Table of contents for Awards 2023 in Gramophone Magazine

What defines a year’s music-making? Is there a single trend to detect in the albums that have passed across Gramophone’s desks in the previous 12 months – metaphorically speaking of course, these days, as like many readers, digital files form so much of the way we engage with recordings? Generally, the answer is no, an exception being when the pandemic created challenges for large-scale studio sessions, and led to recordings responding to events as a number of reflective recitals over the past few years have done. But happily, a glance at releases reveals that recording life has moved on from that difficult period. Live audiences have settled somewhat too – the 93 per cent capacity reported by the BBC Proms is a very positive sign. But if there has been…

For this month’s One to Watch we’re going to first cast your mind back a few issues to May, and to the debut of an impressive string ensemble, the Ruisi Quartet. Opening his review of their intriguingly and boldly programmed album ‘Big House’, David Threasher noted that this group had waited 10 years for their debut. And when they recorded it, in the isolation of Snape Maltings, they chose to pair Haydn with a new work by the young composer Oliver Leith, inspired by photographs of abandoned mansions in his native Ireland. But what a remarkable demonstration of their collegiate manner, and their instinct for the soundworld – both sparse and dramatic – that chamber music offers. DT isn’t the only of our critics to have brought them to our…

Congratulations on the Gilmore Award! What does the Award mean to you at this stage in your career? It was a big surprise when they told me about it, but it is great to have such support and to have this freedom to be creative and to decide where I am going in music. I think this is a good point to ask the right questions because with this prize you have to think really hard about what kind of musician you are. It is also very meaningful to me, because the judges came to hear me in many small venues, in really unlikely places. So it really reinforces how every concert matters. What effect will the Award have on your performance and recording activities? It really allows me to…

There aren’t many artists still in their prime who like to look back; in a profession that works two or three years into the future, the best you can do is talk about the present. One exception, I discovered to my great pleasure, is the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, the subject of a retrospective box set, due out in October, that covers his 20 years (1990-2010) with Virgin Classics and later with EMI, now all in the care of Warner Classics. We met up at the Festival Ravel in St Jean de Luz in the Basque region of France where Andsnes was playing four-hand Schubert and Kurtág with the Festival’s Director Bertrand Chamayou. With the set’s contents open before us, like a menu, we wandered down memory lane. ‘Recordings…

ROBERT HALE Bass-baritone Born August 22, 1933 Died August 23, 2023 The American bass-baritone, celebrated for his performances as Wagner’s Wotan (a role he sang more than 170 times on stage), has died one day after his 90th birthday. Raised in Louisiana, Hale studied at Bethany-Peniel College, the University of Oklahoma, Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music. His teachers included Gladys Miller, Chloe Owen and Léopold Simoneau, and also Boris Goldovsky. Hale made his debut in 1965 as Mozart’s Figaro at Denver Opera, then appearing two years later as Colline in La bohème at New York City Opera – where he would appear regularly for a decade. His roles there, often alongside Beverly Sills, ranged from the bel canto to Mozart, Bizet and Chabrier. By the late…

Harriet Smith on a posthumous Mozart album from Lars Vogt: ‘Leaving the poignancy aside, the musical results speak for themselves and offer an illuminating last word’ REVIEW ON PAGE 65 Andrew Farach-Colton enjoys Walker sinfonias with Noseda: ‘The intensity is palpable in every bar, yet the heightened contrast means tender oases are especially effective’ REVIEW ON PAGE 69 Bartók Concerto for Orchestra, Sz116. Viola Concerto, Sz120 aaAmihai Grosz va Orchestre National de Lille / Alexandre Bloch Alpha (ALPHA1013 • 62’) Having made waves with one of the best Mahler Sevenths of recent times (Alpha, 11/20), this latest Bartók pairing confirms the potency of Alexandre Bloch and his Lille orchestra away from the French repertoire in which they might be expected to excel. Competition in the Concerto for Orchestra is impossibly fierce but as…

More iconoclast, surely, than icon was Sir Roger Norrington’s quipping rejoinder to the news that Gramophone had chosen him to feature in this anniversary series. The word I remember him using to describe his approach to a now famous 1988 recording of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with the London Classical Players was ‘frontiersman’. As John Warrack observed, ‘It was not until Roger Norrington’s London performance and new recording … that anyone alive had heard anything approaching what Berlioz really wrote.’ Nicholas Temperley’s critical edition had appeared in 1971, but no conductor had risked taking on board the small print of Berlioz’s meticulously annotated score, let alone the changes in instrumentation and orchestral layouts it indicated. The first Norrington recording I acquired was his LP of Schütz’s The Resurrection (Argo, 10/70), prompted…

The Gale of Life. Symphonic Music for strings and brass. Symphony No 1 Grand Rapids Symphony / David Lockington Nimbus Alliance (1/11) This is the disc that started it all, featuring three orchestral works that established Sawyers as a symphonic composer of real stature, played by one of the American commissioning orchestras. Whereas Symphonic Music is full of promise, Symphony No 1 shows that promise triumphantly fulfilled. Fanfare. Songs of Loss and Regret. Symphony No 3 April Fredrick sop English Stg Orch and SO / Kenneth Woods Nimbus Alliance (10/17) My critic’s choice for 2017, this features one of the finest British symphonies of this century, a wonderful song-cycle and a 2017 fanfare that’s as much a tone poem about a fanfare! Concerto for trumpet, strings and timpani. Elegiac Rhapsody…

Mark Pullinger welcomes Jonathan Tetelman’s new Puccini recital: ‘His open vowels and excellent Italian diction make him the sunniest-sounding tenor since Luciano Pavarotti’ REVIEW ON PAGE 112 Alexandra Coghlan on sparkling Purcell from La Nuova Musica: ‘The orchestral playing brings storytelling into sharp focus, constantly pulling the ear towards new details’ REVIEW ON PAGE 113 Humperdinck Königskinder Daniel Behle ten......................................................King’s Son Olga Kulchynska sop .......................................... Goose Girl Josef Wagner bar ..........................................................Fiddler Doris Soffel mez............................................................... Witch New Amsterdam Children’s Choir; Chorus of Dutch National Opera; Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra / Marc Albrecht Stage director Christof Loy Video director Michael Beyer Naxos (2 110759 ; NBD0171V • 175’) Recorded live, October 13 & 18, 2022 There aren’t many operatic scores with the consistent beauty, embrace, virility and honesty of Königskinder that remain effectively outside the…

Remembering Moiseiwitsch Many will tell you that politics and music don’t mix, a wise enough maxim when it comes to assessing the ill fit between performing life and state-organised oppression. But there are occasions when a happy relationship between a musician and a major politician (or politicians) helps further the humanist cause, whether secular or religious, or both. Think of the many cultural exchanges during the Cold War, or the numerous visits by great performers to the White House. And there were the many wartime recitals organised in London’s National Gallery by Myra Hess, presented Mondays to Fridays, for six and a half years without fail, come rain, shine, bombing raids or not. The Ukrainian-born British pianist Benno Moiseiwitsch CBE was similarly enterprising, having earned his order of chivalry for…

When the Leipzig faithful took their pews for Sunday morning service on February 2, 1727, it seems unlikely they could have foreseen that the cantata their Kantor was to provide that day would be quite so extraordinarily moving. The occasion was the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, whose Gospel for the day – upon which the cantata, like the sermon, was designed to reflect – is the passage in St Luke in which the infant Jesus is presented at the Temple, whereupon the aged Israelite Simeon recognises him as the long-awaited Messiah and declares himself ready to receive death. His words – the famous lines beginning ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace’ – are the so-called ‘Song of Simeon’, and although the cantata does not…

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S Adams ‘Current’ Shade Studiesa. String Quartet No 2, ‘Current’b. Violin Diptychc c Karen Gomyo vn acConor Hanick pf bSpektral Quartet Other Minds (OM1040-2 • 50’) A most welcome addition to the slim Samuel Adams discography, ‘Current’ gathers three chamber music works from the past decade, two of them from the ‘before times’ and the other directly reflecting the experience of the pandemic. The integration of acoustic and electronic sounds to generate music that poignantly plugs into the zeitgeist justifies the album’s multivalent title. Adams shows himself to be among the most interesting composers of the millennial generation in his negotiation of the tensions that shape and define his musical narratives: between directness and implication, silence and resonance, emotion and its aftermath. The centrepiece is the five-movement Current (2016-19) for string quartet…

RECORDING OF THE MONTH MONTEVERDI Vespro della Beata Vergine Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon Harmonia Mundi EDWARD BREEN’S REVIEW IS ON PAGE 56 ‘Gripping … impactful … bursting with energy and passion’ – the words of critic Edward Breen perfectly encapsulate this riveting performance of the Monteverdi Vespers from Raphaël Pichon. BARTÓK Concerto for Orchestra. Viola Concerto Amihai Grosz va Orchestre National de Lille / Alexandre Bloch Alpha Alexandre Bloch and his Lille players offer a brilliant Bartók pairing, revealing their shared vision and cohesion as collaborators. REVIEW ON PAGE 58 LISZT Études d’exécution transcendante Haochen Zhang pf BIS A kaleidoscopic range of tone, virtuosity placed at the service of an exploratory interpretation, Haochen Zhang’s Transcendental Études are a supreme achievement. REVIEW ON PAGE 89 HOUGH Missa mirabilis London Choral Sinfonia…

Gramophone Awards Don’t miss the Gramophone Awards ceremony on our website and YouTube channel from the evening of October 8. This specially produced programme will feature performances and acceptance speeches from this year’s winners, presented by Editor-in-Chief James Jolly. Podcast This month on the Gramophone Podcast we feature extended episodes focusing on the lives of two of the most revered composers of the 20th century: Shostakovich and Britten. Edward Seckerson joins Martin Cullingford to share his insights into Shostakovich’s music, with a particular focus on his extraordinary symphonies and what they reveal about his life. And, in the final podcast in our ‘Decca Icons’ series, James Jolly talks to the Financial Times and Gramophone critic Richard Fairman about Benjamin Britten, who recorded for Decca, as composer, pianist and conductor, for…

Leonard Bernstein summed up the Symphonie fantastique with the bon mot, ‘You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral.’ Berlioz’s programmatic symphony has it all, a series of hallucinatory visions inspired by ‘the artist’s’ (for which read Berlioz himself) infatuation with a woman (for which read the actress Harriet Smithson), which leads to his execution and a wild witches’ sabbath. François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles bring this fantastical score to vivid life. There are plenty of possible musical routes to take from the Fantastique: waltzes, pastoral scenes, executions(!) and the supernatural, but let’s focus on programmatic symphonies, of which Berlioz was the great pioneer. His Harold in Italy, inspired by Byron’s Childe Harold, is less a concerto for viola (Paganini initially spurned it) and more a…

James Loughran’s Beethoven A hobby of mine, which I presumably share with many readers, is quietly fuming at the omission of personally-treasured recordings from Gramophone Collection articles. I was delighted to see that in his (necessarily) selective survey of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony (October, page 132), Richard Osborne found room to recall James Loughran’s LPO performance. This was, in fact, recorded in 1988, not 2010 as stated, and was not, to my knowledge, reviewed in any of the main journals. I mention the date as it was only a few years after Loughran’s previous and very similar recording of the work with the Hallé, part of a complete cycle on Enigma/ASV. I have always regretted that this well-regarded cycle was never released on CD, as I would love to hear again…

One hundred years after the magazine’s first issue, it’s fun to speculate what our Founding Editor, Sir Compton Mackenzie, would have made of the recordings and artists celebrated in the pages that follow. Even from the start he was constantly encouraging the record companies to be adventurous, to fill those important gaps and expand their listeners’ horizons. One thing’s for sure: quite a lot of the music we’re honouring this year would not have been written when Mackenzie penned his first editorial. Music of the 20th century features very prominently this year. The Gramophone Awards were launched in 1977, encouraged by an industry that wanted to have its creativity and imagination acknowledged. Down the years, the Awards have helped identify many now-classic recordings, and I wonder how many of the…

Richard Whitehouse admires Liszt rarities from Kenneth Hamilton: ‘He is not averse to making his own additions in a spirit of collaboration that Liszt would surely have condoned’ REVIEW ON PAGE 87 William Yeoman hears Miloš explore music of the Baroque: ‘He is primarily interested in delicacy, in gradual unfoldings – and an authentic tenderness for things past’ REVIEW ON PAGE 92 JS Bach Six Solo Cello Suites, BWV1007-1012 Florian Berner vc Perfect Noise (PN2305 ➁ • 134’) Suites Nos 1-3 from VMS199 The performance of Bach’s Cello Suites is often surrounded by subtexts that prepare the way for the listening experience, whether we ponder Casals’s ‘discovery’ of the sheet music in a Barcelona bookshop in 1890, Yo-Yo Ma’s mighty Bach Project in 2018 (when he performed the works in 36 different…

Alexandra Coghlan enjoys an album of choral music by Stephen Hough: ‘Performances from the LCS are bold, leaning into Hough’s climaxes, opening out into full-throated ecstasy’ REVIEW ON PAGE 103 Hugo Shirley on a persuasive new Winterreise from Richard Resch : ‘Here’s concentrated economy, a performance moving in its understatement, persuasive in its interpretative clarity’ REVIEW ON PAGE 106 Arcadelt Arcadelt Missa Noe Noe. Dont vient l’esjouissance. Hodie beata virgo Maria. Magnificat primi toni. Regina coeli laetare Josquin Illibata Dei virgo nutrix Josquin/Guyot Benedicta es coelorum regina Mouton Noe Noe Namur Chamber Choir; Les Pastoureaux; Cappella Mediterranea / Leonardo García Alarcón Ricercar (RIC456 • 62’ • T/t) Jacques Arcadelt’s posthumous fame rests almost entirely on his smash hit ‘Il bianco e dolce cigno’. To mark the 450th anniversary of his death in 2018, Ricercar…

Jazz Brought to you by Bebel Gilberto João PIAS Recordings PIASR5165 This latest album from the Grammy-nominated Brazilian singer-songwriter Bebel Gilberto is a touching tribute to her father, João – one of the key innovators in bossa nova – who passed away in 2019. In covering her father’s songs, Gilberto highlights two albums which acted as ‘the guide for my inspiration’ – the classic 1973 bossa nova album João Gilberto, plus the 1977 album Amoroso, which featured arrangements by Claus Ogerman. Album opener ‘Adeus America’ expresses the longing to return to Brazil, crystallised in the haunting refrain, ‘O samba mandou me chamar (Samba’s sent for me)’. Written by Gilberto Gil and the first of four songs from João Gilberto, ‘Eu Vim De Bahia’ is a paean to the Bahia region…

GRAMOPHONE 100 CELEBRATING A CENTURY OF RECORED CLASSICAL MUSIC Debussy Préludes Krystian Zimerman pf DG This is luxury class – Zimerman the very model of a modern virtuoso. His overriding aim is vivid projection of character. His quasi-orchestral range of dynamic and attack, based on close attention to textual detail and maximum clarity of articulation, is the means to that end. As a result, he draws out this music’s many connections with the romantic tradition. His intensity can seem over-bearing: ‘Danseuses de Delphes’ is very much a Brahmsian confessional here, and ‘La danse de Puck’ threatens to be more agressive than mischievous. I’d question whether the organ-like climax of ‘La cathédrale engloutie’ is really sans dureté. His sheer virtuosity in the more declamatory Préludes borders on the rapacious. Yet there…

THIS MONTH An exceptional pair of affordable speakers; choosing a CD player in 2023; and how it’s really easy to sell the virtues of a fine hi-fi system. Andrew Everard, Audio Editor AWARDS ISSUE TEST RECORDINGS A wonderfully lush and dramatic sound, with bags of definition and detail, from this Pentatone recording by Melody Moore in tribute to Renata Tebaldi. Reference Recordings always delivers a sound to thrill, and this Tchaikovsky Fifth by the Pittsburgh SO under Manfred Honeck is no exception.…

As so often happens these days, this Gramophone Guide comes in response to a point raised by a reader, who wrote asking whether they could still buy a CD player, or give up and just rip their entire collection of discs to computer storage, then invest in a network player. I’m possibly the wrong person to ask, as I’ve been doing the latter for some years now: in fact, long before Linn put the world’s media in a spin by announcing in 2009 that it was set to stop making CD players. Of course, the spin some put on that announcement was more alarmist than the reality: asked in interviews whether the CD was now dead, the company had to point out that it would still be making, and buying,…

The image of Sun Valley in the American West evokes a variety of paradises. It’s an elite alpine ski resort dominated by Bald Mountain – the highest peak in this Rocky Mountain region of south central Idaho and the destination for winter getaways – while the breathtaking beauty of the surrounding trails, lakes and rivers allures nature lovers year round. Ernest Hemingway was one of them, having initially been invited to visit Sun Valley in 1939 as part of the Union Pacific Railroad’s publicity campaign to transform the region into a resort destination. He was provided accommodation at the newly built Sun Valley Lodge, where he completed For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemingway came back to spend his pained final years in a house in neighbouring Ketchum, one of the…

BIS, the Award-winning Swedish classical label founded by Robert von Bahr – and our newly named 2023 Label of the Year – is to become a part of Apple Music Classical and the Apple-owned creative services company Platoon. Founded 50 years ago, few months seem to pass without a BIS album earning a Gramophone Editor’s Choice, such is its roster of extraordinary artists – including a commitment to nurturing those of the younger generation – and its dedication to both artistic excellence and exploration. ‘I am immensely proud of what our small team of people has accomplished during this half-century,’ said von Bahr. ‘BIS’s specialty, while paying our dues to the core repertoire, has been to nurture young classical artists and interesting living composers and to safeguard the musical treasure…

Many of the venues we’ve explored in this series are – or used to be – churches, for the obvious reason that these buildings so often come with a natural acoustic that is ideal for performing and recording music, some with greater versatility than others. AIR Studios joined these ranks when it moved to Lyndhurst Hall just south of Hampstead in the early 1990s. Associated Independent Recordings (AIR) was established by the Beatles producer Sir George Martin in the mid-1960s. Its first studios opened in 1970, located on the fourth floor of a department store at Oxford Circus, originally with two recording spaces, a larger studio suitable for orchestral recordings, and a smaller one with a drier sound that was popular with bands. (Another studio operated during the 1980s on…

Carolyn Sampson As she releases the 100th solo recording, the soprano reflects on her career, the close artistic partnerships she enjoys and how she chooses the repertoire that makes her one of the most vibrant and versatile singers today. Bayerisches Staatsoper One of the great successes of last year’s Awards was the multi-winning new label from the Munich venue, which has now launched an archive series too. We find out more about this triumphant venture Sibelius’s Tapiola Richard Whitehouse explores recordings of this great tone poem, which vividly evokes the forests and mythology of the composer’s native Finland ON SALE NOVEMBER 8 DON’T MISS IT…

In support of Sir Arthur Bliss I was pleased to read Nigel Simeone’s review of Paul Spicer’s new biography of Sir Arthur Bliss, Standing Out from the Crowd, in your September issue (page 98). While Bliss may not be one of Britain’s very greatest composers I find that I often return to his music, especially works like the beautiful Oboe Quintet, Meditations on a Theme of John Blow, the Piano Concerto, the ballet Adam Zero and the powerfully moving Morning Heroes. As Nigel Simeone says, there are many recordings but few performances of Bliss’s music. One problem I think is that his music has tended to be damned with faint praise, especially in well-known record and CD guides over a long period. I got rather fed up with reading, year…

WINNER BIS Records Rare is the month when, sitting down with colleagues to discuss the recordings in contention for being named Editor’s Choices, multiple albums from BIS aren’t prominent in the conversation. The roster of artists who contribute so beautifully, and so regularly, to the Swedish label’s treasurable catalogue is among the finest to be found. But what really stands out is just how personal each release feels – the exploratory choice of repertoire, the perfect partnerships between musicians. Listening to a BIS album feels like being a privileged witness to creativity at its most inspired and inspiring. Or, for that matter, like sitting in the best seat in the house, such is BIS’s commitment to the very highest possible quality of recorded sound (including surround sound). And that seat…

Monteverdi Vespro della Beata Vergine Céline Scheen, Perrine Devillers sops Lucile Richardot mez Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Zachary Wilder, Antonin Rondepierre tens Étienne Bazola, Nicolas Brooymans, Renaud Brès basses Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon Harmonia Mundi (HMM90 2710/11 ➁ • 102’ • T/t) This has to be one of the most gripping and impactful recordings of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 available right now. It is bursting with energy and passion at every opportunity. Recorded in January 2022 at the Temple du Saint-Esprit in Paris, it’s the long-awaited studio recording that Lindsay Kemp referred to when reviewing Pygmalion’s live pre-pandemic DVD performance from the Versailles Royal Chapel. That this new album is so lived-in and confident is surely testament to the many concert performances that preceded it: in fact, the booklet contains a…

Jeremy Nicholas on exhilarating piano quintets by Hummel: ‘Hummel’s sparkling piano-writing is clean, focused and guaranteed to put a spring in your step’ REVIEW ON PAGE 76 Charlotte Gardner is enchanted by viola da gambist André Lislevand: ‘If you are remotely disposed towards viola da gamba repertory, this should be added to your listening pile forthwith’ REVIEW ON PAGE 80 Alfano ‘Complete String Quartets’ Elmira Darvarova, Mary Ann Mumm vns Craig Mumm va Samuel Magill vc Naxos (8 579042 • 83’) Alfano’s First begins like a quartet using jump-leads to start a Janáček piece (though it dates from 1915, eight years before The Kreutzer Sonata). It sputters into life, lurches off, judders to a halt and goes off again. Only with the second subject, three minutes in, is some measure of continuity…

The camera never lies Ashort way into the 13th variation of Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, on the cusp of the first juddering modulation, one of the remote cameras at the Stockholm Concert Hall captures a lunging, snake-eyed glare from Beatrice Rana (25'15") – the sort of look a movie director would need dozens of takes to draw from an actor, and the sort you could never glimpse from a public seat in any concert hall. Was it directed at conductor Ryan Bancroft, collaborating with the Italian pianist for the first time and on a bit of a high in front of the orchestra he would shortly step into the top job with? Or was it meant for the leader of the second violins – just as credible, given what Rana tells…

Our monthly guide to the most exciting catalogue releases, historic issues and box-sets MARIA CALLAS • 116 ROB COWAN’S REPLAY • 126 KAREL ANČERL • 123 CLASSICS RECONSIDERED • 128 BOX-SET ROUND-UP • 125 The eternal fascination with Maria Callas has a simple explanation: she led opera-singing into the 20th century with her psychologically penetrating portrayals but accomplished them with a musical precision that few have since touched. The 100th-birthday box-set, ‘La Divina: Maria Callas in All Her Roles’ (131 CDs, three Blu-rays and one DVD) has little that hasn’t been out in recent years, though all the studio and many live recordings collected together here reveal the quantum leap in mid-20th-century operatic consciousness that unfolded in Callas’s three distinct eras. A tour guide is required as much as a…

Having extended a hearty welcome to ‘Antal Dorati: The Mercury Masters – The Mono Recordings’ in our August issue, the expected stereo follow-up again features expert remastering by Thomas Fine. Not quite so interesting as Vol 1 repertoire-wise, perhaps – most of these recordings have already reappeared on CD – but still there are thrills aplenty, captured in a dramatic brand of hi-fi that for front-room impact dwarfs most of what else was out there from the mid-1950s to 1960. The time-honoured Dorati/Minneapolis/Northrop Auditorium/Mercury formula is present throughout: close-set, cinematic stereophony, disciplined execution, leanlimbed lyricism, generally swift tempos and strong projection with bullish big drums (invariably on the rampage, as in an otherwise elegant complete Coppélia) all guarantee maximum impact. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is better played and recorded…

Richard Wigmore enjoys a lucid account of Mozart’s early tours: ‘For all Leopold’s diplomacy and networking skills, a sense of grievance was woven into his DNA’ Peter Quantrill reads a selective apologia for Schoenberg’s music: ‘If readers are directed towards Pierrot lunaire and the Serenade thanks to Sachs’s advocacy, the book will serve a purpose’ Mozart in Italy Coming of Age in the Land of Opera By Jane Glover Picador, HB, 268pp, £25 ISBN 978-1-529-05986-1 Italy, Goethe’s ‘land where the lemon trees bloom’, was a rite of passage for any aspiring 18th-century opera composer. At the start of the century the young Handel had carried all before him as he roamed the Italian peninsula. In the following decades Gluck and Hasse – who with his soprano wife Faustina Bordoni formed…

Maybe it’s because we all take high-quality audio for granted; perhaps it’s because some of us spend too much time listening too closely, and seeking to pick holes in the sound of our systems: could it do with more bass, better detail, a bit of extra ambience or just plain listenability? Whichever it is, I’m sure few of us give much thought to a long-running preoccupation of the hi-fi industry: how to attract more customers to explore what all those shiny (or matt black) boxes can do to expand musical enjoyment. Gather more than a couple of audio insiders of a certain age together, usually after the second or third cold drink has been taken after a day at a hi-fi show or wherever, and it’s a safe bet that…

I was born in an amazingly beautiful place – half of my parent’s farm was for cattle, half was rainforest. In October my father always took me to the highest point of the farm to see the arrival of the rain season. Amazing clouds, amazing light, the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life. Our farm was about eight hours by horse to a small town. We had no road, and we had to drive the cattle to the slaughterhouse, which was about four to five days, by horse. We were isolated – and the only thing that brought to us the idea of the outside was music. My father had the only radio in the region – on Sunday morning, farmers from far away would leave at four…