Gramophone Magazine

thoughts from our founder – 80 years on

Covid-19 and the associated restrictions may have led to increased separation, but sometimes hands can reach out across the decades to make surprising connections. Last week I needed to scan an old copy of Gramophone, from July 1942. The war years are always a poignant presence among our bound volumes – the significantly thinner spines reflecting paper shortages and wider deprivations of the day, but there all the same, offering proud continuity and occasionally carrying correspondence from serving soldiers, grateful for links to art in unimaginable circumstances. I’m not, for one moment, equating the horrors of that global conflict with the challenges of our own time – the world is today united in fighting a common enemy – but turning to our founder Compton MacKenzie’s opening editorial, I was still…

this month’s contributors

‘While writing about Josquin is always rewarding’, says IVAN MOODY who interviews Peter Philips this issue, ‘having an excuse to listen through to The Tallis Scholars’ benchmark recordings of the Masses made it particularly so this time.’ ‘With so much of her music still waiting to be recorded, Nicola LeFanu gets less attention than she deservies,’ says HANNAH NEPILOVA of this month’s Contemporary Composer. ‘So it was all the more satisfying piecing together a portrait of this intriguing, quietly daring composer.’ ‘It’s funny how a person’s public persona can be completely at odds with their private one. I never met John Tavener, but I had an idea of who he was,’ says CHARLOTTE GARDNER, ‘one which was gloriously debunked by Steven Isserlis as we discussed their close friendship and his recording honouring…

gramophone editor's choice

RECORDING OF THEMONTH NIELSEN Symphonies Nos 1 & 2, ‘The Four Temperaments’ Seattle Symphony Orchestra / Thomas Dausgaard Seattle Symphony Media ANDREW MELLOR’S REVIEW IS ON PAGE 32 Two brilliant traversals of Nielsen’s early symphonies, featuring some truly thrilling and perceptive playing from the Seattle Symphony Orchestra under conductor Thomas Dausgaard. SIBELIUS Symphonies Nos 1 & 3 Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Owain Arwel Hughes Rubicon Sibelius’s beguiling sound world is brought out with full force and beauty by Owain Arwel Hughes and the RPO on this splendid album from the Rubicon label. REVIEW ON PAGE 44 BARTÓK. BRAHMS. LISZT Piano Works Alexandre Kantorow pf BIS Pianist Alexandre Kantorow continues his extraordinary progress with a further remarkable example of his virtuosity and artistry, showing both skill and sensitivity throughout this captivating programme. REVIEW ON PAGE 56 MAHLER ‘Erinnerung’ Christiane Karg sop Malcolm Martineau pf Harmonia…

for the record

Randall Goosby signs to Decca Decca Classics has signed 24-year-old violinist Randall Goosby. His debut album, set for release next spring, will, according to a statement from the label, ‘journey across more than a century of African-American music for violin, tracing its roots in the spiritual through to the present day’, embracing composers including William Grant Still and Florence Price, plus newly commissioned music by composer and double bass player Xavier Foley. Goosby, who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, is a protégé of Itzhak Perlman, who arranged a full scholarship for Goosby to study with him at Juilliard. The young violinist paid tribute to his mentor at last month’s Gramophone Awards when Perlman received our Lifetime Achievement Award. ‘I’m so thrilled to be working with the Decca Classics team for the release of…

one to watch

Nathan Meltzer Violin The American violinist Nathan Meltzer studied at Juilliard with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin, and in 2017 became the youngest winner of the Windsor Festival International String Competition at the age of 16. Part of his prize was to make a recording for Champs Hill Records, an album that has just been released (and will be reviewed next issue) containing music by Bach, Bartók, Szymanowski, Wieniawski and a stunning account of Franck’s oft-recorded Violin Sonata. For many this will be their first encounter with his playing. It won’t be the last. Still only 20, Meltzer plays a 1734 Stradivarius that was previously owned by the American-Polish violinist Roman Totenberg, before it was stolen in 1980 and resurfaced only after Totenberg’s death. Totenberg’s family were thrilled that the instrument’s recovery…

gramophone online

Podcasts The Gramophone Podcast series continues in captivating style with revealing interviews with conductor Alexandre Bloch, who was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lille in 2016 and has made a huge impact on the music-making in the city; the Director of the Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr, on his new recording of Dussek’s Messe Solemnelle on the orchestra’s own label; Anna Lapwood, Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge on the college’s new album ‘All Things Are Quite Silent’; and composer Anna Clyne who discusses her new album ‘Mythologies’, which includes various orchestral works recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductors Marin Alsop, Sakari Oramo, Andrew Litton and André de Ridder. Blogs Colin Currie introduces Kalevi Aho’s new percussion concerto and pianist Simon Callaghan explains why a complete…