Rákoczy, a ballet based on folk
music, but in the first 50 years of his career he
produced nothing really substantial to place
him at the heart of Czech culture.
The major breakthrough, as far as both
his composing reputation and his artistic
personality were concerned, was the opera
Jenůfa (the Czech title, Její pastorkyňa means
‘Her foster daughter’ and emphasises the
relationship between Jen∞fa and her alarming,
but well-meaning foster mother), composed
between 1894 and 1903. So many things
inherent to his genius came together in this,
his third opera. JanáΩek had begun collecting
Moravian folk songs in the late 1880s and
through the 1890s studied them in depth. The >
LEO⇧ JANÁ∫EK COMPOSER OF THE MONTH

ILLUSTRATION: RISKO

BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 43
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 LEO⇧ JANÁ∫EK COMPOSER OF THE MONTH

LIFE&TIMES
A quick guide to the main events in the life of Leo≥ JanáΩek

THE LIFE 1854 THE TIMES

1856
The Crimean War comes to an end with the
signing of the Treaty of Paris. Although the
Austrian Empire has not entered the war, it
places pressure on Russia to end hostilities.
czech mates: Charles Mackerras with Václav Talich

effect can be heard in such set-piece numbers

as the recruits’ chorus and dance in Act I and
the bridesmaids’ song in the last, but also in
the modal inflection of his melodic writing.
Just as important was the subject and nature
1854
JanáΩek is born in HUKVALDY, Moravia.
of the opera itself, based on a play by Gabriela He is sent, aged 11, to be a chorister at the 1869
Preissová. Set in the Moravian countryside, Augustinian ‘Queen’s’ Monastery in Brno. A HORSE-DRAWN TRAM service begins
its gritty realism was far removed from the to operate in Brno. It is the first tram of its
comfortable surroundings of Smetana’s 1879 type to be set up in the Czech provinces.
iconic comedy, The Bartered Bride, where Following his training
relatively simple problems achieved simple as a teacher, and after 1871
completing two years Following the successful union of Austria-
solutions. Preissová’s Moravia was one in
of the Prague Organ Hungary in 1867, the Czechs attempt to
which the consequences of decisions could be School’s course in one negotiate a tripartite monarchy of Austria-
terrible – village life had a dark side in which year, he enrols at the Hungary-Bohemia. They fail.
drunkenness, mutilation, infanticide and Leipzig Conservatory.
1881
There is so much in 1881 THE NATIONAL THEATRE in Prague has
He founds an organ its grand opening, before being closed again
Jen∞fa that looks school in Brno and is
appointed director. He
for completion. On 12 August a fire breaks
out, causing extensive damage.
forward to later operas also marries ZDENKA
SCHULZOVÁ, a former pupil. 1908
Featuring 20
illegitimacy were part of life’s fabric. Another 1887 grand masters, the
important ingredient was a growing fascination He starts composing his first opera, ≤árka, first ever Prague
with the earthiness of Italian verismo opera to a libretto originally intended for Dvoπák International Chess
which, led by Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, by Czech poet Julius Zeyer. (With Zeyer Tournament is held.
had swept through Prague as it had the rest refusing permission to use his text, the It is instituted to
of Europe. From this potent mix JanáΩek work is not performed until 1925.) celebrate the 60th
produced a work of extraordinary power, far anniversary of the
in advance of his Czech contemporaries. 1903 accession of Franz
Although JanáΩek’s mature musical His daughter Olga dies after a long illness, Joseph I to the
casting a shadow over his work Austrian throne.
language is not fully established in Jenůfa,
on the opera Jen∞fa. The
there is so much that looks forward to the
later operas. Slow moving bass lines and
premiere, in Brno the next 1918
year, is a huge success. Following the end of World War I, the
nervy ostinato patterns often account independence of Czechoslovakia is
for the extreme dramatic tension in the 1925 proclaimed by the Czechoslovak National
work. The anxiety of Jen∞fa, carrying Having enjoyed his most Council in Prague. The boundaries of the
the illegitimate child of ≤teva, her lover, creative period, inspired country and organisation of its government
who may be conscripted for many years, is by falling in love with are established two years later.
superbly captured in the opening pages of KAMILA STÖSSLOVÁ
the work with its swaying harmonies and the and by Czech nationalism, 1928
he receives an honorary The Moravia-born Art Nouveau
nagging repetitions of notes in the xylophone
doctorate from Masaryk University Brno. artist ALPHONSE MUCHA
representing the village mill wheel. Much of
GETTY, ALAMY, LEBRECHT

donates his 20-panel painting,

the music in Jenůfa is edgy and wounding –
nowhere more so than in the crushing chords
1928 The Slav Epic, to Prague, on
He dies of pneumonia in Ostrava. His condition that a pavilion
that end Act II, as the KostelniΩka is seized by funeral, a large public event, is held in Brno. is built to house it.
the full horror of her act in drowning Jen∞fa’s
child. But there is a great deal of heart-easing >
1928
LEO⇧ JANÁ∫EK COMPOSER OF THE MONTH
lyricism and the catharsis of the end, when
Jen∞fa accepts Laca’s love, has a radiance unlike
any in the verismo repertoire.
While the opera was admired in Brno, it was
turned down for performance by the National
Theatre in Prague. The following decade
might be described as JanáΩek’s wilderness
years. While he was certainly respected in
Brno, as much for his pioneering artistic
activities as for his compositions, the chattering
classes of Prague were less receptive. Dogged
by ill-health and artistic uncertainty, JanáΩek
veered between exultation and despair. True,
there are moments of spectacular vision –
though incomprehensible from many points of
view, the partly autobiographical opera, Fate,
which followed Jenůfa, is full of marvellous
things, not least the cinematographic opening
scene and its superbly arresting prelude. But
work on bigger projects was hard. For
example, he had little luck making
progress over five years on the satirical
opera, The Excursion of Mr BrouΩek to the
Moon. But then everything changed.
Once again Jenůfa became the means
of transformation. In 1916 it was at last
given a performance in Prague which
proved a spectacular success, followed by
productions in Vienna, Berlin and
beyond. Galvanized by this belated
recognition, JanáΩek finished his
BrouΩek opera in a matter of months
and added a substantial second part
over the next year.
There were two other vital
elements that led to JanáΩek’s
regeneration: for a passionate
Slav nationalist, the prospect of a
Czechoslovak nation independent
of Austria was profoundly exciting.
But, most important of all, there was new-
found love. His marriage had not been happy,
not least because of the loss of his beloved
daughter, Olga. In 1917, he met and fell in
love with Kamila Stösslová, a woman some
35 years his junior. While there was certainly
an element of self-delusion in this infatuation,
his feelings for Kamila resulted in an eruption
of creativity. There is, for instance, a strong
element of wish-fulfilment in the song cycle,
The Diary of One who Disappeared, in which
a young man impulsively leaves his home to
follow a seductive gypsy woman.
Kamila in her role as JanáΩek’s muse was
also a powerful presence in a succession of
astonishing operas. The first of these was Kát’a
Kabanová, the tale of a deeply sensitive woman
with a hideously domineering mother-in-law
and a weak husband drawn to find love outside
marriage. While it is possible to read JanáΩek’s
LEBRECHT
obsession with Kamila as a major inspiration
in this often quite sadistic drama, he never
46 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
fundamental humanity even in Emilia Marty,
an otherwise imperious character.
Kamila does not dominate such works as
JanáΩek’s last opera, From the House of the
Dead or the Sinfonietta, a resonant celebration
of the Moravian Capital, Brno. Still less, the
splendidly anti-ecclesiastical Glagolithic Mass in
which JanáΩek’s cathedral grew from wooded
hillsides, and the cheerful Amens at the start
of the Credo could be the hens singing in The
Cunning Little Vixen. But Kamila returns in his
two string quartets, the second of which dates
from early in his last year. Entitled ‘Intimate
Letters’, it is as passionate a record of their
relationship as anything from the last 11 years
of JanáΩek’s life. This crescendo of creativity
dominating this period is above all what, for
modern audiences, has turned JanáΩek’s music
from the peripheral to the essential. n
Composer of the Week is
inspirational: JanáΩek with
broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm,
his muse Kamila in 1927; he
dedicated his opera Jen∞fa Mon to Fri, repeated at 6.30pm,
(below) to the memory of Upcoming programmes are:
his daughter Olga (left) 1-5 December Lord Berners (rpt)
8-12 December Schumann
descends into the morbid or 15-19 December André Previn
overly introspective. While 22-26 December Vivaldi
the characterisation in the 29-31 December Chabrier
opera is near-flawless, the
command of atmosphere is even
more overwhelming, not least LEO JANÁCEK
in Kát’a’s meditation, superbly
RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS
encapsulating her sense of
isolation before she flings herself Jen∞fa
to her death in the river Volga. Elizabeth Söderström etc;
Vienna Philharmonic/
Kamila’s muse may also have Charles Mackerras
been transformative. While the Decca 475 8227 £12.99
plot of Kát’a is full of potential A scintillating, acclaimed
for musical drama, the bases performance of JanáΩek’s
darkly dramatic opera.
for JanáΩek’s next two operas fly in the face of
operatic credibility. Based on a series of rather String Quartets
flimsy newspaper cartoons, The Cunning Nos 1 & 2
Pražák Quartet
Little Vixen is one of JanáΩek’s most profound Praga DSD250301 £14.99
works. Kamila is there in the shape of the feisty, The modal ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata,
irreverent Vixen, but above all the work is a plus the composer’s love-
celebration of nature in the wooded hills of inspired ‘Intimate Letters’.
JanáΩek’s native Hukvaldy in eastern Moravia. Sinfonietta and
While the eventual shooting of the Vixen has Taras Bulba
the potential for tragedy, it is presented more Vienna Philharmonic/
Charles Mackerras
as the transience of life as part of the natural
Decca 448 2552 £12.99
cycle. For all the animal characters, the work is Mackerras again in the
also a deeply human drama; some indication rhapsody Taras Bulba which
of his personal identification with the opera uses trombones to portray
is that the Gamekeeper’s meditation on life Gogol’s cossack hero.
and love from the last scene of the opera was The Cunning Little Vixen
performed at JanáΩek’s funeral. A similar Lucia Popp etc, Vienna
transmutation happened in the Makropulos Phiharmonic/Mackerras
Decca 475 8670 £12.99
Case. Based on one of Karel ∫apek’s wordiest Life-affirming with folk song
comedies, JanáΩek managed to pare away influences, this charming
the sophisticated dialogue to create an end- opera is ideal for newcomers.
loaded drama of astonishing force, finding the
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modern electrostatic speaker in 1954. about the Model zA2.1 (zA1.1 review coming soon)

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 BUILDING A LIBRARY

NELSON MASS
Joseph Haydn
Whether written in the face of war or simply in reaction to
music budget cuts, Haydn’s dramatic choral work entices
George Hall to venture forth and find the finest recordings

T
he third of Haydn’s six late masses written to celebrate the name-
day of his employer’s wife has acquired two names. Haydn himself
called it Missa in Angustiis, a Latin phrase often translated as ‘Mass in
Troubled Times’, referring to the period of its composition (July and August
1798), when Napoleon’s forces seemed to be an unstoppable force defeating
Austria at every turn. But there may also be a personal reference to the fact
that Prince Nikolaus Esterházy had recently dismissed his wind band to save
money, meaning that for this piece Haydn had just strings, organ, trumpets
and timpani, offering us the alternative ‘Mass in Straitened Circumstances’.
It has become better known as the Nelson Mass, owing to the fact that the
hero of the hour was destroying Napoleon’s fleet at the Battle of the Nile even
as Haydn was working on his piece. In September 1800 Nelson himself visited
Eisenstadt and was apparently treated to a performance of the Mass – which
has ever afterwards been called after him.

THE BEST RECORDING JOHN ELIOT GARDINER

CHOICE ONE OF THE MASS’S great moments comes with
the Benedictus, usually a section calling for restraint
and gentle spirituality. Not so here. Haydn uses his
trumpets and drums to the sternest effect in this
D minor movement, where at one point they play
con tutta forza. John Eliot Gardiner’s (right) keen
sense of dynamism comes in useful in what Haydn
GETTY ILLUSTRATION: STEVE RAWLINGS/DEBUTART
focused, the choir displaying the vitality of Haydn’s
muscular counterpoint and the English Baroque
Soloists the characterful colour of his imaginative
instrumental writing.
Gerald Finley makes a true highlight of the
bass solo ‘Qui tollis’, while Donna Brown
seizes all of the many opportunities

scholar HC Robbins Landon described allotted to the soprano soloist. Both

as a unique moment in 18th-century mezzo-soprano Sally Bruce-Payne and
music, comparable only with Don tenor Peter Butterfield are excellent,
John Eliot Gardiner Giovanni’s dramatic meeting with while Gardiner shows an unerring
(conductor) the Commendatore in Mozart’s opera, sense of how to pick tempos that
Donna Brown (soprano) the menacing and the martial meeting in one maximise the music’s power and
etc; Monteverdi Choir, unforgettably imposing gesture. effect. All in all, it’s a performance
English Baroque In the other sections, too, Gardiner is on his that shows the range and
Soloists (1997) most observant form – his pin-sharp Monteverdi imagination of Haydn’s setting at
Philips E470 2862 £12.99 Choir and English Baroque Soloists are equally its grandest and most spirited.

56 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E

THREE MORE GREAT RECORDINGS
Trevor Pinnock (conductor)
Felicity Lott (soprano) etc;
Choir of The English Concert,
The English Concert (1986)
DG Archiv 423 0972 £12.99
Running Gardiner a close second is this
excellent version from Trevor Pinnock and
The English Concert, which disappoints only
in comparison with its competitor on such
blazing form in the fiery Benedictus. Soprano
soloist Felicity Lott enters fully into the
music’s character with a real sense of personal
commitment. Carolyn Watkinson’s eloquent
contralto is matched by Maldwyn Davies’s
strong tenor, while David Wilson-Johnson
provides dignity and spaciousness for the
If you enjoy Haydn’s Nelson Mass and would like to try out similar works, see overleaf…
NELSON MASS JOSEPH HAYDN BUILDING A LIBRARY
Building a Library is broadcast on
BBC Radio 3 at 9.30am each Saturday as
part of CD Review. A highlights podcast is
available at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
humanity with Haydn’s keen sense of
musical drama – rarely as vitally evident as
in the famous Benedictus. The 28-strong
period orchestra Collegium Musicum 90
offers perceptive individual performances
and top-quality ensemble playing, while
its accompanying choir of 24 singers is on
commanding form. The conductor’s eye for
the kind of details other interpreters pass by is
revealed in his interpretation’s overall neatness
and clarity, supported by an evenly matched
set of soloists and a recording that supplies
firm definition. The result is a combination
of the motivated and the spiritual.
David Willcocks (conductor)
Soloists; King’s College
Choir, Cambridge, London
Symphony Orchestra (1962)
Decca 478 3180 (see iTunes)
David Willcocks’s 1962 recording, reissued
on a double Decca CD with George Guest’s
St John’s College versions of the Missa in
tempore belli, the Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis
de Deo and the Harmoniemesse, holds up
extremely well – if you can cope with the
resonant acoustic. Sylvia Stahlman’s soprano,
too, may not be to all tastes, though she’s
pinpoint accurate, while Helen Watts’s rock-
solid alto, Wilfred Brown’s moving tenor and
Tom Krause’s grand baritone are all assets.
Willcocks does not chart the music’s extremes
in the way Gardiner manages so effectively
to do, but the ‘Et Resurrexit’ fairly dances
along, and the impression of the King’s
choristers is unfailingly positive. Above all,
it’s Haydn’s warmth and directness that are
most memorably and effectively conveyed.
vital bass solo, ‘Qui tollis’. The choir is equal AND ONE TO AVOID…
to all the demands of the writing while with
Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s
Pinnock one invariably feels that tempos are
1996 performance
well-judged, with every nicety of the writing suffers from distant, dull
being carefully inspected – offering a perfect sound, which hampers
combination of a sound overview with an eye its overall impact.
for the smallest detail of Haydn’s writing. Equally problematic are
his tempos, which range
Richard Hickox (conductor) from the ponderous to the peremptory and
Soloists; Collegium rarely show the music to its best advantage.
Musicum 90 (1998) He chooses to perform a version which
Chandos CHAN 0640 £12.99 replaces the solo organ with woodwind;
Haydn admittedly gave his approval to its
In a recording from what
publication, but he had no hand in it, and the
is widely regarded as a distinguished series, result undermines the uniquely dark quality
Richard Hickox proves able to combine a of his highly idiosyncratic original scoring.
sense of the Nelson Mass’s wide-ranging
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 57
NELSON MASS JOSEPH HAYDN BUILDING A LIBRARY
We suggest works to explore after Haydn’s Nelson Mass
Haydn Paukenmesse
Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli,
nicknamed the ‘Paukenmesse’ for its
significant timpani parts, was written
with testing times in mind – it was
composed during the summer of 1796,
when France was giving Austria a good
beating in the Napoleonic Wars. One
might think a ‘Mass in time of war’
would have a military atmosphere to it –
certainly more so than the Nelson Mass
– but it is, in fact, lighter. This may be
thanks to its brighter C major key and
heavier woodwind scoring, but equally
Haydn might have been wishing to pen
an anti-war piece, as was suggested at
the time. Peace, brother.
Recommended recording:
Nancy Argenta, Mark Padmore;
Collegium Musicum 90/Richard Hickox
Chandos CHAN 0633 £12.99
Mozart Mass in C minor
Works written in C minor during the
Classical period usually mean business
– and Mozart’s sacred masterpiece
is no exception. Full of high drama with
tragic undertones and more than a hint of
the Baroque (the opening prefigures the
Requiem in its grandeur), the C minor
Mass, like Haydn’s Nelson Mass, alternates
its more introverted, gloomy movements
with passages of extrovert joy – the Gloria,
for instance, explodes in an almost Bach-like
blaze of trumpets, drums, strings and full
chorus. Mozart left the work incomplete,
probably because a work of such a size would
never had stood a chance of being performed
in church. What we do have rivals, in terms
of emotional impact, anything else Mozart
wrote in his lifetime.
Recommended recording: Camilla Tilling
etc, Gabrieli Consort & Players/Paul
McCreesh DG Archiv 477 5744 (iTunes.com)
Hummel Mass in D
We may know Hummel primarily for his
piano works, but it was his Mass in D in
1808 that prompted Haydn himself, a major
admirer of the young Austrian, to remark
that ‘I’ve often told you that something
good would come of you’. The great man
wasn’t wrong. A substantial setting scored
for chorus, strings, organ, wind, brass and
timpani – no soloists, note – Hummel’s Mass Miles; London Symphony Chorus &
LEBRECHT
has moments of real grandeur, such as the
magnificent fugue that rounds off the Credo. LSO Live LSO 0594 £10.99
58 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
SO, WHERE NEXT…?
haydn debt:
Ignaz Pleyel’s Mass has
echoes of his teacher
But equally effective are the more restrained
passages, like those in the atmospheric Agnus
Dei, where Hummel pares down his forces
to just choir and organ to create a suitably
supplicatory mood.
Recommended recording: Collegium
Musicum 90/Richard Hickox
Chandos CHAN 0681 £12.99
Beethoven Mass in C
The Mass in C was the result of a one-off
commission by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II.
Beethoven was invited to write a mass to
celebrate the name day of Esterházy’s wife,
Princess Marie Hermenegild, just as Haydn
had done on six occasions. But while the
Prince loved Haydn’s Nelson Mass, he found
Beethoven’s creation ‘unbearably ridiculous
and detestable’ – a strangely violent reaction
to a work that, while undoubtedly individual,
is generally acknowledged to be filled with
wonderful musical writing. Highlights
abound, from the gentle sincerity of the
chorus in the Kyrie to the uplifting outbursts
of the Gloria, and the lyrical lines of the
soloists in the Benedictus.
Recommended recording: Sally Matthews,
Sara Mingardo, John Mark Ainsley, Alastair
Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis
Schubert Mass No. 2 in G
Written when he was just 15,
Schubert’s Second Mass is, at around
20 minutes, the shortest of his masses
and reportedly took only six days to
draft. What it lacks in duration, it
makes up for in emotional range – the
triumphant chords and frantic strings
that lift the Gloria to rare heights are
balanced by the exquisite stillness of
the closing Agnus Dei. As with Haydn’s
Nelson Mass, the drama of Schubert’s
work is driven by scurrying strings and
fast-moving chords, with trumpets
and timpani added to the mix at key
moments. Interestingly, Schubert
initially scored his Mass for just strings
and organ, but beefed it up later.
Recommended recording: Luba
Orgoná≥ová, Christian Elsner; Bavarian
Radio Symphony Orchestra/Mariss Jansons
BR Klassik 900114 £12.99
Pleyel Mass in D
Piano manufacturer, music publisher and
part-time farmer, the multi-talented Ignaz
Pleyel was also a popular composer in his day.
He did very nicely out of Haydn, studying
and lodging with him, and later publishing
his music. As for Pleyel’s own Mass in D
major, history doesn’t relate when and for
whom it was written, but what we do know
is that it begins with a gloriously affirmative
Kyrie whose central section bears more than
a passing resemblance to the Gloria of the
Nelson Mass (and in the same key). Thereafter
soloists and chorus lead us on an invigorating
journey – though, admittedly, Pleyel
evidently never put trying to match Haydn’s
sense of foreboding high on his ‘to do’ list.
Recommended recording: Steven
Scheschareg, Cornelia Hübsch; Capella
Cantorum Savariensis, Camerata Pro Musica
Chamber Orchestra/Martin Brauss
Ars Produktion ARS38821 (see iTunes.com)
Next month:
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.1, ‘Winter Dreams’
For information on Steinway & Sons pianos or to arrange a private appointment to visit our London showrooms,
please call 0207 487 3391 or email info@steinway.co.uk

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Bruges?
Sounds great!

This season too, Concertgebouw Brugge is the place-to-be for

classical music in Flanders. Focusing strongly on the UK in 14/15,
and featuring the best national and international artists – among
which resident orchestra Anima Eterna Brugge – the concert
calendar is a succession of musical highlights. Explore the full
program and discover your favorites on concertgebouw.be!

HIGHLIGHTS 2014-2015
08 – 09.12.14 SLOW (36h) / Slow Art Festival
15.11.14 Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra /
MAfestival © Arne Naert Beethoven and Shostakovich
27.11.14 La Risonanza / Purcell. Dido and Aeneas
04 – 14.12.14 December Dance / Connecting Asia
19.12.14 Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir /
Bach. Weihnachtsoratorium
28.01 – 01.02.15 Bach Academy Bruges
03.03.15 Hallé Orchestra / Elgar. Enigma Variations
07.03.15 Domain Wayne McGregor
08 – 10.05.15 Domain Steven Isserlis
21 – 23.05.15 Budapest Festival 2015 conducted by Iván Fischer
Anima Eterna Brugge © Alex
Sightways
Vanhee

BUY TICKETS T +32 (0)70 22 33 02

M INFO@CONCERTGEBOUW.BE
W CONCERTGEBOUW.BE/EN
 CHILDREN’S SPECIAL: TEN PIECES FEATURE
! Cut-out and keep!
Every month, we introduce one of the BBC’s ‘Ten Pieces’, each specially chosen to
bring the wonders and joys of classical music to children of primary school age
ILLUSTRATION: JONTY CLARK

Five marvellous Part 2

Mozart facts! MOZART
HORN CONCERTO No. 4
Mozart was born in
Salzburg, Austria in 1756
He was eight when he
wrote his first symphony!
He wrote down Miserere, HERE’S A QUESTION: how many cheese sellers do you know? None? How about
a piece by Allegri, after
French horn-playing cheese sellers? No? Mozart knew one, and wrote his wonderful
hearing it just once!
Fourth Horn Concerto for him. Joseph Leutgeb was the fellow’s name and, before he
He died aged 35, half-
way through writing his opened his cheese and sausage shop in 1777, he was also a brilliant horn player with
famous Requiem the Salzburg court orchestra. But his instrument was quite unlike the French horns
Some scientists have said that you will normally see in orchestras today. For a start, it didn’t have any buttons
that listening to his music to change the notes, or ‘valves’ as they’re known, so all the sounds had to be made
can make you clever! just by tightening and loosening the lips and by putting the left hand into the end
of the horn, called ‘the bell’. You think that sounds difficult? It was. This cheerful
piece sounds just like the call of a horn that huntsmen use to gather together the
horses before they ride into the countryside. It wasn’t made from brass at first,
though, but from a hollowed-out animal’s horn. Tally-ho!
n to
Liste usic
the mour
on y CD!
cover
Turn over for more! Á
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 61
CHILDREN’S SPECIAL: TEN PIECES FEATURE

Cut-out and keep!

Things to do!
1. The main tune in this piece keeps coming round again and

!
again. How many times can you spot it?.................................................
2. 0R]DUWFDOOHGWKLVZRUND¶&RQFHUWR·6HHLI\RXFDQÀQGRXW
what a concerto is............................................................................................
3. How many brass instruments can you name? If you can
WKLQNRIPRUHWKDQIRXU\RX·UHGRLQJUHDOO\ZHOO
4. At 1:20WKHPXVLFFKDQJHVIURPD¶PDMRU·WRD¶PLQRU·NH\
How does the mood of the music change?............................................
5. How does this music make you feel? .................................................
..................................................................................................................................

Now explore other great music!

Bach (right) Glazunov Reverie Schumann Konzertstück
Brandenburg Sit back and relax! There are no Why just have one horn? The
Concerto No. 1 hunting horns here. Instead the German composer Robert
This piece was Russian composer Glazunov Schumann wrote a piece for four
written in 1721, 65 shows that the French horns and orchestra that
years before Mozart’s horn has a softer side, in a sounds like a competition
Horn Concerto No. 4. lovely three-minute piece between the players! In
It’s written is what’s called the for horn and orchestra. The fact it’s so hard that it’s
‘Baroque’ style, which means it is tune is very memorable, not played very often in
very cleverly composed. But don’t so you might find you concerts… But as well as
worry, this piece doesn’t sound can’t help yourself being horribly difficult,
complicated! It’s actually great fun. humming it later. it’s also very beautiful.

How much did you like this music?

I hated it! Not a lot… It was OK I liked it I loved it!

62 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
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 CONTENTS

REVIEWS
66 Recording of the Month
68 Orchestral
The CBSO and Edward
Gardner are on sparkling
form in Mendelssohn
120 CDs, Books & DVDs rated by expert critics
74 Concerto
Venice’s Golden Age is
portrayed by the Akademie Recording of the Month
für Alte Musik Berlin Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos 6 & 14 are given
overwhelmingly powerful live performances by the London
76 Opera Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Vladimir Jurowski, p66
Joyce DiDonato showcases
rare Italian arias in a dazzling
display of vocal virtuosity

82 Choral & Song

Westminster Cathedral
Choir gives dramatic, vivid
recordings of Byrd’s masses

84 Chamber
Rachel Podger and friends
dig out some gorgeous
Barqoue Italian masterpieces

86 Instrumental
A Messiaen premiere is just
one jewel in this superlative
piano recital by Peter Hill

91 Brief Notes
A quick look at 16 new recordings, including
Dallapiccola, Debussy and Schumann
out of darkness:
92 Jazz Vladimir Jurowski
conducts Shostakovich
The impressive legacy
of double bassist Charles
Mingus explored

94 Books
The culmination of a lifetime’s work
A vividly told history of If there was ever a composer who utterly mastered the art of writing a fugue, it
India’s grip on the English was Johann Sebastian Bach. He could turn the most musically unpromising
musical imagination subject into a thing of beauty. This was a musician who knew when to follow
the rules of this strict form, and, more importantly, when to break them. And
The Art of Fugue is a distillation of Bach’s craft. That’s not to say he made the
performer’s job easy: all 14 fugues and four canons are in D minor and have the same time
signature. There aren’t any dynamic markings. It’s not even certain what instrument(s) he
wanted it played on. Read what our critic thought of three new recordings of it by pianists
Angela Hewitt, Cédric Pescia and Zhu Xiao-Mei (p87). Rebecca Franks Reviews Editor
KAREN ROBINSON

Our Recording of the Month features in one of the BBC Music Magazine podcasts
free from iTunes or www.classical-music.com

BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 65
 RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Devastating Shostakovich
The LPO is on superlative form in these symphonies, says Daniel Jaffé
SHOSTAKOVICH
Symphonies Nos 6 & 14
Tatiana Monogarova (soprano),
Sergei Leiferkus (baritone);
London Philharmonic Orchestra/
RICHARD CANNON, JOHN MILLAR
Vladimir Jurowski
London Philharmonic Orchestra
LPO-0080 77:58 mins
BBC Music Direct
This is by far the most stunning
Shostakovich disc I have heard
this year. Vladimir Jurowski and
66 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
the LPO’s superb performance of
the 14th has previously only been
available in Volume 3 of the London
Philharmonic Orchestra’s 75th
Anniversary box sets. Here it is, now,
coupled with a new live recording
of Shostakovich’s
Sixth from last
years’s The Rest The LPO’s string trills rage a still young
is Noise festival. seem to express
Still, this is
Shostakovich’s rage feel – not only over
not an obvious
pairing: No. 14,
Shostakovich’s response to
£9.99 Musorgsky’s Songs and Dances of
Death, is clearly one of his very
darkest works, while the Sixth
from 1939 is often considered one
of his oddest and most frivolous
CHOICE
profound depth:
Vladimir Jurowski
with the LPO
symphonies. Yet thanks to the
intensity of Jurowski’s performance
of that earlier work, the new coupling
makes total sense.
Here, the Sixth’s opening Largo
is no introverted lament: rather, the
LPO’s string trills
seem to express a
Shostakovich had
much reason to
the humiliation
by Pravda (which was the spur to
his Fifth Symphony) but also the
appalling toll of people arrested
during the late 1930s under Stalin,
including several colleagues and
relations. This seething anger only
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
FURTHER LISTENING
LPO/Vladimir Jurowski
ZEMLINSKY
A Florentine Tragedy;
Six Maeterlinck Songs
Wessels; Skorokhodov; Dohmen; Lang;
LPO/Jurowski
LPO LPO-0078 74:12 mins
BBC Music Direct £9.99
‘Jurowski
demonstrates a
masterly control
of dramatic pace,
ratcheting up the
tension slowly but surely so that
the final denouement reaches a
devastating climax. The LPO
proves superbly responsive to
Jurowski’s demands.’ October 2014
MAHLER
Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection)
Kucerová, Stotijn; LPO & Choir/Jurowski
LPO LPO 0054 83:24 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £12.99
‘This is consistently
succesful, coming
up experimentally
fresh. It scores over
the recent Simon
Rattle interpretation with focused
fire and brimstone for the opening
tremors.’ July 2011
BRAHMS
Symphonies Nos 1 & 2
LPO/Vladimir Jurowski
LPO 0043 85:47 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £12.99
‘From the urgently
pounding timpani
at the start of the
First Symphony,
Jurowski’s approach
to Brahms makes exceptional sense.
Instead of the familiar cultivation of
rich, fat sound as a goal in itself, we
have a Brahms that moves fluidly
and sings in long lines.’ May 2010
gradually relents as the dark night
wears out. The dawn of the second
movement, greeted by an insouciant
clarinet, whips up into a scene of
would-be but increasingly furious
merry making, and the finale’s
frenetically jolly circus-world of day-
time celebration appears an inevitable
outcome. The coda’s reference to
Prokofiev’s most successful populist
style suggests that even then
Shostakovich bitterly resented his
rival’s apparent official success.
 RECORDING OF THE MONTH REVIEWS

The Fourteenth Symphony,
Shostakovich’s 1969 setting of texts
by Lorca, Apollinaire, Rilke and
Küchelbecker, presents some of the
bleakest reflections on death and
decay, all the more baleful with the
brittle and tenebrous colours the
composer draws from an orchestra
of strings and percussion. By then
seriously ill, Shostakovich wished
to disabuse listeners of the usual
sentimentality about death, and
unblinkingly presents the various
and usually less than glorious ends
of human existence.
The soprano part, written with
Galina Vishnevskaya’s passionate
vocal style in mind, is affectingly
taken by Tatiana Monogarova, whose
pleas in ‘Lorelei’ well complement THIS MONTH’S CRITICS
Sergei Leiferkus’s brusque and
matter-of-fact delivery. Where, so Our critics number many of the top music specialists
often, the bass role represents Death whose knowledge and enthusiasm are second to none
himself, Leiferkus finds a suitably
implacable quality, though he also
conveys the despair of the prisoner Kate Bolton
who in isolation loses his mind as lecturer, New York University, Florence
he loses hope. Kate is a lecturer in music and cultural
Altogether it’s a gruelling history, and teaches at an Italian arts
experience, but not one to be missed. institute. Prior to that, she was a senior
PERFORMANCE HHHHH producer at BBC Radio 3 and artistic
RECORDING HHHHH director of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque music.
She has published as an academic, journalist and critic.
ON THE PODCAST
Hear excerpts and a discussion
of this recording on the BBC Music John Allison editor, composer Anna Picard
Magazine podcast, available free on
Opera; critic, Sunday Julian Haylock writer, critic
iTunes or at www.classical-music.com
Telegraph writer, editor George Pratt
Nicholas Anderson Ivan Hewett emeritus professor
Baroque specialist broadcaster, critic of music, University

Q&A
Terry Blain writer Daniel Jaffé of Huddersfield
Garry Booth jazz writer, critic Anthony Pryer
writer & critic Erica Jeal critic, lecturer, Goldsmiths
Geoff Brown The Guardian College, London
VLADIMIR JUROWSKI critic, The Times
Anthony Burton
Stephen Johnson
writer, BBC Radio 3
Paul Riley journalist
Michael Scott
REBECCA FRANKS talks to the conductor about why writer, editor broadcaster Rohan author,
Michael Church Berta Joncus senior editor
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 is one of his best pieces critic, The lecturer, University Nick Shave
Independent of London journalist, writer
What do these two Christopher Cook Erik Levi professor, Jeremy Siepmann
symphonies tell us about broadcaster, critic University of London biographer, editor
Shostakovich and his views? Martin Cotton Max Loppert Jan Smaczny
The Sixth was written very producer critic, Opera professor of music,
much as a sequel to the (then) Christopher Dingle Jon Lusk world Queen’s, Belfast
banned Fourth. But unlike Professor of Music, music journalist Geoffrey Smith
the Fourth, which starts with Birmingham Andrew McGregor presenter, BBC
verve and ends in desolation, Conservatoire presenter, BBC Radio 3
the Sixth starts with a kind of Misha Donat Radio 3’s CD Review Michael Tanner
meditation on death and ends producer, writer David Nice critic, The Spectator
with a shamelessly absurd Jessica Duchen writer, biographer Roger Thomas critic
galop. The highest and lowest critic, novelist Roger Nichols Kate Wakeling
aspects of life strangely Hilary Finch French music writer, critic
co-exist. The Fourteenth critic, The Times specialist Helen Wallace
comes from later, when George Hall writer, Bayan Northcott consultant editor,
Shostakovich didn’t have editor, translator composer, writer BBC Music
to fear repression. But even Malcolm Hayes Tim Parry Barry Witherden
here he stays truthful to his biographer, writer, editor critic, writer
politically subversive nature.
He also proclaims his love for
freedom and hate for tyrants. Key to symbols Star ratings are provided for both the
performance itself and either the recording’s sound
How did performing the Sixth Symphony as part of The Rest of quality or a DVD’s presentation
Noise festival of 20th-century music shape your view of the piece? Outstanding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HHHHH
My view of it was shaped many years ago and it hasn’t changed since. Excellent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HHHH
But I welcomed the chance to programme the Sixth next to other pre- Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HHH
war pieces written around the same era – we did it in the same concert Disappointing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HH
with Stravinsky’s Jeu de Cartes and Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H

The Fourteenth Symphony was the first Shostakovich you did with
the LPO. Why did you choose it?
For me the Fourteenth Symphony is one of the most important pieces by
Shostakovich. It’s also the one where he in a way comes back to where
he started from, writing for smaller or unusual ensembles like he did in
the late 1920s and early 1930s. I love the freedom with which he operates
the tonal structure in this symphony – it’s nearly 12-tone in places but
absolutely tonal at the same time. And of course there’s the sheer beauty
of the vocal lines and of the orchestral colours. It’s a unique work. I
would nearly call it a humanist Requiem.
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 ORCHESTRAL
Sharply focused Rossini from Antonio Pappano; heroic Strauss from Andrew Davis and
Bernard Haitink; and a remarkable Vaughan Williams cycle from Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Gardner’s timely Mendelssohn
Roger Nichols applauds this latest release in a major symphonic series
MENDELSSOHN
Symphonies Nos 1 & 3;
Ruy Blas Overture
City of Birmingham Symphony
Orchestra/Edward Gardner
Chandos CHSA 5139 (hybrid CD/SACD)
74:50 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
Edward Gardner conducts these
pieces with a highly satisfying
blend of freedom and discipline. In
GETTY, MUSACCHIO & IANIELLO
some of Mendelssohn’s more lyrical
moments – notably the beautiful
opening tune of the third movement
of the Scottish Symphony – you need
a metronome to judge his rhythmic
flexibility, so naturally does he apply
it. Here it’s also set in contrast to
68 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
ORCHESTRAL CHOICE
an absolutely precise reading of the
martial dotted figures that follow. I
had cause to query a few tempos in
the first set of this series, but on this
disc every speed is finely judged. I
particularly like the way Gardner
interprets the Maestoso of the
Scottish Symphony’s final section,
Gardner ratchets up
the tension in the
overture Ruy Blas
not through a stodgy tempo, which
can make this passage sound trite,
but by giving the horns their head.
In Symphony No. 1 Mendelssohn
was rather parsimonious with
dynamic markings, but again all
of Gardner’s interventions on this
front are entirely in keeping with
the score, notably the ones in the
pizzicato string passages. The
sensitively shaped:
Gardner balances precision
with rhythmic flexibility
fugal moments are delivered with
clarity and panache – Berlioz might
grumble about Mendelssohn’s
addiction to such ancient conceits,
but there’s no faulting the technique
– and throughout the disc the strings
articulate with splendid vigour.
In the dramatic overture Ruy
Blas, Gardner rightly brings in
the Allegro material after the brass
fanfares with no perceptible pause,
ratcheting up the tension. These
fine performances were recorded in
Birmingham Town Hall, scene of a
number of the composer’s triumphs,
not least St Paul and Elijah.
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ON THE WEBSITE
Hear extracts from this recording
and the rest of this month’s choices on
the BBC Music Magazine website
www.classical-music.com
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
BRAHMS
Symphonies Nos 1 & 3
CLARA SCHUMANN
10 Lieder
Felicity Lott (soprano),
Wolfgang Holzmair (baritone);
Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe
Verdi/John Axelrod (piano)
Telarc TEL-34659-02 118:42 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £14.99
This two-disc set, entitled Brahms
Beloved, is presented as a ‘testament’ of
the lifelong Brahms-Clara Schumann
relationship. But although she was
certainly his muse, and Jan Swafford’s
note points out the allusions to Robert
Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony
in Brahms’s Third, there seems
no obvious musical connection
between Brahms’s Symphonies and
Clara’s songs – except that both the
conductor and piano accompanist
here is John Axelrod.
His approach to the symphonies
is very much on ‘traditional’ lines,
unalloyed by more recent notions of
‘period’ performance. A full string
complement is deployed; textures
tend towards the homogeneous
and massive; where not explicitly
driven, tempos are often ponderous
– especially in the First Symphony’s
intermezzo-like third movement, and
the slow waltz equivalent of the Third.
The Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano
delivers with discipline and heft but
seem reluctant to play as quietly as the
scores often require. These are solid,
reliable enough readings, but with
few fresh insights. Two bars of the
woodwind restatement of the big tune
in the First Symphony’s finale seem
to have gone missing in the editing of
the recording – did no one notice?
Clara Schumann’s accomplished
settings of Goethe, Rückert and
Heine rarely sound Brahmsian, nor,
for that matter, Schumannesque, but
comprise a distinctive contribution to
the German Lied. Neither Wolfgang
Holzmair nor Felicity Lott retain

quite the vocal bloom of yesteryear,
and Holzmair occasionally over-
interprets, but Dame Felicity’s
artistry is as subtle and vivacious as
ever. Axelrod delivers the spacious
accompaniments with empathy and a
lucid touch. Bayan Northcott
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING HHH
BRAHMS
Symphonies Nos 3 & 4
London Symphony Orchestra/
Valery Gergiev
LSO Live LSO 0737 (hybrid CD/SACD)
77:15 mins
BBC Music Direct £10.99
Recorded live at the Barbican in
December 2012, these are middle-
of-the-road traditionalist readings
without notable eccentricities –
but then, these scores must be so
familiar to the LSO players that they
could doubtless produce creditable
performances without any conductor
at all. Compared with Bernard
Haitink’s 2003 LSO recording
of Symphony No. 3 on the same
label, Valery Gergiev sets a slightly
more urgent, swinging tempo for
the opening movement, and the
sound he gets is a little brighter and
rougher than Haitink’s more blended
textures. But no amount of recording
wizardry will ever make the Barbican
acoustic sound flattering.
Gergiev ends the first movement
with a sustained slow-down,
unmarked by Brahms, and he
evidently accedes to the current
fashion for taking the Poco Allegretto
third movement with sighing
languor, though he is by no means
as slow as some. In any case, Brahms
refused to add metronome marks
to his scores and seems to have
welcomed contrasting interpretations.
Just occasionally one misses genuinely
quiet playing where Brahms asks for
it, and the fluttering strings in the
finale’s sunset peroration are rather
covered by the winds.
Similar comments could be
made of the reading of Symphony
No. 4. Gergiev brings an expressive
flexibility to the phrasing of the first
movement, though his gear changes
in the chaconne finale are not always
as convincing as in Haitink’s noble
and more beautifully played version.
These are reliable new accounts
without rising to anything very
personal or special. Bayan Northcott
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING HHH
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well-observed rossini:
Antonio Pappano conducts
characterful performances
DVO∏ÁK
Legends; Symphony No. 8
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/
José Serebrier
Warner 2564628787 76:42 mins
BBC Music Direct £11.99
Eleven years ago, considering the
Dvoπák Eighth in Radio 3’s Building
a Library, I got very grumpy about the
lazily uniform way all the recordings
played fast and loose – or slow and
loose – with the composer’s detailed
tempo markings. As far as I know,
we’re still waiting for a conductor
willing to give us what’s actually in the
score. In the latest instalment of his
Dvoπák cycle, José Serebrier adheres
to most of the familiar interpretative
traditions of the work, beginning it
slowly before accelerating fiercely, and
exaggerating the subtle gear-changes
in the finale – though at least towards
the end he doesn’t allow the variations
to droop into the usual deep slumber.
His one innovation is to close the
gaps between movements, creating
segues which Dvoπák can’t have
intended. However, as conventional
performances go, this is an enjoyable
one, with expressive strings, fresh-
sounding woodwind and poetic
horns, all shaping phrases beautifully
under Serebrier’s genial control.
Although the Symphony has pride
of place on the cover, it’s actually
shorter than the ‘fill-up’, the ten
Legends, orchestrations of a relaxed
and tuneful set of piano duets.
Here a few more carefully observed
pianissimo markings would have
enhanced the expression and clarified
the balance; and the violins sometimes
ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS
sound in need of a little more bloom
than the acoustic of The Lighthouse,
Poole has to offer. But it’s a bonus to
have these delightful, colourful pieces
as part of Serebrier’s cycle – offsetting
any disappointment at yet another
‘traditional’ Eighth. Anthony Burton
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHH
PICKARD
Gaia Symphony; Eden
Eikanger-Bjørsvik Musikklag/
Andreas Hanson
BIS BIS-2061 (hybrid CD/SACD) 81:09 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
The front of the booklet depicts
the sun stunningly setting over the
Pacific. The back shows a Norwegian
brass band. The CD itself spans the
same extremes, the visionary and the
homely, in eloquent music crafted by
the British composer John Pickard
with the same aplomb and extended
tonal language familiar from his
orchestral piece The Flight of Icarus.
His architectural skills are tested in
the lengthy Gaia Symphony, named
after the Greek goddess of the earth,
written in chunks over 12 years.
Striking percussion interludes give
the brass respite, and enlarge a colour
tapestry taking us from the full
ensemble blast, through the cuddly
euphonium, to what sounds like
the ticking of deathwatch beetles.
Momentum falters in the final section,
‘Men of Stone’, originally a separate
suite; but this is still a strong, brilliant
work, given a dazzling performance
by the wizards (mostly amateur) of the
Eikanger-Bjørsvik Musikklag.
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
Though placed at the disc’s start,
Eden, a shorter reflection on man
and nature, could also serve as an
alternative finale as it whisks us from
paradise and its destruction toward a
hopeful conclusion. And everything
comes gorgeously captured in BIS’s
vivid, wide-ranging recording. Warn
the neighbours before you play it; even
better, invite them in. Geoff Brown
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ROSSINI
Overtures to La scala di seta,
Il signor Bruschino, Il barbiere
di Siviglia, La cenerentola,
Semiramide, La siège de Corinthe
and Guillaume Tell; Andante e
tema con variazioni
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di
Santa Cecilia/Antonio Pappano
Warner 2564624344 69:53 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
Antonio Pappano’s collection of
Rossini overtures is a fairly standard
selection – of the seven operatic
introductions only Le siège de Corinthe
is relatively unfamiliar – but what
marks it out as special is the quality
of the playing and the interpretation.
La scala di seta is spick and span, with
a definite flourish in the unfurling of
the title’s silken ladder at the opening.
Il signor Bruschino is spry, with sharp
definition. The Barber of Seville’s
sly wit shines through Pappano’s
perfectly managed performance.
Ebullience and good-humour
characterise Cenerentola, though
again Pappano never overdoes
such qualities – everything is
immaculately judged.
He can rely on the strong
foundation of the Santa Cecilia’s
string tone, and the colour and
shapeliness of their wind solos; they
are particularly delightful as they
ricochet decoratively around the
main theme (second time around) of
Semiramide, before bringing vitality
and brilliance to the martial Siege of
Corinth and the four tone-pictures
of Guillaume Tell, with its suitably
electrifying operatic storm.
Four of the wind soloists return
in the disc’s most unusual item – the
little known theme and variations
for flute, clarinet, horn and bassoon.
Rossini puts them through their
virtuoso paces, and they come
through with flying colours.
George Hall
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
69

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R STRAUSS
Don Juan; Ein Heldenleben
London Philharmonic Orchestra/
Bernard Haitink
LPO LPO 0079 65:23 mins
BBC Music Direct £9.99
Horns and heroes went together,
tongue in cheek, for Richard Strauss
in his mock-epic Ein Heldenleben.
So it is understandable that the
London Philharmonic should
honour its late principal horn-hero,
Nicholas Busch, by releasing these
two live performances, courtesy
of BBC Radio 3. In Heldenleben
Busch has a terrific solo line of his
own in the hero’s battle with his
adversary-critics, and the collective
horn ensemble cap Bernard Haitink’s
broad and generous take on the hero’s
homecoming. But Ein Heldenleben
here is let down by leader David
Nolan’s handling of the ‘hero’s
companion’ – none other than the
first of many portraits of Strauss’s
capricious wife Pauline. It needs to
start from a basic tone of tenderness,
so that the waspishness takes us
by surprise; this is too acid from
the start.
Haitink’s style is for the most part
magisterial in both works, pushing
the phrases only when they really
need it, sealing and affirming a spate
of climaxes. The LPO strings are
more sensuous in the later recording,
of Don Juan from the Festival Hall,
than in the Royal Albert Hall
Heldenleben. I’d never have identified
the RAH venue from the up-front
sound; all round, it’s better than
the Festival Hall broadcast, badly
congested from the point when
(ironically) the horns sound the great
lover’s heroic high noon. David Nice
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING (HELDENLEBEN) HHH
(DON JUAN) HH
R STRAUSS
Don Juan; Four Last Songs;
Also sprach Zarathustra
Erin Wall (soprano); Melbourne
MARCO BORGGREVE
Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis
ABC Classics ABC 481 1122 73:46 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
Sir Andrew Davis, as a conductor,
has always been something of an
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct 01322 297 515; prices include P&P
enigma to me. Certainly he’s a
dependable steersman through
late Romantic scores especially.
But just as you’re ready to slap
‘careful’ on his efforts, out comes
something extraordinary. As here,
where after a dutiful Don Juan and
a middle-of-the-road Four Last
Songs comes one of the finest of Also
sprach Zarathustras on disc. A year
separates its live performance from
the first two works, and slightly
different production teams may
explain why the swimmy sound of
the Melbourne Arts Centre hall
worried me less in this, the biggest
and most expansive of the works
programmed here.
This Zarathustra reminds us that
not only was the work an incredible
experiment for its time – 17-part
strings and 12-tone fugue included
– but that there’s capacity to disturb
as well as bewitch. The opening,
after an over-close contrabassoon
doubling organ pedal makes a rather
generator-ish noise, is heroic, not
brash; the biggest flights truly billow
and the Superman’s tricky dance
(read Viennese waltz) song has real
joy, with pop-out glissandos from
violins supporting the fine leader,
Dale Barltrop.
There are signs that soprano
Erin Wall could, in time, be exactly
right for the Four Last Songs. The
voice, though already with a slightly
worrying vibrato, changes from
girlish to womanly in some lines
of the final song, and she graces
‘September’ with some classy
phrasing. It’s not quite enough as
yet. Incidentally, I love the cover
image, of Eliot Gruner’s Man and
ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS
characterful dances:
Kazuki Yamada conducts the
Suisse Romande in Strauss
Mountains from the Art Gallery of
New South Wales. David Nice
PERFORMANCE
(ZARATHUSTRA) HHHH
(REST) HHH
RECORDING
(ZARATHUSTRA) HHHHH
(REST) HHH
R STRAUSS •
BUSONI • KORNGOLD
LISZT • SCHREKER
R Strauss: Salome – Dance of the
Seven Veils; Der Rosenkavalier –
Waltz Sequence; Liszt: Mephisto
Waltz No. 1; Korngold: Straussiana;
Busoni: Tanz-Walzer;
Schreker: Ein Tanzspiel
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/
Kazuki Yamada
Pentatone PTC 5186518 (hybrid CD/SACD)
65:34 mins
BBC Music Direct £15.99
The missing guest at this feast
of dance-related music is Ravel’s
La valse, the work that ends by
pushing the waltz, so it seems now,
into the cataclysm of the First
World War. Fainter shadows of
unrest appear in Busoni’s much less
familiar Tanz-Walzer, finished two
months before the Ravel premiered
in December 1920. For the rest, the
Suisse Romande Orchestra and their
gifted principal guest conductor,
Kazuki Yamada, whip us round
the European dance floor with
music that is highly coloured,
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
voluptuous, decadent – and
generally, hugely enjoyable.
The orchestra’s playing matches
the luxury of Pentatone’s warm,
rich recording at Geneva’s Victoria
Hall. In Yamada’s hands Liszt’s first
Mephisto Waltz really sounds like
a dance with the devil. Smoochy
strings and perky woodwinds
characterise the ‘Dance of the Seven
Veils’ from Richard Strauss’s Salome,
while the opulent swing of the first
Rosenkavalier waltz sequence left me
panting. The Busoni, best of the rarer
items, needs a little more momentum
(Markevitch’s 1950s recording
remains my ideal), but still casts a
spell with its sinuous harmonic shifts.
Placed alongside, Korngold’s
1953 Straussiana (Johann Jr is
meant) seems only candyfloss, but
very prettily played. That just leaves
Schreker’s waltz-free Ein Tanzspiel
of 1908: not the composer’s most
incandescent creation, though with
a heady programme like this every
listener needs a pause to mop a brow
and rest those feet. Geoff Brown
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHH
DVD STRAVINSKY IN
HOLLYWOOD
A film by Marco Capalbo
C Major: 716308 (DVD)
716404 (Blu-ray) 53 mins
BBC Music Direct (DVD) £25.99
BBC Music Direct (Blu-ray) £34.99
An actor impersonating Stravinsky,
filmed in quasi-historic black and
white, types an article accusing
film producers of using ‘music
like perfumes’, whereas he needs
music ‘for hygienic purposes, for
the health of my soul’. Thus, barely
over a third of the way through this
film, Stravinsky burns his boats
with Hollywood. So, despite its
marketing, this documentary is not
primarily about Stravinsky’s attempt
to break into the lucrative world of
film music; rather, it focuses more
on his edgy non-relationship with
Arnold Schoenberg, a near neighbour
in Los Angeles. After years of the two
composers scrupulously avoiding
any social contact, the Austrian
composer’s death in 1951 shook
Stravinsky, and became the catalyst
for the reinvention of his style.
Film-maker Marco Capalbo
packs a lot of information, and
some striking footage including of
71
 REVIEWS ORCHESTRAL

Stravinsky himself hand-drawing his his players come without over-

REISSUES SPECIAL staves in ink, then deftly composing familiarity or preconceptions: folk
in pencil. However, only Stravinsky’s themes have no more resonance
assistant, Robert Craft, appears as a than Rimsky-Korsakov’s do for us,
talking head; while his recollections nor programmatic references like
are vivid, for variety’s sake it would John Bunyan, Captain Scott or
have been good to hear others who Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbevilles. The
knew Stravinsky – Pierre Boulez, Symphonies stand purely as music,
for instance, who as a student booed without baggage, and if anything it
Stravinsky’s Four Norwegian Moods confirms their stature – even the less
(recycled from one of his rejected obvious ones.
Hollywood scores) – or to have The Sea Symphony makes a less
archive footage of interviewees such than promising start, although
as Vera Stravinsky. Rozhdestvensky catches its breezy,
As it is, we get a good deal epic vitality; fewer Russians spoke
of narrative, drearily read by good English then, and both
Capalbo himself, plus Super 8 chorus and soloists wrestle with
footage of various actors, one of Walt Whitman’s words – not just
them a distractingly poor likeness pronunciation, but rhythm and
czech focus: of Stravinsky, driving around expression, at semi-permanent forte.
conductor Václav California’s Palmdale desert The London Symphony achieves
Neumann, 1968 accompanied by extracts from a expansive scale and momentum,
less-than-pristine LP recording of especially the slow movement, but
Stravinsky’s Cantata. Maybe this is a blurs atmospheric detail; there are
Laying the foundations would-be subliminal suggestion that moments where it sounds strangely
Stravinsky’s pre-Schoenberg-inspired Musorgskian. The Third, however,
Václav Neumann’s early career is charted in this work was arid and tired: serial is remarkable, bringing out the
Supraphon set, says CD Review’s Andrew McGregor works such as Agon and Requiem harrowing wasteland quality; this is a
Canticles are presented in relatively First World War ‘Dark Pastorale’ and
In this box of metrically, but deliberately so. The clean sound, but fuller extracts from no mistake, especially as the soprano
Czech conductor mournful wind and lovely horn these works might have been more is more mournful than ethereal.
Václav Neumann’s vibrato stand out, and in Mahler’s persuasive. As it is, in a film lasting The Fourth takes off ponderously,
early recordings Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen less than an hour, the music is mostly more lumbering than volcanic, but
from the 1950s Soukupová gives it her all. reduced to a fleeting soundtrack in the last two movements are more
and ’60s Neumann also recorded the background. Daniel Jaffé intense. The Fifth also lacks fervour
(Supraphon SU 4133-2; 6 CDs) it’s a contemporary Czech music, and PERFORMANCE HHH to drive its serenity, the all-important
while before we get to the famous having given the premiere in PICTURE AND SOUND HHHH strings sounding rather bland. But
relationship with the Czech 1963, Vladimir Sommer’s Vocal
the Sixth, once distrusted by British
audiences, positively blossoms into
Philharmonic. He made his first Symphony was a shoe-in for the
spiky life, its cacophonic, destructive
recording with the Film Symphony label. I wish there were texts
scherzo remarkably like Shostakovich
Orchestra in the early ’50s: included for this rare repertoire. at times. As the amiably baffled
Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons in the Neumann recorded a spirited sleevenote suggests, Captain Scott
orchestration by Václav Trojan. account of Schubert’s Third isn’t even a name to Russians, and
Neumann looked back at it as ‘a Symphony, and an Unfinished VAUGHAN WILLIAMS the Seventh’s heroics and Antarctic
sin of my youth’, apparently, but that begins with a very moderato glitter are less apparent against the
Symphonies Nos 1-9
it’s so enjoyable Allegro. It’s too Elena Dof-Donskaya, Tatyana dark menace of a Siberian winter.
I’m not sure why. The colour and slow really, Smolyakova (soprano), Boris Vasiliev The Eighth positively bounds with
Next in this and there isn’t (baritone); Choir of the Leningrad exuberant, impish vitality, making
set is a cycle
dynamism in this enough contrast Music Society; Choir of Rimsky-Korsakov many native versions seem sober; and
of Dvoπák Dvoπák is striking of tempo Music College; USSR State Chamber the Ninth stands out for its awesome,
Choir; State Symphony Orchestra of monumental feeling, again with
symphonies, split between the
the USSR Ministry of Culture/
between different conductors. two movements. The French disc almost Musorgskian echoes in the
Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Neumann tackled the early is more interesting, with Roussel’s Melodiya MEL CD 10 02170 (1988-89)
third movement, in no way a decline
symphonies, and the colour and Symphony No. 3 in 1963, and 366:16 mins (6 discs) from the rest of the cycle.
dynamism of The Bells of Zlonice Messiaen in Prague in 1966: the BBC Music Direct £34.99 These are live broadcasts, with
(Symphony No. 1) is striking even Reveil des oiseaux with Yvonne rather lean sound and some uneven
In 1988, as glasnost expanded balances, and a fair number of
in 1957 mono, as is the sudden Loriod is a pleasurable surprise.
Russia’s official cultural horizons, ensemble and playing errors, besides
leap into stereo in 1959 in Dvoπák’s The set returns to Dvoπák
conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky absurdly tinny bells. They’re quite
Symphony No. 4. with the Nocturne in September
embarked on a remarkable project acceptable nevertheless, but you
In the 1950s Neumann helped 1968, when Czechoslovakia was Britain has seldom attempted – a wouldn’t want them as your only set,
Supraphon build its catalogue: occupied by Warsaw Pact forces. complete concert series of Vaughan in preference to Bernard Haitink,
Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites and In protest Neumann resigned Williams’s Symphonies. These Vernon Handley, Kees Bakels or
Lyric Suite are packed with detail from the Leipzig Gewandhaus. broadcasts gives us the rare privilege either Adrian Boult cycle. But as
and atmosphere. The first disc He was made chief conductor of hearing such proverbially English an alternative view, and one that
with the Czech Philharmonic of the Czech Phil, cementing the music through foreign ears – much vindicates Vaughan Williams’s
was Mahler orchestral songs relationship that we’ve heard more radically alien than near genuinely universal genius, they’re
with mezzo V∑ra Soukupová. begin in these recordings. BBC neighbours like André Previn or compelling. Michael Scott Rohan
ALAMY

Kindertotenlieder begins Music Direct SU 4133-2 £34.99 Bernard Haitink. Rozhdestvensky PERFORMANCE HHHH
is an anglophile, but he and RECORDING HHH

72 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop

 ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS

REISSUES
Reviewed by Erik Levi
COPLAND
Appalachian Spring; The Tender Land;
WEINBERG Billy The Kid
Boston Symphony Orch; LSO/Copland
Symphony No. 21 (Kaddish)*; Regis RRC 1404 (1960) 65:42 mins
Polish Tunes BBC Music Direct £6.99
*Veronika Bertenyeva (soprano);
Siberian Symphony Orchestra/ Supported by
Dmitry Vasilyev superbly responsive
Toccata TOCC 0193 67:28 mins orchestral playing,
BBC Music Direct £12.99 Copland delivers
cleanly articulated
Given the increased exposure to
yet warmly affectionate readings of
Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s output in
two of his famous ballet scores.
recent years, it’s something of a PERFORMANCE HHHH
coup for Toccata Classics to have RECORDING HHH
brought together two world premiere
recordings of his orchestral music MENDELSSOHN
for this fascinating release. The Midsummer Night’s Dream; Overtures
works in question could not be more Royal Scottish National Orch/Weller;
contrasting in style. First comes Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Masur
Polish Tunes, a four-movement suite Brilliant 94936 (1974/92)
composed in 1950 at a time when 94:84 mins (2 discs)
Soviet composers were obliged by BBC Music Direct £10.99
the Stalin regime to write accessible, The fleet-footed
life-affirming music influenced Walter Weller rushes
by folk idioms. Weinberg duly some sections of
complied, producing a work that Midsummer Night’s
is attractive and suitably upbeat. Dream. In contrast,
Kurt Masur and his rich-toned
The Siberian Symphony Orchestra
Leipzig orchestra offer a more
relish its moments of virtuosity, grandiose view of the composer.
delivering supple playing and a level PERFORMANCE HHH
of commitment which is maintained RECORDING HHHH
in the more complex writing of
Symphony No. 21 (1989-91). SCHUMANN
Whether or not it was a deliberate Symphony No. 3 (Rhenish); Overture,
ploy on the part of the producer to Scherzo and Finale; Symphonic Études
allow almost no silence between (orch. Tchaikovsky)
the closing bars of Polish Tunes Royal Philharmonic Orch/Dirk Joeres
and the bleak elegiac string Heritage HTGCD 272 (1995-2003) 60 mins
BBC Music Direct £10.99
threnody that opens Weinberg’s
last completed symphony, the A weighty opening
juxtaposition in mood is both for the Rhenish is
startling and disturbing. There is counterbalanced by a
a Polish connection to this work light and wonderfully
too, most notably manifested in the exhilarating Finale.
The rarely heard Tchaikovsky
haunting quotation from Chopin’s
orchestration of the Symphonic
First Ballade which punctuates Études is a delight.
the score. But any nostalgia for the PERFORMANCE HHHH
country of the composer’s birth RECORDING HHHH
gives way to anger and bitterness,
since the Symphony, conceived as an SHOSTAKOVICH
unbroken one movement work in six Symphony No. 13;
sections, is dedicated to the memory plus Prokofiev: October (excerpts)
of those who died in the Warsaw Gromadsky (bass); Choirs; Moscow
Ghetto during World War II. Philharmonic Orchestra/Kondrashin
Much of the landscape is sombre Praga PRD/DSD 350 089 (1962/66)
79:20 mins
and introverted, sparsely scored BBC Music Direct £14.99
sections in slow tempo disrupted
from time to time by violent This second public
eruptions of anger and aggression performance of
Shostakovich’s
from the full orchestra recalling the
No. 13 is a hugely
symphonies of Giya Kancheli. On important historical
first impression, the work seems a bit document – a performance of
long-winded, but there’s no doubting nerve-jangling intensity captured in
the sincerity and depth of Weinberg’s amazingly vivid sound.
musical thinking. Erik Levi PERFORMANCE HHHHH
PERFORMANCE HHHH RECORDING HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH

To order CDs call BBC Music Direct 01322 297 515; prices include P&P
 CONCERTO
Unsuk Chin brings flair to contemporary music; Julian Lloyd Webber performs his own attractive
arrangements of Vivaldi; plus Rupert Marshall-Luck premieres Stanford’s Violin Concerto No. 2
Charm and virtuosity in Venice
Nicholas Anderson is captivated by this celebration of a golden age
VENICE: The Golden Age
Concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello,
Porta and Tessarini
Xenia Löffler (Baroque oboe);
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/
Georg Kallweit (violin)
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902185
68:42 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
Here, in all its radiant apparel, is
the splendour of Venice’s golden
age, music which evokes pictures
and memories of canals, piazzas
and glorious Palladian architecture.
More specifically it is a celebration
of her illustrious composer, Vivaldi,
with appearances by Alessandro
GETTY
74 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
CONCERTO CHOICE
Marcello, Giovanni Porta, the
violin virtuoso Carlo Tessarini and
the conductor Uri Rom, whose
pasticcio composed in 2013 is based
on pieces by Vivaldi and Tessarini.
This is dedicated to the oboist
Xenia Löffler, who plays a major
role as soloist in six of the eight
The colours and
rhythmic energy of
Venice suffuse this CD
works. Löffler is a fine performer
with a rounded, mellow tone and
remarkable dexterity.
Some of the music will be
unfamiliar to readers. I doubt if
Porta’s Sinfonia for strings, oboe
and bassoon has been previously
recorded, nor an Overture from
Tessarini’s La Stravaganza, Op. 4.
golden notes:
oboist Xenia Löffler
showcases Vivaldi
Another rarity is Vivaldi’s four-
movement Concerto for violin, oboe
and strings, RV Anh.18. Here, as
in the elaborately scored Concerto
which he wrote for the Dresden
court, RV 576, Löffler is partnered
by Georg Kallweit who also leads
the excellent Akademie für Alte
Musik Berlin. Vivaldi’s Concerto
in E minor for strings, with its taut
fugal opening, and a C major Oboe
Concerto, completes a captivating
musical portrait of La Serenissima,
whose distinctive colours and
rhythmic energy suffuse this disc.
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ON THE WEBSITE
Hear extracts from this recording
and the rest of this month’s choices on
the BBC Music Magazine website
www.classical-music.com
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
UNSUK CHIN
Piano Concerto; Cello Concerto;
Su for Sheng and Orchestra
Alban Gerhardt (cello), Wu Wei (sheng),
Sunwook Kim (piano); Seoul Philharmonic
Orchestra/Myung-Whun Chung
DG 481 0971 72:10 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
This disc confirms why Unsuk
Chin is an essential voice in today’s
music. Spanning more than a
decade of creativity, these three
concertos demonstrate her ability to
work within yet transform existing
norms through utterly convincing,
thoroughly mesmerising music.
Though the four-movement Piano
Concerto (1996-97) has resonances
of Chin’s teacher, Ligeti, her voice
is already clear. The opening moto
perpetuo might reflect modern life,
yet humanity reigns supreme in the
final movement’s playfulness, and the
beautiful sustained yet periodically
scintillating textures of ‘Movement II’
are from another world.
With the Cello Concerto (2008-
09) Chin creates a dialectic between
the instrument and the orchestra,
each feeding off and transforming the
other, threatening confrontation only
briefly. Both these works, wonderfully
played by Sunwook Kim and Alban
Gerhardt respectively in partnership
with Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra
under Myung-Whun Chung, and
captured in superb sound, alone
justify the price of the CD.
Yet the final Su for sheng (an
extraordinary mouth organ) and
orchestra steals this remarkable show.
Soloist Wu Wei draws an amazing
range of sounds from this ancient
instrument, from the most delicate
single line, via rich harmonies to
biting rhythmic volleys.
Chin’s achievement is ensuring
this is no musical novelty, but a
riveting and dramatic exploration of
timbre. Indeed, it is hard to think of
a concerto that better reconciles an

orchestra with a non-standard solo
instrument of any tradition from
around the world and with such
satisfying musical results.
Christopher Dingle
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
HAYDN • MOZART
Haydn: Piano Concerto in D,
Hob. XVIII; Mozart: Piano Concerto
No. 9; Rondo in A, K386; ‘Ch’io mi
scordi di te’, K505
Alexandre Tharaud (piano),
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano);
Les Violons du Roy/Bernard Labadie
Warner 2564626268 69:72 mins
BBC Music Direct £11.99
On their own terms, these accounts
of the two concertos, plus the
A major Rondo and the concert
aria (featuring Joyce DiDonato,
who is exquisite in every bar), are
of superlatively high quality. The
like-mindedness displayed by all
participants marks a rare degree of
rapport, with no stylistic discrepancy
in the confrontation of modern piano
with period instruments. Alexandre
Tharaud himself dominates with
comprehensive keyboard mastery,
producing ravishing colouristic
delicacies and exhibiting a nimbleness
and flexibility of phrasing that has
one listening to these much-recorded
works with fresh ears.
Criticism, at this level, will reflect
personal taste – and for my taste
this Mozart lacks muscle. The E flat
Concerto, one of his youthful turning
points, explores innovations of form
and motivic material that can still
take one’s breath away. Whereas
András Schiff, Murray Perahia,
Mitsuko Uchida and (further back)
Rudolf Serkin and Clara Haskil, are
all determined in their different ways
to convey Mozart’s compositional
daring, Tharaud and Bernard
Labadie direct attention toward a
beautifully polished musical surface.
Tharaud’s ingenious cadenzas,
introducing material from other
Mozart works, prove a bit tiresome
on repetition. The Haydn, a dazzling
entertainment, responds brilliantly
to such treatment – yet even here
I found myself hankering, in the
all’ungarese finale, for the rhythmic
bite of a Martha Argerich, Alicia de
Larrocha or (recently, with the same
orchestra and conductor) Marc-André
Hamelin. Max Loppert
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44 (0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
VIVALDI
Concertos for two Cellos, RV 531,
plus various arrs by J Lloyd Webber
Julian & Jiaxin Lloyd Webber (cello);
European Union Chamber Orchestra/
Hans-Peter Hofmann
Naxos 8.573374 62:31 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
A Baroque composer’s stock-in-trade
was to adapt music for particular
resources. Vivaldi was no exception
to this practice, but these adaptations
are not by him but by cellist Julian
Lloyd Webber. Giving much thought
to the propriety of his arrangements,
Lloyd Webber has explored both tonal
and register issues. The results are
convincing – you may be surprised at
how idiomatic these pieces sound in
their freshly conceived colours.
The only work here in its original
scoring is the well-known Concerto
for two cellos and strings, RV 531.
Otherwise, Lloyd Webber has
arranged for two cellos Vivaldi’s
Concerto for two mandolins, RV 532;
for two horns, RV 539; for oboe
and bassoon, RV 545; for cello and
bassoon, RV 409; and a recently
discovered Concerto for violin (or
oboe) and cello, RV 812. Lloyd
Webber’s wife, Jiaxin, plays second
cello; both musicians articulate lightly
and with pleasingly sharp definition.
Their intonation is well-nigh
impeccable and their warmly coloured
timbre a constant delight. Lloyd
Webber ends the programme with his
arrangement of Milonga, from Astor
Piazzolla’s Concerto for Bandoneon
and Guitar. All is sympathetically
complemented by the strings of the
European Union Chamber Orchestra.
Nicholas Anderson
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
THE FIRE THAT
BREAKS FROM THEE
Holst: Walt Whitman Overture;
Stanford: Violin Concerto No. 2;
Milford: Violin Concerto in G minor
Rupert Marshall-Luck (violin); BBC
Concert Orchestra/Owain Arwel Hughes
EM Records EMR CD 023 75:46 mins
BBC Music Direct £15.99
Here’s a curious sales ploy: this
release’s title, prominently displayed
CONCERTO REVIEWS
on the spine and booklet cover, is
a quotation from Gerard Manley REISSUES
Hopkins, which as far as I can see Reviewed by Daniel Jaffé
has nothing to do with any of the
recorded contents. These need no GLAZUNOV
such apology, implied or otherwise Violin Concerto; Concerto Ballata;
– particularly not Robin Milford’s Saxophone Concerto
Violin Concerto, which deserves Tretiakov (violin), Rostropovich (cello),
something much better than its near- Mikhailov (sax); various orchs & conds
Melodiya MEL CD 10 02131 (1964-85)
total obscurity since its completion 55:46 mins
in 1937. At just under 40 minutes BBC Music Direct £12.99
it’s a long work, but not ramblingly Less than immaculate
so: Milford’s idiom has a lean purity tuning by violinist
that’s both likeable and individual, Tretiakov, but top-
plus a flair for long-spun, yet also class playing by
beautifully focused melodic line. All Rostropovich in the
this is conveyed with much loveliness Concerto Ballata, and a perky outing
by Rupert Marshall-Luck’s solo of the Saxophone Concerto.
playing, whose handsome tone (full PERFORMANCE HHHH
but never gross) and laser-like tuning RECORDING HHHH
are remarkable in themselves.
Stanford’s Second Violin RACHMANINOV
Concerto, composed in 1918, Piano Concertos 1-4; Paganini Rhapsody
exists only in short score, expertly Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano), LSO/Previn
orchestrated here by Jeremy Dibble; Decca 478 6443 (1970-71) 158:45 mins
(3 discs: 2 CDs + 1 Blu-ray audio)
it turns out to be an exercise in BBC Music Direct £28.99
post-Brahmsian fulsomeness
that nonetheless finds room for Luscious accounts,
a slow movement of genuine and with Concerto No. 3
particularly dramatic
individual charm. However, Holst’s
and searching, in
early, blatantly Wagnerian Walt
remastered Decca
Whitman Overture is a find for sound. Only the LSO’s flabby
beachcombers only. playing in No. 4 disappoints.
The BBC Concert Orchestra’s PERFORMANCE HHHH
excellent, cleanly played RECORDING HHHHH
accompaniments are complemented
by ultra-clear recorded sound, RACHMANINOV
although Marshall-Luck’s solo violin Piano Concertos Nos 1-4; Rhapsody on
is maybe placed a notch too far a Theme of Paganini
forward. Malcolm Hayes Yeresko, Richter, Donohoe, Petrov,
PERFORMANCE HHHH Dorensky (piano); various orchs & conds
RECORDING HHH Melodiya MEL CD 10 02128 (1959-82)
152:56 mins (3 discs)
BBC Music Direct £25.99
BACKGROUND TO… Variable sound
quality – Richter’s
Unsuk Chin 1959 recording of
born 1961 No. 2 is sometimes
harsh – but generally
Born in Seoul, excellent performances, not least
South Korea, Nikolai Petrov’s masterly Fourth.
Unsuk Chin PERFORMANCE HHHHH
studied with RECORDING HHH
Ligeti in
Hamburg and GREAT PIANO
since 1988 has lived in Berlin. CONCERTOS
Chin’s musical style has been Ravel, Bartók, Rachmaninov, Respighi*
described as modern yet lyrical. & Schmidt**
She won the 2004 Grawemeyer
Klára Würtz, *Sandro Ivo Bartoli, **Ragna
Schirmer (piano); various orchs & conds
Award for Music Composition Berlin Classics 0300561 BC (2003-08)
for her Violin Concerto. Her 149:47 mins (2 discs)
first opera, Alice in Wonderland, BBC Music Direct £14.99
received its premiere at the Fine performances of
opening of the Munich Opera well-loved plus lesser-
known 20th-century
Festival in 2007, and has been
concertos. Schmidt’s
released on DVD. Its sequel, Alice
charming variations
Through the Looking Glass, has on a theme from Beethoven’s Spring
been commissioned by London’s Sonata is an enthralling discovery.
Royal Opera House, and is to be PERFORMANCE HHHH
premiered in the 2018/19 season. RECORDING HHHH
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 75
 OPERA
Gianandrea Noseda conducts a new edition of Borodin’s Prince Igor;
Danielle de Niese is formidable in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale; plus
Ildebrando D’Arcangelo triumphs in his first appearance as Don Giovanni
DiDonato’s star shines brightly
The American mezzo’s qualities exhaust Christopher Cook’s superlatives
STELLA DI NAPOLI:
Bel canto opera arias
Arias by Pacini, Bellini, Carafa,
Rossini, Mercadante, Donizetti,
Bellini, C Valentini, Donizetti
and Pacini
Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano);
Orchestre et Choeur de l’Opéra
National de Lyon/Riccardo Minasi
Erato 256 4636562 72:15 mins
BBC Music Direct £11.99
Christmas comes early with Joyce
DiDonato’s new recording, and
everyone who cares about singing
should promote it immediately to
the top of their letters to Santa.
Creamy, sumptuous, almost
flawless – every adjective may be
a cliché, but how else to describe
singing of this quality? DiDonato
zips through the Finale to Rossini’s
Zelmira, dropping through octaves
Creamy, sumptuous,
flawless – how else to
describe such singing?
without dropping a beat; she
stretches the long limbed legato of
Nelly’s aria ‘Dopo l’oscuro nembo’
in Bellini’s first opera, Adelson e
Salvini until it’s as deliquescent
as spun sugar; and every word of
the recitative to Romeo’s aria in
I Capuletti e i Montecchi is weighed
PARI DUKOVIC, CLIVE BARDA
out and understood.
These are the bel canto
composers, together with
Donizetti, that we know, and who
made Naples the beating heart of
Italian opera at the beginning of
76 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
OPERA CHOICE
bel canto queen:
Joyce DiDonato is
the reigning mezzo
the 19th century. But there were
others who have been relegated
to footnotes, Mercadante, Pacini,
Carafa, all gifted musicians but
often composing in the stylistic
shadow of the mighty three – at
least to judge by the repertoire that
DiDonato and her music director
Riccardo Minasi have chosen.
From their performance you can
readily understand why the final
aria from Mercadante’s La vestale
was much admired in its day; and
if Michele Carafa’s version of The
Bride of Lammermoor marks time
where Donizetti’s Lucia sings,
Carafa also knows how to tug at the
heartstrings with harp and flute.
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ON THE WEBSITE
Hear extracts from this recording
and the rest of this month’s choices on
the BBC Music Magazine website
www.classical-music.com
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
BORODIN
DVD Prince Igor
Ildar Abdrazakov, Oksana Dyka,
Anita Rachvelishvili, Sergey Semishkur,
Mikhail Petrenko, ≤tefan Kocán,
Vladimir Ognovenko, Andrey Popov,
Kiri Deonarine, Barbara Dever;
Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Chorus &
Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda; dir.
Dmitri Tcherniakov (New York, 2014)
DG 073 5146 (DVD); 073 5149 (Blu-ray)
192 + 10 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct (DVD) £22.99
BBC Music Direct (Blu-ray) £24.99
Vaunting claims about its dramatic
superiority, fed into the mouth
of nervous-looking presenter-
bass Eric Owens, set me against
director Dmitri Tcherniakov’s and
conductor Gianandrea Noseda’s
new performing edition of
Borodin’s unfinished operatic epic.
Without the Overture, purportedly
refashioned from memory by
Glazunov after Borodin’s death,
there’s no good tune for 20 minutes,
and balances between medieval ruler
Igor’s home town of Putivl and the
victorious Polovtsian enemy’s exotic
camp are skewed by omitting the
Act III reconstructed by Rimsky-
Korsakov and Glazunov (without
them, there also wouldn’t be much
left of the rest of the opera).
Eventually, though, Tcherniakov’s
vision won me round. After a static
Prologue, the First Act becomes a
hallucination of Igor, wounded in
combat and waking up in a ravishing,
zig-zagged field of thousandfold red
poppies; choreographer Itzik Galili
provides a plausible solution to the
tricky dances but lacks Mikhail
Fokine’s classic flair in matching the
music’s mounting excitement.
Dramatically strongest are the
Act II wranglings back in Putivl:
Mikhail Petrenko as Igor’s rotten
brother-in-law gives the most
rounded performance, while
Gianandrea Noseda brings out all
Rimsky’s woodwind colours, and
the reordering of scenes here makes
dramatic sense. Otherwise it’s big
voices and a lot of stock gestures,
though Anita Rachvelishvili’s
Konchakovna scales down her
second verse and Oksana Dyka’s
handsome, stoic wife touches in her
lament. Ildar Abdrazakov and Sergey
Semishkur make a big, solid father
and son, if too visibly close in years,
and Tcherniakov’s ending, borrowed

from Borodin’s part of the fantasy-
ballet Mlada, gives the orchestra the
last word. David Nice
PERFORMANCE HHHH
PICTURE & SOUND HHHH
EXTRAS HHH
CALDARA
Opera arias from Scipione nelle
Spagne, Scipione Africano, Adriano
in Siria, Demofoonte, Temistocle,
and I disingannati; Cantatas:
Credea Niso; Begl’occhi adorato;
Rotte l’aspre catene
Robin Johannsen (soprano); Academia
Montis Regalis/Alessandro De Marchi
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 88843011692
72:45 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
This daring programme gives us
not just world premiere recordings,
but a deep grasp of Baroque Italian
composer Antonio Caldara’s
artistry. We hear how the composer
commanded grandeur as well as
intimacy, freely mixing idioms
from cantata, concerto and opera.
The performance is nearly as good.
Soprano Robin Johannsen ignites
Caldara’s music, bringing out its
seductive charms through her youth,
confidence, and luminous voice.
Her extemporisations, especially
her leaps up to her top register, are
precocious. Conductor Alessandro
De Marchi gives Johannsen the space
she needs, drawing out caesuras
to let her maximise the impact of
individual words. Crisp and delicate,
his conducting captures the essence
of Caldara’s rococo taste.
De Marchi occasionally misses
cues that Caldara wrote into his
music, most notably in the cantata
Credea Niso. In the score, Caldara
plunges from the overture’s
disciplined French dance forms into
the emotional licence of a lover’s
arioso. We don’t hear this lurch
between forms, partly because De
Marchi rarely ventures into super-
soft dynamics. And while impressive
vocally, Johannsen struggles to
characterise Caldara’s varied
protagonists: shepherdess, heroine,
comic servant. In slower movements
she misses chances to create intimacy,
for instance by using straight tone or
swells on sustained notes.
These faults are easily outweighed
by the disc’s merits, however. We
hear masterpieces for the first time,
splendidly arrayed. Berta Joncus
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44 (0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
bride from hell:
Danielle de Niese steals
the show in Don Pasquale
DONIZETTI
DVD Don Pasquale
Alessandro Corbelli, Danielle de
Niese, Nikolay Borchev, Alek Shrader;
Glyndebourne Chorus; LPO/Enrique
Mazzola; dir. Marianne Clément
(Glyndebourne, 2013)
Opus Arte OA 1134D (DVD);
OABD 7144 (Blu-ray) 128 + 23 mins
BBC Music Direct (DVD) £28.99
BBC Music Direct (Blu-ray) £24.99
A third of the way through this
Glyndebourne production, just when
the marital fur begins to fly, you do
wonder why Donizetti called the
opera Don Pasquale and not Signora
Norina. As the modest convent girl
becomes the bride from hell, Danielle
de Niese (above) gives another of
those highwire performances that
defy critical gravity. Pouting, flirting,
foot-stamping and finger wagging
– what chance has any man? Even
Alessandro Corbelli who’s no slouch
when it comes to buffo upstaging is
muted by comparison. Presumably,
this is director Marianne Clement’s
point, hinted at in one of the extras
on the disc, namely that no man can
resist Norina, not even her ‘brother’
Dr Malatesta and certainly not Alek
Shrader’s Ernesto. (What hope of
happiness for him in married life
when he’s got the girl?)
Indeed the milk of human
kindness has not so much curdled
here as never even flowed. The
chorus is a louche troop of aristocrats
in white from wig to heels who ogle
the spectacle which, like the world
on stage, keeps turning – each
character, apart from the ubiquitous
Dr Malatesta, has a room of their
own on a revolve. And when Norina
slaps Don Pasquale, the lighting
may change to signify a moment
of drama, but hearts are still icy
hard. Remorse is not on the agenda.
Donizetti’s final comedy is as
heartless here as it is cruelly funny.
There are fine performances from
the principals. And some stylish
singing from Corbelli and Nikolay
Borchev as Malatesta, even if he is
more plodding than plotting and a
tad young for the part, and De Niese
tries harder than she needs to. Best of
all is Enrique Mazzola who keeps the
whole thing fizzing in the pit with
the London Philharmonic Orchestra
up for anything. Christopher Cook
PERFORMANCE HHHH
PICTURE & SOUND HHHH
MOZART
DVD Don Giovanni
Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Enrico Iori,
Myrtò Papatanasiu, Marlin Miller,
Carmela Remigio, Andrea Concetti,
Manuela Bisceglie, William Corro; Coro
Lirico Marchigiano Vincenzo Bellini;
Fondazione Orchestra Regionale delle
Marche/Riccardo Frizza; dir. Pier Luigi
Pizzi (Macerata, 2009)
C Major 717408 (DVD); 717504 (Blu-ray)
174 mins
BBC Music Direct (DVD) £34.99
BBC Music Direct (Blu-ray) £34.99
Several years ago I despaired of
ever again seeing a satisfactory
Don Giovanni. What used to be
Mozart’s most unsinkable opera
seemed to have become an endlessly
problematic work, and productions
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
REVIEWS OPERA
set in car parks, housing estates,
on dead horses, just got ever more
depressing. Maybe we can no
longer take promiscuity seriously, as
something to be awesomely punished.
But at last, from the Sferisterio
Opera Festival in Macerata, comes
a performance and production
which are as near perfection as I can
ever hope to experience. The cast is
mainly unknown to me, only bass-
baritone Ildebrando D’Arcangelo,
who plays Giovanni (for the first
time) being familiar. He has just
the right sleazy glamour for the
role, both repellent and irresistible.
The only controversial aspect of
the production is that he seems to
be at least bi-curious, groping the
not unwilling Leporello of Andrea
Concetti whenever there’s not a
woman around.
His victims, or would-be victims,
are extremely strongly played,
with Myrtò Papatanasiu a fiery,
passionate Anna, and the Elvira of
Carmela Remigio displaying just
the right combination of pathos and
irritatingness: the crucial test, the
trio near the start of Act II, is passed
with flying colours, showing the full
cruelty of Giovanni and not sparing
Leporello either.
The setting is sparse, the costumes
18th century. Often the backdrop
parts to show an unmade double bed,
which comes in handy for most of
the characters at one time or another.
Their elaborate clothing doesn’t seem
to impede their imperious desires –
for everyone in this production has
strong urges. The excellent conductor
Riccardo Frizza chooses brisk but
flexible tempos underlining how
driven all the characters are. I can
hardly believe it, but here is a Don
Giovanni that I want to see again as
soon as I can. Michael Tanner
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
PICTURE & SOUND HHHH
77
 REVIEWS OPERA
MUHLY
Two Boys
Alice Coote, Paul Appleby, Jennifer
Zetlan, Caitlin Lynch, Sandra Piques Eddy,
Judith Forst, Christopher Bolduc, Keith
Miller; Metropolitan Opera Chorus &
Orchestra/David Robertson
Nonesuch 541941-2 115 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £25.99
Delving into the shadowy world
of internet chatrooms and sexual
obsession, Nico Muhly’s Two Boys
(with libretto by Craig Lucas) is a bold
blend of contemporary opera and
‘true crime’. Loosely based on actual
events, the work explores a police
investigation into the attempted
murder of a young teenage boy by
the well-meaning youth Brian (Paul
Appleby), led by the suitably hard-
boiled Detective Inspector Anne
Strawson (Alice Coote). Echoing
Britten in the work’s examination
of the twin ravages of isolation and
claustrophobia, Two Boys is otherwise
a resolutely 21st-century musical
drama, exploring the possibilities and
pitfalls of human interaction in the
digital age.
Muhly’s radiant post-minimalistic
score is at its most magical when
capturing the scattered exchanges of
the web in dense, glittering orchestral
textures and chattering, collage-like
choral passages. The writing for solo
BACKGROUND TO…
André Tchaikowsky
(1935-82)
Born into a
Jewish family
in Warsaw, the
Polish composer
and pianist
was originally
named Robert
Andrzej Krauthammer. He was
moved into the Warsaw ghetto
by the Nazis during World War II,
remaining there until in 1942 he
was smuggled out and given
forged papers which identified
him as Andrzej Czajkowski. He
studied some years in Paris under
Lazare Lévy (where he changed
KARL FORSTER, ERIC RICHMOND
the spelling of his assumed name)
before returning to Poland in 1950
to continue his studies both as
pianist and composer. He toured
widely as a pianist, and finally
settled in London in 1960.
78 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
voice is at times less affecting. Yet
the revisions to the work following
its 2011 premiere at ENO see a
richer backstory added to Strawson,
creating a more dramatic mezzo-
soprano role which is here powerfully
brought to life by Coote.
This live recording is mostly
compelling. Occasional audience
responses are heard, notably in
response to the odd sardonic delivery
by Coote, although elsewhere
performers’ swift motion across the
stage has occasionally left recording
levels patchy. And while the opera’s
physical production met with mixed
responses, this CD-release frees the
listener from literal representations
on stage. It seems appropriate that
as a recording the almost cosmic
aesthetic and scale of Muhly’s score
exists in the realm of sound and
imagination alone. Kate Wakeling
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHH
SCHOENBERG
Moses und Aron
Franz Grundheber, Andreas Conrad,
Johanna Winkel, Katharina Persicke,
Elvira Bill, Nora Petrochenko, Jean-Noel
Briend, Friedemann Röhlig, Andreas
Wolf; EuropaChorAkademie; SWR
Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und
Freiburg/Sylvain Cambreling
Hännsler 93.314 (hybrid CD/SACD)
101:10 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £25.99
Composed to his own libretto
between 1930-32, Schoenberg’s
largest 12-tone project, Moses und
Aron, remained unfinished, but
is complete in that it presents an
unresolvable question: how can
transcendental experience be
conveyed to those who have never
experienced it, except via images
which betray the very essence of that
experience? Schoenberg’s Moses, who
communes with God, cannot sing; he
can only utter in a kind of musicalised
speech. His brother Aron, a lyric
tenor, has the task of selling the image
of God to the People embodied in a
series of powerful choruses. The score
is formidably complex and intense
in expression, yet, paradoxically,
full of memorable sonorous images,
from the incandescent Burning Bush
music, via the almost Cecil B DeMille
Dance round the Golden Calf, to
the desolation of the end where the
despairing Moses cries ‘O Word, thou
Word that I lack!’ to a single rearing
and plunging line for the violins.
beautifully written:
Tchaikowsky’s Merchant of
Venice grips throughout
Alas, this latest version will
not quite do. Sylvain Cambreling
captures the sweep of the thing in a
broad-brush way, and he has a decent
Moses in Franz Grundheber and
an enthusiastic chorus; but Andreas
Conrad’s heroic tenor lacks the
seductiveness for a convincing Aron.
The edit, apparently patched together
from performances in four different
venues, tends to fuzziness and shifts
of perspective in which much of
Schoenberg’s teeming orchestral detail
gets lost. Better to return to Michael
Gielen’s version reissued on Brilliant
Classics. Boxy though the 1972
recording may sound, the reading
is fiercely convincing and one hears
almost everything. Bayan Northcott
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING HH
ANDRÉ TCHAIKOWSKY
DVD The Merchant of Venice
Christopher Ainslie, Jason Bridges, Adrian
Eröd, Verena Gunz, Magdalena Anna
Hofmann, Kathryn Lewek, David Stout,
Charles Workman; Vienna Symphony
Orchestra/Erik Nielsen; dir. Keith Warner
(Bregenz, 2013)
EuroArts 2072708 (DVD); 2072704
(Blu-ray) 160+ 50 mins
BBC Music Direct (DVD) £24.99
BBC Music Direct (Blu-ray) £34.99
Emigré Polish pianist-composer
André Tchaikowsky died in 1982,
having lived just long enough to
complete The Merchant of Venice. Its
world premiere staging, at the Bregenz
Festival three decades later, revealed
major strengths in work that was a
personal labour of love for its creator,
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
who was evidently drawn to the
characters of the homosexual Antonio
and his antagonist, Shylock the Jew
(Tchaikowsky himself was both). In
an excellent documentary following
the production’s rehearsal process,
director Keith Warner points out how
the two characters must on some level
be aware of each other as outsiders, as
the composer felt himself to be also.
The score has its share of built-in
problems, relating centrally to the
libretto by John O’Brien, and drawing
directly on the play’s text: there’s an
all-too-insistent sense of composer
and librettist saying to each other ‘We
can’t leave that bit out’. The result
is a three-act design which feels too
long in musical terms, and is not
helped by the excessive wordiness
of blank verse as a medium for
operatic treatment. The fluency of
Tchaikowsky’s post-Bergian, mildly
modernist idiom goes a fair way
towards overcoming this problem,
and his opera does indeed grip the
attention throughout – even if this
surely relates more to Shakespeare’s
enthralling interplay of plot, character
and verse than to the score itself
which, though beautifully written,
doesn’t vary its own pace enough to
match. Then again, the excellence
of the performance has much to say
about its composer’s skill in writing
for voices: countertenor Christopher
Ainslie’s Antonio is outstanding,
Adrian Eröd’s Shylock also, with
Richard Angas contributing a small
but memorable cameo as the Duke
of Venice. Keith Warner’s direction
is incisive and (mostly) no-nonsense;
Ashley Martin-Davis’s set designs
are ingenious and atmospheric; and
the Vienna Symphony Orchestra’s
playing under Erik Nielsen is close to
flawless. Malcolm Hayes
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
PICTURE & SOUND HHHH
EXTRAS HHHHH

DVD WAGNER
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Michael Volle, Roberto Saccà,
Anna Gabler, Peter Sonn, Georg
Zeppenfeld, Monika Bohinec, Markus
Werba; Vienna State Opera Chorus;
Vienna Philharmonic/Daniele Gatti;
dir. Stefan Herheim (Salzburg, 2013)
EuroArts 2072688 (DVD);
2072684 (Blu-ray) 285 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct (DVD) £44.99
BBC Music Direct (Blu-ray) £44.99
This production of Wagner’s great
comedy drew mixed reactions when
it was unveiled at Salzburg last year,
both for the musical and the scenic
direction. In some ways watching
it on DVD or Blu-ray puts us in a
more favourable position; in other
ways we clearly lose. The Grosses
Festspielhaus, where the performances
took place, is enormous, and there
were many complaints that some
of the main singers were hardly
audible. And the stage is huge too,
so that, since many of the scenes in
Meistersinger take place in intimate
surroundings, it is hard to know what
to do with the rest of the acreage.
So far as the voices are concerned,
the home listener is the clear winner.
None of them seems too small, an
accusation made against both the
Eva and the Walther. In fact the close
miking is too much of a good thing.
The Hans Sachs, taken by Michael
Volle, usually a sensitive singer, bawls
almost throughout, and seems both
stentorian and uninterested. He
begins the opera, before the Overture,
by distractedly walking on in his
nightgown and nightcap, going to his
desk and writing at the speed which
only operatic characters can attain.
The opera itself is presented as a
collection of fairy tales, duly earning
boos for the director Stefan Herheim
at the end. In fact this production
of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg,
though often pleasant to look at,
comes across as a complete mess.
The conductor, Daniele Gatti, takes
a relatively lightweight view of the
score. Beckmesser, taken by Markus
Werba, is outstanding: he is a gifted
bureaucrat who mistakes the nature of
his talents. Smart and good-looking,
his is a clever performance. Overall
this is a fairly interesting account,
but by no means the best on DVD.
Michael Tanner
PERFORMANCE HHH
PICTURE & SOUND HHHH
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44(0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
WAGNER
The Ring
Alwyn Mellor, Stefan Vinke,
Greer Grimsley, Stephanie Blythe,
Margaret Jane Wray, Stuart Skelton;
Seattle Opera Chorus and Symphony
Orchestra/Asher Fisch
Avie AV 2313 (14 discs)
BBC Music Direct £99.99
Seattle Opera’s Ring festivals
have become a kind of American
Bayreuth, attracting legions of loyal
supporters – myself included. Their
current production is the only one in
the world to present the cycle in the
kind of natural settings and effects
Wagner specified, a ‘heightened
realism’ achieved by laser-scanning
actual stretches of Seattle’s
surrounding forests and mountains.
But behind apparent literalism
Stephen Wadsworth’s staging
features subtle symbolisms, ‘green’
and feminist themes, and intense
Personenregie (character direction),
enough to shame any modish
German production. The singers
are an established ensemble, many
home-grown; and in 2013, when this
was recorded, new conductor Asher
Fisch brought a vast improvement.
But can it bear comparison
with other recorded Rings? To a
considerable extent it can. It recalls
Reginald Goodall’s live recording,
much less polished than studio
versions but more than compensating
with theatrical immediacy and
committed ensemble. The Seattle
a rare royal turn:
Lawrence Zazzo sings
characterful Handel
Symphony, though, is better: Fisch (in
his second Ring recording) is much
pacier, vibrant and thrilling; and
there are some equally fine singers.
Stefan Vinke’s Siegfried is a tower of
strength, powerful enough to sound
almost at ease in the killer passages,
yet capable of lyrical nuances and
touches of humour. Greer Grimsley’s
grainy baritone isn’t that ingratiating,
but with long experience here he’s a
commanding Wotan, noble, arrogant
and tragic. Richard Paul Fink, another
long-timer, is an equally powerful
Alberich, one of the finest on record.
Stuart Skelton’s dark-toned Siegmund
and Margaret-Jane Wray’s Sieglinde
are also memorable, Stephanie Blythe
an exceptional Fricka and Waltraute,
Mark Schowalter a complex Loge, and
Dennis Peterson’s formidable Mime
sings rather than screeches, almost too
like Siegfried. Daniel Sumegi’s Fafner
and Hagen, Rhinemaidens, Valkyries,
Woodbird and Norns are variable but
generally good, the chorus sturdy.
For the most part Alwyn Mellor’s
Brünnhilde sings with burnished,
vibrant tone and splendid fire and
passion; but the illness which cost
her some performances may explain
some noticeable pitch problems –
Siegfried ’s final note obtrusively flat
– and weak low notes. She manages
Götterdämmerung well, but she and
others suffer from the determinedly
up-front recording, which practically
lands the cast in your lap, and
sometimes the tuba too, favouring
brass over strings. It highlights
every lapse of pitch or tune that
you’d notice far less in the theatre,
and every bang, stamp, yelp and
sinister cackle – and there are plenty.
Sometimes it enhances the thrill of
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
OPERA REVIEWS
live performance, often it overdoes it.
Still, this knocks spots off stodgy
live Rings we’ve had from Germany
lately – Bayreuth included. Seattle’s
fame, though, derives from its
ensemble, its acting and the superb
staging, and a video recording would
have conveyed them far better.
Michael Scott Rohan
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHH
A ROYAL TRIO:
Handel, Bononcini, & Ariosti
Selected Arias
Lawrence Zazzo (countertenor);
La Nuova Musica/David Bates
Harmonia Mundi HMU 807590
(hybrid CD/SACD) 78:05 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
Countertenor Lawrence Zazzo,
conductor David Bates and La
Nuova Musica explore the period
between 1721 and 1727 when the
Royal Academy of Music presented
Handel’s operas alongside those of
Giovanni Bononcini and Attilio
Ariosti at the King’s Theatre,
Haymarket. The fourth personality
at play is the alto castrato Senesino,
whose voice inspired much of their
music. Excepting Giulio Cesare’s ‘Va
tacito’, presented here with a brusque
marcato bass line and a flamboyant
extended cadenza for countertenor
and horn, Zazzo and Bates have
sourced their Handel numbers from
less well-known operas: Flavio,
Admeto, Ottone.
The other composers’ music
is never less than charming,
sometimes little more than that.
Ariosti’s ‘Voi d’un figlio’ (from
Coriolano) is alluring and there’s
a ravishing composite version of
Bononcini’s ‘Cosi stanco Pellegrino’
(from Crispo), in which a chain
of suspensions from two violins is
draped over a silky cello obbligato.
While all three composers wrote
to flatter Senesino’s histrionic
and technical gifts, Handel’s
orchestrations are reliably more
robust. Bates and La Nuova Musica’s
bold dynamic arcs and punchy
articulation catch the ear, while
Zazzo’s firm, fruity voice is applied
characterfully to each number,
whether swashbuckling or seductive,
sounding perhaps too heroic for the
delicate proportions of Bononcini’s
‘Per la gloria d’adoravi’ (from
Griselda). Anna Picard
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
79
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 CHORAL & SONG
Malcolm Martineau introduces rising young singers in rare early Debussy; Bernard Haitink
conducts Haydn’s The Creation magnificently; and Philippe Jaroussky brings sensuality to Vivaldi
Powerful and bold Byrd
Berta Joncus welcomes Masses sung by Westminster Cathedral Choir
BYRD
Mass for five voices; Mass for four
voices; Mass for three voices;
Ave verum corpus
The Choir of Westminster Cathedral/
Martin Baker
Hyperion CDA 68038 71:30 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
This recording joins two great
legacies: Byrd’s Masses and English
Catholic choristers. Although
Catholic choral foundations
championed Byrd’s music from
the late Victorian era, early music
groups and Anglican choristers have
been the chief performers of Byrd
on disc. Martin Baker here boldly
claims Byrd’s three Masses for the
Westminster Cathedral Choir.
82 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
CHORAL & SONG CHOICE
Baker is guided principally by
the emotiveness of Byrd’s settings.
The choir’s declamation is urgent,
especially in first-person address
(‘I look for the resurrection of the
dead’). Baker’s precision matches his
passion: Byrd’s points of imitation
crystallise thanks to phrasing and
nuanced dynamics. The tenderness
of the Agnus Dei movements –
Conductor Martin
Baker’s precision
matches his passion
achieved through reduced textures
with luminous treble soloists – the
conductor’s sensitivity to harmonic
rhythms, and the joint musical
intelligence of the choir and Baker,
make this a benchmark recording.
Producer Adrian Peacock and
engineer David Hinitt earn special
mention. Despite the choir’s
muscle and numbers, this disc’s
dramatic sounds:
Westminster Cathedral
Choir is at home in Byrd
mood is intimate. Peacock and
Hinitt manipulate Westminster
Cathedral’s acoustic to advantage,
making climaxes gloriously
resonant but vocal lines distinct.
The balance between parts is
particularly praiseworthy in the
Mass for Five Voices.
Some Byrd devotees may
object to Baker’s preference
for slow tempos, and his use of
rallentandos to close movements.
But the power of this performance is
undeniable. Forced to sing secretly,
Tudor Catholics would surely
have welcomed the Westminster
Cathedral Choir’s full-throated
expression of faith.
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ON THE WEBSITE
Hear extracts from this recording
and the rest of this month’s choices on
the BBC Music Magazine website
www.classical-music.com
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
DEBUSSY
Le promenoir des deux amants; La
romance d’Ariel; Les elfes; Regret;
Musique; Chanson triste; Les
baisers d’amour; Aimons-nous et
dormons; Souhait; Rêverie; La belle
au bois dormant; Il dort encore etc
Jennifer France (soprano),
Jonathan McGovern (baritone),
Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Hyperion CDA 68016 66:35 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
Volume 3 of Malcolm Martineau’s
Debussy Songs series maintains the
high standards of previous issues. As
with Volume 2, it showcases two rising
young talents, here brightly voiced
soprano Jennifer France and the warm
baritone of Jonathan McGovern,
both of them Kathleen Ferrier Award
winners. France takes the bulk of
the workload, appropriately in a
collection dominated by early songs of
which many were written for soprano
Marie Blanche Vasnier. These
showcase not only France’s affecting
intensity, as in Regret, but also her
agility in stratospheric regions. The
ease with which she suddenly soars in
La romance d’Ariel is utterly sublime,
while the periodic gymnastics of Les
elfes are similarly effortless.
The last of these is one of four
songs, probably from 1882, first
published in Debussy’s 150th
anniversary in 2012. Not always
entirely idiomatic, they are
nonetheless fascinating. The two sung
by McGovern, Chanson triste and
Les baisers d’amour are particularly
captivating, even if the climaxes of
the latter induce an uncharacteristic
hint of strain in his otherwise lively
and engaging voice. His quiet stillness
in the opening song of Le promenoir
des deux amants, the only cycle on
the disc, is spine-tingling, while
Martineau’s colour and touch are, as
ever, the perfect foil for both singers.
Christopher Dingle
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHH

GESUALDO
Sacrarum Cantionum, Book I
Odhecaton; Ensemble Mare Nostrum/
Paolo da Col; Liuwe Tamminga (organ)
Ricercar RIC 343 63:30 mins
BBC Music Direct £15.99
Gesualdo’s two volumes of ‘Sacred
Songs’ published in 1603 are the least
recorded of his works, though it was
hardly necessary for Paolo da Col to
‘search out the sole original copy’ of
the first volume to create his edition,
since all the pieces here have been
edited and available since 1993 when
Jeremy Summerly and the Oxford
Camerata’s recorded their excellent
Naxos CD. What is distinctive
about this new recording is its use
of instruments alongside the voices
– a regular feature of Odhecaton
performances, but amplified here
by the viols of the Ensemble Mare
Nostrum and the organ playing
of Liuwe Tamminga. The stated
justification is that these pieces are
not strictly liturgical (though in fact
some liturgies did allow instruments).
In any case the combined sounds
do lend a certain celebratory air to
works such as Illumina faciem tuam.
In Tribularer si nescierem, though,
the instrumentation drowns out
the words; in Maria Mater gratiae
the texture is ruined by a booming,
unbalanced bass line; and in Dignare
me laudare the sweet, vocal opening
is strangled by the instrumental
clutter. There are good singers but
they hardly get a chance.
Anthony Pryer
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING HH
HAYDN
The Creation
Camilla Tilling (soprano), Mark Padmore
(tenor), Hanno Müller-Brachmann (bass);
Bavarian Radio Symphony Chorus &
Orchestra/Bernard Haitink
BR Klassik 900125 101:17 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £20.99
Bernard Haitink, 85 this year,
has been extending his repertory
to include some of the mightiest
choral classics. While Haydn
symphonies have long formed part
of his repertory, Haitink’s long-
delayed approach to this crowning
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44 (0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
masterpiece – his first Creation was
made in Chicago October 2011
– surely reflects his characteristic
humility in the face of great music.
Recorded last year live in Munich,
this new recording’s greatest strength
is in Haitink’s conducting – its
combination of taut control and
pleasure in collaboration, of long-
range vision and command of detail.
Rhythms are springy; control of
ensemble is at once muscular and
fastidious; broad tempos never
feel slow. Other sets may show a
sharper appreciation of Haydn’s
wit and delight in instrumental
colour: John Eliot Gardiner in
period style, Herbert von Karajan,
Neville Marriner and, with the
same Bavarian forces (and for all his
underlining tendencies), Leonard
Bernstein. It’s the sweep and feeling
for wholeness that compel admiration
here. A pity, therefore, that the
recording itself, wide in dynamic
levelling but denying sufficient
prominence to the (excellent) chorus,
doesn’t fully capture those signature
qualities. And the soloists, particularly
in comparison with those elsewhere,
slightly lack class: the bass verbally
vivid but tonally coarse, the tenor
frequently unsteady, the soprano
free-spirited but apt to squeeze notes.
Still, this is a noble demonstration of
conducting greatness. Max Loppert
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHH
MOULINIÉ
Meslanges pour le Chapelle d’un
Prince; plus works by Boësset, De
Chancy & Louis Constantin
Ensemble Correspondances/
Sébastien Daucé (harpsichord, organ)
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902194 66:10 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
Etienne Moulinié (1600-69), master
of the air de cour, spent most of
his life in the service of Gaston
de France, Duke of Orléans. His
lute songs are perfect gems and
something of their melancholic
delicacy can be heard in the music he
wrote for the Duke’s devout second
wife, Marguerite de Lorraine.
Save for the precision of Ensemble
Correspondance’s French Latin
pronunciation, this recording of
Moulinié’s 1658 collection Mélanges
de sujets chrétiens, litanies et motets
might emanate from an Oxbridge
choir. The voices are chaste, pure and
a few years shy of optimal technical
control. Moulinié’s brief motets,
CHORAL & SONG REVIEWS
many of them under two minutes
duration, display the solo-duet- REISSUES
consort contrasts common to most Reviewed by Nicholas Anderson
European music of this period. It is
the curve of the melodies and the PURCELL
soft timbre of the instrumentation Funeral Sentences; Hail! Bright Cecilia
– low recorders, high viols, organ, Collegium Vocale Gent/
lute – that mark them out as French. Philippe Herreweghe
O bone Jesu appears twice in Sébastien Harmonia Mundi HMG 508462-63
(1998) 140 mins (2 discs)
Daucé’s programme, once with
BBC Music Direct £13.99
voices, once with instruments. A trio
of male voices opens Magi videntes With the solemnly
stellam, trills flicker across the resonant Funeral
repetitions of ‘Ora pro nobis’ in the Sentences for Queen
Litanies de la Vierge, but the standout Mary and the
works, though, are Antoine Boësset’s birthday ode Hail,
Bright Cecilia, Herreweghe seals his
Jesu nostra redemptio and Popule meus
excellent Purcell credentials.
quid fecit tibi. Anna Picard
PERFORMANCE HHHH
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHH
RECORDING HHHHH
JS BACH
Secular Cantatas
RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Musik
Berlin/René Jacobs
Harmonia Mundi HMG 501544-45 (1996)
134:30 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £14.99
VIVALDI Three of Bach’s most
generously scored
Pietà: Sacred works for alto secular cantatas
Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor),
spring to life with
Ensemble Artaserse
Erato 2564625810 77:17 mins
effectively dramatic
treatment by René Jacobs and his
BBC Music Direct £12.99
fine line-up of soloists.
PERFORMANCE HHHH
Philippe Jaroussky here combines
RECORDING HHHH
well-established with less-often heard
sacred pieces. The album opens with GILLES
the motet Clarae stellae, consisting Requiem
of two fast moving arias in which Mellon, Crook, Lamy, Kooy; La Chapelle
the voice often doubles the violins. Royale/Herreweghe
The next motet, Longe mala, umbrae, Harmonia Mundi HMG 501341 (1990)
terrores is really for a higher voice, but 67:47 mins
BBC Music Direct £10.99
Jaroussky has a vocal range that can
comfortably accommodate Vivaldi’s This affecting
often very exacting demands. Filiae Requiem was sung
maestae Jerusalem is an introductory at the composer’s
piece in three movements to a funeral and at
services for Rameau
Miserere: its centrally placed aria with
a gently throbbing accompaniment and Louis XV. Herreweghe reaches
the heart of the piece and of the
is of great beauty and Jaroussky’s
motet Diligam te, Domine.
sensibility serves it well. Vivaldi’s
PERFORMANCE HHHH
G minor setting of the antiphon Salve
RECORDING HHHH
Regina calls for double orchestra.
Here and throughout his recital STROZZI
Jaroussky highlights the sensuous Arias and Cantatas
contours of Vivaldi’s melodies. Emanuela Galli (soprano);
The programme’s focal point La Risonanza/Fabio Bonizzoni
is Vivaldi’s F minor setting of Glossa GCD C81503 (2000) 72:01 mins
the Vespers hymn Stabat Mater. BBC Music Direct £10.99
Jaroussky is always attentive to Cantatas, arias and
textual nuance conveying intimacy a serenata reveal
and tenderness in his beautifully Barbara Strozzi’s love
controlled declamation. The two of bold harmonies
remaining items are the Domine and her colourful
Deus aria in siciliano rhythm with responses to textual imagery.
oboe solo from the celebrated Gloria, Emanuela Galli and La Risonanza
and a C minor Concerto for ripieno realise everything with affection
and stylish assurance.
strings. Ensemble Artaserse provides
PERFORMANCE HHHH
responsive support. Nicholas Anderson
RECORDING HHHH
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHH
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 83

Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch triumphs in Biber; James MacMillan and Gabriel Prokofiev present
new string quartets; while Emma Johnson makes a clarinet arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev
Liberating the Baroque spirit
Paul Riley relishes imaginative playing by Rachel Podger and her band
PERLA BAROCCA:
Early Italian Masterpieces
Works by Fontana, Frescobaldi,
Uccellini, Marini, Castello, Mealli,
Leonarda and Chima
Rachel Podger (violin), Marcin
Świa˛tkiewicz (harpsichord, organ),
Daniele Caminiti (theorbo)
Channel Classics CCS SA 36014
(hybrid CD/SACD) 69:45 mins
BBC Music Direct £15.99
With her new album Perla Barocca
Rachel Podger steps back into the
heady world of the early Italian
Baroque. She mixes solo sonatas
where it’s all about the violin with
sonatas a due that invite a little
contrapuntal discourse from the
continuo bass. In either case,
however, there’s the sense of music
There’s an unfailing
eloquence in all
Rachel Podger does
in possession of a free spirit and keen
to test boundaries both expressive
and virtuosic.
Not all the names will be as
well known as Frescobaldi or
Andrea Gabrieli who provide solo
keyboard context, but the likes of
Uccellini, Castello or Marini are
no longer confined to the footnotes
where they languished for so long.
And Podger also strikes a blow
for 17th-century feminism with
a sonata by the prolific Isabella
RICHARD CANNON
Leonarda who spent most of her
84 years in the Ursuline convent of
Sant’Orsola in Novara.
84 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
CHAMBER
CHAMBER CHOICE
testing boundaries:
violinist Rachel Podger
scales new heights
Predictably there’s an unfailing
eloquence to everything Podger
does, whether scampering over the
strings with irrepressible insouciance,
tracing the airborne curve of a
rhetorical flourish, or tucking in a
discreet yet telling embellishment.
Her continuo team (ringing the
changes between harpsichord organ
and theorbo) are just as infectiously
inventive, and they all save the best –
or at any rate the catchiest – for last,
egging each other on in the whirligig
of pure joy that is the Chiacona by
Antonio Bertali. Perla Barocca? A
pearl of great price indeed!
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ON THE WEBSITE
Hear extracts from this recording
and the rest of this month’s choices on
the BBC Music Magazine website
www.classical-music.com
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
BIBER
Mystery Sonatas
Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch (violin);
Battalia
Ondine ODE 1243-2D 124:56 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
Since the earliest recordings of Biber’s
Rosenkranz or Mystery Sonatas made
during the 1960s, there has been ever-
growing interest in these beautiful
pieces and a wealth of recordings. In
the dedication to his patron, Max
Gandolph, Prince-Archbishop of
Salzburg, Biber explained that the
subject of each Sonata is a section from
the Catholic devotion known as the
Rosary. He arranged the 15 Sonatas,
scored for violin and continuo, into
equal groups of Joyful, Sorrowful and
Glorious Mysteries, and concluded
the cycle with an unaccompanied
Passacaglia which provokes a
meditative coda to the 15 central
events in Christian history. This piece
and the opening sonata of the set are
alone in not requiring scordatura –
that is, retuning of the violin strings
which enables composers to achieve
unconventional sounds as well as
facilitating some fingerings.
Finnish violinist Sirkka-Liisa
Kaakinen-Pilch provides us with
a powerful account of Biber’s
masterpiece, bringing nobility,
exuberance, severity and a strong
contemplative dimension as and
when the music requires. There is
also a lively depictive element which
she realises with vivid but restrained
gestures. The Scourging (No. 7) and
The Crucifixion (No. 10) provide
ample testimony of Kaakinen-Pilch’s
imaginative approach. The continuo
group, provided by Battalia, includes
harpsichord, organ, lutes, guitar and
violone, and their deployment is
thoughtful. Here are performances
which capture south German
Baroque flamboyance on the one
hand and a deeply reflective spirit
on the other. Few readers are likely

to be unresponsive to the Aria with
Variations of Sonata No. 14 or the
Passacaglia. Together they illustrate
both sides of the coin. An outstanding
release. Nicholas Anderson
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
MACMILLAN
Etwas zurückhaltend; Visions of a
November Spring; For Sonny;
String Quartet No. 3
Edinburgh Quartet
Delphian DCD 34088 75:56 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
Frantic, scurrying spurts of energy
contend with altogether more thickly
viscous material in the opening
movement of James MacMillan’s
String Quartet No. 3, premiered in
2008 and here given its first recording.
The effect is almost of parallel
universes, or of slithering, glutinous
primal clay being electrified into
being. At the movement’s apex is an
extraordinarily vertiginous episode
like the clacking of a thousand plague
locusts. It’s brilliantly executed,
as is the whole movement, by the
Edinburgh Quartet players.
The middle movement is, if
anything, even more remarkable,
shredded, sul ponticello motifs,
slashing tutti, and strange, percussive
BACKGROUND TO…
Gabriel
Prokofiev
born 1975
A grandson of
the famous
Russian
composer
Sergei Prokofiev,
Gabriel has already had a notable
impact on the way contemporary
music is perceived through
his organisation of ‘classical
club-nights’ in various London
venues: in these, modernist
and contemporary works
by composers ranging from
Schoenberg to Nico Muhly are
presented informally as if they
were rock or electronic music.
Gabriel himself has written
several concertos, including
a Violin Concerto, 1914, which
was premiered at this year’s
BBC Proms by Daniel Hope.
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44 (0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
thuddings seared against the
impinging silences. Some mitigation
comes in the ‘patiently and painfully
slow’ finale. A sad threnody, its
pained, soaring violin melody
unravels uninterrupted, though
hedged and qualified by anxious
harmonies. The performance has an
intense beauty and concentration
which MacMillan, the Edinburgh
Quartet’s patron, must be thrilled by.
Beside this piercingly vivid, fiercely
autopsical piece, the other main
works here, Etwas zurückhaltend and
Visions of a November Spring, both
inevitably seem more exploratory,
less cogently argued statements. But
for the Third String Quartet alone
this stunningly played CD deserves
investigation. Terry Blain
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
GABRIEL PROKOFIEV
Selected Classical Works 2003-2012
Various performers
Nonclassical NONCLSS 017 77:00 mins
BBC Music Direct £9.99
From classical club nights to DJ’ed
concertos, Gabriel Prokofiev (see
‘Background to’, left) steers a deft
path through the thorny world of
classical fusion. Combining first-rate
classical credentials (not least being
Sergei’s grandson) with a stint as an
acclaimed producer of dance, electro
and hip-hop, Prokofiev is bent on
a mission to reframe and relocate
classical music for the 21st century.
These ‘Selected Works’ showcase
Prokofiev’s endeavours to accomplish
this mission through his Nonclassical
label, and it is with the more daring
musical ‘collisions’ that the disc
blooms. Featured movements of
Concerto for Turntable and Orchestra
pit DJ against ensemble in a spirited
interplay between live and sampled
sound, while Cello Multitracks draws
fruitfully on dance music in its taut
rhythmic construction and overlaying
of nine separately-recorded tracks (all
performed with great eloquence by
Peter Gregson).
Where dance-music structures
are inserted into more conventional
classical forms, as in String Quartets
Nos 1 and 2, the often-insistent
repetition of rhythmic cells feels less
compelling. Yet the extracts from
Piano Book No. 1 for solo piano
are rich in colour and invention,
sharing the harmonic caprice of
Prokofiev (the elder) with a chasmic
CHAMBER REVIEWS
depth reminiscent of Scriabin, and
interpreted with exceptional poise by REISSUES
pianist/collaborator GéNIA.
Reviewed by Helen Wallace
The collection holds tantalising
absences (the Concerto’s outer BEETHOVEN
movements and the String Quartets’ String Quartet No. 13; Grosse Fugue
‘remixes’ included in their original Talich Quartet
releases), so while offering a fine La Dolce Volta LDV 278 (1977) 53:55 mins
introduction, the disc is also an BBC Music Direct £10.99
enticing invitation to delve deeper The sound may not
into Prokofiev’s ‘Nonclassical’ world. be tonally lustrous,
Kate Wakeling but such lively
PERFORMANCE HHHH engagement in the
RECORDING HHHH musical argument
makes for a riveting performance
of Quartet No. 13. Only in the
demanding Grosse Fugue does dusty
tone quality prove a problem.
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING HH
HAYDN
BRAVE NEW WORLD
The Seven Last Words of Christ
Works by Prokofiev, Hindemith, Talich Quartet
Rota, Lutos√awski and Messiaen La Dolce Volta LDV 258 (1995) 59:33 mins
Emma Johnson (clarinet), BBC Music Direct £10.99
John Lenehan (piano)
A luminous,
Champs Hill CHRCD 084 78:46 mins
engrossing
BBC Music Direct £11.99 performance of
On this booklet cover Emma Johnson Haydn’s meditative
stands before us stark in black among epic, somehow
autumn leaves – a fitting enough managing to retain a flow despite
image for this satisfyingly thoughtful rather deliberate tempos. A
recital of music mostly written under shame there is so little recording
the dark shadow of World War information included on this
Two. Sadness even creeps into Nino handsomely produced series.
Rota’s bubbly Sonata in D, and the PERFORMANCE HHHH
heart-breaking slow movement to RECORDING HHHH
Hindemith’s 1939 Sonata lifts the
piece far beyond its expected status as MOZART
a musical roll of wallpaper. Eine kleine Nachtmusik; Adagio and
Prokofiev’s 1942 Flute Sonata Fugue; Three Divertimenti
Talich Quartet
(later reworked for violin) gains a
La Dolce Volta LDV 279 (1977) 53:53 mins
place via Johnson’s own transcription
for clarinet, an instrument
BBC Music Direct £10.99
completely at home in this masterly There’s evident
work’s darker corners and bittersweet
delight and warmth
here, particularly
melodies. Dance Preludes finds in the dancing
Lutos√awski starting to ease himself Divertimenti, but
away from folk music, his safety net much of the playing feels heavy
during Poland’s Stalinist post-war and coarse with some brashsness
years. Then, most movingly, comes marring Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
the clarinet solo ‘Abîme des oiseaux’, PERFORMANCE HHH
from Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin RECORDING HHH
du temps, with birdsong bringing
hope and light to the composer’s SHOSTAKOVICH
prison in Silesia. Messiaen’s Piano Quintet; String Quartet No. 8
early Vocalise-Étude provides the Talich Quartet
programme’s note of farewell. La Dolce Volta LDV 263 (2001) 54:49 mins
BBC Music Direct £10.99
Johnson brings to this varied
repertoire lyrical beauty, excited The control of
the drama in
squawks and many shades in
between. If she makes overall less Shostakovich’s
of an expressive impact than she Eighth Quartet is
should, that’s partly because of some impressive. The same
inbuilt reserve. There’s also the sound is true of the deeply considered and
balance, which gives the edge to John beautifully balanced performance
Lenehan’s piano. Good to hear him, of the Piano Quintet, which brings
unexpected rewards.
as always; but not quite to this extent.
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
Geoff Brown
RECORDING HHHH
PERFORMANCE HHH
RECORDING HHH
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 85
 INSTRUMENTAL
Angela Hewitt gives a moving performance of Bach’s Art of Fugue; Daniel Barenboim tackles
Schubert’s complete piano sonatas; plus a desirable CD set from rising pianist Daniil Trifonov
A new light on Messiaen
Christopher Dingle follows Peter Hill on a voyage of discovery
LA FAUVETTE
PASSERINETTE:
A Messiaen premiere with
birds, landscapes & homages
Works by Messiaen, Ravel,
Stockhausen, Anderson,
Benjamin, Dutilleux, Sculthorpe,
Young, Murail and Takemitsu
Peter Hill (piano)
Delphian DCD 34141 78:56 mins
BBC Music Direct £14.99
A new Messiaen work may be the
focus here, but this would be an
outstanding recital even without
that enticement. La Fauvette
passerinette (The Subalpine Warbler)
was fully sketched in 1961, but
only discovered and subsequently
completed by Peter Hill in 2010.
It is a significant and dramatic
Peter Hill’s poetry and
sense of colour are
stronger than ever
work, having clear resonances with
the Catalogue d’oiseaux, but with
Messiaen clearly going in a different
direction in his treatment of the
birdsong material.
Hill places the new work within
an exceptionally well-crafted
recital in which Messiaen’s music
is a recurrent thread in a span of
resonances, influences and affinities
ranging from Ravel’s ‘Oiseaux
tristes’ to the brief yet perfectly
formed flourish of Julian Anderson’s
Etude. The innate poetry and sense
86 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE
of colour that characterise Hill’s
complete Messiaen piano cycle are,
if anything, even stronger in these
new accounts of ‘La Colombe’ and
‘Le Traquet stapazin’.
As is clear from Hill’s extensive
and eloquent booklet notes,
the pieces are arranged in four
groups, ‘Prelude’, ‘Etude’, ‘Birds
& Landscapes’ and ‘Memorial’.
The ‘Etude’ sequence includes
Stockhausen’s explorations of
sonority in Klavierstücke VII and
VIII and George Benjamin’s highly
imaginative Fantasy on Iambic
a little bird told me…:
Peter Hill includes a new
Messiaen piece in his recital
Rhythm, as well as the Anderson,
and Messiaen’s pugnacious ‘Ile
de feu 1’. Whether in Dutilleux
or Peter Sculthorpe, Murail or
Takemitsu, Hill’s provides a
masterclass in capturing a composer’s
idiom with warmth and humanity.
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ON THE WEBSITE
Hear extracts from this recording
and the rest of this month’s choices on
the BBC Music Magazine website
www.classical-music.com
All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop
HAYDN
Keyboard Sonatas: No. 59 in E flat;
No. 60 in C; No. 61 in D; No. 62 in
E flat; Variations in F minor
Gottlieb Wallisch (piano)
Linn CKD 464 (hybrid CD/SACD)
74:00 mins
BBC Music Direct £15.99
Until quite recently, Haydn’s 52
keyboard sonatas – or 62, according to
a more recent catalogue – were largely
neglected. Today, evidently fascinated
by their inventiveness and diversity,
pianists are queuing up to record
them. In his latest release, comprising
the last four sonatas Haydn composed
together with the great Variations
in F minor, the Viennese pianist
Gottlieb Wallisch bears comparison
with the best of recent recordings by
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Marc-André
Hamelin and Yevgeny Sudbin.
His technique and touch are
immaculate, his tempos are judicious
and, without over-emphasis or
eccentricity, he always phrases
meaningfully – never more so than
in the long, leisurely slow movements
of Sonatas Nos 60 and 62, in which
Haydn’s wayward flights of decoration
are unfailing integrated into the
music’s slow underlying progress.
And his account of the alternatively
plaintive and fanciful, but ultimately
tragic Variations in F minor is the
more powerful for refraining from
over-milking the pathos at the end.
There’s just one caveat about the
recording. The crisp transparent
sound of Wallisch’s model D
Steinway is finely captured up to the
top of the treble stave. Above that,
the notes seem to catch the ambience,
resulting in a pinging resonance
sounding almost like a different
instrument. Some may like this
pearly tintinnabulation, but it does
at times make the textures sound top
heavy. A pity. Bayan Northcott
PERFORMANCE ++++
RECORDING +++

JS BACH
The Art of Fugue
Zhu Xiao-Mei (piano)
Accentus ACC 30308 72:48 mins
BBC Music Direct £12.99
The Art of Fugue
Cédric Pescia (piano)
Aeon AECD 1333 99:16 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £24.99
The Art of Fugue
Angela Hewitt (piano)
Hyperion CDA 67980 89:43 mins (2 discs)
BBC Music Direct £12.99
Zhu Xiao-Mei’s journey through
Bach’s last, unfinished and most
challenging keyboard work
reflects her own extraordinary
range of experience, from virtuoso
Wunderkind in China, through
the labour camps of Mao’s Cultural
Revolution, to European émigrée.
Her performance, exploiting all the
expressive potential, colours and
resonances of a Steinway concert
grand, is by turns robust, sinewy,
muted or airy, as she responds to the
infinite shades and contrasts of what
she calls the ‘zenith of polyphonic art’.
My one caveat is that, at times, she
pumps out the fugue subject rather
forcibly; but, above all, her spiritual
and philosophical insights inspire a
performance of enduring nobility.
Swiss-French pianist Cédric
Pescia is more responsive to period
style, using unequal temperament
(unusually on a piano) to highlight the
chromatic colours of Bach’s palette,
and drawing limpid, transparent
sonorities. His 1901 Steinway’s clean,
dry sound enables even the most
complex counterpoint to be luminous.
Pescia’s account is one of extremes:
exuberant, athletic, dancing canons
give way to reflective, poetic, lingering
fugues. His expansive reading lasts
a generous 99 minutes (over 25
minutes longer than Xiao-Mei),
yet he maintains a sense of line and
architecture until the last, unfinished
fugue floats into eternal silence.
Angela Hewitt’s instrument of
choice is a Fazioli piano, its alert action
well suited to Baroque counterpoint,
UWE NEUMANN
while the variegated colours of its
registers enable her to differentiate the
polyphonic threads with expressive
clarity. The instrument is radiantly
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44 (0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
captured by Hyperion’s engineers;
indeed, for sheer beauty of sound, this
version is unparalleled. Taking her cue
from CPE Bach’s comment that ‘all
the parts are singable’, Hewitt spins
a lyrical cantabile throughout, every
line eloquently voiced and articulated.
Admirable, too, is her ability to make
the music dance with balletic grace.
Pescia and Xiao-Mei intersperse the
fugues with the four canons, which
lend a certain variety and ‘breathing
space’ to the whole. Hewitt prefers to
play the contrapuncti in consecutive
sequence, building a symphonic, if
intensely austere, effect. And while
Pescia and Xiao-Mei break off, mid
fugue, as Bach did, Hewitt closes with
the chorale he supposedly dictated on
his deathbed, ‘Before your throne I
now appear’, which emerges – after a
long silence – like a divine revelation
of the hereafter. Kate Bolton
ZHU XIAO-MEI
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
CÉDRIC PESCIA
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
ANGELA HEWITT
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
RAVEL
Complete solo piano works
Florian Uhlig (piano)
Hänssler CD 93.318 165:54 mins (3 discs)
BBC Music Direct £25.99
Technically, this is playing of the
highest order. Florian Uhlig has
REVIEWS INSTRUMENTAL
luminous bach:
Cédric Pescia excels
in The Art of Fugue
fingers to die for, and one of the
advantages of this is that he has the
confidence to use the sustaining
pedal only when it’s really called for.
Time and again, I was stunned by
the clarity and brilliance of passages
that too often pass in a hopeful mush
and, though I do feel I know these
pieces well, was struck yet again
with admiration for the composer’s
astonishing ear. The killer pieces like
‘Alborada del gracioso’ and La valse
are despatched with tremendous
bravado, while Uhlig’s range of
colours in the three Daphnis excerpts
removed any doubts I might have had
over their piano-worthiness.
So it is with considerable reluctance
that I have to notice a number
of apparently small features that
together do militate quite significantly
against overall enjoyment. First of
all, and most surprisingly in such a
familiar repertoire, there are a few
wrong notes, none of them forced by
technical difficulty – for example, in
the musette section of the ‘Menuet’
in Le tombeau de Couperin three
G major chords that should all be
minor. Equally surprising is the
absence of the important low G sharp
in bar 66 of Jeux d’eau. Then there
are questionable interpretations. In
‘Oiseaux tristes’, surely there’s no
reason to use rubato on the repeat
of the opening bird call? In my
experience, birds just don’t do that!
In the Sonatine, the ‘très lent’ at the
end of the ‘Menuet’ needs to go much
slower, as on Ravel’s own piano roll,
otherwise the whole balance of the
movement suffers. Finally, Uhlig is
rather cavalier in placing crescendos
and accelerandos: sometimes the result
is acceptable, sometimes not. But
pianists should be aware of Ravel’s
complaint that performers tended
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
to start these elements too early,
reducing both energy and surprise.
Roger Nichols
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
SCHUBERT
Complete Piano Sonatas
Daniel Barenboim (piano)
DG 479 2783 351:04 mins (5 discs)
BBC Music Direct £34.99
Schubert has not figured largely in
Daniel Barenboim’s career, either
on concert platform or on disc,
though he has recorded some of the
symphonies, Winterreise twice with
distinguished soloists, and a very
few of the piano works. Now, at the
age of 71, he seems to be making up
for the omission by recording all the
completed sonatas in one go, now
available at a bargain price. He has a
couple of cryptic remarks to make,
quoted in the booklet, but is less
expansive about them than he usually
is about the music he is performing.
The early piano sonatas are
difficult to make consistently
interesting, and not all that many
pianists try, though Wilhelm Kempff
made a memorable recording of all
of them. From the unevenness of the
finished works, and the very large
number of abandoned ones, it is
clear that Schubert had trouble with
organising his material, as he did
in all forms except song, which are
normally quite short and have a text
to give the music form. It was also
true of deciding what the material
should be which was to be developed,
with the formidable examples of
Haydn, Mozart and above all the
terrifying Beethoven before him. The
result tends to be over-ambitious,
with a lot of storming to no particular
purpose. Slow movements and
minuets or scherzos fare best, yet
Barenboim sounds, all too often,
as if he is impatient with them; if
you compare his accounts with, say,
Sviatoslav Richter’s, you can hear how
much more rewarding they can be.
The first two discs make heavy going.
When it comes to the mature
works, however, which account
for exactly half this set, standards
improve dramatically. The D major
Sonata, D850, can often seem too
explosive, but Barenboim gives as
convincing an account of it as I’ve
heard. He is even finer in the Sonata
in G major, the most lyrical of them
all. The gold standard here is again
87
REVIEWS INSTRUMENTAL

Richter, if you have plenty of time. Records’ booklet design, which

REISSUES Barenboim, bringing out its closeness features ants scuttling over selected
Reviewed by Paul Riley to the first movement of Beethoven’s pages: one more quirk in a CD likely
Fourth Concerto, is straightforward to interest the adventurous, but fully
JS BACH and plays with gorgeous tone. satisfy not very many. Geoff Brown
Works for organ In the last three sonatas, one PERFORMANCE HHH
Harry Grodberg (organ) of music’s greatest peaks, he gives RECORDING HHH
Melodyia MEL CD 10 02132 (1970-83) compelling accounts of the C minor
TRIFONOV LIVE
62:10 mins Chopin: Rondo à la mazur; Grande
BBC Music Direct £12.99
and A major works, but indulges in
a certain amount of unspontaneous- valse brillante, Op. 18; Etude
Recorded in two sounding displacement of accents in F, Op. 10/8; Andante spianato
concert halls and exaggerated slowings up in the & grande polonaise brillante;
wreathed in a Mazurkas Op. 56 Nos 1-3; Sonata
B flat Sonata, music to be lived with
somewhat forensic No. 3 in B minor • The Carnegie
for a lifetime. There is noble music- Recital: Scriabin: Piano Sonata
acoustic, this survey
of ‘Iron Curtain’ Bach emerges as making here, but it is less consistent No. 2 (Sonata-Fantasy); Liszt: Piano
regimented and well-drilled as a than we expect from this great artist. Sonata in B minor; Chopin: 24
Moscow May Day parade. Michael Tanner DVD THOMAS TROTTER: Preludes; Medtner: Skazki, Op. 26/2
PERFORMANCE HHH PERFORMANCE HHH A Shropshire Idyll Daniil Trifonov (piano)
RECORDING HHH RECORDING HHHHH DG 479 3795 145:15 mins (2 discs)
Works by Handel (arr. Trotter),
Boyce, Walton, Wesley and Nyman www.deutschegrammophon.com
JS BACH • PACHELBEL Thomas Trotter (organ)
JS Bach: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080; Regent REGDVD 002 (CD plus DVD) Daniil Trifonov’s zoom to fame,
Komm Süsser Tod, BWV 478; 147:19 mins (2 discs) underpinned by three major
Pachelbel: Canon in D; Chaconne in F; BBC Music Direct £28.99 competition prizes in 2010-11,
Choral preludes; Chaconne in D might look almost too impressive for
Barbara Harbach (organ)
Even by the musty standards of too comfort – but it seems to be justified.
MSR Classics MS 1442 (1983/90)
148:53 mins (2 discs) THE many organ films – truly creative Aged only 23, his trademarks include
BBC Music Direct £15.99 TRANSCENDENTALIST examples show it doesn’t have to an extraordinary, inspired intensity
There’s something Works by Scriabin, Cage, be the way – this is something of mingled with a veritable flood of
a touch dogged Wollschleger and Feldman a curate’s egg. Its raison d’ être is to insight and imagination. These two
about Harbach’s Ivan Ilić (piano) mark the 250th anniversary of the CDs, first issued separately, were
take on Bach’s fugal Heresy Records HERESY 015 64:08 mins renowned organ of St Laurence’s recorded respectively live at La Fenice
‘magnum opus’, but, BBC Music Direct £12.99 Church in Ludlow, based on a in Venice in 2011 and at Trifonov’s
on a more rewarding instrument, 1764 instrument by the famous Carnegie Hall recital debut in
the Pachelbel softens the frown Some months ago, David Swiss builder John Snetzler, and the February 2013.
with a compelling selection of Greilsammer startlingly juxtaposed programme ranges widely across The Fenice concert presents
chorale preludes. John Cage and Domenico Scarlatti English musical history to evoke fine playing throughout, from the
PERFORMANCE HHH in a CD piano recital (on Sony), styles going back to the mid-18th charm of the Rondo to the melodic
RECORDING HHH forcing us to listen to both with new century and earlier. The best thing outpourings and high drama of the
ears. Here Serbian-American Ivan about this enterprise is the brilliant Sonata; but the sound quality is rather
FERRINI Ilić presents Cage (before his ‘chance musicianship of Thomas Trotter, dry and loud passages sometimes
Various works for harpsichord music’ phase) rubbing against the who is captured playing the whole become surprisingly clangorous. The
Roberto Loreggian (harpsichord, spinet) limpid chromatics of Scriabin, programme from memory (on film at Carnegie recital, though, is another
Tactus TB 600602 (1997) 60:20 mins a composer closer to home. The least – the recital is also presented on story: here Trifonov’s levels of energy
BBC Music Direct £9.99
jostling doesn’t bring the same result, a separately recorded CD). and inspiration would probably be
Illuminatingly as all these pieces drift along in a In an effort to justify the DVD’s enough to fuel at least two usual
programmed and transcendental vein, the sustaining title, A Shropshire Idyll, each track is pianists. His sensitivity to atmosphere,
invigoratingly played pedal regularly pressed, and with no prefaced with stanzas from the poetry voicing and fleeting textures allows
this disc champions firm edges. of AE Housman. None of the works Scriabin’s Sonata No. 2 to burst into
an unjustly neglected
For those susceptible, bodies and on the programme has a Shropshire colourful and fantastical flame; the
17th-century Roman composer of
immense flair and imagination.
souls might be uplifted the furthest connection, yet the booklet includes Liszt B minor Sonata progresses
PERFORMANCE HHHH
in the 22 minutes of Palais de Mari an interesting note pointing up like a great novel unfurling, with
RECORDING HHHHH
by Cage’s friend Morton Feldman parallels between the two great an unerring pace to the drama; and
– a late rotating sound sculpture Worcestershire-born contemporaries, the Chopin Preludes are filled with
PARADISI of scrunched chords and dangling Elgar and Housman. Trotter’s limitless magical detail. One could
Sonatas Nos 1-12
gestures, and the most abstract piece performance of the Elgar Sonata is pick out the marvellously long lines
Enrico Baiano (harpsichord) on the disc. Ilić’s subtlety of touch tautly argued and excitingly paced. in the E minor or the A flat major
Glossa GCD C80011 (1995) 77:36 mins comes into its own here, though he’s Though most of the camera shots preludes; the pointillist fingerwork
BBC Music Direct £11.99 also impressive in the limpid flow of are mundane, in the elegiac third in the D major and C sharp minor;
Paradisi (who died Scriabin’s Op. 16 No. 1, first of the movement the film dwells movingly his rapt, mysterious pedal effects,
in the same year five Preludes included. on Housman’s grave at St Laurence’s. an artform in itself. Every piece has
as Mozart) stands The one contemporary novelty is The rest of the programme, though a defined soundworld; nothing is
revealed as a pan- last year’s Music Without Metaphor bitty and not always musically repetitive; each feels lit from within,
European, one by the American Scott Wollschleger, rewarding, is buoyantly played. One as if improvised on the spot. This is a
moment recalling an Iberian CPE which mulls over repeated patterns unexpected highlight is Nyman’s treat and a half. Jessica Duchen
Bach, the next courting Couperin. and seems capable of lasting forever. Fourths, Mostly. It’s a hypnotic etude CHOPIN
A sonorously rounded instrument Happily it doesn’t, though little with a jazzily syncopated climax – no PERFORMANCE HHHH
underpins Baiano’s vibrant playing. relief is offered by the harmonics idyll, Shropshire or otherwise, it shows RECORDING HHH
PERFORMANCE HHHH of its bedfellow, Scriabin’s Rêverie, all Trotter’s virtuosity. John Allison CARNEGIE
RECORDING HHHHH sounding particularly cheesy in PERFORMANCE HHHH PERFORMANCE HHHHH
context. Another curiosity is Heresy PICTURE & SOUND HHH RECORDING HHHHH

88 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E All discs can be ordered from www.classical-music.com/shop

 LEGENDS IN FULL BLOOM

LEONARD BERNSTEIN, CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH,

SEIJI OZAWA, TAMAS VASARY,
NARCISCO YEPES,PINCHAS ZUKERMAN
and many more

After 30 years, the legendary Deutsche Grammophon quadrophonic recordings are finally released in premium
multichannel quality in PENTATONE‘s REMASTERED CLASSICS series. True legends in full acoustic bloom.

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Order online at www.pentatonemusic.com

GREAT CHORAL
MASTERPIECES

HANDEL’S
MESSIAH
Conducted by Richard Egarr
SCO Chorus
27 – 29 November
Edinburgh Usher Hall, Glasgow City Halls
and Aberdeen Music Hall

SCOTTISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

www.sco.org.uk
Swiss movement, English heart

Made in Switzerland / Modified ETA 2836-2 automatic movement with Big Day-Date
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Italian leather strap with Bader deployment

EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE AT christopherward.co.uk

 BRIEF NOTES
Your quick listening guide to more new releases, including horn concertos by
Richard and Franz Strauss, violin sonatas by Fauré, and improvised Grieg
Beethoven Diabelli Variations
Christina Bjørkøe (piano)
Danacord DACOCD 747 £15.99
Stylish, tonally
sensitive, highly
individual playing from
gifted Danish virtuoso
Christina Bjørkøe,
who finds a Schumannesque poetic
intimacy in this piece. (JH) +++++
Brahms Serenade No. 1
Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht
Orchestra of the Swan/Woods;
Ensemble Epomeo and friends
Somm SOMMCD 1039 £12.99
Expert, deeply
committed live
performances,
especially valuable
for including Alan
Boustead’s 1980s reconstruction of
Brahms’s original chamber version of
his First Serenade. (JH) ++++
Dallapiccola Three Questions
with Two Answers; Due Pezzi etc
Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie
Rheinland-Pfalz/Karl-Heinz Steffens
Capriccio C5214 £12.99
An enjoyable orchestral
survey of Dallapiccola’s
sun-drenched
modernism spanning
four decades, with
lovely delicate playing, especially in
the first of the Due Pezzi. (TB) ++++
Debussy La mer; Images; Prélude
à l’après-midi d’un faune
Singapore Symphony/Lan Shui
BIS BIS-1837 £12.99
A stylish approach to
Debussy that leaps
out of the speakers in
surround. The Images
could dance more, but
the (previously released) La mer is
superb. (TB) ++++
Debussy Rhapsodies; Images;
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Soloists; Stuttgart Radio Symphony
Orchestra/Heinz Holliger
Hänssler CD 93.315 £12.99
A rogue C flat near
the start of the
Clarinet Rhapsody is
the only flaw in these
vivid, characterful
EMILIE MILLE
performances, ranging from Spanish
élan to an ecstatically langourous
Faun. (RN) +++++
To order CDs call BBC Music Direct +44 (0)1322 297 515; prices include P&P
Debussy Piano works including
Hommage à Haydn, La plus que
lente & Ballade
Michael Korstick (piano)
Hänssler CD 93.319 £12.99
Korstick is equally at
his considerable best
in the dreamy ‘Cloches
à travers les feuilles’
and in the populist ‘La
plus que lente’. Elsewhere he doesn’t
always obey Debussy’s explicit
instructions. (RN) ++++
Fauré Sonatas Nos 1 & 2 plus
other violin & piano works
Le Sage (piano), Kashimoto (violin)
Alpha 604 £15.99
Kashimoto’s sweet,
tender tone suits this
music perfectly, and
he’s also well equipped
for the more strenuous
moments. Le Sage provides strong
rhythmic backing. A thoroughly
desirable disc. (RN) +++++
Gregson Aztec Dances; Horn
Concerto; Concerto for Orchestra
Boustany (flute); Watkins (horn);
BBC Philharmonic/Bramwell Tovey
Chandos CHAN10822 £12.99
Disc four in a series
of Gregson’s flinty,
sharply imagined music
includes excellent
solo work in the two
concertos, and gritty ensemble
playing in the Concerto for Orchestra.
(TB) ++++
Schubert Valses nobles et
sentimentales
Guillaume Coppola (piano)
Eloquentia EL 1445 £14.99
Coppola reveals the
limpid simplicity that
lies at the heart of
Schubert’s dance music
with a magical touch,
bringing enchantment to every page.
(JH) +++++
Schumann Cello Concerto;
Symphony No. 4
Shevlin (cello); WDR
Sinfonieorchester Köln/Holliger
Audite 97.679 £14.99
These are light and
airy performances,
with Oren Shevlin a
poignant and intensely
lyrical soloist in the
Cello Concerto, while Holliger’s
pacing of the Fourth Symphony feels
entirely natural. (CD) ++++
Strauss, Franz & Richard
Horn concertos
Samuel Seidenberg (horn); Frankfurt
Radio Symphony/Sebastian Weigle
‘magical touch’: Pan Classics PC 10312 £14.99
French pianist Enormously
Guillaume Coppola accomplished, highly
polished playing from
Samuel Seidenberg,
Grieg Holberg Variations who bestrides Strauss
Skomsvoll Holberg Variations – father-and-son’s virtuoso demands
Recomprimprovariations with effortless poise and tonal
1B1/Jan Bjøranger; Christian Ihle refulgence. (JH) ++++
Hadland, Erlend Skomsvoll (piano)
Simax PSC1332 £14.99 Accordion Sensations Weber:
Three Holbergs: the Konzertstück in F minor;
familiar string version, Piazzolla: Tango Sensations;
the original on piano, Zoltariev: Sonata No. 2 etc
and an ‘arrangement’ Paul Chamberlain (accordion);
featuring Norwegian Maxwell String Quartet; Feargus
jazz pianist Erlend Skomsvoll, who Hetherington (violin)
riffs on the work’s themes and Pentland Music CD02 (Available
moods with uneven consequences. from www.theaccordionist.com)
(TB) +++ Crossover? No – this
disc of pieces by Weber,
Mendelssohn Symphonies Scarlatti, Piazzolla and
Nos 1 & 3 Zoltariev shows Paul
Netherlands Symphony/De Vriend Chamberlain to be an
Challenge CC72641 £18.99 excellent musician first and foremost,
These are respectable then an accordionist. Slightly
performances, but aggressive sound. (TB) ++++
no more than that.
Tempos for the outer Julian Bliss Includes works by
movements are on the Debussy, Glinka and Prokofiev
slow side, and at times both brass Julian Bliss (clarinet),
and timpani are too loud. (RN) +++ Bradley Moore (piano)
Signum Classics SIGCD384 £12.99
Rachmaninov The Isle of the Even in hyperactive
Dead; Symphonic Dances or assertive passages
Miskolc Symphony Orchestra/Kovács the young English
Hungaroton HCD 32737 £14.99 clarinettist Julian Bliss
Serviceable rather than retains a caressing,
gripping performances soft-toned quality which is very
of these Rachmaninov more-ish. Poise, agility and alertness
favourites, with both permeate these winning, infectious
The Isle of the Dead performances. (TB) ++++
and the Symphonic Dances needing Critics: Terry Blain (TB), Christopher
much more nuance and clearer Dingle (CD), Julian Haylock (JH),
direction. (CD) ++ Roger Nichols (RN)
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 91
 JAZZ
A Charles Mingus box-set surveys his 1956-60 recordings; a big band
partnership with John Surman; plus jazz fusion pioneers Weather Report
JAZZ CHOICE
Back to bass
Garry Booth enjoys the wide-reaching output
of famous double bassist Charles Mingus
a master at work:
bass player and band
leader Charles Mingus
some way towards explaining his
music’s appeal, through extracts
from some of his most acclaimed
work, including Pithecanthropus
Erectus, Tijuana Moods and Mingus
Ah Um. The late 1950s saw Mingus
CHARLES MINGUS at the height of his creative powers,
redefining the art of collective
Mingus Moods
improvisation with a changing jazz
Charles Mingus (bass), Eric Dolphy
(sax), Dannie Richmond (drums) etc ‘workshop’ that included guest
Properbox 188 319 mins (4 discs) soloists such as alto saxists Jackie
BBC Music Direct £19.99 McLean and Eric Dolphy, backed
by regular sidemen he pressed into
Few artists made such an impact long-term service. The range of the
on modern jazz or left such an musicians involved, who revelled
enduring legacy as the mad, bad and in exhilarating clangour, heartfelt
dangerous to know double bassist agitprop, delicious blues and lazily
Charles Mingus. It speaks volumes swinging Ellingtonia, was unique.
that, 35 years after his death, the Joop Visser’s liner notes help put
Charles Mingus Big Band continues this extraordinary music in context.
to sell out at clubs around the PERFORMANCE HHHHH
world. This four-CD box set goes RECORDING HHHH
Hear an excerpt of this recording at www.classical-music.com
GETTY
96 02 9 2 B B BC BM
C UMS U
I CS IM
C AM
GAAGZ AI N
ZEINE
JOHN SURMAN •
BERGEN BIG BAND
Another Sky
John Surman (sax), Bergen Big Band etc
Grappa GRCD4459 60 mins
BBC Music Direct £13.99
Those of my generation probably first
heard this remarkable musician in
big-band contexts, notably the Mike
Westbrook Concert Band, studded
with future stars. Despite many other
projects with various-sized groups,
Surman has never lost his taste for
working with large bands, and has
been associated with the Bergen Big
Band (BBB) for two decades.
With Another Sky he has created
a superbly cohesive programme,
occasionally using material from his
past but transformed to showcase the
splendid sound and ensemble playing
of the BBB. All the compositions (bar
Thelonious Monk’s ‘Ruby My Dear’)
and all the arrangements are his.
And they all exploit the ensemble’s
warm textures and full sound while
providing opportunities to showcase
the excellent soloists, not least Surman
himself. This release forms part of the
celebrations marking Surman’s 70th
birthday year, and proves he is still as
vibrant as when he burst on the scene
in the late 1960s. Barry Witherden
PERFORMANCE HHHH
RECORDING HHHH
WEATHER REPORT
Forecast: Tomorrow
Wayne Shorter (sax), Joe Zawinul
(keyboards), Jaco Pastorius (bass) etc
Sony 88875006192 225 mins + DVD
(4 discs)
BBC Music Direct £24.99
There’s not exactly a shortage of
available Weather Report material,
with two sets of complete CBS albums
having been issued in 2012 and 2013
and assorted live dates being released
on both CD and DVD by the Art
of Groove label. There’s still a place
for a collection like this, though, as
a relatively compact overview makes
for a useful self-contained listening
experience. This package is much
more of a representative sampling than
a ‘greatest hits’ collection, although
there are enough of the latter to act
as route markers and the inclusion of
a few early Zawinul and Shorter solo
and sideman tracks is an astute move.
The concert DVD is ‘unsurprsingly’
excellent. The 100-page hardback
book, that doubles as a library box
for the discs, is nicely produced,
although both text and photography
are a bit bland. The recorded sound,
presumably derived from earlier
remasterings, can’t be faulted.
Roger Thomas
PERFORMANCE HHHHH
RECORDING HHHHH
MEDESKI • SCOFIELD •
MARTIN • WOOD
Juice
John Medeski (keyboards), John Scofield
(guitar), Billy Martin (drums) etc
Okeh 88875005012 64 mins
BBC Music Direct £15.99
Over the last couple of decades
keyboardist John Medeski, drummer
Billy Martin and bassist Chris Wood
(known as Medeski, Martin &
Wood) have kept their jazz options
open wide. On one hand they have
been at the forefront of experimental,
often challenging, electronic jazz,
with artists like guitarist Nels Cline.
But they have also kept a foot firmly
on the jazz dancefloor with catchy
releases. This latest collaboration,
with guitarist John Scofield falls
firmly into the second category.
The infectious opener ‘Sham Time’,
an Eddie Harris classic, gives way
to a mixture of cover versions and
the band’s own compositions. The
latinesque ‘Juicy Lucy’ takes its piano
style from trumpeter Hugh Masekela,
before introducing Wurlitzer-style
organ. By keeping clear of MM&W’s
trademark electronic beats, Martin
gets a chance to have free range on
drums; from jazz-rock to gentle
brushes. Former Miles Davis sideman,
Scofield delivers accomplished solos
throughout. Neil McKim
HHHHH
PERFORMANCE
RECORDING HHHHH

JAZZ STARTER COLLECTION
No. 173 Lee Wiley
Geoffrey Smith, presenter of Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz, on
the career of an alluring and laid-back vocalist
How you felt
about Lee Wiley
may have been
partly a question
of gender. A
willowy charmer
with a touch of Indian blood, she
arrived in New York from
Oklahoma in 1930 to launch her
singing career, and set male hearts
a-flutter. Key players in the music
business vied for her attentions.
One lover, clarinet king Artie Shaw,
described her as ‘beautiful, funny
and very hip… a good singer (with
a) great sense of what worked’.
Her liaison with trumpet ace
Bunny Berigan produced stellar
recordings and the fury of
Berigan’s wife, to whom Wiley was
‘that snake eyes’.
But her voice could prove as
irresistible as her looks. Wiley’s
sultry, smoky delivery seemed the
vocal equivalent of her physical
allure. She combined an easy
elegance with a natural feeling
for melody and swing. Her jazz
style was an engaging mix of
sophistication, wit and musicality,
a perfect fit for the café society
that embraced her as one of their
own. Though featured with big
bands, she was at her best in the
kind of airy, intuitive settings that
brought her landmark success
from 1939, when she became
JAZZ REVIEWS
spellbinding:
Lee Wiley sings at
New York’s Park Lane
Hotel in 1939
the first singer to record albums
devoted to individual composers.
Wiley’s pioneering songbooks
of the Gershwins, Cole Porter,
Rodgers & Hart and Harold Arlen
were an ideal showcase for her
distinctive appeal – casual but
knowing, supported by laid-back
combos led by the likes of Bunny
Berigan, with a special line in
come-hither ballads, just for you.
A Retrospective compilation
gives a generous sampling of the
Wiley effect, with well-selected
tracks both from her songbooks
and what may be her masterpiece,
1950’s Night in Manhattan, an
album of metropolitan dreams
unforgettably evoked with strings,
piano and Bobby Hackett’s cornet.
Not long before her death in
1967, she could still hold a roomful
of admirers spellbound at New
York’s fabled Algonquin Hotel, not
just by singing but with her regal
presence, inspiring a flurry for the
privilege of lighting her cigarette.
Geoffrey Smith’s essential guide to
jazz, the ‘100 Jazz Legends’ iPad app,
is available on iTunes for £4.99
CD CHOICE
Any Time, Any
Day, Anywhere
Retrospective
RTR 4147
£9.99
 BOOKS
A new study of how Indian music inspired Gustav Holst and
John Foulds; plus a celebratory volume in honour of David Matthews
demonstrates the British composer’s verbal and musical eloquence
Britain’s Passage to India
Raymond Head welcomes a history of a cultural cross-fertilisation
RESONANCES OF
THE RAJ: India in
the English Musical
Imagination, 1897-1947
Nalini Ghuman
Oxford University Press
ISBN 978-0-19-931489-8 345pp
BBC Music Direct £32.99
Indian music received a significant
boost among Western musicians in
late 1960s with the Beatles, John
Coltrane and Ravi Shankar, Yet
British interest began even earlier, at
least as far back as the 18th century
when East India merchants resided
in India. However, it was not until
the late 19th century that Indian
music was first heard in the UK,
often at international exhibitions
Holst’s interest in
Indian music was
subtle and profound
in London or Glasgow. In this
exhaustive book, which begins in
Queen Victoria’s jubilee year, Nalini
Ghuman examines the musical
ramifications of the intertwined
and overlapping histories of Britain
and India in the last 50 years of the
Raj. Many of the people involved,
like Maud Mann (later Maud
MacCarthy, wife of the composer
John Foulds), will be very unfamiliar
to most people; yet her importance
in bringing Indian music to the
UK was without parallel, not least
on the young Gustav Holst whose
94 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
BOOKS CHOICE
interest in Indian music was subtle
and profoundly influential on his
developing style. I am not sure that
I agree with all Ghuman says about
‘Indian’ influence on The Planets,
but it is interesting.
India existed in the imagination
too. The author goes into
the fascinating story of Amy
Woodforde-Finden’s Indian Love
Lyrics which became the most
successful of all the ‘Indian’ inspired
works. Its very exoticism and
sexual ambiguity made them very
alluring to an audience wanting to
eastern promise:
India seemed exotic and
alluring to Edwardians
free themselves from the decorum
of Edwardian England. There are
illuminating chapters on Elgar’s
Crown of India Suite (1911), the
enigmatic Parsi composer Kaikhosru
Sorabji and the prodigiously gifted
John Foulds. Sorabji and Foulds
had nothing but contempt for
Finden’s brand of exoticism. Their
investigations into Indian music
were deeply personal and in Foulds’s
case actually took place while living
in India itself. This pioneering book
on a new subject is to be highly
recommended. HHHH
DAVID MATTHEWS:
Essays, Tributes and Criticism
Ed. Thomas Hyde
Plumbago ISBN 978-0-9566007-6-9 320pp
BBC Music Direct £45
David Matthews started early. As
a schoolboy he, together with his
brother Colin, assisted Deryck Cooke
in preparing the first performing
edition of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony.
He then (followed by Colin) worked
as Britten’s assistant, and became an
admirer of Tippett. Matthews shares
with both Britten and Tippett not
only a mastery of instrumental and
orchestral colour, but also a similar
concern with melody, admiration
of vernacular music, and genuine
rhythmic energy, particularly as
manifested in dance. All this is
explained by Matthews himself in this
volume, published now but apparently
intended to celebrate his 70th birthday
last year: several of his own writings
are featured – including reviews of
Britten biographies and Alex Ross’s
The Rest is Noise, and intriguing and
sometimes amusing memoirs of his
visits to communist Czechoslovakia.
Striking insights include Matthews’s
observation that so much fast
movement in contemporary music
‘is merely rapid motion without any
involvement of physical energy’,
reflecting, he suggests, our typical
experience of speed ‘as passengers
in cars, trains or planes, observing
the landscape speeding by while we
ourselves remain still’.
The unpretentious clarity of
Matthews’s writing is thrown into
relief by (more essay-like) ‘criticisms’
from such insightful writers as Arnold
Whittall, Hugh Wood and Edward
Venn: though including moments
of precise and lucid prose (Wood
especially), their detailed analyses of
various works by Matthews require
relevant scores at hand, and probably
only the composer’s most devoted
admirers would persevere beyond the
introductory comments. For other
readers, there is compensation in the
trenchant observations of Geraint
Lewis (putting ‘a famously pretentious
newspaper writer’ in his place), and
in vivid memoirs about Matthews
and his crucial visits to Australia
by friend and former teacher Peter
Sculthorpe. The collection ends
whimsically with each of Matthews’s
seven Symphonies matched to a fine
wine. Daniel Jaffé HHHH
 PARSIFAL
WAGNER
Royal Opera House
Wagner’s last opera
Parsifal is a work of
intense humanity. The
cast includes Simon
O'Neill, René Pape, Gerald
Finley and Angela Denoke.
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 AUDIO ROUND-UP
Every issue, our audio expert Michael Brook takes a look at the best new audio
and video equipment to help you get the most out of recorded classical music

DAB/FM PORTABLE RADIO

CHOICE Ruark R1 Mk III
high flyer: £199.99
the AK240 stores 3,000 Ruark’s R1 digital radio set
high-definition tracks a benchmark for portable
music, and its third generation
claims to be the best yet. With
a modest design makeover,
the Ruark R1 Mk III has the
added bonus of Bluetooth
wireless audio streaming.
The previous DAB and
FM-only models felt limited – although they could be
connected via a wired connection to an MP3 player or
smartphone, they weren’t Bluetooth compatible.
So the Mk III seems ideal for use on a bedside table or for
a kitchen, its ample 9W speaker delivering a wide frequency
range for its small size. And, happily, its ‘RotoDial’ controller
has been redesigned, making it easier to tune between radio
stations. But the main attraction is the addition of Bluetooth,
which means you can enjoy your whole music library
wherever you are in the home. ruarkaudio.com
HHHHH

PORTABLE BLUETOOTH AND NFC SPEAKER

Cambridge Audio Minx Go V2 £120

HIGH-END HD AUDIO PLAYER of course, so deliciously old-fashioned
The Minx Go has been a favourite of mine for a while, the
Astell & Kern AK240 that many of us will already have a
original version being perfect for outdoor listening. And now
collection of hi-resolution audio files
£2,200 on our home computers. If that’s the
Cambridge Audio has added high-quality Bluetooth (aptX)
and NFC (Near Field Communication) wireless technologies
Astell & Kern is a little-known brand case (and provided your PC or Mac
to give even more clout to its features. The Minx Go may
to all but the most seasoned hi-fi computer is connected to a home
be small, but the power that it’s capable of producing is
aficionados, largely because it does network) you can connect the AK240
extraordinary. And more surprising, given its compact size, is
one thing only: high-definition (HD) directly to your network via Wi-Fi
its ability to reproduce extreme high and low frequencies.
audio playback. The AK240 is the third and stream music from your home
The portable speaker market has raced on in the past
model in Astell & Kern’s digital audio storage. You will need to install Astell
couple of years and the sheer volume of products means
player range and & Kern’s MQS
the Minx Go has serious competition. On occasion, at high
the most capacious, It is, without doubt, (Mastering Quality volumes, it struggles to maintain its composure (which is
with 256GB of Sound) streaming
memory. This may the finest portable software to do this,
faultless at lower volumes). That said, the Minx GO scores
player I’ve ever heard but that is relatively highly on value and performance, making it worthy of
sound a little light in
serious consideration. cambridgeaudio.com HHHH
modern terms, but straightforward.
it allows plenty of space for a healthy Although the price tag of Astell
library of high-definition music. You & Kern’s AK240 is equivalent to the
can also upgrade it with another 128GB kind of money you might splash on a
via a Micro SD card (for a further £70- second-hand car, it is, without doubt,
80). But with full HD file sizes ranging the finest portable music player I have
from around 60-100MB, you’ll have ever heard. If you can attach a price
room for about 2,500 to 3,000 tracks tag to that then it might just be worth
without any need for an upgrade. it. It really is exceptional.
Storing your music on an actual astellnkern.com
device (as opposed to a cloud server) is, HHHHH

96 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
 BBC MUSIC AUDIO NEWS
Michael Brook’s round-up of this BACK ISSUES
month’s biggest audio stories

Stay Sharp
Japanese technology
veteran Sharp has been
absent for a while,
but it’s now back with
several new products. The HL-DAB102 mini system (£180) offers
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users the benefit of near-instant tuning. Meanwhile, Sharp’s
HT-SB32D soundbar (£130) is a two-channel Bluetooth sound
system for use with a 40-inch TV. And a wacky-looking Bluetooth
speaker, the GX-BT7GM (above, £130) completes the list. SEPTEMBER 2014 OCTOBER 2014 NOVEMBER 2014
An in-depth look at We explore the life An exclusive interview
the life of Maria and work of the great with pianist Mitsuko
Blade runners Callas, the legendary German composer; Uchida; plus our free
KEF unveiled its addition to the Blade speaker soprano; plus our plus, enjoy his CD features Schubert
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Blade Two (left) follows the success of the Blade Callas herself our free cover CD symphonies
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BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 97
 LIVE CHOICE
20 UNMISSABLE EVENTS
FOR DECEMBER 2014
The BBC Music Magazine guide to the very best concerts and
opera – including highlights from the UK’s amateur scene
For detailed concert listings visit www.classical-music.com/whats-on
1 JAMES MACMILLAN’S
ST LUKE’S PASSION
Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 4 December
Tel: +44 (0)121 345 0498
Web: www.thsh.co.uk
First heard in Amsterdam earlier this year,
James MacMillan’s sequel to his 2008 St John
Passion receives its UK premiere from the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra,
conducted by the composer himself. Breaking
with his model for the St John, MacMillan
assigns the role of Evangelist to the full
chorus, Jesus’s words are taken by a children’s
choir, and Symphony Hall’s magnificent Klais
organ gets a welcome airing.
2 BBC SCOTTISH
SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
City Halls, Glasgow, 4 December
Tel: +44 (0)141 353 8000
Web: www.glasgowconcerthalls.com
Matthias Pintscher, the BBC Scottish
Symphony Orchestra’s artist in residence,
lays down his composer’s pen and takes
up the baton for an all-French programme
full of Eastern promise. Between Fauré’s
incidental music for Pelléas et Mélisande
and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Javier
Perianes is the soloist in Saint-Saëns’s exotic
Piano Concerto No. 5, composed in Luxor
and nicknamed the ‘Egyptian’.
3 FLORILEGIUM
Kings Place, London, 4 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7520 1490
DAVID CORFIELD, MARCO BORGGREVE
Web: www.kingsplace.co.uk
The glory of Versailles in all its Baroque
pomp and circumstance glints enticingly
throughout Florilegium’s dip into François
Couperin; and there’s a decided spring in
its step as the early music ensemble sets
about Rebel’s exuberant Les caractères de
la danse. In the meantime, as related in
98 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
4 ORCHESTRA OF
OPERA NORTH
Town Hall, Leeds, 6 December
Tel: +44 (0)113 224 3801
Web: leedsconcertseason.com
Enjoying a busman’s holiday after
autumn’s operatic Verdi, Monteverdi
and Smetana, the Orchestra of Opera
North finds its sea legs for Debussy’s
La mer. Ravel’s ‘choreographic poem’
La valse whirls its way towards
implosion, and Vienna looks towards
Hungary in the Brahms Violin Concerto.
Jack Liebeck is the soloist in the Brahms;
Opera North’s music director Richard
Farnes conducts.
romantic leeds:
Jack Liebeck plays
Brahms’s Violin Concerto
colourful quartet:
the Quatuor Diotima appear
in Spitalfields (Choice 7)
two cantatas by Montéclair, soprano Emma
Kirkby tells the stories of Pan and Syrinx and
of the ill-fated Lucretia.
5BBC SYMPHONY
ORCHESTRA
Barbican, London, 12 December
+44 (0)20 7638 8891
www.barbican.org.uk
Sakari Oramo’s ongoing BBC SO survey of the
complete Nielsen symphonies reaches No. 2 –
a work inspired by a comic illustration of the
four temperaments the composer saw in a
pub. The Second was dedicated to Busoni, and
Oramo follows it here with a rare outing for
Busoni’s epic, chorus-enriched Piano Concerto.
Garrick Ohlsson is the intrepid soloist.
6 BBC PHILHARMONIC
Bridgewater Hall,
Manchester, 5 December
Tel: +44 (0)161 907 9000
Web: www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk
Bruckner suppressed the programme for his
Symphony No. 4, but even without the details

of its medieval tapestry of knights, hunting
and nature worship, the ‘Romantic’ has still
established itself as his most popular work.
Joined by seasoned Bachians, soprano Elin
Manahan Thomas and tenor Nicholas Mulroy,
plus Manchester Chamber Choir, conductor
Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic
preface it with Bach’s joyful Cantata 191,
Gloria in excelsis Deo.
7 SPITALFIELDS
WINTER FESTIVAL
Spitalfields, London, 5-16 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7377 1362
Web: www.spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk
With countertenor Iestyn Davies’s three-
composer salute to ‘England’s Orpheus’ and
Mahogany Opera Group’s work-in-progress
Folie à deux at either end, Spitalfields Winter
Festival keeps faith with its summer sibling’s
commitment to all things old and new.
Quatuor Diotima premieres a new work
by Sam Hayden, while Le Concert Spirituel
makes its festival debut in the splendours of
Hawksmoor’s Christ Church.
8 TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
Royal Opera House,
London, 5-21 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7304 4000
Web: www.roh.org.uk
Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera might be Covent
Garden’s new kid on the block for December,
but following her BBC Proms triumph as
Strauss’s Salome, all ears will be on soprano
Nina Stemme as she returns to sing the role of
Isolde in a revival of Christof Loy’s staging of
Wagner’s operatic game-changer. Conducted
by Antonio Pappano, an all-star cast includes
tenor Stephen Gould as Tristan.
9 ENSEMBLE 360
Crucible Studio Theatre,
Sheffield, 6 December
Tel: +44 (0)114 249 6000
Web: www.musicintheround.co.uk
With Arts Council funding reconfirmed,
and a 30th birthday to celebrate, Sheffield-
based Music in the Round has had plenty
to celebrate of late. It concludes its autumn
season with resident artists Ensemble 360
DECEMBER 2014 LIVE EVENTS
BACKSTAGE WITH…
a big hit in london:
Colin Currie performs
MacMillan’s new Concerto
Colin Currie
You are giving the UK premiere
of James MacMillan’s Percussion
Concerto No. 2 on 11 December.
Describe the work for us…
Well, it’s roughly the same length as
MacMillan’s first concerto, Veni, Veni,
Emmanuel, but a very different piece, as it
uses the full symphony orchestra. It’s very
energetic and very lyrical, and has some
quirkily characteristic and lively things going
on in the orchestra.
Does the new concerto use a large
range of percussion?
Yes. When I first started to talk to James
about the piece, he said he wanted to use a
lot of metal instruments – he wanted a lot of
bell-like sounds and to make it a work that
was very ecstatic, exuberant and bright in
colour. Among the metal instruments he
uses is a rather new one called the aluphone.
It’s made of aluminium, has a range of two-
and-a-half octaves and produces very loud,
resonant tones. It’s perfect for the piece.
How did plans for this new Concerto
first come about?
James and I would be performing Veni, Veni
together on tour somewhere, and people
kept asking ‘Jimmy, have you thought of
writing a new concerto for Colin?’ It became
something of a joke… but eventually I
suggested that maybe we should think
about it. He agreed: ‘Absolutely, let’s do it!’
What would you say is the secret of
Veni, Veni’s extraordinary success?
It’s made a huge impact on audiences
because it’s both a very lyrical work and
also very passionate. Although it is very
dissonant, it is also very expressive and
beautiful, and the audience also reacts
well to the sense of melody and vivacity
in the solo percussion part especially. The
plainchant that runs through it is also
something that people recognise and gets
right to their hearts, shall we say.
See Choice No. 12
>
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 99
DECEMBER 2014 LIVE EVENTS
OVER TO YOU!
The non-professional
events to catch this month
english spirit: violinist Fenella Humphreys
Lambeth Orchestra
All Saints, West Dulwich, 6 December
Performed by Fenella Humphreys, Elgar’s
Violin Concerto is the one familiar work
in an otherwise unfamiliar, but very
intriguing, Lambeth Orchestra concert.
Either side of it is Frederic Cliffe’s
Coronation March and Thomas Dunhill’s
Symphony in A minor, composed in the
midst of World War One.
New Edinburgh Orchestra
Inverleith St Serf’s Church, Edinburgh,
13 December
The New Edinburgh Orchestra enjoys
the Czech scenery courtesy of Smetana’s
Má Vlast, before things get that little
bit grittier with Shostakovich’s First
Cello Concerto, played by Mark Bailey.
Stravinsky’s Firebird should ensure a
rousing finish. Tim Paxton conducts.
Jess Gillam and friends
Coronation Hall, Ulverston, 5 December
Sixteen-year-old saxophonist Jess Gillam,
who many will remember from this year’s
BBC Young Musician competition, invites
similarly talented friends, including
percussionist Elliott Gaston-Ross and
pianist Hayley Parkes, to her Cumbrian
stamping ground. An engaging evening
of diverse repertoire is promised.
London Phoenix Orchestra
St Andrew’s Holborn, 9 December
Conducted by Lev Parikian, this concert
has a distinct taste of Scotch about
GARETH BARTON, MARCO BORGGREVE
it. Mendelssohn begins and ends
proceedings with his Hebrides Overture
and Scottish Symphony. In between,
Hamish MacCunn explores the Land of
the Mountain and the Flood and Malcolm
Arnold wears his Tam O’Shanter.
Send us your concert details to
overtoyou@classical-music.com
100 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
in a head-to head between Schumann and
Brahms. Framing Brahms’s Horn Trio and
A major Violin Sonata are Schumann’s Five
Pieces in Folk Style and the Piano Trio No. 2.
10 ESFAHANI AND AVITAL
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,
London, 7 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7401 9919
Web: www.shakespearesglobe.com
It ought to seem counterintuitive to partner
the plucked strings of a harpsichord with
those of the mandolin, but when Mahan
Esfahani and Avi Avital were brought together
for the Bristol Proms this summer the sounds
were beguiling, their chemistry infectious.
The up-close intimacy of the Wanamaker
Playhouse should suit their programme of
Bach, Vivaldi and Scarlatti (laced with works
by Takemitsu and Avital himself) to a tee.
11SCOTTISH ENSEMBLE
St John’s Kirk, Perth, 10 December
Tel: +44 (0)1738 621031
Web: www.scottishensemble.co.uk
Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, two Chopin
Nocturnes arranged by David Matthews, and
Borodin’s Sinfonia for Strings (also known as
the String Quartet No. 2, but in a larger guise)
are the seductive ‘creatures of the night’
in Scottish Ensemble’s six-concert ‘Night
and Day’ tour. And in the town where they
premiered it in 2008, daybreak is welcomed
by Steve Martland’s pithy Eternity’s Sunrise.
12 METAL, WOOD, SKIN
Southbank Centre,
London, 7, 11 December
Tel: 0844 875 0073 (UK only)
Web: www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Colin Currie reckons he’s performed James
MacMillan’s glittering percussion concerto
norwegian wooed:
Vilde Frang plays seductive
Brahms in Liverpool (Choice 14)
Veni, Veni Emmanuel somewhere around
140 times. But soon he’ll be able to ring
the changes. As the climax of his Southbank
Metal, Wood, Skin festival on 11 December,
Currie and the Philharmonia unveil
MacMillan’s new Percussion Concerto No. 2.
It is preceded on 7 December by a duo recital
with pianist Tamara Stefanovich.
See ‘Backstage with…’ p99
13 FRETWORK
Royal Welsh College of Music
and Drama, Cardiff, 11 December
Tel: +44 (0)29 2039 1391
Web: www.rwcmd.ac.uk
Viol consort Fretwork has long enjoyed
combining words and music, and for
‘This Year’s Midnight’ teams up with
mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson in a
meditation on the winter solstice that
embraces song, poetry and instrumental
music. Nocturnal Dowland and Purcell rub
shoulders with Tan Dun’s Purcell-inspired
A Sinking Love and John Woolrich’s Fantasy
for Four Viols.
14 ROYAL LIVERPOOL
PHILHARMONIC
Philharmonic Hall,
Liverpool, 4, 10 December
Tel: +44 (0)151 709 3789
Web: www.liverpoolphil.com
Restored at last to its newly refurbished
Philharmonic Hall home, the RLPO welcomes
back conductor Andrew Manze for two
concerts, the second of which spotlights the
Norwegian Vilde Frang in Brahms’s seductive
Violin Concerto. The first is unapologetically
English, with Butterworth and Walton woven
around vintage Vaughan Williams: The Lark
Ascending and his slice-of-life tribute to
London: Symphony No. 2.

15 EUROPEAN UNION
BAROQUE ORCHESTRA 17PAUL
St John’s Smith Square,
LEWIS
AND FRIENDS
London, 11 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7222 1061
Web: www.sjss.org.uk
The future of the European Union Baroque
Orchestra currently looks a little uncertain,
but the ensemble ends the year defiantly with
Lars Ulrik Mortensen directing a programme
guaranteed to see out 2014 in style. Jean-Fery
Rebel’s astonishingly graphic depiction of
chaos in Les Elémens is the starting point for
an imaginative, and decidedly heady, mix of
Muffat, more Rebel and Rameau.
16 APOLLON MUSAGÈTE
QUARTET
Corn Exchange, Brighton, 14 December
Tel: +44 (0)1273 709709
Web: www.brightondome.org
The Apollon Musagète Quartet turned heads
at its Berlin Philharmonie debut in 2010…
and heads have been turning ever since.
Adventurous programming gilds the lily,
and for the former Radio 3 New Generation
Artists’ Brighton Coffee Concert, Dvoπák’s
C major Quartet Op. 61 crowns two Polish
‘firsts’: Górecki’s Quartet No. 1, ‘Already it is
Dusk’, and Szymanowski’s debut quartet.
For details of events in your area, visit our online concert diary at www.classical-music.com/whats-on
St George’s, Bristol, 16 December
Tel: 0845 40 24 001 (UK only)
Web: www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk
Pianist Paul Lewis doesn’t just confine
performing chamber music to his Midsummer
Music festival in Buckinghamshire. Along with
his cellist wife Bjørg, and friends including
violinist Lisa Batiashvili and violist Lawrence
Power, he reels in Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet
as well as early and late Beethoven, in a feast
of Viennoiserie.
18 NINE DAIES WONDER
Royal Northern College
of Music, Manchester, 16 December
Tel: +44 (0)161 907 5555
Web: www.rncm.ac.uk
Sporting such splendid musical weaponry
as the viola bastarda, cittern and nyckelharp,
The Society of Strange and Ancient
Instruments does exactly what it says on
the tin – and its latest programme betrays
itchy feet too! Revelling in Elizabethan music
both refined and raucous, its ‘Nine Daies
Wonder’ programme exuberantly recreates
actor and dancer Will Kemp’s celebrated
self-promoting 80-mile jig from London
to Norwich in 1600.
DECEMBER 2014 LIVE EVENTS
19CHRISTIAN GERHAHER
Wigmore Hall,
London, 17, 19 December
Tel: +44 (0)20 7935 2141
Web: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk
When it comes to German song, baritone
Christian Gerhaher is pretty much in a league
of his own. And with his regular duo partner,
the superb Gerold Huber, at the piano, two
evenings devoted solely to Mahler might
not make for the most festive of preambles
to Christmas… but few will be more
rewarding. Songs from Des Knaben
Wunderhorn separate the Lieder eines
fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder.
20 SCOTTISH
ORCHESTRA
CHAMBER
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 18 December
Tel: +44 (0)131 668 2019
Web: www.sco.org.uk
Ever since he assumed the helm of the SCO,
Robin Ticciati has been on a mission to
champion Haydn. Ahead of a major recording
project, this season he programmes no fewer
than four symphonies. Next up is the arresting
‘Drum Roll’ No. 103, following Christian
Tetzlaff’s performance of the Schumann
Violin Concerto and Jörg Widmann’s love-
song-without-words: Liebeslied.
 RADIO & TV LISTINGS
This issue we provide full listings for BBC Radio 3 introduced by acting director of the
BBC Proms, Edward Blakeman, plus highlights of classical music programmes on television
DIRECTOR’S CHOICE
Edward Blakeman, acting
director of the BBC
Proms, picks out three
great moments to
tune into in December
CAROL COMPETITION 2014
It’s an exciting month for aspiring carol
composers, as Radio 3 will be hosting its
first Breakfast Christmas Carol Competition.
OLA RENSKA, MARK HARRISON
Entrants have been asked to submit a carol
by setting the words of a poem by Susan Hill.
The Woman in Black author’s work, entitled
‘Can It be True?’, paints a midnight picture of
the nativity message being spread by wildlife,
including a fox, a sheep and a whale. The six
shortlisted entries will feature on Breakfast
102 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
on 16 December and Afternoon on 3 on the
following day, in special performances by the
BBC Singers. Listeners can then vote, before
the winner is revealed on 23 December and
played on Christmas Day.
Breakfast; 16 & 23 December, 7-9am
TEMPLE WINTER FESTIVAL
What better place for a Christmas music
festival than London’s Temple Church?
Dating back to the 12th century, this beautiful
building will be hosting its second festival.
Among the vocal ensembles are Vox Luminis
who are performing Christmas Baroque
repertoire on 15 December, including works
by Pachelbel and JM Bach, the father-in-law
of JS. And Polyphony is exploring British 20th-
century works on 16 December, celebrating
some of our finest choral composers, with
Howells’s unaccompanied Here is the Little
festive line-up:
Vox Luminis perform
Baroque treasures
(15 December)
Door and John Tavener’s equally transcendent
The Lamb. And Handel’s glorious Christmas-
themed oratorio Messiah gets an outing on
19 December, conducted by David Hill in this
exquisite venue.
Live in Concert; 15-19 December, 7.30pm
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
Over the centuries, Mozart’s evergreen 1786
opera buffa has won legions of fans, including
Brahms, who declared ‘each number in
Mozart’s Figaro is for me a miracle’. In this
New York Met production, director Richard
Eyre transports the action to Seville in the
1930s, as servant Figaro (bass-baritone
Erwin Schrott) and his allies try to outwit his
master’s designs on his bride-to-be. Sopranos
Danielle de Niese and Rachel Willis-Sørensen
pair up for the letter-writing duet in Act III.
Opera on 3; 20 December, 7.30pm

DECEMBER’S RADIO 3 LISTINGS
1 MONDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week Lord Berners (rpt)
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert from
Wigmore Hall. Chopin Polonaise
Fantaisie in A flat, Op. 61, Nocturne
in B, Op. 9 No. 3, Impromptu in G flat,
Op. 51, Prelude in F sharp minor,
Op. 28 No. 8, Three Mazurkas,
Op. 50, Ballade No. 4 in F minor,
Op. 52. Janina Fialkowska (pno)
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Lord Berners (rpt)
7.30-10.45pm Radio 3 Live
In Concert from Wigmore Hall.
Beethoven 12 Variations in F on
‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’ from
Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Op. 66,
Beethoven Cello Sonata in C Op. 102
No. 1, Beethoven 12 Variations
on a Theme from Handel’s Judas
Maccabeus WoO.45, Beethoven
Cello Sonata in D Op. 102 No. 2.
Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello),
Alexander Melnikov (pno)
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
The start of a ten-part series of short
plays based on stories by Boccaccio
11pm-12.30am Jazz on 3
Live from the EFG London Jazz
Festival, presented by Jez Nelson
2 TUESDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 1 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Lord Berners (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Wigmore Hall. Scarlatti
Sonata in D minor Kk213, Sonata
in D minor Kk141, Beethoven Six
Bagatelles Op. 126, Chopin Ballade
No. 3 in A flat Op. 47, Shostakovich
Prelude in B minor Op. 34 No. 6,
Prelude in A flat Op. 34 No. 17,
Prelude in D minor Op. 34 No. 24,
Rachmaninov Prelude in G sharp
minor Op. 32 No. 12, Prelude in G,
Op. 32 No. 5, Prelude in G minor
Op. 23 No. 5, Prokofiev Piano
Sonata No. 7 in B flat, Op. 7.
Yevgeny Sudbin (piano, above)
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
3 WEDNESDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 1 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
Schedules may be
subject to alteration;
for up-to-date listings
see Radio Times
2-3.30pm Afternoon on 3
3.30-4.30pm Choral Evensong
from Westminster Abbey
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Lord Berners (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Royal Festival Hall.
Szymanowski Concert Overture,
Scriabin Piano Concerto in F sharp
minor, Rachmaninov Symphony
No. 1. Igor Levit (pno), London
Philharmonic/Vladimir Jurowski
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
11pm-12.30am Late Junction
4 THURSDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 1 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Lord Berners (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from City Halls, Glasgow.
Fauré Pelléas et Mélisande –
Suite Op. 80, Saint-Saëns Piano
Concerto No. 5 in F, ‘Egyptian’,
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.
Javier Perianes (pno), BBC Scottish
Symphony/Matthias Pintscher
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
5 FRIDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 1 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Choral Evensong
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Lord Berners (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Bridgewater Hall,
Manchester. JS Bach Cantata
No. 191 ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’,
BWV191, Bruckner Symphony No. 4
in E flat, ‘Romantic’. Elin Manahan
Thomas (sop), Nicholas Mulroy (ten),
Manchester Chamber Choir,
BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena
10-10.45pm The Verb
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
11pm-1am World on 3
6 SATURDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12.15pm CD Review –
Building a Library
12.15-1pm Music Matters
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-4pm Saturday Classics
Wayne Sleep
4-5pm Sound of Cinema
5-6pm Jazz Record Requests
hands solo: Yevgeny Sudbin at Wigmore Hall (2 December)
6-10pm Opera on 3 from the
Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Isabel Leonard (Rosina) etc, Chorus
& Orchestra of the New York
Metropolitan Opera/Michele Mariotti
10pm-12 midnight
Hear and Now
12 midnight-1am
Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz
7 SUNDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon Sunday Morning
12 noon-1pm Private Passions
Jocelyn Bell Burnell (rpt)
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert from
Wigmore Hall (rpt, from 1 December)
2-3pm The Early Music Show
Profile of Christopher Hogwood (rpt)
3-4pm Choral Evensong
from Westminster Abbey (rpt)
4-5.30pm The Choir
featuring Choir of the Year highlights
5.30-6.45m Words and Music
6.45-7.30pm Sunday Feature
The Fundamentalist Queen
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Wigmore Hall, London.
Mahler Piano Quartet Movement in
A minor, Beethoven Piano Quartet in
E flat, Op.16, Musorgsky Pictures at
an Exhibition (arr. for piano quartet
by Fauré Quartet & Grigory Gruzman).
Fauré Quartet, Grigory Gruzman (pno)
10-11.30pm 10-Day
Decameron (omnibus)
8 MONDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week Schumann
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert from
Wigmore Hall, London. Vivaldi Stabat
mater, RV 621, Longe Mala, Umbrae
Terrores, RV 629. Philippe Jaroussky
(ct), Ensemble Artaserse
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
DECEMBER 2014 RADIO & TV LISTINGS
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Schumann (rpt)
7.30-10.45pm Radio 3 Live
In Concert Beethoven Coriolan
Overture, Bruch Violin Concerto
No. 2, Bruch Konzertstück Op. 84,
Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet.
Jack Liebeck (vln), BBC Scottish
Symphony/Martyn Brabbins
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
11pm-12.30am Jazz on 3
presented by Jez Nelson
9 TUESDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 8 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
Bath Mozartfest
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Schumann (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Wigmore Hall,
London. Mozart String Quartet in
G K387, Peteris Vasks String Quartet
No. 5, Smetana String Quartet
No. 1 in E minor, ‘From My Life’.
Artemis Quartet
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
10 WEDNESDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 8 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
Bath Mozartfest
2-3.30pm Afternoon on 3
3.30-4.30pm Choral Evensong
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Schumann (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Philharmonic Hall,
Liverpool. Mozart Overture – The
Marriage of Figaro, Brahms Violin
Concerto, Beethoven Symphony
No. 6, ‘Pastoral’. Vilde Frang (vln),
RLPO/Andrew Manze
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
11 THURSDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 8 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
Bath Mozartfest
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Schumann (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Milton Court, London.
Poulenc Un soir de neige, Messiaen
O sacrum convivium, Duruflé Quatre
motets sur des thèmes grégoriens,
Op. 10, Poulenc Quatre motets pour
le temps de Noël, Poulenc Mass in G,
Debussy Trois chansons de Charles
d’Orléans, Jolivet Epithaleme,
Françaix Trois Poèmes de Paul
Valéry, Ravel Trois chansons.
BBC Singers/David Hill
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
12 FRIDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 8 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
Bath Mozartfest
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week Schumann (rpt)
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from the Barbican, London.
Rachmaninov Spring Cantata,
Nielsen Symphony No. 2, Busoni
Concerto for piano in C, K247 Op. 39.
Igor Golovatenko (bar), Garrick
Ohlsson (pno), BBC SO & Chorus/
Sakari Oramo
10-10.45pm The Verb
10.45-11pm 10-Day Decameron
11pm-1am World on 3
13 SATURDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12.15pm CD Review –
Building a Library
12.15-1pm Music Matters
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-4pm Saturday Classics
Deborah Bull
4-5pm Sound of Cinema
5-6pm Jazz Record Requests
6-10pm Opera on 3 live from
the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Wagner Die Meistersinger von
Nürnberg. Annette Dasch (Eva),
Karen Cargill (Magdalene) etc,
Orchestra of the New York Met
Opera/James Levine
10pm-12 midnight
Hear and Now
12 midnight-1am
Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz
14 SUNDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon Sunday Morning
12 noon-1pm Private Passions
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-3pm The Early Music Show
Lucie Skeaping explores the music
of 14th-century Italy
3-4pm Choral Evensong
4-5.30pm The Choir
5.30-6.45m Words and Music >
103
DECEMBER 2014 RADIO & TV LISTINGS
6.45-7.30pm
Sunday Feature Tom Gunn
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Wigmore Hall, London.
Finzi At a Lunar Eclipse, Britten
O the Sight Entrancing, Somervell
To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars,
Bridge ’Tis but a Week, Ives Tom
Sails Away, Gurney Most Holy
Night, Stanford A Soft Day, Britten
Sweet Polly Oliver, Wood Roses of
Picardy, Ayer If I Were the Only Girl
in the World, Novello We’ll Gather
Lilacs, Haydn Sailor’s Song, Elgar
Submarines, Britten Tom Bowling,
Gurney The Ship, Britten Oft in the
Stilly Night, Ireland Spring Sorrow,
Bridge Come to Me in my Dreams,
Warlock My Own Country, Holst
Journey’s End, Stanford Homeward
Bound. Sophie Bevan (sop),
Sebastian Wybrew (pno)
10-11.30pm 10-Day
Decameron omnibus
15 MONDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week André Previn
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert from
Wigmore Hall, London. Haydn String
Quartet in B flat, Op. 1 No. 1,
Brahms Clarinet Quintet. Maximiliano
Martin (cl), Badke Quartet
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week André Previn (rpt)
CHOICE
7.30-10.45pm Radio 3 Live
In Concert from Temple Church,
London. Temple Winter Festival.
‘Puer Natus in Bethlehem’ – music
by Schütz, Schein, Praetorius,
Pachelbel, JM Bach, JC Bach.
Vox Luminis/Lionel Meunier
10.45-11pm The Essay
11pm-12.30am Jazz on 3
16 TUESDAY
CHOICE
6.30-9am Breakfast featuring
six shortlist performances for the
Christmas Carol Competition 2014,
performed by the BBC Singers
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week André Previn
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert LSO
St Luke’s Young Pianists. Brahms
ESTHER HAASE, FLOWERS GALLERY/LONDON, RICHARD CANNON
Theme and Variations in D minor
(arr. from String Sextet No. 1), Two
Rhapsodies, Op. 79, Ravel Gaspard
de la nuit. Lise de la Salle (pno)
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week André Previn (rpt)
CHOICE
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Temple Church,
London. Temple Winter Festival.
20th-century English music,
including Howells, Warlock and
Tavener. Polyphony/Stephen Layton
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm The Essay
11pm-12.30am Late Junction
104 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
17 WEDNESDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 15 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
LSO St Luke’s Young Pianists.
Musorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition,
plus works by JS Bach, Pärt and
others. Khatia Buniatishvili (piano,
pictured right )
CHOICE
2-3.30pm Afternoon on 3
featuring six shortlist performances
for the Christmas Carol Competition,
performed by the BBC Singers
3.30-4.30pm Choral Evensong
from Manchester Cathedral
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer of
the Week André Previn (rpt)
CHOICE
7.30-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Temple Church.
Temple Winter Festival. ‘Beyond the
Natural Order’: Verdelot, Josquin des
Prez, De Rore, Tallis, Gallicantus
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm The Essay
18 THURSDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 15 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert LSO
St Luke’s Young Pianists, Beethoven
Piano Sonata in A flat, Op. 26,
Schubert Four Impromptus, D935.
Federico Colli (pno)
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.45pm In Tune
6.45-7.45pm Composer of
the Week André Previn (rpt)
CHOICE
7.45-10pm Radio 3 Live In
Concert from Temple Church,
London. Temple Winter Festival.
Briten Te Deum and Jubilate in C,
Whitacre Lux arumuque, Sleep,
Muhly Our Present Charter (ukp),
Walton The Twelve, Rutter Gloria etc.
Greg Morris (org), Temple Church
Choir and Temple Brass/Roger Sayer
10-10.45pm Free Thinking
10.45-11pm The Essay
19 FRIDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 15 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert LSO
St Luke’s Young Pianists, Beethoven
Piano Sonata in D minor, Op. 31
No. 2, ‘The Tempest’, Liszt Paganini
Etudes. Alice Sara Ott (pno)
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6pm In Tune
6-7pm Composer of the Week
André Previn (rpt)
CHOICE
7-10pm Radio 3 Live In Concert
from Temple Church, London.
Temple Winter Festival. Handel
Messiah. Fflur Wyn (sop), Robin
Blaze (ct), Samuel Boden (ten), David
Soar (bass), BBC Singers, Norwegian
Wood Ensemble/David Hill
10-10.45pm The Verb
10.45-11pm The Essay
11pm-1am World on 3
20 SATURDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12.15pm CD Review –
Building a Library
12.15-1pm Music Matters
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-4pm Saturday Classics
Peter Day
4-5pm Sound of Cinema
5-6pm Jazz Record Requests
CHOICE
6-10pm Opera on 3 live from
the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Mozart The Marriage of Figaro.
Erwin Schrott (Figaro), Rachel
Willis-Sørensen (Countess Almaviva),
Danielle de Niese (Susanna)
etc, Orchestra of the New York
Metropolitan Opera/Edo de Waart
10pm-12 midnight
Hear and Now
12 midnight-1am
Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz
21 SUNDAY
European Broadcasting Union
CHRISTMAS MUSIC DAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon Sunday Morning
1-2pm From Lapland, Finland
Programme tbc. Soile Isokoski (sop),
Lapland Chamber Orchestra/
John Storgårds
2-3pm From St James’ Church,
Gdan´sk, Poland Heinrich Schütz
Deutsches Magnificat, Hodie
Christus natus est, O lieber Herre
Gott, Ein Kind ist uns geboren, etc.
Vox Luminis
3-4pm Choral Evensong from
Manchester Cathedral (rpt)
4-5pm From Bethlehem Chapel,
Prague, Czech Republic Josef
Schreier Missa pastoralis, Czech
Christmas Carols, Czech Radio
Children’s Choir/Blanka Kulínská,
Brno Radio Folk Instrument
Orchestra, Frantisek Cern
5-6pm From the USA, venue tbc
William Knapp A Virgin Unspotted,
William Billings Judea, Bethlehem,
Anonymous Beautiful Star
of Bethlehem (arranged by
Anonymous 4) etc. Anonymous 4
6-7pm From Langholt Church,
Reykjavík, Iceland Traditional,
(arr. Robert Abraham Ottósson)
For unto us a Child is Born, Bjarni
Thorsteinsson (arr. Tryggvi M
picture perfect:
pianist Khatia Buniatishvili
performs Musorgsky
(17 December)
PRIVATE PASSIONS
Each week Michael Berkeley
talks to a guest about their
favourite music. Here is
one from a recent episode.
JOHN KEANE
British war artist
JS BACH Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1
Stephen Isserlis (cello)
‘It has a formal characteristic, but at the
same time it’s expressive which is a great combination.’
BRITTEN Act III, Interlude 5: ‘Moonlight’ from Peter Grimes
City of London Sinfonia/Richard Hickox
‘What makes it is the sea; there’s something very
evocative, actually quite figurative.’
BEETHOVEN Andante un poco mosso from
Piano Concerto No. 5, ‘The Emperor’
Mitsuko Uchida (piano), Bavarian Radio SO/Kurt Sanderling
‘Beethoven is one of the first classical composers to affect
me emotionally. This movement is very majestic in places
but it’s also very intimate. There’s something about the
piano that caresses the soul – it speaks of deep humanity.’
PHILIP GLASS Dance IX from In the Upper Room
Philip Glass Ensemble/Michael Riesman
‘I wish somebody had told me about modern dance when
I was younger. A lot of the other pieces I’ve selected are
quite sombre or reflective but this is just pure joy. I went
to Einstein on the Beach, which was five hours of Philip
Glass. I could have sat through another five hours. This is
like the music they play in Heaven!’
DOBRI HRISTOV In thy Kingdom
Svetoslav Obretenov Bulgarian Choir & Soloists/
Georgi Robev
‘I went to Sofia in 1989 and I heard singing in the cathedral.
I bought a vinyl of this work and really enjoyed it.’
MICHAEL NYMAN If
Hilary Summers (soprano),
Michael Nyman Band/Michael Nyman
‘This piece was to do with the Diary of Anne Frank and
the film that was being made about it. I just found it
an immensely beautiful song, only really discovering
afterwards what it related to.’
Private Passions is on Radio 3 every Sunday at 12 noon
and is also available to download as a podcast.

Baldvinsson) With cheerful voice and
holy strain etc. Hallfrídur Ólafsdóttir
(flute), Elísabet Waage (harp),
Graduale Nobili girls’ choir/
Jón Stefánsson
7-8pm From Denmark, venue tbc
Emil Reesen A Christmas Overture
(Sikken voldsom traengsel) August
Enna The Little Match Girl (excerpts),
Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A, K622,
Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker, Suite
No. 1, Op. 71a, Wenzel Fuchs (cl),
Inger Dam-Jensen (sop), Danish
National Symphony Orchestra/Karl
Heinz Steffens
9pm from Sofia Church,
Stockholm, Sweden Traditional (Arr.
Anders Bond) Make Way for the Lord
(Bereden väg för Herran), Poulenc O
Magnum Mysterium, Hodie Christus
Natus Est, Jean Mouton Nesciens
Mater etc. Sofia Vocal Ensemble/
Bengt Ollén
22 MONDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week Vivaldi
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-5.45pm
New Generation Artists
5.45-7pm Words and Music
7-10.45pm Radio 3 Live in
concert from St John’s Smith
Square, London. JS Bach Mass
in B minor, Soloists tbc, Choir of
Trinity College, Cambridge,
Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment/Stephen Layton
10.45-11pm The Essay I’ve
Never Told Anyone This Before
11pm-12.30am Jazz on 3
presented by Jez Nelson
23 TUESDAY
CHOICE
6.30-9am Breakfast with the
winning entry of the Breakfast
Christmas Carol Competition,
performed by the BBC Singers
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm
Composer of the Week Vivaldi
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-5.45pm
New Generation Artists
5.45-7pm Words and Music
7-8.30pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
8.30-8.45pm The Essay
9-11pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
24 WEDNESDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 22 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-3.30pm Afternoon on 3
3.30-4.30pm Choral Evensong
4.30-5.45pm
New Generation Artists
5.45-7pm Words and Music
7-8.30pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
8.30-8.45pm The Essay
9-11pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
25 THURSDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 22 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-5.45pm
New Generation Artists
5.45-7pm Words and Music
7-8.30pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
8.30-8.45pm The Essay
9-11pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
26 FRIDAY
6.30am-1pm
As Monday 22 December
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
European Broadcasting Union
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-5.45pm
New Generation Artists
5.45-7pm Words and Music
7-8.30pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
8.30-8.45pm The Essay
9-11pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
11pm-1am World on 3
27 SATURDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12.15pm CD Review –
Building a Library
12.15-1pm Music Matters
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-4pm Saturday Classics
Zenaida Janowsky
4-5pm Sound of Cinema
5-9pm Opera on 3 from the
Royal Opera House, London.
Wagner Tristan und Isolde. Stephen
Gould (Tristan), John Tomlinson
(King Marke), Nina Stemme (Isolde)
etc, Orchestra of the Royal Opera
House/Antonio Pappano
9-10pm Jazz Line-Up
10pm-12 midnight
Hear and Now
12 midnight-1am
Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz
28 SUNDAY
7-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
Sunday Morning
12 noon-1pm
Private Passions Roger Moore
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-3pm The Early Music Show
Lucie Skeaping explores the custom
of wassailing
3-4pm Choral Evensong
4-5.30pm The Choir
5.30-6.45m Words and Music
6.45-7.30pm Sunday Feature
Popular culture at War
7.30-10pm Proms (rpt)
10-11.30pm Drama on 3
WEEKLY TV AND
RADIO HIGHLIGHTS
On our website each week we
pick the best of the classical
music programmes on radio,
TV and iPlayer. So to plan your
weekly listening and viewing,
head to the website or sign up
to our weekly newsletter to
be sent information about the
week's classical programmes
directly to your inbox.
DECEMBER 2014 RADIO & TV LISTINGS
29 MONDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
TV HIGHLIGHTS
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week Chabrier
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
from Wigmore Hall, London
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-6.30pm In Tune
6.30-7.30pm Composer
of the Week Puccini (rpt)
7.30-10pm Proms (rpt)
10.45-11pm The Essay
11pm-12.30am Jazz on 3
presented by Jez Nelson
30 TUESDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
the Week Chabrier
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert
2-4.30pm Afternoon on 3
4.30-5.45pm
New Generation Artists
5.45-7pm Words and Music
7-8.30pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
8.30-8.45pm The Essay
9-11pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
31 WEDNESDAY
6.30-9am Breakfast christmas cheer: the King’s College Choir on BBC Two
9am-12 noon
Essential Classics
12 noon-1pm Composer of
CAROLS FROM KING’S
the Week Chabrier For many this is the event that marks the start of
1-2pm Lunchtime Concert Christmas. The annual televised service from King’s
2-3.30pm Afternoon on 3 College, Cambridge (above) has been shown on
3.30-4.30pm Choral Evensong
British screens for over half a century. Recorded in
The Rodolfus Choir in St Gabriel’s
Church, Pimlico mid-December as a slimmer version of A Festival of
4.30-5.45pm Nine Lessons and Carols (Radio 4, 3pm), BBC Two’s
New Generation Artists Carols from King’s attracts millions of viewers. Forget
5.45-7pm Words and Music the Christmas preparations for a while and settle
7-9pm Proms 2014 (rpt)
9-12 midnight Proms 2014 down with a suitable tipple, as the candlelit service
Last Night of the Proms (rpt) opens with the glorious tradition of a solo treble
singing the first verse of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.
Radio 3 is available on Freeview BBC Two: Carols from King’s; Wednesday
channel 703, by satellite and online
24 December; time tbc
CHOIR OF THE YEAR
10. JMW Turner
9. Debussy
8. Elgar Choirs from across the UK’s regions have been
7. The Snow Maiden
6. Bax
competing throughout the year for the coveted
5. Kathleen Ferrier title of Choir of Year. And this month will see the
4. Nabucco grand final taking place, as the six finalists do battle
3. Respighi
at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on 7 December.
2. Joseph Haydn
c) Johann Strauss II Since 1984 the biennial competition has been
1. A) Chopin; b) JanáΩek; celebrating the best UK choral talent, with previous
QUIZ ANSWERS from p106 winners including the female chamber choir Les
Sirènes in 2012, and the Wellensian Consort (2010),
formed from ex-pupils of Wells Cathedral School.
The diverse range of judges includes composer
Paul Mealor, whose Ubi Caritas was performed at
the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding,
Bournemouth Symphony Chorus conductor Greg
Beardsell, mezzo-soprano Mary King and US
soprano Angel Blue (see Music To My Ears, p16). You
can catch all the tension from the final on BBC Four
(date tbc), with highlights broadcast on Radio 3’s
The Choir (7 December).
BBC Four: Choir of the Year; date and time tbc
BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 105
 December prize crossword No. 275
The first correct solution of our monthly crossword to be picked at random will win a copy of The Oxford Companion to Music
worth £40 (available at bookstores or www.oup.co.uk). Send your answers to: BBC Music Magazine, Crossword 275, PO Box 501,
Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive by 26 November (solution in our February 2015 issue). Crossword set by Paul Henderson
Your name & address
THE QUIZ
Whatever the weather,
try this month’s quiz…
1. Who composed the following weather-
inspired works: a) The ‘Raindrop’ Prelude
(1838); b) In the Mists (1912); c) Thunder and
Lightning polka (1868)?
2. Whose six Op. 20 String Quartets, all of
which were written in 1772, are collectively
known as the ‘Sun’ Quartets?
3. ‘Nebbie’ (Fog), ‘Pioggia’ (Rain) and
‘Notte’ (Night), are the individual titles of
which Italian composer’s Three Art Songs,
written in 1913?
4. Which Verdi opera’s self-deluding
title-character proclaims himself to be a
god, only to be struck by a thunderbolt that
causes him to lose his senses?
106 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
ACROSS 13 South Eastern fans of magazine
1 Cuts down involving leader of choir in welcoming new singers (10)
summary discussions (6) 15 Vaguely ‘um’ and ‘ah’ with a clue for
4 B_____ fool almost split symbol on ‘low clarinet’ (9)
stave (4,4) 17 Chamber groups quite involved with art?
10 Australian composer represented as About time (9)
prophet with lectures? (5,10) 19 Not one or the other helping to tune
11 Openings for new singers after rise in it here (7)
routine performances (5) 20 Chamber groups in northwest etc.
12 Music featured in newspaper and news obviously getting upset (6)
magazine (7) 21 Temporary stage erected if place
14 A new contralto entering into very French is overturned (3-2)
dreamy states (7) 22 Dodge Chopin piece, avoiding
16 Description of Ravel minuet, one piano, right? (5)
remarkably quiet (7) 23 Opera heroine in YouTube’s selection (4)
18 A Parisian taking in lines by fellow wartime
composer (7)
20 Musical drama: beginning of the Earl’s SEPTEMBER SOLUTION NO. 272
function (7)
21 Wind player is participating in gamble
without hesitation (7)
22 Additional item seen in text set by
Rameau? (5)
24 The queer tartan dancing, involving
Caledonia’s foremost dance movement (9,6)
25 Chamber groups sure stop playing (8)
26 English composer, wild, abandoning South
American city (6)
DOWN
1 Support in rehearsal regarding Debussy’s
little expression of hesitation (10)
2 Sing tunelessly to provide entertainment
with a couple of bits of ululating (9)
SEPTEMBER WINNER
3 Standard is evident in Mozart symphony (5)
5 Fast movement cut by a composer from BP Swadle, Darlington
Italy (7) Immediate Media Company Limited, publisher
6 Composer enlivened ‘kitchen’ department of BBC Music Magazine, may contact you with details
finally after start of score (9) of our products and services or to undertake research.
Please write ‘Do Not Contact’ if you prefer not to
7 Substantial revision of Elgar (5)
receive such information by post or phone. Please
8 Guitar part about to get lodged in foot (4) write your email address on your postcard if you prefer
9 More than one musical work has to receive such information by e-mail.
success (6)
PICTURE THIS 6. Whose 1917 tone poem November
5. This contralto’s recording of the folk tune Woods vividly portrays the composer sheltering
from a storm with his lover, Harriet Cohen,
‘Blow The Wind Southerly’ became a major
before they head off to a nearby pub?
hit on the radio after her death. Who is she?
7. Which chilly drama by Alexander
Ostrovsky was first accompanied by
music by Tchaikovsky, and later inspired
an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov?
8. Setting words by Henrys Longfellow
and Vaughan, ‘As torrents in summer’
(1896) and ‘The shower’ (1914) are songs
by which English composer?
9. ‘The wind in the plain’, ‘Footsteps in the
snow’ and ‘Gardens in the rain’ are all solo
piano movements by which French composer?
10. British composer Cecilia McDowall’s
2006 work for chamber orchestra, Rain, Steam
and Speed, was inspired by and named after the
work of which painter?
See p105 for answers
 NEXT MONTH in BBC Music Magazine
Volume 23 No. 2 BBC Music Magazine
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BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E 107

 MUSIC THAT CHANGED ME
Stuart Skelton tenor
I
was a chorister at St Andrew’s
Cathedral Choir school in Sydney
from the age of eight, so I was
steeped in the Anglican tradition:
Stanford, Parry and their ilk. I distinctly
remember singing HOWELLS’s
Collegium Regale and thinking that this
was something new and different. It was
wonderful and seemed to be reaching
out its hands to the modern. I couldn’t
put my finger on it at the time, but I
must have recognised its new harmonic
language. It will always be special to me,
as it is for many ex-choristers brought up
in this tradition.
Even after my voice had broken and
I was still in the choir school, I never
considered a future in singing. Then, in
1984, when I was 15, I went to Sydney
Opera and saw POULENC’s Dialogues
des carmélites. Joan Sutherland was the
Prioress, Isobel Buchanan was Blanche
and it was conducted by Richard Bonynge.
I was transfixed. It was mind-blowing: my
first experience of music that could transport
you to another planet in a dark theatre.
It had such an impact on me, I started
wondering whether it was something you
could be involved with. When I was 16, my
choirmaster suggested that it might be worth
taking singing lessons, so I started with my
teacher Raymond Macdonald. Still, I went to
Sydney University to do Economic and Legal
studies, taking various odd jobs – in bars, as
a night club bouncer, then in banking – but
I had theatre somewhere in my sights: I was a
rehearsal pianist for operettas and involved in
music theatre at the weekends. Then Raymond
entered me into the biggest singing award in
Australia, which is known as ‘the Big Mac’ as
it’s sponsored by McDonald’s – it’s part of the
City of Sydney Eisteddfod. I won it, and one
of the conditions of the scholarship was that
you had to go abroad to spend it. So I enrolled
in the masters programme at the University
of Cincinnatti. The record, and then the tape,
that accompanied me there, and I played until
it wore out, was STÉPHANE GRAPPELLI’s
Steph’n’Us, with Don Burrows on flute and
SIM CANETTY-CLARKE
clarinet and guitarist George Golla. It’s one of
my all-time favourite albums: those two were
titans of the Australian jazz world, playing with he seemed to ‘live’ the symphony completely,
that genius. Utterly brilliant.
108 BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
inspiration that became my aspiration:
to perform as if subsumed by the music,
never to allow the audience to be aware of
the process or any technical aspect.
After Cinncinatti I joined the young
artists programme at San Francisco Opera
and I got to hear and work with legendary
artists. As I embarked on WAGNER,
one of the most important recordings
for me became James King’s Parsifal at
Bayreuth. He showed that you could be
a heroic tenor, but a beautiful tenor. It’s
such a hard balance to strike between the
masculine, bronzed character, the power
and amplitude of the dramatic tenor,
and a beautiful, seductive tone quality.
King achieved that. Wagner is now the
backbone of my repertoire, and my
moved by mahler :
‘His Second Symphony was the crusade is to keep those two elements in
piece that changed my world’ balance in all my performances. n
Interview by Helen Wallace
STUART SKELTON WAS born in
Sydney, and trained at the University STUART SKELTON
Cincinnati and on the San Francisco MUSIC CHOICE
Opera young artists programme. One of Howells
today’s finest opera tenors, his repertoire Collegium Regale service
includes the title roles in Wagner’s Choir of King’s College,
Lohengrin and Parsifal, and Verdi’s Otello. Cambridge/Stephen Cleobury
He was nominated for an Olivier Award Decca 470 1942 (see
www.prestoclassical.co.uk)
for his portrayal of Britten’s Peter Grimes
at ENO. Next year, he will make his debut Poulenc
Dialogues des carmélites
as Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde Soloists; Australian Opera
with the Sydney Symphony and appears Chorus, Elizabethan Sydney
as Siegmund in the same composer’s Orchestra/Richard Bonynge
Die Walküre at Bavarian Opera. Kultur Video 032031292598
(DVD) (see www.amazon.co.uk)
Stéphane Grappelli etc
Steph‘n’Us
Stéphane Grappelli (piano &
In Cincinatti I encountered singers who violin), Don Burrows (flute &
seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge clarinet), George Golla (guitar)
of the opera catalogue and all the singers, so I Cherry Pie CPF1032 (unavailable)
had a lot of catching up to do. I also began to Mahler Symphony No. 2
discover a more advanced repertoire. Hearing Barbara Hendricks etc; The
MAHLER’s Das Lied von der Erde for the Westminster Choir, New York
Philharmonic/Bernstein
first time was a milestone, but his Second DG E423 3952 £28.99
Symphony was the piece that changed my
world. I heard it performed in the faculty, Wagner Parsifal
and it was as if a bomb had gone off in my
James King (Parsifal) etc;
mind. Then I discovered Leonard Bernstein’s Choir & Orchestra
of Bayreuth Festival/Boulez
performance with the New York Philharmonic:
DG E435 7182 £13.99
lost in the music for its whole span. It was an
 Gordon’s School
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