Table of contents for May 2018 in Gramophone Magazine

A theme will often emerge from the features in any given issue of Gramophone. Sometimes this will be intentional, though sometimes it only becomes apparent when the copy is filed and the stories told. The initial, obvious theme this month would appear to be the voice. Birgit Nilsson was one of the most brilliant of 20th-century opera stars – though somehow the word star, though completely justified, doesn’t seem quite right for the down-to-earth, no-nonsense person who emerges from Mike Ashman’s centenary celebration. Self-taught, ‘practical’ as remembered by Sir John Tooley, without ‘the trappings of a prima donna’ as remembered by Valerie Solti. When looking through photographs to illustrate our feature, it was noticeable that almost all the ones that convey the classic image of a ‘great soprano’ seemed to…

Pianist Steven Osborne has recorded Rachmaninov’s Etudes-tableaux Opp 33 and 39 for Hyperion. The recording, made in Kentish Town last August, will be released in the summer • The cellist Alban Gerhardt has been treated to a 50th-birthday present by Hyperion (this landmark birthday falls next year). At Wyastone Estate, he was joined by producer Andrew Kenner and engineer Simon Eadon to record Bach’s cello suites, an ambition he’d waited nearly half a century to fulfil • The soprano Carolyn Sampson and The King’s Consort directed by Robert King have recorded arias from Handel’s cantatas Tra le fiamme, Armida abbandonata, Agrippina condotta a morire and Figlio d’alte speranze for Vivat – expect an autumn release. The recording was made at the newly-opened Alpheton New Maltings in Suffolk • Trio con…

She adorns the front cover of this issue just as she has so many magazine covers in the 100 years since her birth – but eclipsing every personal memory of Birgit Nilsson on record and in the opera house was the moment I walked into a London hotel room to interview her back in 1993. It’s impossible to describe that feeling when you’ve grown up with the sound of a voice in your head, when you’ve come of age with its heroics, when you’ve heard live how it shone like a laser, straight and unfailingly true, the core like tempered steel cleaving the mightiest orchestral tuttis, when you’ve heard Brünnhilde’s exultant battle cry with its repeated high Bs plucked cleanly off the ledger lines and nailed to the back of the auditorium, when you’ve been…

Liam Cagney gets acquanited with the surreal music of Philip Venables: ‘Illusions, for speaker and ensemble, is an unholy screed of lounge muzak and glitch on a cruise ship sailing the Styx’ REVIEW ON PAGE 60 Charlotte Gardner enjoys a disc of Neapolitan concertos: ‘The instruments on these beautifully shaped, gently buoyant readings are a lovely-sounding bunch’ REVIEW ON PAGE 63 Abrahamsen String Quartets – No 1, ‘10 Preludes’; No 2; No 3; No 4 Arditti Quartet Winter & Winter F 910 242-2 (68’ • DDD) This backwards-looking survey of Hans Abrahamsen’s four string quartets, starting with the most recent from 2012 and finishing with the 10 Preludes of 1973, fills a major gap in this elusive composer’s discography. The quartet is one of the few genres Abrahamsen has cultivated more than once, with the…

Even ‘abstract’ works of hers, with no apparent visual element, often seem awash with images The music of Olga Neuwirth (b1968) is richly allusive, moving freely between reference points as varied as Monteverdi, Weill, Miles Davis and Klaus Nomi. She has cited influences from Boulez to the Beastie Boys. Yet if there’s one artist whose aesthetic approach seems particularly close to hers, it isn’t a musician at all – it is film-maker David Lynch, the maverick director behind such cult classics as Twin Peaks (1990-91; 2017), Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Drive (2001). Bizarre juxtapositions, surreal narrative twists, vivid images of obscure significance: his films are not just strange but also uncanny – even inexplicable at times – as they journey into dreamlike worlds in which the standard rules of…

Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta Hungarian National PO / Zoltán Kocsis Hungaroton (A/10) Sacher got to know and like personally many of the composers he commissioned, but had particular admiration for Bartók. He was fascinated by this delicate, exacting figure, particularly given the earthy ferocity of much of his music. Sacher commissioned the Divertimento for strings (1939) in addition to this now iconic work (1936), the unusual scoring of which was as much a product of Bartók’s imagination as it was of Sacher’s desire to have the strings of his Basel Chamber Orchestra supplemented by instruments of contrasting sonorities – if they had to be supplemented at all. It’s a truly other-worldly musical experience, which magically creeps into life on this relatively recent recording.…

Jazz Van Morrison and Joey DeFrancesco You're Driving Me Crazy Sony Legacy F 19075820032 ‘I’m just a guy who sings songs,’ Van Morrison insists on ‘Goldfish Bowl’, a denial of fame and the ‘media barons’ who foist it on him. The visionary tendencies which marked him as considerably more than a song and dance man have been similarly renounced over the last 20 years, in the studio at least. The jazz strand in his DNA has meanwhile also strengthened. This collaboration with veteran Hammond showman DeFrancesco is his second jazz release in five months. Purists who claim Morrison’s no jazz singer because he doesn’t improvise new harmonies à la Sarah Vaughan should listen to his muffled growls on ‘Miss Otis Regrets’, his scat on ‘Close Enough for Jazz’ and, especially, his enviable sense of…

Back in our December 1973 issue Max Harrison observed that ‘Jascha Heifetz’s performances of Bach’s works for unaccompanied violin [are] practically as good as the music itself, and such life, such unfailing vividness, must always be rare’. As it happens I agree with him entirely and would extend parallel plaudits to embrace the Juilliard Quartet’s Complete Epic Recordings of Mozart’s six ‘Haydn’ Quartets, which promote a level of finely tooled beauty that recalls similar qualities in Heifetz’s Bach. You need only sample the Dissonance Quartet’s fragile opening to hear what I mean. Sony Classical’s collection of these benchmark recordings includes equally remarkable accounts of Haydn’s three Op 54 Quartets, Beethoven’s ‘middle’ quartets (including the Harp) that anticipate the Emerson Quartet in energy and attack, elfin Mendelssohn and perhaps most remarkable…

Tim Ashley welcomes Stephen Walsh’s study of Debussy: ‘Walsh portrays Debussy’s transformation from a surly, uncommunicative child into an adult often in thrall to his libido’ Geraint Lewis reads an affectionate tribute to the tenor Wilfred Brown: ‘Given Brown’s inherent spirituality and love of languages these specific fields proved the perfect path for a singer of innate sensitivity’ Debussy A Painter in Sound By Stephen Walsh Faber & Faber, HB, 368pp, £20 ISBN 978-0-5713-3016-4 ‘A biography of sorts’ is how Stephen Walsh describes his fine new study of Debussy. His primary aim is ‘to treat Debussy’s music as the crucial expression of his intellectual life’, and the book is not so much a conventional life-and-works as an examination of his artistic development in the context of the circumstances, cultural and personal,…

What sets the Uniti Star apart from its stablemates is its built-in CD drive for both playback and disc-ripping Sometimes it’s difficult to be the middle model in a line-up. The flagship will get all the attention for its superior technology and (hopefully) performance, while the entry-level design is likely to attract those who like the idea but are on a tight budget. That might have been the fate of £3499 Naim’s Uniti Star, bookended in the company’s latest Uniti range by the £1999 Atom and the £4199 Nova. However, the Salisbury company has played it clever with its new series, giving each of the three Uniti models its own characteristics, features and thus appeal. Yes, all three share common styling cues, with that oversize volume control on the top…

JESÚS LÓPEZ COBOS Conductor Born February 25, 1940 Died March 2, 2018 The Spanish conductor Jesús López Cobos has died in Berlin at the age of 78. López Cobos held several music director positions at leading orchestras throughout a long and successful career. He was the Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1986 to 2001, making several highly-regarded recordings for Telarc, and later became their Conductor Emeritus. López Cobos was also General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (1981-90), Music Director of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra (1991-2000) and Music Director of the Teatro Real in Madrid (2003-10).  It was often López Cobos’s superb ear for instrumental balance, colour and detail that separated his recordings and performances from those of other conductors. His recording of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos 1 and 15 with…

Baxter ‘Ask the Moon’ April Twilighta . Four Views of Loveb . Grandmother, think not I forgetc . Is this the cost?d . Nights Without Sleepb . Skywritingc . Three Madrigalsc . Three Poems from Edna St Vincent Millayc . Two Last Songse ae Annie Gill,d Katherine Keem,c Jessica Satava sopsb Peter Scott Drackley tena Melissa Wertheimer fl Andrew Stewart pf Navona F NV6133 (51’ • DDD • T) There are many lovely things on this recording of songs by Garth Baxter about loss and memory, and of marrying words to music. Most are sad, and the composer’s idiom is simple, straightforward, old-fashioned romantic, but in each Baxter’s ear for matching the rhythm and sense of the verse quickly allows him to identify the central point of emotional interest at which his…

‘The sheer warmth of affection in which Birgit Nilsson was held by the three colleagues and associates I interviewed was a special treat,’ writes MIKE ASHMAN, ‘as was the chance to survey her entire career via her autobiography and the special tribute volume prepared by Sony and the Foundation.’ ‘Few singers are as naturally communicative as Roderick Williams,’ says NEIL FISHER , who interviews the baritone, ‘so perhaps it’s no surprise that he has embraced the most celebrated of Schubert’s song-cycles, Winterreise, in English. And his plans to take Lieder to hundreds of schoolchildren are inspiring.’ ‘You have to really immerse yourself in Olga Neuwirth’s music, but it’s worth the effort,’ reflects the author of this month’s Contemporary Composer feature, PAUL KILBEY. ‘I find her music so provocative, and I…

Ben Goldscheider is the only student of the great Czech horn player Radek Baborák at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. The son of professional string players, Goldscheider started to learn the cello, but turned to the French horn when he was diagnosed with the lung condition bronchiectasis at the age of six, as a way of strengthening his lungs. Progress was rapid, and at the age of 18 he won the brass category of the BBC Young Musician competition in 2016, the year that cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason ultimately triumphed. Goldscheider’s competition programme included works that he has now recorded for his debut disc, released by Willowhayne Records and reviewed on page 62, not least Esa-Pekka Salonen’s extraordinary Concert étude for solo horn, which demonstrates the sheer range of sound and the athleticism the instrument is capable of. As well…

What’s it like, as a composer, listening to a premiere recording being made? RB Having given a live performance just before, the challenge is to maintain similar levels of adrenalin, excitement and intensity while creating as perfect an interpretation and vision as possible. You evidently enjoyed working with the producer … RB We were very lucky to work with a very experienced Czech producer, Jiří Gemrot, who worked often with Jiří Bělohlávek. He’s also a composer and knows the orchestra extremely well. He didn’t let one misplaced or out-of-tune note, anything off the beat or a misplaced dynamic go by. He has a phenomenal ear and heard mistakes I didn’t hear. He immediately established a first-class working relationship with Tamsin and Ben – and they completely trusted him in terms of improving intonation and articulation. TW-C You want…

Birgit Nilsson, whose 100th anniversary is commemorated on May 17, rapidly became a legend to those with a special interest in big Romantic repertoire who started their opera-going and record-collecting in the 1960s. She was especially esteemed because she had the large heroic voice for Wagner, Richard Strauss and the bigger Verdis believed to have been lacking in the dramatic soprano field for some time, and now seemingly magnificently restored. ‘IT WAS GLORIOUS TO KNOW HER’ – Sir John Tooley Sir John Tooley was on the staff of the Royal Opera House during the whole time Nilsson sang there. Her Covent Garden debut was in 1957 with Die Walküre under Rudolf Kempe – ‘She was mightily impressive even then,’ says Tooley who, as General Director, oversaw her last performances in…

Jeremy Nicholas samples once-popular Victorian entertainments: ‘Cups and Saucers is an impossibly silly story, but with decent songs and dialogue brought off the page with relish’ REVIEW ON PAGE 84 Lindsay Kemp listens to a starrily cast disc featuring Vivaldi’s Gloria: ‘Julia Lezhneva’s technique has a solidity and agility that enables feathery ornaments and Bartoli-like “machine trills”’ REVIEW ON PAGE 84 JS Bach St John Passion, BWV245 (1749 version) Georg Poplutz ten Evangelist Yorck Felix Speer bass Christus Julia Kleiter sop Gerhild Romberger contr Daniel Sans ten Matthias Winckhler bass Mainz Bach Choir and Orchestra / Ralf Otto Naxos B 2 8 573817/18 (132’ • DDD • T/t) Having the one-to-apart Scholars Baroque Ensemble and the all-male cathedral forces of Oxford’s New College in its catalogue, Naxos has chosen shrewdly in…

Neil Fisher on Ethel Smyth’s comic opera The Boatswain’s Mate: ‘The men do their best with the “ how’s your father” dialogue yet both come off slightly bloodless’ REVIEW ON PAGE 93 Mark Pullinger is impressed by a solo debut from Anita Rachvelishvili ‘Here Dalila is a temptress, especially the way she floats her high notes, but that formidable chest register needs taming’ REVIEW ON PAGE 97 Giacomelli ‘Fiamma vorace’ Adriano in Siria – Sinfonia con corni; Mancare, oh Dio, mi sento; Saggio guerriero antico; Vuoi punir l’ingrato amante?. Cesare in Egitto – Sinfonia con corni; Alla fastosa, superba Roma; Al vibrar della mia spada; Nel sen mi giubila. Gianguir – Sinfonia con tromba; Sinfonia con trombe e oboi. Lucio Papirio Dittatore – Dirò quel sangue degno; Spera, sì, presago…

Gains in translation One of the most convincing cases for a German song to be sung in English is also one of the oldest. On January 10, 1934, the Irish baritone Harry Plunket Greene, aged nearly 70, went into the studio and made a recording for Columbia of Schubert’s ‘Der Leiermann’ (the last song in the cycle Winterreise); here, ‘The Hurdy Gurdy Man’. Words and music are held in extraordinary balance, making for one of the most gripping performances ever recorded. Priceless! Lieder (or mélodie) sung in English was, back in the record industry’s early days, far more common than it is today, and there are numerous examples. From towards the end of the 78 era, Kathleen Ferrier made a live recording in English at the Royal Albert Hall of…

The art of Alfredo Campoli Over the years I’m more than grateful for the chance to revisit recordings that previously I’d either overlooked or undervalued, and my sincere thanks go to the Australian Eloquence label for offering me new-found access to the wonderful Decca legacy of Alfredo Campoli (1906-91) – although in the case of ‘The Bel Canto Violin’, Vol 5, Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the LPO under Sir Adrian Boult has always struck me as ideal, both in terms of Campoli’s emotional commitment to the work and Boult’s mastery of the score. They achieve a comprehensive overview of an absolute masterpiece. In fact, after listening to this fresh new transfer I think that maybe this is the version to have, Campoli digging in ever deeper as the work progresses. The Bliss Concerto, a sort of…

Wish fulfilment lies at the centre of the Wesendonck Lieder project, Wagner’s only mature song-cycle. (The academic – but no longer the performing – jury is still out on whether the work actually constitutes a cycle, or if it’s just a number of songs with linked themes written at the same time by one composer and one poet.) Its starting point was Wagner’s ever intensifying relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck, a wealthy Zurich merchant’s wife whose husband, Otto, helped finance Wagner’s work and even provided him with a home to live in, one that (despite Wagner’s still being à deux with Minna) was in dangerous and tempting proximity to Mathilde. Wagner was soon in love with Mathilde – and she, maybe more restrainedly, with him. She became his major intellectual companion of the moment, a…

Denon DRA-100 As budget solutions go, the Denon DRA-100 offers a good start in network streaming in a compact form. Selling from around £675 and part of the company’s sleek Design Series, it offers DLNA and USB playback plus streaming services, and has 70Wpc amplification built in. If you want to play CDs there’s a matching player, the DCD-50, which you can find for £250 or so – it won’t rip CDs but it is a very good player. More information at denon.co.uk. Technics SU-C550 Technics offers several all-in-one streaming systems – there’s even one model complete with built-in speakers – but the SU-C550, at around £1200, is perhaps the closest to the Uniti concept. As well as built-in streaming and amplification, it also packs a CD player under a…

William Steinberg Rob Cowan’s claim on many occasions in your pages that William Steinberg is the most under-recorded of great conductors from the second half of the 20th century is certainly justified if one considers only the recordings currently available on official labels. Most of his Columbia recordings with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra were included in a Warner Classics Icons box, but his recordings with the same orchestra in the 1960s for Enoch Light’s Command Classics are much more difficult to obtain, despite the high quality. The copyright must belong to Universal, but they have made little effort to make the recordings available. As a result one has to turn to independent labels that have made transcriptions from LP or from reel-to-reel tape, with decidedly variable results. I suppose I…

Esa-Pekka Salonen As he marks his 60th birthday, we meet with the Finnish musician to talk about the relationship between composing and conducting – and between music and life Parry, a century on Parry scholar Jeremy Dibble argues that the composer’s music, long treated with indifference, is finally getting its due – and not before time Suk’s Asrael Symphony In next month’s Collection feature, we survey the recordings of the large, intricate symphony dedicated to the memory of Dvořák and Suk’s wife ON SALE MAY 23 DON’T MISS IT!…

Do you see expanding the flute repertoire as one of your missions? Yes, I do. I think every musician should do this. This is the second album for which I had requested works for flute that use ‘no normal sounds’. The Minakakis and Dulaney pieces arose separately from this challenge but were still written for me; they really set a new standard of composition for the flute. These works employ various extended techniques, which must be challenging. Yes, every technique has its own unique challenge. Minakakis’s multiphonics had to be perfectly tuned to the piano resonance while remaining extremely quiet; Dulaney demands smooth transitions between various techniques; Robert Gross’s work required going to my limits, especially vocally; and Dana Kaufman’s ‘Hang Down Your Head’ made me explore throat-singing and playing at…

RECORDING OF THEMONTH BARTÓK Violin Concertos Christian Tetzlaff; Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Hannu Lintu Ondine ROB COWAN’S REVIEW IS ON PAGE 30 From the fierce rhythms to the moments of great fragility, Christian Tetzlaff, a supreme soloist, and Hannu Lintu take us on a thrilling journey through Bartók’s two violin concertos. BEETHOVEN Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 4 Royal Northern Sinfonia / Lars Vogt Ondine An enjoyable cycle reaches its conclusion in considerable style – the rapport between Lars Vogt and his Northern Sinfonia feels natural and joyous after a rewarding journey. REVIEW ON PAGE 32 REICH Drumming Synergy Vocals; Colin Currie Group Colin Currie Records One of minimalism’s most significant – and most epic – works is given a mesmeric performance by Colin Currie and colleagues, who beautifully…

Podcasts The young Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński, one of the newest members of the Erato artist roster, is something of an internet sensation – there are two performances on YouTube of the Vivaldi aria, ‘Vedrò, con mio diletto’, that have been watched tens of thousands of times. He was in London recently for performances of Handel’s Rinaldo with The English Concert and our Editor-in-Chief James Jolly went to meet him. Songlines Our sister magazine Songlines, which is dedicated to traditional, contemporary, folk and fusion music from around the world, has launched a beautifully presented new website which is well worth a visit if you want to discover some new sound worlds. Simply go to songlines.co.uk to start exploring. Facebook & Twitter With more than 110,000 followers across Facebook and…

Wet sleet and a bitter wind are my unpleasant companions on a trudge through East London to find Roderick Williams, who is rehearsing at a canalside studio a long walk from anywhere. There could hardly be a more appropriate soundtrack than Schubert’s Winterreise, which the baritone has just recorded, the twist being that his Winterreise is actually Winter Journey, sung in Jeremy Sams’s new English translation, a project cooked up with the pianist Christopher Glynn. Williams is on another lonely odyssey today. We meet during his lunch break while he rehearses for the Royal Opera’s The Return of Ulysses, in which he plays the title-role – but it is Schubert that is really monopolising him. A quest that began when John Gilhooly, Director of Wigmore Hall, asked Williams to sing all…

Andrew Mellor listens to Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Eighth Symphony: ‘He counters low, clustered sounds with dazzling, tight constellations of high trumpets, woodwinds and strings’ REVIEW ON PAGE 42 Richard Wigmore joins Daniel Hope on his Mozart journey: ‘The souped-up Rondo alla turca, with harpsichord as surrogate percussion, is good, lusty fun’ REVIEW ON PAGE 47 Beethoven Piano Concertos – No 2, Op 19; No 4, Op 58 Royal Northern Sinfonia / Lars Vogt pf Ondine F ODE1311-2 (62’ • DDD) Lars Vogt would seem to have kept the best until last in this series of Beethoven concerto recordings with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. For here, surely, are the finest of the concertos, more at ease with themselves than the structurally inhibited First and Third concertos, more concerto-like than the mighty Emperor,…

Jed Distler marvels at Menahem Pressler’s delicious Debussy: ‘The pianist’s deadpan characterisation of the tipsy swagger of “Minstrels” cogently demonstrates how less is more’ REVIEW ON PAGE 68 Harriet Smith listens to Barry Douglas’s latest Schubert: ‘Douglas is essentially a pianist of big gestures, well suited to the drama of the fifth Moment musical’ REVIEW ON PAGE 71 JS Bach . Escaich . Ospital ‘Convergences’ JS Bach Herzlich tut mich verlangen, BWV727. Preludes and Fugues – BWV541; BWV543. Trio Sonata No 2, BWV526 Escaich Six Études-Chorals Ospital Visions 1-5 Thomas Ospital org Radio France F TEM316060 (67’ • DDD) Played on the Gerhard Grenzing organ of the Radio France Auditorium, Paris Four Bach works alternate with five of Thomas Ospital’s own improvisations and a set of six Études-Chorals by Thierry Escaich. The Escaich pieces…

Paul Sacher (1906-99) didn’t just commission new works. He conducted them, toured them, broadcast them, recorded them, took them to orchestras other than his own and presented them alongside complementary pieces from other periods. Was it this tireless work that lodged a significant number of Sacher’s commissions in the repertoire? Perhaps. Just as likely, it was an intuitive gift that led him to commission the right composers at the right time, the results of which often spoke for themselves. Sacher was not born into money. But he became fantastically wealthy when, in 1934, he married the widowed heiress to the Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceutical empire – the company responsible for selling Valium. Maja Stehlin was a sculptor and astute patron of the arts in her own right, but her union with Sacher (who had already founded a chamber orchestra in his home city…

Ravel Gaspard de la nuit Ivo Pogorelich pf DG Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, even the final ‘Scarbo’, involves a less acrid wizardry than Prokofiev’s concluding Vivace [in his Piano Sonata No 6, coupled with the Ravel], and in Vladimir Ashkenazy’s ‘Ondine’, on Decca, one admires, indeed, the remote, poetic quality of his interpretation. Here Pogorelich plays with delicate intensity, the two pages or so which lead to the très lent having an extraordinary becalmed sadness. Something altogether darker is evident amid the frozen immobility of his ‘Le gibet’, where everything is seen in disquieting half-lights. Both Ousset, on HMV, and Ashkenazy are magnificent amid the tumult of ‘Scarbo’, although the former’s reading is the more external, more on the surface. Pogorelich’s view is more haunted, has a greater nervous intensity…

Victoria Hall, Geneva & online Menuhin Competition Finals and Closing Gala Concert, April 20, 21 & 22 If you didn’t note the start of the famous violin-focused Menuhin Competition in these pages last month – live-streamed on the competition website and on arte.tv – you’re still in time for its grand climax: the Junior and Senior Finals, plus the closing gala concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Julian Rachlin. That latter event goes large on celebrating both the brilliance of the violin and the competition, its programme to include movements of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons performed by the two category winners, plus Rachlin picking up his own violin, first to perform Kreisler’s Liebesleid and Schön Rosmarin, and then Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins in B minor, RV580, alongside competition…

The trend towards compact active speakers complete with wireless music capability seems unstoppable; one of the latest arrivals is the Wharfedale DS-2 1 , a sub-£200 pair of speakers designed to sit at the heart of a complete ‘desktop audio’ system. Based on the now-discontinued DS-1 model, the new design combines Bluetooth wireless connectivity with aptX, 2x15W amplification and Wharfedale’s in-house driver expertise to create a compact design selling for £180 a pair, and voiced to be used on a shelf or table, close to a rear wall. The speakers use a 19mm silk dome tweeter and 7.5cm mid/bass driver tuned with a reflex port, and the speakers are finished in high gloss with leatherette trim. Just to prove they’ve been busy at the huge Chinese plant where Wharfedales are…

Cultural life when I grew up was very limited, and the choice and opportunities were not so great. We had a national symphony orchestra which was sponsored by the state. But classical music, and classical music education, was for the bourgeoisie and those who could afford it. But then a phenomenon happened, which was the Gulbenkian Foundation. It was created by the fortune left to the Portuguese state by a billionaire called Calouste Gulbenkian, and it acted in many ways like a second ministry of culture, and was particularly focused on arts and music. It built its own auditorium and created its own orchestra and ballet company. This, together with the social and economic changes following the democratic revolution of 1974, radically changed the musical panorama of Portugal. We had…