Home//BBC Music Magazine/February 2020/In This Issue
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORSMichael Tanner Philosopher and critic ‘Writing about Beethoven at all is a challenge, but selecting a mere 20 of his works from the vast daunting and astounding range is sheer torture, though mitigated by spending a few days devoted to listening to them.’ Page 28 Tom Service Writer and broadcaster ‘Can a musician be both artistically radical and charmingly impish? Personally generous and aesthetically rigorous? Roger Norrington is the affirmative answer: it was a Beethovenian revelation to meet him!’ Page 46 Natasha Loges Academic, author and critic ‘Many listeners think of Brahms as serious, heavy and rather daunting. But a closer look reveals that both he and his music offer not only discipline and determination, but also passion and playfulness.’ Page 68…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020LETTER of the MONTHTraditional values Some years ago, as the applause died down after a traditional and enjoyable performance of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, a young woman sitting in front of me turned to her companion and said, ‘They didn’t do anything with it!’. Nowadays, when artists in any medium perform a familiar work, the temptation to ‘do’ something with it seems almost irresistible. I would guess that that is what lies behind the strange things done to the Monteverdi Vespers by Simon-Pierre Bestion, as described by your critic Berta Joncus (Jan). By contrast, the very unfamiliarity of Rossini’s 1818 opera Ricciardo e Zoraide may explain why the director Marshall Pynkoski didn’t feel any need to ‘do’ anything – to the annoyance of your critic Christopher Cook (also January). However, I doubt if…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020THE MONTH IN NUMBERS106,000 …dollars. A Steinway grand bought – although not necessarily played – by Frank Sinatra in 1949 has been sold at auction for twice its estimate. 2 …more girl choristers. It has been reported that there are now 739 girls versus 737 boys in England’s cathedral choirs. 14,000 …Romanian violins. The eastern European country has been revealed to be the biggest exporter of violins to countries outside the EU, a statistic announced on Violin Day, on 13 Dec. 6 ...weeks of rehearsal for an opera is too much, says Anna Netrebko. The soprano (above) has told Der Tagespiegel newspaper that three-and-a-half should be quite enough.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Puccini’s Madam Butterfly fails to take flight in MilanFollowing the phenomenal twin successes of La bohème (1896) and Tosca (1900), Puccini was on a roll. His high-impact, supercharged operatic barnstormers chimed exactly with contemporary tastes for the exotic and shocking. Yet work on the much-anticipated follow-up was hampered by skirmishes in his personal life, and as the curtain went up on the La Scala Milan premiere of Madam Butterfly on 17 February 1904, his troubles rapidly got even worse. Puccini began work on Butterfly in 1901, initially looking at integrating traditional Japanese melodies into the score. Soon, however, he had a major distraction in his life: the arrival of his first motor car, a splendid De Dion Bouton. And within no time, he managed to slide his new pride and joy off the road into a ditch when,…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020DÉJÀ VUOh dear. Red faces in Wiltshire, where a piano given to an RAF base as a gift was burned to a crisp ‘by mistake’ in a ceremonial fire. Top brass at the Boscombe Down airbase have apologised to Saleh and Suzanne Rebdi who, when moving house, donated the mahogany instrument to what they thought would be a good home. It’s not the first piano to fall victim to the flames, mind you… A number of composers over the years have chosen to express themselves by setting light to our poor 88-keyed friends. These include New Zealand’s Annea Lockwood, whose performance instructions for her 1968 piece Piano Burning recommend that ‘piano burning should really be done with an upright piano’, and Diego Stocco, whose The Burning Piano consists of recordings of…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020REWINDThis month: JOYCE DIDONATO Mezzo-soprano MY FINEST MOMENT In War and Peace Joyce DiDonato (mezzo-soprano); Il Pomo d’Oro/Maxim Emelyanychev Erato 9029592846 (2016) This has been my most personal recording to date, as it was born at precisely the right moment for me as an artist and as a citizen. Personally, I turn to art for entertainment and occasionally to escape the everyday chaos, but I also know first-hand the very real, transformative power of music in people’s lives and I have endeavoured to use my voice in this way as much as I can. But this project became something much more than simply an album and tour; it was a kind of movement that reached nearly three million people over four continents with its message of active peace. We included…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020FAREWELL TO…Peter Schreier Born 1935 Tenor and conductor The mid-1960s saw Peter Schreier make his name as a celebrated Mozartian on the world’s highest-profile opera stages – for someone born and schooled in East Germany, enjoying such international acclaim was a comparatively rare thing. Schreier’s earliest music-making took place as a treble with the Dresden Kreuzchor. He became a countertenor and then a tenor, taking a keen interest in Bach cantatas and oratorios – his appearances as the Evangelist in the Passions and the Christmas Oratorio were highpoints of his career, both in concert and on record. He was a master of lieder, too, and had successful partnerships with pianists András Schiff and Sviatoslav Richter. A trained conductor, Schreier undertook a second career on the podium, specialising in Bach, Mozart and…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020READER’S CHOICECliff Occomore Crawley I’ve been listening to a couple of discs of music of Kenneth Leighton, issued by Chandos. The first includes the early Symphony for Strings, first conducted by Gerald Finzi. This should take its place among the better known pieces of English string music. The second contains the Second Symphony. It is a choral symphony and has eclectic choice of words. I was fascinated to find that both the first movement and the last contain the tunes and words of the American hymn, Shall We Gather At The River.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020250 REASONS TO CELEBRATE BEETHOVENThe opening notes of his Fifth Symphony are arguably the most recognised in all of classical music, and the story of his deafness is familliar to many people who have heard scarcely a bar of his pioneering sonatas, concertos, songs and quartets. As we approach 250 years since his birth in Bonn, Beethoven continues to fascinate us like no other composer in history. Born into an era of revolution and imperial ambition, Beethoven himself pushed music in new directions, setting his own creative bar and demands on his performers ever higher. His life, meanwhile, was one of emotional upheaval, as hearing loss, family feuds and unreciprocated amorous advances all added to his torment. Over the next 15 pages, we present 250 things that every Beethoven fan should know, from his…23 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 must-read booksAnton Schindler wrote one of the earliest Beethoven biographies, published in 1840, but its veracity was soon questioned. Alexander Wheelock Thayer was the next to take up the challenge, with three volumes published from 1866-79. Of the other biographies, Lewis Lockwood’s Beethoven: The Music and the Life and Maynard Solomon’s Beethoven remain classics. More recently, Jan Swafford’s Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph impressed reviewers, while Robin Wallace’s Hearing Beethoven: A Story of Musical Loss and Discovery offered revelatory research about the composer’s deafness. Beethoven’s Conversation Books have been translated into English by Theodore Albrecht, with the first two volumes of the planned 12 out now. Novelist Sanford Friedman also turns to Beethoven’s discussions, this time fictionalised, in his Conversations with Beethoven. Two books being published for 2020 are Jessica duch*en’s Immortal,…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 quotes about Beethoven‘You can’t have any idea what it’s like always to hear such a giant marching behind you!’ Johannes Brahms German composer ‘I detest Beethoven!’ Igor Stravinsky Russian composer (left), 1922 ‘At 80, I have found new joy in Beethoven’ Igor Stravinsky again, 1962 ‘It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man’ EM Forster English author ‘[In Beethoven’s music] the dreamer will recognise his dreams, the sailor his storms, and the wolf his forests’ Victor Hugo French author ‘Everything will pass and the world will perish but the Ninth will remain’ Mikhail Bakunin Russian revolutionary ‘At a certain place in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, one might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 unfamiliar worksWellington’s Victory Originally written for a panharmonicon, an automatic orchestral organ, the piece marked the victory at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II, Wo0 87 Written for a memorial service by a 19-year-old Beethoven, it was premiered in 1884. King Stephen, Op. 117 The overture is played today but the vocal movements that follow are forgotten. This 1811 piece refers to the first king of Hungary. Three Equale for Four Trombones, Wo0 30 Written for All Soul’s Day in Linz Cathedral, 1812. Vocal arrangements were heard at Beethoven’s funeral. Andante favori in F, Wo057 Rejected as the Waldstein Sonata’s second movement for being overlong, it took on its own life when published in 1805. Waldstein Variations Written for the same Count Ferdinand…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 Beethoven references in popular cultureStanley Kubrick’s 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange was particularly renowned for its use of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The protagonist Alex is psychologically conditioned against this particular symphony. Composer Michael Kamen later paid homage to Kubrick in his score to the 1988 film Die Hard, featuring the symphony’s ‘Ode to Joy’ theme in various guises. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony makes its way into Saturday Night Fever, which features Walter Murphy’s ‘A Fifth of Beethoven’, a disco adaptation of the symphony’s first movement. The 1992 film Beethoven tells the story of a St Bernard who is named after the composer when he barks along to Symphony No. 5. The film’s main theme is a version of Roll over Beethoven, the 1956 song about composers rolling in their…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020A miscellaneous grand finale10 places to pay homage Beethovenhaus Bonngasse 20, Bonn The composer’s birthplace – he lived there until 1774. Today it’s a museum and the leading centre for Beethoven study. Pasqualatihaus Mölker Bastei 8, Vienna For eight years Beethoven lived at this address, and wrote Fidelio here. Beethoven Monument Beethovenplatz, Vienna Commissioned by Vienna’s ‘Friends of Music’ soon after Beethoven’s centenary, this statue was unveiled in 1880. Beethoven’s Grave Zentralfriedhof Cemetery, Vienna The composer’s remains were moved here in 1888 after the original burial ground closed. He is buried in Group 32a, Grave No. 29. Heiligenstadt Vienna Now a city district, Heiligenstadt was once a small municipality. Beethoven was sent here to rest for a few months in 1802 and it’s where he wrote his famous Heiligenstadt Testament. Beethoven Temple Kurpark,…6 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020AWARDS 2020Which were the very finest recordings of 2019? That was the question we asked our awards jury to answer, after the enjoyable task of listening once again to every single disc given five stars in the magazine last year. Over a lively day of discussion, we chose the best of this already brilliant line-up for our shortlists. Now it’s over to you to select your favourites. Over the following three pages we reveal all 21 nominations. Once you’ve taken a look at this outstanding selection, head to classical-music.com/awards, listen to excerpts and cast your votes! The winners will be announced on 22 April 2020. THE AWARDS JURY: MICHAEL BEEK, OLIVER CONDY, CHRISTOPHER DINGLE, REBECCA FRANKS, HANNAH FRENCH, ANDREW MCGREGOR ,ALEXANDRA WILSON VOTE NOW AT CLASSICAL-MUSIC.COM/AWARDS Orchestral nominations Weinberg Symphonies Nos…7 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Bedÿich SmetanaThough Dvoÿák can probably lay claim to being the best known Czech composer worldwide, within the country itself Smetana rules supreme – from Plzen in the west to Ostrava in the east, nearly every major town boasts a statue of him. Litomysl, of course, is no exception. That said, the ‘father of Czech music’ only lived in the town of his birth until the age of six, when his family upped sticks to Jindÿichuv Hradec. By that stage, however, the talented youngster had already performed his first piano recital at Litomysl’s Philosophical Academy.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020A blend of beauty and intensityMaria João Pires (piano) Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding Onyx ONYX4125 (2014) You know you’re in for something very special when the first chord of this piano concerto makes you sit up, senses instantly attuned. It may be just a simple, hushed chord of G major, but the intensity here is utterly electric. From that, the opening phrase tails off as though in a trance. Conductor Daniel Harding and the orchestra then deliver an engrossingly expressive account of the ‘introduction’, which leads so naturally to Maria João Pires’s next entrance that it feels like she’s deftly picking up the thread she let drop moments ago. Penetrating gentleness can be just as compelling as attention-seeking virtuosity The first movement is quite measured in pace – more moderato than Allegro moderato you…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Reviewsmusic’s expressive soundworld, as well as its peerless structural logic – she’s more inclined to take her listeners by the hand and say ‘listen to just how wonderful this passage is’. What impresses most is Hewitt’s sheer joy and sense of wonder in Bach’s creative genius Whereas before there was a slight sensation of ornaments being immaculately rendered and shaped as a special point of executant focus, this time around they emerge as a natural, organic extension of the musical process. There is also an enhanced sense of imperativeness in the darker C minor and A minor partitas, as though a thin veil of interpretative cool has been lifted to reveal the music’s molten inner core. In the final E minor Partita, the pearly clarity of the Fazioli and Hewitt’s…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020An interview with Angela HewittWhy did you want to re-record the Six Partitas? I played them a lot in 2017 as part of my Bach Odyssey and I realised I had come a long way in the 20 years since I first recorded them. Not just me, but also technology has come a long way. I thought it would be nice to have a record of how they had changed in that time – 20 years of playing Bach, of adding more colour, more flexibility, perhaps more rhythmic variety and then just more depth of expression. That’s what comes with 20 more years of life. How has playing a Fazioli piano changed your performance? Since I started playing Fazioli pianos my growth as a pianist has changed, because the instrument gives me so many…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020ReissuesHandel Water Music; Serse, etc Eloquence 482 8531 (1955-60) 76:16 mins These starkly contrasting Handel performances range from Thurston Dart’s historically-informed, exuberant and fleet-footed Water Music to George Szell’s beefed-up romantic approach with the LSO. ★★★★ Memories of Vienna: waltzes and other works by J Strauss I, J Strauss II & Josef Strauss Eloquence 484 0692 (1948-61) 76:01 mins Josef Krips has the lilting rhythms of the Viennese waltz coursing through his veins in these elegant performances. Coloratura soprano Hilde Gueden’s cameo appearance is a welcome bonus. ★★★ Saint-Saëns Africa; Danse macabre, etc Cala Signum SIGCD2162 (1993) 77:46 mins Geoffrey Simon and an assortment of excellent soloists provide an intriguing survey of Saint-Saëns’s lesser-known works. An undoubted highlight is the wacky arrangement of Danse macabre for tenor and orchestra. ★★★★…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BACKGROUND TO…Kenneth Hesketh (b1968) Born in Liverpool, Kenneth Hesketh took an interest in composing while serving as a chorister at the city’s Anglican cathedral. Formal studies followed at the Royal College of Music and the University of Michigan, plus a period at Tanglewood with Henri Dutilleux. His first commission came aged 19, and preceded many others, from Europe, Canada and the US. Hesketh’s music is inspired by a wide range of influences (medieval symbolism, machines, mutation) and takes in many genres. He is a professor of composition and orchestration at the Royal College of Music.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BACKGROUND TO…Riccardo Broschi (c.1698 – 1756) Born in Naples, composer Riccardo Broschi studied at the Conservatory of Santa Maria di Loreto. The son of a chapel master and composer, Broschi wrote sacred music but is perhaps better known for his operas. These included Artaserse, Nerone and Idaspe. His brother Carlo Broschi (aka Farinelli) performed in a number of his works. Broschi relocated to London in 1726 where he lived and worked until 1734. A short spell in Stuttgart, working at the court of the Duke of Württemberg, preceded a final move to Madrid where he joined his brother in 1739.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BACKGROUND TO…Margaret Bonds (1913-72) The daughter of a pioneering black physician, Dr Monroe Alpheus Majors, and his second wife Estelle C Bonds, Margaret began her musical studies with her mother. Bonds’s home was a regular meeting place for young black musicians, including Florence Price, who taught Margaret piano and composition. After studying at Northwestern University, Bonds moved to New York in 1939. She composed much vocal music, and also became a distinguished pianist, becoming the first black soloist to appear with the Chicago Symphony when playing Price’s Piano Concerto in 1933.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020A glorious convergence of ancient and modernIn Nomine II Works by J Baldwin, Bull, Gavin Bryars, Ferrabosco, Nico Muhly, R Parsons, Purcell, Tye and J Ward Fretwork Signum SIGCD 576 59:50 mins Fretwork takes everything in its expertly burnished stride Perhaps it goes with the territory – the grainy gravitas of the soundworld, the default conversational counterpoint – but the viol consort repertoire so often gives the impression of a venerable repository embodying the musical wisdom of the ages. And for Fretwork ‘the ages’ includes today as well as yesterday. Over three decades have elapsed since the consort made its disc debut with a collection of In Nomines, and only now does it belatedly release an intended sequel, leavening glorious seven-part specimens by Robert Parsons and Purcell (not to mention three more-modestly-scored exhibits by the inexhaustibly…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Tchaikovsky with poise and passionTchaikovsky Grand Sonata, Op. 37; Two Pieces, Op. 1; Capriccio in G flat; Six Pieces, Op. 21, etc Peter Donohoe (piano) Signum SIGCD 594 84:56 mins (2 discs) Donohoe’s seductively rounded sonority pays special dividends Tchaikovsky’s Op. 37 Piano Sonata has generally been unlucky on disc, due largely to a tendency of pianists to hurl themselves into the fray with a passion, no doubt to conceal the work’s less than organic structure. Yet this invariably proves counterproductive, creating the impression of music that simply can’t sustain such superheated advocacy. Peter Donohoe, while never underplaying the Sonata’s moments of explosive rhetoric, finds a more poetic, Chopinesque poise, pointing up certain similarities with the Pole’s Ballades and B minor Sonata, and (especially in the Andante second movement) a Schumannesque fantasy. Instead of…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020HistoricalFebruary Round-up Black Voices Rise celebrates the contribution made by African-American singers to the New York Met over 30 years, beginning with Marian Anderson in Verdi in 1955. The live recordings are variable in quality, but all pretty decent, and the impeccable coloratura of Mattiwilda Dobbs and Reri Grist in their prime is alluring: they stand proudly in the company of the better-known names – Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle among them. Most are women, but George Shirley beguiles in Mozart, and the final track joins Simon Estes with Roberta Alexander in an emotionally-charged performance of ‘Bess, You Is My Woman Now’. (Met Opera 810004201057 ★★★ ) Kathleen Ferrier left relatively few recordings, so the discovery of a live Bach Magnificat from Vienna in 1950, in…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020British and Italian heroes of the violinIt might have been Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that truly made him a household name, but with Nigel Kennedy – The Early Years, 1984-1989 (Warner Classics 9029535574) we get everything that led up to that landmark recording. Across seven discs, the violinist’s early albums take him from youthful Elgar to vivacious Vivaldi, via his own arrangement of Duke Ellington’s Mainly Black. This set very much represents a journey for the iconic British musician whose dressed-down approach to this music made people sit up and take notice. Vivaldi leads the pack in Italian Violin Concertos (Dynamic CDS7861.10), a ten-disc celebration of virtuoso works by nine Italian composers and performed by eleven violinists. The Red Priest is joined by Locatelli, Tartini, Bonporti, Lolli, Rolla and Viotti, who each get a disc apiece. Then…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020From the archivesSometimes the archives strike a particular personal chord. In 1979, I spent a memorable few days trailing Buddy Rich and his big band around southern England for a magazine feature. As a one-time jazz drummer, this extended encounter with a drum legend was a dream assignment, a chance to immerse myself in the fabulous art of a man who’d been a percussion superstar virtually from infancy, when he was a vaudeville headliner billed as ‘Traps the Drum Wonder’. In his 60s, he was still a wonder, his speed and technique leaving audiences and musicians alike amazed. Though he could play with subtlety and refinement, Rich was most at home driving along a big band, and the high-powered ensemble he formed in 1966 was the true medium for his gifts. A…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Get the best sound from your smartphoneWe recommend… NuraLoop earphones £199 After an initial hearing test, the companion Nuraphone app adjusts the sound to suit your ears. The difference can be marked. nuraphone.com iFi xDSD £399 This exceptional wireless portable DAC and headphone amplifier will transform the sound of your streaming services, and with HD Bluetooth you can enjoy wireless listening, even with your wired headphones. ifi-audio.com Sony Xperia 5 £699 Sony’s latest smartphone features high-resolution audio and DSEE HX which upscales the audio signal of even the worst MP3 files to near high-resolution sound quality. sonymobile.com…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Three to look out forAlan Davey , the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this February Bang On! Bang on a Can All-Stars – the New York-based ensemble specialising in new music – joins the BBC Concert Orchestra for the UK premiere of Flower Power by Julia Wolfe. The piece is inspired by the late-1960s, a period that saw radical developments in art and politics. Radio 3 in Concert: 28 February, 7.30pm BBC New Generation Artists Day To celebrate the 20th anniverary of BBC New Generation Artists, Radio 3 presents a full day of concerts from Wigmore Hall, featuring NGA alumni from throughout the scheme’s history. BBC Radio 3: 1 February, 9am-1pm The Lonely Death of Stanley Bate We lift the veil on one of English music’s…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020WelcomeWelcome to our bumper Beethoven special issue, a chance for us to go all out in our celebration of the composer’s 250th anniversary. Here in the BBC Music Magazine office, we’ve been sharing our own early experiences of his music – overleaf we’ve each named the Beethoven work we first fell in love with. But when was the Ludwig light switch first turned on for you? What was the work that revealed his emotional and philosophical depths in all their glory? Do let us know. My epiphany came around 15 years ago courtesy of a live performance by Stephen Kovacevich of the Hammerklavier Sonata, a work that many pianists approach with caution. Understandably so – all of Beethoven’s world is found within. Human struggle, solemn contemplation, anxious skittishness, psychological and…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Women composers receive New Year Honours boostThe 2020 New Year Honours list provided great cause for celebration among British women composers, three of whom received awards. Elsewhere, the rise of cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason continued with an MBE, while the long and distinguished career of BBC presenter and director Humphrey Burton is recognised with a knighthood. Awarded, respectively, a CBE, OBE and MBE, composers Errollyn Wallen, Judith Bingham and Helen Grime have all made their own considerable mark on the British music scene over recent years. The Belize-born Wallen became the first ever black woman to have a composition performed at the BBC Proms when, in 1998, Adrian Spillett, Alasdair Malloy and the BBC Philharmonic played her Concerto for Percussion. She returned to the Royal Albert Hall this year for the world premiere of her This frame…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Rising StarsCaspar Singh Tenor Born: Hemel Hempstead, UK Career highlight: My first season at the opera studio of the Bavarian State Opera, participating in major performances, concerts, recitals and masterclasses. Musical hero: As a young tenor myself, my hero has to be Jonas Kaufmann. I performed alongside him last season and it was a wonderful learning experience. Dream concert: Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius is one of my grandad’s favourite pieces of music, so I’d love to sing it for him at the Royal Albert Hall. I live in Munich, so it would be a great opportunity to return to perform in the UK. Sofia Larsson Soprano Born: Nairobi, Kenya Career highlight: Singing the role of Donna in Handel’s Rinaldo at Glyndebourne as one of the Orchestra of the…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Also in February 19048th Shortly after its destroyers have attacked the neutral Russian fleet at anchor in Port Arthur, Manchuria (China), Japan declares war on Russia. The ensuing Russo-Japanese War lasts until May the following year when, having suffered considerable losses to its navy, Russia is forced to sue for peace. 8th The Portuguese soprano Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld dies aged 78. In 1865, she and her husband Ludwig made operatic history playing the title roles in the world premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Munich. Just weeks later, however, Ludwig died suddenly and, sinking into a deep depression, Malvina brought her 25-year stage career to an immediate end. 10th After a lengthy fact-finding mission, the British government diplomat Roger Casem*nt publishes his report outlining atrocities committed by Belgium in the Congo.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Segun AkinolaOne of the 2017 BAFTA Breakthrough Brits, the British-Nigerian composer studied composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and National Film and Television School. In 2018 he was chosen as the new composer for Doctor Who , following in the footsteps of Murray Gold. Series 12 of Doctor Who is on BBC One. It was important that my music for Doctor Who could look backwards and forwards. I was really given free rein creatively, but I wanted my music to carry the torch lit all those years ago [by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop] in terms of experimentation. To take it in the direction it’s gone in – particularly with regards to the music changing every week depending on the story – has been incredibly rewarding. Ideas can come…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Buried TreasureWarlock Songs John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Roger Vignoles (piano) Helios CDH55442 Listening to Peter Warlock’s songs is like walking through an English landscape suffused with warm afternoon light. Tender and ardent, often heartachingly beautiful, they combine a wonderful melodic gift – many of the melodies sound folksong-like in their seeming simplicity – with a singular harmonic language. The unexpected and hard-to-analyse chords and modulations are a huge delight, illuminating the text in surprising, memorable ways. Medtner Sonata in G minor, Op. 22 Emil Gilels (piano) Naxos 8.112051 Nikolai Medtner’s fiery, impassioned G minor sonata is a single-movement work, its complex architecture concealed behind the utterly organic way all melodic material is spun from the first two pages of the work. The dark, restless mood is immediate and palpable, the heartfelt…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Music to my earsBeatrice Rana Pianist Brahms’s Fourth Symphony is a favourite of mine. It tells me so much musically and it has been in the second half of concerts that have been very important in my life – my debut concerts at the Musikverein and at La Scala, for example. I was on a flight from Milan recently and I enjoyed listening to a recording by Claudio Abbado. There are a few recordings I enjoy, but I don’t have a favourite. I prefer to listen to it live. It’s always difficult to get to concerts, but a recent one that I loved was in Rome with pianist Martha Argerich and the Santa Cecilia orchestra under Antonio Pappano. They were playing Liszt’s First Piano Concerto and Schumann’s Second Symphony. I love the live…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Our ChoicesOliver Condy Editor Over the past few years, my parents have encouraged their friends to rediscover their musical talents and perform at informal soirées from time to time. What could be better? Decent food, a whole load of booze, fine company and a variety of brief musical turns. Chopin, Bach, Mozart, Pachelbel, a few songs from the shows and a reading or two added up to a rather touching evening back in early December. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor This month, I’ll be flying out to Barcelona to celebrate my mum’s 80th birthday. This has me doing a quick Google search of famous works premiered in 1940. Though the results include Britten’s Les illuminations and Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto, I really have to go for Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, as…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 famous Beethoven fansPoliticians of all hues seem to like Beethoven, not least Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, who made no secret of his love of the Appassionata Sonata. In the UK, Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher made the ‘Emperor’ Concerto one of her Desert Island Discs choices in 1978, current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he once wrote a key speech listening to the Fifth Symphony, and former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown told the Financial Times he would like a hi-fi system that ‘would make the cottage bounce to Beethoven’. Among sporty types, 1980s England cricket captain Mike Brearley (above) revealed that he hummed a cello passage from the Razumovsky quartets when going into bat, tennis’s Rafael Nadal named his yacht Beethoven in homage, and erstwhile Italy football manager Giovanni Trapattoni collected Beethoven…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 20205 lesser-known contemporariesChristian Heinrich Rinck (1770-1846) Most notable for his organ works, this German composer also penned sonatas and choral music. Philipp Jakob Riotte (1776-1856) The German’s music was a regular at the Theater an der Wien in the 1820s. Louise Reichardt (1779-1826) An influential figure in Hamburg, where she composed over 100 lieder. Franz Danzi (1763-1826, below) A cellist with the Mannheim Orchestra, he also composed opera, lieder, symphonies and concertos. Antonio Casimir Cartellieri (1772-1807) This Polish-Austrian composer penned symphonies, concertos, chamber works and opera; he was also a violinist and performed in a number Beethoven premieres.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 BBC broadcasts in 2020Beethoven’s Fidelio Lise Davidsen and Jonas Kaufmann lead a stunning cast at the Royal Opera House in Beethoven’s only opera. (31 May) Beethoven: Heiligenstadt, 1802 The first episode in a three-part series looks at Beethoven struggling, at 31, to come to terms with his deafness. (June) Beethoven’s Home, 1814 In the second part, Beethoven is at the height of his career and fame, but his confidence has been crushed as a performer. Beethoven: Vienna, 1823 The final instalment looks at Beethoven in the final stage of life, conducting the premiere of Symphony No. 9. Beethoven Roots Festival Alongside a symphony cycle, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performs works by Beethoven’s contemporaries. (17-21 May) The Women of Beethoven’s Vienna Kate Kennedy explores the role women played in Viennese musical life at…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 arrangements of Beethoven• Symphonies Nos 1-9 Liszt made fiendish piano works from all 9. • Beethoven arranged his Symphony No. 2 for piano trio. • Beethoven’s pupil Ries turned Symphony No. 3 into work for piano quartet. • Hummel (above) rewrote Symphony No. 4 for flute, violin, cello and piano. • Wagner lent a domestic air to the Symphony No. 9 with his arrangement for piano, soloists and choir. • Try the String Quartets in Robert Wittmann’s piano duet version. • Conductor and pianist Mikhail Pletnev crafted the Violin Concerto for clarinet. • Uri Caine’s version of the Diabelli Variations for jazz piano and orchestra is quirky and fun. • A guitar, lute and bandurria version of the Piano Sonata No. 14 ‘Moonlight’ was written by Antonio López Villanueva • Four of…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 unmissable concerts in 2020For all nine symphonies, book now for the Barbican’s Beethoven Weekender, featuring orchestras including the CBSO, Royal Liverpool and Bournemouth symphony orchestras (1-2 February). The Hallé has also programmed the set, before rounding off its season with the Missa Solemnis (13 June). For Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio , Andrew Staples and Emma Bell join the Oxford Philharmonic and Garsington Chorus (31 May); Covent Garden’s starry production is already sold out but will be televised (also 31 May; see p116). When it comes to chamber music, Wigmore Hall has programmed the piano trios ( Trio Shaham Erez Wallfisch; (3 May, 20 June) and string quartets ( Belcea Quartet, various dates), while over at Kings Place Rachel Podger (above) and Christopher Glynn play the violin sonatas (various dates). For the piano sonatas,…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Sir Roger Norrington“Heroes don’t have to be bronze statues in the middle of a garden, surrounded by railings” Conductors aren’t supposed to do it like Roger Norrington. Instead of veiling himself on his podium in a shroud of sublime concentration, Norrington’s performances are invitations for all of us to join in. He breaks the fourth wall of the concert hall with delicious naughtiness, turning round to the audience with a wink and an embracing gesture to emphasise the gag that Haydn or Berlioz has just played on us, like a magician revealing how a trick is done. ‘I can’t not do it – I want to share it. A concert is a joint enterprise with the audience, isn’t it?’ It is. But try telling that to many of the high priests of…8 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020And the beat goes onMusical inspiration comes in many forms: divine intervention, the adrenaline rush of live performance, even a teacher’s timely ticking-off. Members of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain have probably experienced all of the above and more on the road to a place in one of the world’s leading ensembles for young musicians. Thanks to NYO Inspire, part of the orchestra’s extensive education outreach work, they now also mentor their peers, encouraging other instrumentalists to raise their playing games. Inspire’s annual round of workshops, rehearsals and performances welcomes teenagers from state schools with Grade 6-8 plus or equivalent on their respective instruments. Its ethos of access and inclusion soars high above the threshold of routine box-ticking exercises and diversity quotas to deliver such genuinely transformative experiences as NYO’s Tuning into…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Johannes BrahmsHas anyone ever been so utterly defined by their facial hair? There is no doubt that Brahms’s image was transformed by the bushy beard that sprouted in his mid-forties. Thereafter, he was regarded as serious and, by association, misanthropic and lonely – in short, a second Beethoven. Certainly, he could be brusque and occasionally unkind, but he was never unsociable. He gathered friends and admirers across Europe, with whom he enjoyed convivial evenings of eating, drinking and informal music-making, a counterpoint to his substantial public life. Schumann wrote an article, New Paths , that declared the 20-year-old Brahms a genius Unlike Beethoven, Brahms was not born into a family of court musicians; nor was he the child of a schoolteacher with access to an outstanding general and musical education, like…7 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Piano Concerto No. 4 Ludwig van BeethovenThe work Beethoven’s so-called ‘middle period’, roughly the years 1802-12, is often referred to as his ‘Promethean’ phase. The masterworks of this time, we are often told, are characterised by intense striving, heaven-storming ambition, revolutionary daring in matters of form and expression. But as Beethoven wrote enigmatically on one of his manuscripts, ‘Sometimes the opposite is also true’; and if any work could be held to demonstrate the truth of that it’s the Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that, composed in 1805-06, enjoyed its premiere at the same huge Theater an der Wien concert on 22 December 1808 – the same event that also saw the first performances of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. As if to underline this ‘opposite is also true’ thesis, Beethoven based the Fourth Piano Concerto’s…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Three other great recordingsStephen Kovacevich (piano) This 1971 recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis has dated well, musically and sonically. There’s a bit more muscularity in the solo playing, occasionally more of a hint of arm-wrestling in the relationship between piano and orchestra, than in the Pires/Harding version. But it’s the clarity and delicacy and, above all, the concentrated emotional insight that impress most. There’s a real sense of desolation in the slow movement: Orpheus may have won this contest, but his own grief is unassuaged. (Philips 422 4822) Murray Perahia (piano) More spacious and civilised than most competitors, Perahia’s 1986 recording with the Concertgebouw is still a long way from blandly beautiful. It’s the intelligence and musicality of Perahia’s playing, plus the sense of minutely attuned partnership…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020WelcomeIt would be remiss of us not to have a bit of Beethoven in this month’s reviews pages, but rest assured there will be plenty more as the year goes on. The Miró Quartet take on the complete quartets for Pentatone, René Jacobs conducts Leonore for Harmonia Mundi and Iván Fischer brings us a pair of symphonies from Budapest on Channel Classics. That’s not all, though, as Andrew McGregor lifts the lid on a trio of hefty box sets that take in Ludwig’s complete works. Beyond Beethoven there’s five-star Berlioz, a Lully opera and a Haydn mass, not to mention some notable pianists. Indeed we’ve top-notch turns from Angela Hewitt (see our Recording of the Month, opposite), Peter Donohoe, Stephen Hough and Arcadi Volodos. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020OrchestralBartók Suite No. 1; Concerto for Orchestra BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/ Thomas Dausgaard Onyx ONYX 4210 77:37 mins So familiar and unmistakeable today is Bartók’s mature style that hearing the original version of his Suite No. 1, composed in 1905, can come as quite a surprise. That’s especially true beside the Concerto for Orchestra, which was written in the US for Koussevitzky 38 years later. The similarities and differences are striking: what a distance this composer travelled, yet the roots were there from the very start. Like the Concerto, the Suite is a five-movement orchestral showpiece with a characteristically Hungarian flavour, yet it seems to spring from a different world altogether. Here the 24-year-old composer drew folk music influences into a soundworld that at times could almost be mistaken for…10 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020ConcertoBeethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15; Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37; Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58; Triple Concerto, Op. 56* Inon Barnatan (piano); Stefan Jackiw (violin)*; Alisa Weilerstein (cello)*; Academy of St Martin in the Fields/ Alan Gilbert Pentatone PTC 5186 817 145.36 mins Bernard Levin once wrote that Beethoven’s music can have you believing that heaven really does exist on earth. The central strength of this first instalment of Inon Barnatan’s piano concertos cycle is that, time and again, it puts you in touch with that feeling of ongoing wonderment. Barnatan’s no-nonsense approach, at once classy and unaffected, has a way of directing the ear straight to the music’s heart, while the orchestra’s response to Alan Gilbert’s…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020OperaBeethoven Leonore Marlis Petersen, Maximilian Schmitt, Dimitry Ivashchenko, Johannes Weisser, Robin Johannsen, Johannes Chum, Tareq Nazmi, Florian Feth, Julian Popken; Zurcher Sing-Akademie; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra/René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMM 902414.15 120:20 mins (2 discs) Beethoven made three versions of his opera Fidelio – though it ended up, in all, with four overtures. This 2017 Parisian concert performance is of the first, 1805 version, which (as with 1806), is usually called Leonore to differentiate it from the final 1814 edition. But one has to qualify that slightly, because conductor René Jacobs has firstly produced a new edition of the spoken dialogue that draws on all three versions, plus Jean-Nicolas Bouilly’s French libretto to Léonore, ou L’Amour conjugal (1798) – precursor to Beethoven’s creation. He has also further modernised the language ‘in…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Choral & SongBonds The Ballad of the Brown King*;
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020ReissuesCalmus – Best of 20 Years Choral works by JS Bach, Purcell etc Carus 83.507 (2002-10) 110:26 mins (2 discs) This beautifully assembled collection by the Calmus Ensemble offers an impressive variety of secular and sacred works in exquisite recorded sound. ★★★★★ Helen Watts – Lieder by Wolf, R Schumann, Schubert and Brahms Eloquence 482 8588 (1964/66) 108:43 mins (2 discs) Helen Watts’s rich, old-fashioned voice and creamy legato are beautifully matched by Geoffrey Parsons’s restrained, luminous piano sound. Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody is surpassingly beautiful, if slow. ★★★★ Songs for Courtiers and Cavaliers by Caccini, JS Bach, Purcell etc Eloquence 482 8578 (1956/59) 132:47 mins (2 discs) An intriguing record of the roots of historically-informed performance, Helen Watts and Desmond Dupré give passionate but (by today’s standards) heavy-handed accounts. ★★…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BACKGROUND TO…Elizabeth Maconchy (1907-94) Though born in Hertfordshire, Elizabeth Maconchy spent much of her childhood on the east coast of Ireland. It’s there that she learned piano and began composing at the age of six. Her formal studies included the Royal College of Music, where she enrolled in 1923, and her teachers included Charles Wood and Vaughan Williams. Despite her English roots and that notable mentor, Maconchy was drawn to the style of European modernist composers like Bartók and she would go on to study in Prague. Machonchy also served as chair of the Composers’ Guild of Great Britain.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BACKGROUND TO… Cyril Scott (1879-1970)A member of the Frankfurt Gang – along with such musicians as Percy Grainger, Balfour Gardiner and Roger Quilter – Cyril Scott was precociously talented, and knew it. After a time living in that German city and making friends with the poet Stefan George, he settled in Liverpool where he presented himself as a latter-day pre-Raphaelite and pursued a barely successful career as a music teacher. For a while he enjoyed considerable fame on the continent – his career highpoint came in 1925 with the perfomance of his one-act opera The Alchemist in Essen. Meanwhile in England he became contractually obliged to compose several short piano pieces in impressionist style which earned him a reputation as the ‘English Debussy’.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020An irresistible FigaroMozart Le nozze di Figaro Ernest Blanc, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Söderström, Fernando Corena, Teresa Berganza et al, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus/Carlo Maria Giulini ICA Classics ICAC5157 150:31 mins (2 discs) This concert performance comes almost 18 months after Giulini’s 1959 studio recording and, among the main characters, only Schwarzkopf’s Countess features in both. The sound is slightly more restricted, but there’s little audience noise, and the urgency of the live situation allows Giulini to carry the narrative along with irresistible pace, and the recitatives bring a sense of momentum. As Figaro, Corena doesn’t quite warm into character until ‘Se vuol ballare’, but Söderström’s Susanna is there straight away, with a combination of domestic efficiency and romantic affection. Blanc brings to the Count something of the entitled swagger which he portrayed…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020JazzFebruary round-up Elliot Galvin’s new CD (see Jazz Choice) is a live album, always a logical way of presenting the music in all its spontaneity; this month, happily, three have come along at once, with the Jean Toussaint Allstar 6tet’s Live at the Jazz Café 091218 being the second. That the UK has managed to hold on to this respected American expat for over 30 years is in itself pleasing, but his contributions to British jazz as a performer and educator have made him invaluable. Here he fronts a band that truly merits its all-star tag (the saxophonist shares the front line with trumpeter Byron Wallen and trombonist Dennis Rollins) in a full-on but never ponderous set of mainly his and members’ originals. It’s a two-disc release, a relative rarity…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BooksDearest Lenny – Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro Mari Yoshihara Oxford University Press 978-0-190-46578-0; 280pp (hb) £19.99 With the Library of Congress’s Leonard Bernstein Collection consisting of 400,000 items in 1,700 boxes, Bernstein scholars are unlikely to run out of material soon. The present volume draws on one particular area: the personal, often poetic correspondence Bernstein received from two loyal Japanese worshippers, Kazuko Amano (housewife, editor of children’s books) and Kunihiko Hashimoto (actor, director, Bernstein’s business representative in Japan). Both established loving bonds, though only Hashimoto’s relationship became physical, and that briefly. The third worshipper is the Japanese-American author, who accepts Bernstein’s genius without question, and whose writing blends the manners of an academic, psychologist and romantic novelist. She is best when drawing parallels between…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Live choiceLONDON London Philharmonic Orchestra Royal Festival Hall, 1 February Tel: +44 (0)20 3879 9555 Web: www.southbankcentre.co.uk Conductor Vladimir Jurowski reaches the third instalment – Siegfried – of his four-year traversal of Wagner’s Ring cycle. He’s assembled quite a cast. Torsten Kerl sings the role of the eponymous lead, who braves fire to awaken Elena Pankratova’s Brünnhilde from her magic sleep. Radio 3 New Generation Artists Wigmore Hall, 1 February Tel: +44 (0)20 7935 2141 Web: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk A raft of current and former Radio 3 New Generation Artists convene for an action-packed day of four concerts celebrating the 20th anniversary of the scheme. The likes of Meta4, the Elias Quartet, pianist Cédric Tiberghien and tenor Allan Clayton perform repertoire from Mozart and Brahms to Kaipainen and Britten. Beethoven Weekender The Barbican,…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BACKSTAGE WITH… Conductor Simon Crawford-PhillipsYou’re conducting the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in a programme of music inspired by nature. Which landscapes were these composers influenced by? Mendelssohn supposedly wrote the melodies of the Hebrides Overture while visiting caves off the Scottish coast. Everywhere he went on his travels, he picked up inspiration. We’re also playing Brahms’s Double Concerto, which isn’t specifically engaged in nature, but was written after he came back from a trip to Lake Thun, where he was fascinated by the landscape. Andrea Tarrodi’s Zephyros is based on the god of the west wind. How would you describe the soundworld of Zephyros? It’s not a massive orchestration but Andrea Tarrodi gets such a beautiful sound from the band. She has a wonderful sense of orchestral colour. It’s really atmospheric and haunting – almost…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020BEETHOVEN 250 Beethoven UnleashedTo mark the 250th anniversary of the great composer, the BBC is celebrating Beethoven across radio, television and live performance. BBC Radio 3 is leading the way with its year-long season, Beethoven Unleashed. The year will be split into five distinct parts, each exploring a different area of his life: The Beginning (12-18 January); Love and Loss (15-24 May); Celebrity Beethoven (13-19 July); Beethoven for all (21-25 September); and Beethoven and beyond (14-18 December). The composer’s life and works will be explored in 26 alternate weeks on Radio 3’s Composer of the Week, tracing the story of his turbulent life and examining his tremendous contribution to music. Also on Radio 3, a series of five essays titled ‘Why Beethoven Matters’, written by fans of the composer, including composer Nitin Sawhney…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Have your say…Oliver’s organ In his interesting article Winds of Change (January), Daniel Moult is being a little unfair to Oliver Cromwell. It is true that Cromwellian puritanical zeal was sweeping organs out of churches, but it was not hypocrisy for Cromwell to have an organ installed in Hampton Court for his own enjoyment and edification. Cromwell, like many puritans, was fond of music but it seemed inappropriate in the worship of the church – there, the glory of God and the power of His Word must not be rivalled. Perhaps we get the point if we ask how many people listen to Choral Evensong not to worship God but to enjoy the music. Happily many people know you can do both, and one can enhance the other. Rev Eric Chandler, Chichester…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020A purr-fect instrument for Clawed DebussyHere’s a piano like you’ve never seen before. Though be careful, it may bite. Designed by Tesoro Noro in Southport, this one-off ‘panther piano’ is currently on the market for around £750,000, ten per cent of which will go towards Panthera, a charity that aims to protect the world’s declining big cat populations. The instrument, says its makers, is ‘a stunning geometric structure; the beautiful grand piano melts into the back of the prowling black panther beneath it, creating one single magnificent beast.’ What’s more, it can even be programmed, pianola-style, to play itself. Regular tuning plus a diet of deer and capybara should keep it in tip-top condition.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Sound BitesThat’ll be the Dai Charlotte Bray and Dai Fujikura were among those celebrating success at the recent Ivors Composer Awards. Previously called The British Composer Awards, the event saw 13 trophies handed out, with Bray winning the Solo or Duo Award for her Invisible Cities and Fujikura the Chamber Ensemble Award for his Flute Concerto. Harrison Birtwistle has won eight such awards, but on this occasion had to make do with just a nomination for his Keyboard Engine. A fight at the opera A barrister has been found guilty of punching a fellow audience member during Wagner’s Siegfried at the Royal Opera House. Taking umbrage at seeing fashion designer Ulrich Engler occupy a seat that he believed he hadn’t paid for, Matthew Feargrieve decided to match the action on stage…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020He’s started… so we’ll finishHow might Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony have sounded had he not died before its completion? We will never know for sure, of course, but boffins in the composer’s birthplace, Bonn, are hoping to give us at least some idea… by getting a computer to finish it. The ‘new’ Tenth – which we hope will be nicknamed the ‘Robotica’ – will be created using software that analyses the composer’s sketches for the work plus examples of his style from a selection of pieces. But as Christine Siegert, head of the Beethoven Archive in Bonn, admits with admirable understatement, ‘The quality of genius cannot be fully replicated.’…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Studio SecretsMary and Sophie Bevan are taking up to a dozen members of their family into the studio this month to record together for the first time. The Bevans take on obscure and unrecorded polyphony, traditional choral polyphony and modern pieces, including works by David Bevan. The disc will be released by Signum Classics. German soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller has headed to the studio for the first time. Her debut album for Pentatone, to which she recently signed, is entitled Reine de cœur and takes in German and French art song by Schumann, Zemlinsky and Poulenc. A digital single of Schumann’s Herzeleid is available to stream and download now. Eric Lu has had a busy time since winning the Leeds International Piano Competition last year. Recently announced as a BBC New Generation…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020We can all be composers!How do they do it? Composers I mean, the creators of the works of genius that are recorded by great performers and reviewed for your delectation in these pages every month. They’re on another level, aren’t they, these superhuman composers? They must be to come up with those symphonies, operas and string quartets. What divine powers! What inspiration! That parodic paragraph proves the whole problem with the way classical composers are perceived, and their relationship with us mere mortals who haven’t yet written an epoch-defining cycle of sonatas or cantatas. Because the reality is that you or I are both capable of composing, with our voices or our instruments; it’s just that we’re often told we can’t, or we don’t allow to think of ourselves that way. This is a…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020READER’S CHOICEOdetta Blankleider Adelaide, Australia I love listening to CDs when I drive. I would therefore love it if BBC Music Magazine could feature the Piano Sonata No. 1 in C minor by Sandro Nebieridze on your cover CD. I heard this work on YouTube, played at the semifinal round of the 2019 China International Piano Competition. I could not believe how it was possible that such a young person managed to compose such a mature and exciting work. I could just imagine listening to it when driving somewhere.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Richard MorrisonPoor old Ludwig. His 250th anniversary year has hardly begun, yet already people are complaining about there being ‘too much Beethoven’. How much is too much? Well, just a single note if you’re the US musicologist William Gibbons. He has caused a small Twitterstorm by declaring that programming even more Beethoven than normal is ‘grotesque’ at a time when ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ are ‘essential goals’ for the classical music world. It means, he says, ‘elbowing out of the way’ women and minority-ethnic composers to pay yet more homage to ‘the mythical dead white European hypermasculine genius hero that personifies the canon’. Well, it’s certainly true that Beethoven is played a lot already. But that’s largely because he is so damn good, so provocative, so eternally challenging, in so many…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 composers inspired by Beethoven’s geniusLouise Farrenc (1804-75) A champion of the late piano sonatas, her Third Symphony was premiered in a concert featuring Beethoven’s Fifth. Robert Schumann (1810-56) The German’s solo piano Fantasie in C, Op. 17, was written to help fundraise for a Beethoven monument in Bonn. Richard Wagner (1813-83) ‘Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony became the mystical goal of all my desires about music’, wrote Wagner. It paved the way for his groundbreaking operas. Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) Spurred on by her encounters with Beethoven’s music, the British composer travelled to Leipzig to study. Michael Tippett (1905-98) Tippett’s Piano Concerto was a response to Beethoven’s Fourth Concerto and his String Quartet No. 4 was modelled on the C sharp minor Quartet Op. 131. Thea Musgrave (b.1928) Credits Beethoven with helping her to think ‘in dramatic…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 releases to look out forIt wouldn’t be a composer anniversary without an influx of new releases. We’ve already seen (and reviewed) many notable discs in recent issues, and there are plenty more in the offing. Pianist Fazil Say follows Igor Levit with a complete set of sonatas for Warner Classics, while Peter Hill and Benjamin Frith present the composer’s works for Piano Four Hands on Delphian. Sticking with pianists, Elizabeth Sombart joins the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2 for Signum Classics, while Omri Epstein duets with cellist brother Ori in a disc of cello and piano works for Linn Records. There’s further chamber music, as Chandos releases a two-disc set of Beethoven’s late quartets, performed by the Brodsky Quartet. Alpha Classics, meanwhile, presents all of the quartets in the…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 20205 unfinished masterpiecesEyeglasses duo for viola and cello Discovered in his ‘Kafka Sketchbook’ (a collection of complete and incomplete works), this two-movement duo takes its name from the bespectacled performers it was written for. Symphony No. 10 Fragmentary sketches for the Tenth’s first movement were assembled in 1988 by musicologist Barry Cooper. Romance cantabile, WoO 207 This piece scored for piano, flute, bassoon and orchestra was supposedly intended to be used as a middle movement of a larger work. Piano Concerto No. 6 The longest, most developed of his unfinished works, Beethoven made around 70 pages of sketches for the opening movement. Violin Concerto in C A 259-bar handwritten fragment of its first movement survives, which has been completed and published by several composers since its rediscovery c1870.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 202010 Beethoven performersGeorge Bridgetower (1778-1860) This son of a West Indian servant so impressed Beethoven that the Violin Sonata No. 9 was dedicated to him. Anna Milder (1785-1838) The Austrian soprano sang the title role in the premieres of Leonore/Fidelio and its revised versions. A major quarrel with Beethoven halted their amity. Franz Liszt (1811-86) After meeting Beethoven as a boy, Liszt went on to champion his music throughout his life. Arabella Goddard (1836-1922, above) Goddard introduced many audiences to Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas, and was the first to play the Hammerklavier in Great Britain. Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) Peerless in the violin sonatas, the Austrian’s cadenzas for the Violin Concerto are still widely performed today. Artur Schnabel (1882-1951) So fine were his 1930s recordings of the 32 piano sonatas that one critic…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Pioneering spiritRoger Norrington was born in 1934 to Edith and Arthur Norrington, and music was always part of his home life. He played the violin and sang, first as a treble then a tenor, skills which he honed during his university education at Cambridge and early career at Oxford University Press. Conducting had been a continual interest, but it wasn’t until Norrington formed the Schütz Choir to give a landmark concert of the 17th-century German composer’s music in 1962 that he felt moved to pursue it seriously. Studies at the Royal College of Music with conductor Adrian Boult followed. As there was no Schütz tradition, Norrington had to invent a performing style, based on scholarship – and he brought that approach to subsequent ensembles. In 1969 he became music director of…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Litomyšl Czech RepublicWell hello, Bedrich Smetana. And hello again. As I amble around Litomyšl, I keep coming across cardboard cut-outs of the Czech composer. He looks in a very good mood, I must say – someone has evidently been having oodles of fun altering the great man’s image to give him a wink and a smile. Mind you, there is plenty for Smetana to smile about. Firstly, it’s a warm and sunny June day. Secondly, he was born in a brewery. And thirdly, his home town is presently celebrating its most famous son with a three-week music festival. In fact, Litomyšl has been pushing this particular boat out in a big way for 70 years. Staged to mark 125 years since its dedicatee’s birth, the inaugural Smetanova Litomy›l festival in 1949 saw…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Brahms’s styleTraditional forms Brahms’s music employs long-established forms like sonata form, or theme and variations, or strophic song. But even though the form is usually recognisable, his music often blurs the boundaries: the return of musical material in his sonata forms is often subtle, elided and unexpected. Musical material Within those traditional containers, economy of thematic material was extremely important to Brahms, mattering even more than beauty. Often, we can identify a small amount of thematic material as the basis for an entire work, creating a sense of unity and familiarity even in lengthy works. Folk song and melody That economy of material is related to Brahms’s fascination with European folk song, which he studied extensively. Despite the complexity of much of his music, he valued memorable, pithy and singable melodies,…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020The composerThe often serene nature of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto belies the turbulence of the composer’s life at the time. Three years before he began writing it, he had poured out his despair at the loss of his hearing in the Heiligenstadt Testament, and the political scene around him was none too cheery either – his imperial ambitions now scarcely concealed, Napoleon invaded Beethoven’s home city of Vienna in November 1805. The Fourth Piano Concerto’s first performance came just months before Napoleon’s second, and equally traumatic, invasion in 1809.…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Continue the journey…Czerny’s orchestration comes straight from the Beethoven rule-book Hummel preferred not to lurk in Beethoven’s shadow, which perhaps explains why he shied away from symphonies. He did, however, bash out the odd piano concerto including the C major Op. 34a composed in 1809 for the wedding anniversary of Archduke Rudolph of Austria, one of Beethoven’s patrons. The C major combines a gentle lyricism with a trumpet-timpani militaristic nod to Napoleon’s invasion of Vienna the same year. Overall, Hummel maintains a fine Beethovenian balance between piano and orchestra. (Howard Shelley (piano), London Mozart Players Chandos CHAN10255) Burgmüller was a fine orchestrator, too. Born in 1810, the German composer completed his First Piano Concerto in 1829, performing the solo part at its premiere in 1830. F sharp minor is a niche choice,…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020This exquisite return to Bach is full of joyJS Bach Partita No. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825; Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826; Partita No. 3 in A minor, BWV 827; Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828; Partita No. 5 in G major, BWV 829; Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830 Angela Hewitt (piano) Hyperion CDA68271/2 149.56mins (2 discs) Incredibly, it's over 20 years since Angela Hewitt last recorded the Partitas for Hyperion. At the time, modern recordings of Bach’s keyboard music were dominated by harpsichordists – András Schiff’s fine 1980s/’90s series of recordings for Decca was another glorious exception to the general rule. So to hear this wonderful music played by Hewitt with such a remarkable sense of style and poise on a concert grand was a special treat…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Petrenko’s Strauss has character and dramaR Strauss Don Quixote; Don Juan; Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Louisa Tuck (cello); Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/ Vasily Petrenko Lawo Classics LWC 1184 76:27 mins For these Strauss tone poems, there’s no better recommendation The lunatic, the lover and the joker are of imagination all infinite in these supremely vivid interpretations. When the players are alert to all expressive possibilities, Don Quixote emerges as one of the richest orchestral scores ever composed: variations, concerto and symphonic poem rolled into one, perfectly structured and contrasted, the ultimate ‘opera for orchestra’. That’s clear as each instrumental solo or group signs in at the beginning. Petrenko then takes his time over the first unravelling of the melancholy knight’s wits, building up a clearly-textured head of steam in crazy counterpoint before diving through the looking…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Baroque pyrotechnics from a Russian virtuosoVirtuosissimo Locatelli: Concerto No. 1 in D major; Pisendel: Concerto in G minor; Leclair: Concerto in D major Il Pomo d’Oro/Dmitry Sinkovsky (violin) Naïve OP 30576 77.00 mins There’s a vocalist’s sense of lyricism to these readings With his long, dark locks, dramatic stage presence and devil-may-care virtuosity, Russian violinist Dmitry Sinkovsky is a latter-day Paganini, who brings to this programme of Baroque pyrotechnics the perfect balance of fire (‘pyr’) and art (‘tekhnikos’). He breezes through the salvo of technical challenges: multiple stoppings, bariolage, vertiginous leaps, embellishments, flashing scales and arpeggios – all are parried with brazen abandon. Yet he also brings a refined musicality and a sense of period style to these concertos, so alongside the fireworks there’s playing of exquisite delicacy and tenderness. In the first movement of…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020A Lully classic, flawlessly restored and executedLully Ève-Maud Hubeaux is graceful, sincere and vocally radiant Isis Ève-Maud Hubeaux, Bénédicte Tauran, Ambroisine Bré, Cyril Auvity, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Philippe Estèphe, Fabien Hyon, Aimery Lefèvre, Julie Calèete, Julie Vercauteren; Chœur de Chambre de Namur; Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset Aparté AP216 154:51 mins (2 discs) Christophe Rousset has restored to us Lully’s Isis, whose only other complete recording is no longer distributed. Isis is classic Lully: when the heroine Io laments her tortures, or when Juno and Jupiter clash, or the chorus thrusts itself forward, Lully binds action to speech with staggering musical ingenuity. Drawing on his all-French cast, Rousset reanimates a wordbook that contemporaries criticised for its longeurs, as well as for dramatising King Louis XIV’s domestic rows. The action follows Io (the king’s mistress), whose beauty causes Jupiter…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Lesser-known Mass offers an abundance of richesHaydn Missa Cellensis Johanna Winkel (soprano), Sophie Harmsen (mezzo-soprano), Benjamin Bruns (tenor), Wolf Matthias Friedrich (bass); RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/Justin Doyle Harmonia Mundi HMM 902300 65:43 mins Justin Doyle and his musicians do this work proud The Missa Cellensis (St Cecilia Mass) is a much earlier piece than the famous series of Masses Haydn wrote each year for the name-day of Princess Esterházy. He probably composed it in 1766, around the time he took up the position of Kapellmeister to the previous Prince Esterházy. Missa Cellensis is conceived on a scale so large as to make it unsuitable for liturgical use, and it wasn’t published in an unabridged form until as late as the 1950s. Like Mozart’s great Mass in C minor, it’s a work in which…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020ChamberCPE Bach Violin Sonatas, Wq 71-78; Arioso con variazioni in A, Wq79; Fantasia in F sharp minor, Wq80 Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin), James Baillieu (piano) Signum SIGCD 573 153:12 mins (3 discs) CPE Bach’s younger acquaintance, Charles Burney, remarked that the composer’s style was so uncommon that a little habit was necessary for the enjoyment of it. Readers be assured that the habit will be acquired at once with these sparkling performances of music which spans almost the entirety of Emanuel Bach’s working life. Broadly speaking, these are sonatas for obbligato keyboard with violin. The earliest of them, Wq 71 and 72, were written in 1731 when Emanuel was 17. Both are clearly indebted to the harpsichord and violin sonatas of his father. They are generously endowed with contrasting ideas, playful…10 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020InstrumentalJS Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006 Thomas Zehetmair (baroque violin) ECM 481 8558 120:18 mins (2 discs) Bach’s sonatas and partitas for solo violin – not to be confused with the six accompanied violin sonatas written at more or less the same time – were composed in Cöthen in 1720. Although they were among the first of Bach’s works to be published in the 19th century, they didn’t develop much traction in the repertoire before Joachim brought them into the limelight; now, they are central to all violinists’ profiles. Thomas Zehetmair is a performer of enviable versatility. His first recording of these works was on a modern violin. Here, in an attempt to get closer to Bach’s soundworld, he plays a South Tyrolean instrument from 1685…10 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Beethoven specialAll of Beethoven in a box? It seems impertinent somehow to confine the complete works of this musical colossus to a cardboard straitjacket, but Brilliant Classics already managed the feat with its complete edition back in 2017 (Brilliant Classics 95510; 85 CDs). So if you already bought that, why would your eyes and ears be drawn by three new complete Beethoven editions for his 250th birthday, especially one that occupies more space, and costs the same as the other three put together? Beethoven - – Complete Edition Naxos 8500250; 90 CDs In terms of scholarship and ambition, this is a step above the Brilliant box, curated by the Unheard Beethoven project’s Willem Holsbergen. It takes 101 pages just to list the recordings, so there’s only 30 pages left in the…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Brief notesAlbéniz Piano Sonatas Nos 3-5 etc Sebastian Stanley (piano) Piano Classics PCL10194 Worth investigating, Albéniz’s sun-kissed piano works are rarely dull. I’d have preferred a slightly more sprightly touch and a little more lyricism from our pianist here, though. (JP) ★★★ Antheil Orchestral Works BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds Chandos CHAN 20080 When not in wild and wacky form, Antheil could combine the sass of Gershwin with the sharp edge of Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Stunning performances provide the perfect showcase here. (JP) ★★★★★ Beethoven Symphony No. 9 Bavarian Radio SO/Bernard Haitink BR Klassik 900180 Recorded last May, just over half a year before Bernard Haitink’s retirement, this Beethoven Nine bears all of the conductor’s hallmarks: it’s thoughtful, clear and captures the spirit of the symphony. (RF) ★★★★ Beethoven Violin Concerto etc Leonidas…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020A solo show-stopperElliot Galvin Live in Paris at Fondation Louis Vuitton Elliot Galvin (piano) Edition EDN1146 As someone who probably had to grow a beard in order to look old enough to buy drinks at his own gigs, the prodigious musicality of Elliot Galvin is all the more noteworthy for having propelled him past the tyro stage directly into the ranks of the UK’s most credible improvisers/composers/deployers of musical ideas. This album draws mainly on the first (and thus also on the third) of these skills and is a joy throughout. I’ve previously reviewed his earlier The Influencing Machine in these pages and while this solo piano disc is the former’s polar opposite in terms of concept and instrumentation, his fizzing energy seems to find an even more accommodating outlet in the…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020AudioThe vast majority of us now use one, and if you’re anything like me, rely a little too heavily on it. But when it comes to sound quality and enjoying music, our smartphones can leave a lot to be desired. But there are plenty of things you can do to improve your audio experience without losing the convenience of carrying every note of music ever written around in your pocket. When it comes to sound quality, our phones leave a lot to be desired Whichever streaming service you use, do check you’re listening in the best possible quality. Spotify has four streaming options, ranging from 24kbps (kilobits per second) – avoid this – up to almost CD-quality ‘very high’ setting (320kbps). Tidal (tidal.com) premium subscribers can stream MQA, which is…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Venue of the month31. The Crucible and Studio Theatres Where: Sheffield Opened: 1971 Seats: 980; 100-400 The sound that most people associate with The Crucible is the gentle ‘clunk-clack-thud’ of Ronnie O’Sullivan and his cue-wielding peers clearing the table at the Snooker World Championships every May. There’s a lot more to this Sheffield venue, however, than green baize and multi-coloured balls. Theatre and music, of varying styles, are what fills both the main Crucible Theatre and its sister Studio Theatre during the rest of the year. When The Crucible was built in 1971 to replace Sheffield’s nearby Playhouse Repertory Theatre, the main theatre was designed with a ‘thrust stage’ which extends right into the auditorium, giving all 980 seats a close view of the action. Within the same building, a studio theatre was…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020JOHN WILSONFrancis Poulenc Choral works Conducted by Sofi Jeannin, the BBC Singers perform the Mass in G, Sept Chansons and other choral works PLUS! Richard Bratby celebrates the centenary of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Brian Wise takes us on a composer stroll of New York; Daniel Jaffé interviews the great Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina; plus Grazyna Bacewicz is our Composer of the Month and Debussy’s Préludes are the subject of Building a Library Competition terms and conditions Winners will be the senders of the first correct entries drawn at random. All entrants are deemed to have accepted the rules (see opposite) and agreed to be bound by them. The prizes shall be as stated and no cash alternatives will be offered. Competitions are open to UK residents only, except…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|February 2020Jonathan Biss PianistJonathan Biss is an international piano soloist, author and co-artistic director of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont, US. His life and career are inextricably linked with the music of Beethoven, whose complete piano sonatas he has recorded over the past nine years. He is performing them all throughout the 2019-20 season as part of the 250th-anniversary celebrations. Music was always around me. My parents – the violist and violinist Paul Biss and the violinist Miriam Fried – practised at home, so there was music coming from both ends of the house. But the first complete pieces I recall hearing were the MOZART and Brahms clarinet quintets which they performed in concert when I was five. The Mozart made a huge impact on me – I remember the second theme…3 min
