Gramophone Magazine Awards 2021

Our annual Awards magazine is always among our most popular issues, and understandably so. After a year of in-depth exploration and analysis of a thousand or so recordings by our expert critics, we present the best. It’s worth pausing to ask what we mean by that word, ‘best’. I’m not remotely implying that it requires a qualification – quite the opposite. The recordings we’re here naming as Award-winners, let alone the Recording of Year, are sublime and profound works of artistic expression, whose contribution to our understanding of the music being performed is immense. No, my point is only that this isn’t a race – being the best isn’t like being the fastest. So what does winning a Gramophone Award mean? Impeccable virtuosity is a given, but what makes those…

James Bowman’s singing has been an essential part of my listening ever since I was a teenager,’ says this month’s Icons author EDWARD BREEN, ‘so it has been a particular delight for me to revisit his earlier recordings and, what’s more, to find them as fresh and engaging as they were when I first played them on vinyl.’ ‘Cellist Daniel Müller-Schott’s French School credentials are gold-plated,’ says CHARLOTTE GARDNER, who interviews him for this month’s The Musician and the Score. ‘He really communicated his love for the French repertoire as we discussed Saint-Saëns’s First Concerto, which he has finally committed to disc.’ ‘Singing in a fully staged production of King Arthur at university in 1995 was my gateway drug into Baroque music addiction,’ admits DAVID VICKERS, author of our Collection, ‘and Venus’s…

Martin Cullingford’s pick of the finest recordings from this month’s reviews RECORDING OF THE MONTH ‘BARITENOR’ Michael Spyres baritenor Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra / Marko Letonja Erato MARK PULLINGER’S REVIEW IS ON PAGE 56 R STRAUSS Eine Alpensinfonie Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra / Vladimir Jurowski Pentatone Another beautifully crafted Alpine Symphony from Vladimir Jurowski, this time not with the LPO but the highly responsive Berlin Radio Symphony. REVIEW ON PAGE 65 ‘CIACCONA’ Ilya Gringolts vn BIS It takes both superb instinct and skill to gather such varied works, to draw out and convey the thematic links, and to shape it all into an entirely absorbing recital: Ilya Gringolts manages all this brilliantly. REVIEW ON PAGE 88 ANIMA ÆTERNA’ Jakub Józef Orlinski counterten Il Pomo d’Oro / Francesco Corti Erato We were excited enough about countertenor Jakub Józef Orlin´ ski’s new album to put him on last…

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has announced that its successor to Mirga Gražinyte.-Tyla will be Kazuki Yamada. The Japanese conductor is already a familiar figure to CBSO players and audiences alike: he has been the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor since 2018, having made his debut with the ensemble back in 2012. His appointment – as Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor – begins on April 1, 2023, for an initial four-and-a-half-year period. ‘I first worked with the CBSO in 2012 and immediately felt a very sincere connection with the players,’ said Yamada. ‘This connection has really grown and developed over the last nine years; our tour together to Japan in 2016 was one of the highlights of my career.’ Yamada is also Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo,…

Joana Mallwitz has been named as the new Chief Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, succeeding Christoph Eschenbach. The role – which follows two streamed and broadcast concert projects last season – will begin with the 2023/24 season and last for five years. Of one of those previous performances, Peter Quantrill wrote in our pages: ‘A Great C major worthy of the nickname’, adding: ‘A buoyant sense of purpose is established from the outset; so is a pulse that admits smiling inflections of light and shade. The main Allegro sweeps in on a wave of euphoria.’ Gramophone named the German conductor a One to Watch in our June edition, which also saw her recording of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte from Salzburg named that issue’s DVD of the Month. Since the 2018/19 season, Mallwitz…

Channel Classics, the Award-winning Dutch label and home to leading artists such as Rachel Podger and Ivan Fischer, has been bought by Outhere Music. Founded by Jared Sacks in 1990, Channel’s catalogue now stands at 450 albums, including numerous Gramophone Award-winning releases. The label itself was named Gramophone Label of the Year in 2015. According to an official statement issued by the label, Sacks will continue to collaborate closely with Channel Classics: ‘With teams in Brussels, Paris, Cologne, Milan, London, and recently Mexico, I am proud that Outhere Music will provide an even wider reach for Channel Classics,’ said Sacks. ‘They will promote artists and their albums through their extensive worldwide digital and physical network. By this acquisition, Charles [Adriaenssen, Founder and President of Outhere Music] confirms his policy of supporting…