Table of contents for April 2019 in Gramophone Magazine

On March 5, the UK’s airwaves, digitally speaking, were treated to a new classical music station, Scala Radio. BBC Radio 3’s origins lie in the early era of broadcasting while Classic FM, the first commercial classical station, launched some 26 years ago. Scala, another commercial station, now joins them from the same stable as Jazz FM and Absolute Radio, aiming to be a popular and accessible station, but which happens to play classical music. Its most high-profile host, Simon Mayo, has presented some of the top slots on BBC Radios 1 and 2, and the hope must be that many a listener will follow him on his journey. First impressions augur well, the playlist a mix of core works by core artists (Elgar from Sir Andrew Davis, Mozart from Claudio…

JS BACH Violin Concertos Isabelle Faust vn Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin / Bernhard Forck Harmonia Mundi Isabelle Faust’s Bach is perfectly controlled, both in tone and tempos, everything bursting with a life and liveliness that is utterly delightful. BAX. COHEN ‘Private Passions’ Mark Bebbington pf Somm Céleste Mark Bebbington’s musical journeys are always fascinating – this time he pairs Arnold Bax with some recently discovered pieces by Harriet Cohen, in performances that are full of poetry. ELGAR Caractacus Sols; Orchestra of Opera North / Martyn Brabbins Hyperion Elgar’s early cantata reveals – certainly in the hands of such a skilled interpreter of his music as Martyn Brabbins – the genius for symphonic sound that was to define his later masterpieces. MENDELSSOHN Piano Concertos Jan Lisiecki pf Orpheus Chamber Orchestra…

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, NMC has returned to its roots – literally. The contemporary classical label invited producer/DJ Beatrice Dillon to delve into its back catalogue to produce a 50-minute mix; she chose works by composers including Judith Weir, Kate Whitley, Benjamin Britten and Huw Watkins. The result is now being issued on a limited-edition cassette. ‘That our name, NMC, originally stood for “New Music Cassettes” is difficult to explain to a generation that hardly knows what a cassette is, and is unlikely to have any means of playing one,’ says Colin Matthews, NMC’s founder and executive producer. ‘So it seems appropriate to celebrate our anniversary by releasing a cassette. For anyone who can play it, it’s a very special souvenir.’ And for anyone who can’t, it can be…

Last month’s comprehensive celebration of Riccardo Chailly has prompted me to reflect on a number of personal encounters and to think again about the very particular qualities that make this most personable and gracious of maestros precisely who he is. Neil Fisher’s lunchtime encounter chimed with my own experiences on so many levels: the desire to share, not just food (the natural accompaniment to any serious discourse with this thoroughbred Italian) but ideas, scholarship, and musical theories, both tried and as yet untested. Unusual among maestros, who often prefer to occupy the higher ground when sparring with journalists, Chailly assumes an equal knowledge from which a stimulating debate can evolve. He delights in presenting his own insights but equally he wants to hear yours. The ego referred to in Fisher’s…

Some pieces of music become landmarks. Neglected for two centuries, sanctified by Casals, and canonised by Rostropovich and Tortelier, Bach’s six unaccompanied Cello Suites have in the 21st century acquired the status of revealed truth. They’re the ‘Old Testament of the cello’, the subject of books, documentaries and endless academic theories. And they’ve become the defining moment in any credible cellist’s recorded career: a benchmark, a manifesto, a challenge that simply must be faced. ‘The first suite I played was the D minor. It was good for me: here was something with which I could be a bit depressed’ Which is why, you might assume, Alban Gerhardt is releasing his first recorded cycle of the suites just a few weeks before his 50th birthday. A musical coming of age for…

Buxton International Festival July 5-21 This Peak District festival celebrates its 40th birthday this year with the championing of young artists: the New Voices Festival Foundation Concert features talent from the Royal Northern College of Music and Cape Town Opera, and the mini opera Orphans of Koombu brings together schools in Derbyshire. New productions include the world premiere of Georgiana: Music from the Enlightenment, a specially commissioned opera pasticcio celebrating the life and times of Georgiana Cavendish, the fifth Duchess of Devonshire, and Caldara’s rarely heard Lucio Papirio Dittatore, with La Serenissima. Other productions include Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld from Opera della Luna. buxtonfestival.co.uk…

East Neuk Festival June 26-30 Local and international combine at this Fife-based festival. One highlight is the ENF debut from percussionist Colin Currie and his new Colin Currie Quartet, performing the world premiere of a work by Huw Watkins, and collaborating with community musicians for this year’s Big Project for massed percussion. Then, three ENF regulars appear with their new ensembles created especially for the festival: Alec Frank-Gemmill and Alexander Janiczek’s period instrument Camerata Janiczek perform Mozart and Handel concertos, and Peter Whelan’s Ensemble Marsyas of wind players from across Europe presents Mozart’s Serenade for 13 Winds. Young artists include violinist Benjamin Baker and viola player Diyang Mei, while familiar returning festival artists include Elisabeth Leonskaja, the Pavel Haas Quartet and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. eastneukfestival.com…

Festival de Pacques, Aix-en-Provence April 13-28 For 2019, this festival (under executive director Dominique Bluzet and artistic director, violinist Renaud Capuçon) once again reaches out to its local community. The most obvious example of this is its annual free concert for the people of Aix: this year it is a Mozart programme in the Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur from Camerata Salzburg under Alondra de la Parra, with piano soloist Robert Levin. In terms of concerts, there are many on offer. Capuçon opens the festival by performing extracts from his recent ‘Cinema’ album, accompanied by the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon under Lawrence Foster. Further highlights include Rudolf Buchbinder performing all five Beethoven piano concertos with Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Emmanuelle Haïm directing Le Concert d’Astrée in a Handel programme featuring soprano Sandrine Piau…

Aspen Music Festival and School June 27 – August 18 This major American festival and school celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. New music includes an orchestral work by Edgar Meyer, a cello concerto by Stephen Hartke, and Andrew Norman’s new string quartet premiered by the Escher Quartet. Aspen alumnus, conductor Leonard Slatkin, celebrates his 75th birthday; other highlights include pianist Daniil Trifonov presenting his programme of seminal 20th century works and James Ehnes with year two of his three-year Beethoven violin sonatas cycle. The season closes with music director Robert Spano conducting Seraphic Fire and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony No 2. aspenmusicfestival.com Bard SummerScape June 29 – August 18 Taking place at Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley, with many performances given in the…

Mahler Symphony No 7 Budapest Festival Orchestra / Iván Fischer Channel Classics F CCSSA38019 (75’ • DDD/DSD) I honestly can’t remember hearing a performance of this extraordinary symphony that was so plainly in love with its ethos, its originality, its sonority. Iván Fischer reads the ‘small print’ of the score with such thoroughness that he makes most other readings feel like generalisations by comparison. It’s one of those performances that makes one think of the piece differently, and that in itself is cause for celebration and reassessment. So one hears the opening of the first movement not as something strangely abstract but as a different kind of funeral march (heaven knows Mahler was the master purveyor of them), one with its roots firmly in the dotted rhythms of the Baroque…

Richard Whitehouse listens to percussion music by Xenakis: ‘Pléïades is akin to Reich’s Drumming, albeit with visceral contrasts rather than coolly  incremental changes’ Richard Bratby enjoys a Parisian album from Philippe Graffin: ‘Graffin’s gleaming, elegant virtuosity never degenerates either into lassitude or fireworks  for fireworks’ sake’ Bartók Complete String Quartets Diotima Quartet Naïve M c V5452 (164’ • DDD) How do you like your Bartók quartets served? With precision, passion, a sense of mystery or a sense of humour? With spontaneity or with a pinch of paprika? All options are catered for on disc, some, like the Takács Quartet (on Hungaroton, 12/84, or, preferably, on Decca, 4/98), the Belcea Quartet (Warner Classics, 5/08), the Mikrokosmos Quartet (Hungaroton) and now Quatuor Diotima offering a balanced blend of all the…

David Threasher on the start of two new Mozart sonata cycles: ‘The “difficulty” of this music lies in its restraint rather than in the logistics of throwing fistfuls of notes’ Jed Distler enjoys an inventive album from pianist Karim Said: ‘Bull’s Galliard features beautifully turned ornaments and carefully underlined emphasis on the composer’s harmonic twists’ JS Bach Six Solo Cello Suites, BWV1007-1012 Alban Gerhardt vc Hyperion F 2 CDA68261/2 (129’ • DDD) Like many cellists, Alban Gerhardt says he has been wary of recording the Bach Suites before he was good and ready. Now he has finally done it, with a rider that it was his approaching 50th birthday that prompted him rather than any feeling that he has arrived at a settled interpretation. ‘It can only be a snapshot’,…

Busking. Three MOB Pieces Håkan Hardenberger tpt with Claudia Buder acco Mats Bergström banj Swedish CO / HK Gruber BIS (11/12) Gruber’s frequent collaborator is the soloist in three works: the first is the 1999 arrangement of the early Three MOB Pieces, the second the 2007 concerto Busking. The third is by fellow MOB art & tone ART founder Kurt Schwertsik, whose caffeinated Divertimento macchiato provides useful context. ‘Manhattan Broadcasts’ Robert Cohen vc Swedish Chamber Orchestra / HK Gruber BIS (12/03) This is the best indicator of Gruber’s compositional range. The fascinating, serious-minded Cello Concerto (1989) precedes Zeitfluren (2001), whose eerie first half gives way to a jazzy second, before the light-as-air Manhattan Broadcasts (1962-64) completes the disc. Frankenstein!!. Charivari. Dancing in the Dark BBC Philharmonic / HK Gruber Chandos…

Lindsay Kemp listens to The Sixteen in Handel’s Acis and Galatea: ‘The singers are not the operatically outgoing sort but they offer an appropriate vocal beauty and intimacy’ Mark Pullinger hears a live 1979 Queen of Spades from Moscow: ‘Hvorostovsky was on imperious form, silky yet virile, phrases pouring like molten gold’ Adès The Exterminating Angel Joseph Kaiser ten .............................Edmundo de Nobile Amanda Echalaz sop ............................... Lucía de Nobile Audrey Luna sop ..........................................Leticia Maynar Alice Coote mez...........................................Leonora Palma Sally Matthews sop ...................................... Silvia de Ávila Iestyn Davies counterten ..................Francisco de Ávila Christine Rice mez ....................................Blanca Delgado Rod Gilfry bar .......................................................Alberto Roc Sophie Bevan sop .........................................................Beatriz David Portillo ten ......................................................Eduardo Frédéric Antoun ten ......................................Raúl Yebenes David Adam Moore bar ........... Colonel Álvaro Gómez Kevin Burdette bass ......................................Señor Russell Sir John Tomlinson…

For all the eccentric ordering of this fascinating set, which proceeds according to neither chronology of works or recordings, the compilers have chosen well in opening with a 1959 album of solo Mozart. By then Yvonne Loriod had been making records for almost 15 years. She was no longer the pianistic darling of Messiaen’s class at the Paris Conservatoire, the preternaturally formed keyboard lioness who had excited breathless (un)critical comparisons with Einstein and Toscanini. Yet here in a programme of fantasias (K394, K396, K397, the great C minor K475 and the Rondo K485) is the Loriod style in excelsis, a harmonious marriage of imposing left-hand strength with the most bewitching jeu perlé. Perhaps the most germane point of comparison would be not with elder French contemporaries such as Jeanne-Marie Darré…

Geraint Lewis I must have come under VW’s spell at about 11 or 12 and I will never forget his centenary concert a few years later at the Llandaff Festival in 1972, with Sir Adrian Boult conducting the Sixth Symphony and Ursula Vaughan Williams as guest of honour. By then I was already haunted by Boult’s 1952 recording of A London Symphony as reissued on a Decca Eclipse LP with a photo on the front of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where VW and his first wife Adeline lived from 1905 until 1929. But that was a very different London Symphony to the one we’re reconsidering here … David Threasher Yes, it’s almost a different world, isn’t it? We’re used to the familiar sounds of the city at night, the river and…

Connesson . Beethoven . R Strauss Jeff Spurgeon and John Schaeffer are your informal but informed backstage hosts for ‘Carnegie Hall Live’, a growing library of concert broadcasts recorded by the New York radio station WQXR and streamed online in decent, relatively uncompressed sound. Late in February Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra paid a visit, with Spurgeon and Schaeffer discussing Daniel Harding as stand-in maestro after Daniele Gatti’s dismissal from the job. They opened with Guillaume Connesson’s Eirene, a ‘nocturnal poem’ named after the Greek goddess of Peace, drifting lazily on the winds like a Postlude après la Prélude. Pierre-Laurent Aimard then pops into the WQXR studio to introduce his performance of Beethoven’s Emperor. He stresses the humour of the concerto’s finale, but there’s no shortage of compact and incisive orchestral…

Wharfedale D310 The choice really starts with the excellent little Wharfedale D310 speakers reviewed recently in these pages: designed as an alternative to the company’s Diamond range, they sell for £159, and yet combine a sweet treble, excellent dispersion to ensure you don’t need to sit in one ‘hot spot’ and surprisingly powerful bass for tiny cabinets. Wharfedale Diamond 11.1 However, if you prefer something more visually subtle than the slightly ‘technical’ looks of the D310s, Wharfedale also the offers the Diamond 11.1, with its more curvaceous cabinets and piano gloss finishes, for around the £270 mark. For details of both, see wharfedale.co.uk Q Acoustics 3020i Also curved, but in a rather different manner, are the Q Acoustics 3020i speakers, at around the £250 mark. Available in a choice of…

Lyatoshinsky in Wroclaw Thanks to January’s issue of Gramophone (to buy a copy of which necessitated a major trek around the Polish city of Wroclaw in -10C temperatures!), I was pleased to discover an amazing piece of music under the baton of Kirill Karabits (page 42). It is the Symphony No 3 by Lyatoshinsky played by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. And it was the second movement in particular that made a special impact. I asked my Ukrainian friend about this work and was astonished to find out she was unaware of it. I encouraged her to have a listen with me: her reaction was priceless. The tears in her eyes spoke volumes. It made me realise how easily we can all learn from each other. In this case a Ukrainian…

Meeting Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla As she releases her first album for DG, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director talks about the work of Mieczystaw Weinberg The Sixteen at 40 As one of today’s most admired choral groups, famed for their annual Choral Pilgrimage tours, marks four decades, founder and Director Harry Christophers tells us about their anniversary plans Nielsen’s Violin Concerto Andrew Mellor chooses his favourite recordings of a work he feels powerfully reflects the composer’s personality…

My three passions are Scarlatti, Snoop Dogg and Sinatra because they all swing in their own way! I often get laughed at as a controller of music because my personal passion for a project can drive me on, but I occasionally need to stand back and be more objective. But then I’ve never really believed in putting barriers around music by genre: I’ve always been open to all sorts of music, so jazz sits comfortably alongside classical and I’m happy to jump from one to the other. I missed out on rock and punk in my early years, so I’m catching up now. I love hip-hop and particularly Snoop Dogg who I think has real musicality. These artists know a lot about music and how to create it. I discovered…

Anderson-Bazzoli Continent’s End Buffy Baggott mez Kevin Korth pf Delos B DE3567 (33’ • DDD • T) Nearly everything about this disc arrives like a bolt out of the blue. The poet Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) was quite famous in his own time (also as a playwright and environmentalist of sorts), and it’s his earlier, California-inspired verse that’s adapted for this nine-song cycle Continent’s End by Christopher Anderson-Bazzoli (b1969), a seasoned West Coast craftsman (copyist, orchestrator and film score composer) who stakes his claim here as a front-and-centre artist. He composed Continent’s End by improvising vocal lines to Jeffers’s poems, which he then recorded, with piano-writing to follow. However short the disc (33 minutes), epic qualities abound. The poems are full of quickly shifting imagery conveying a rugged coastal terrain with…

‘The scale of China, and its appetite for classical music, has to be seen to be believed,’ writes the author of this month’s cover story, ANDREW MELLOR, who visited some of China’s major cultural centres for us. ‘This is truly a land of contradictions, which makes the story all the more fascinating.’ The most valuable aspect for ROB COWAN when he was researching his Collection on Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances was, he says, ‘questioning the effectiveness of recordings I thought I loved, and recognising the virtues of those I didn’t previously know. It was’, he continues, ‘a privilege indeed.’ ‘There’s nothing more boring than a musician who toes the party line,’ says RICHARD BRATBY. ‘You don’t have to be a cellist to enjoy interviewing an artist as outspoken as Alban Gerhardt,…

Polonaise means ‘Polish’ in French, and the language is significant. Poland used to elect its monarch, and at least one tale tells that when the French-born Henri of Anjou was offered the Polish crown in 1573, he ordered the nobility to process before his throne in Krakow. The music on that occasion – in a stately triple time, with a martial rhythmic kick on the first beat – came to define Polishness, whether as polonez, polonaise or polacca. It captured the imagination of German–speaking composers too, particularly after Augustus III of Saxony was elected King of Poland in 1734, though Bach (in his First Brandenburg Concerto and Second Suite) and Telemann (in numerous sonatas and concertos) needed little encouragement. So the polonaise became part of the stylistic wardrobe of composers…

“Early last year, the Britten-Pears Foundation contacted me about the Doric Quartet’s project to record all of Britten’s string quartets in Aldeburgh’s Snape Maltings, which took place in October. To my astonishment, they asked if I would be willing to make this particular recording on Benjamin Britten’s own viola. My first reaction was fear. What if I committed to such an important milestone for the quartet using a viola with which I wasn’t entirely comfortable? A few weeks later I had the chance to try the viola for myself. As soon as my bow touched the strings I was overwhelmed with a feeling of belonging, of understanding. It has always been challenging to find an instrument which suits my style of playing, as I have a rather specific sound in…

Holt Festival July 21-27 This North Norfolk Georgian town’s festival hosts a mixture of music, literary, drama, visual arts and family events, and this year will be its first under the artistic directorship of Anwen Hurt. Among the classical highlights for 2019 is the Britten Oboe Quartet with Nicholas Daniel on oboe and cor anglais, violinist Jacqueline Shave, viola player Clare Finnimore and cellist Caroline Dearnley. Their programme includes quartets by Britten, Berkeley and Knussen, along with other chamber and solo works. holtfestival.org…

Aix-en-Provence Festival July 3-22 Provence’s major opera festival welcomes Pierre Audi as director this year; he has personally put together a programme comprising five festival premieres. In the Théâtre de l’Archevêché there’s a new staged production of Mozart’s Requiem from Romeo Castellucci with Raphaël Pichon conducting the Pygmalion orchestra and chorus; then Puccini’s Tosca from Christophe Honoré, with Daniele Rustioni conducting the orchestra and chorus of the Opéra National de Lyon. At the Grand Théâtre de Provence you can see Esa-Pekka Salonen at the helm of the Philharmonia Orchestra for Ivo van Hove’s staging of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany, and the French premiere of Rihm’s Jakob Lenz. The Théâtre du Jeu de Paume is host to the world premiere of Adam Maor’s festival co-commission Les…

Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier July 11-25 The live-programming jewel in Radio France’s crown, this festival offers a huge annual programme of concerts encompassing everything from chamber to opera, Baroque to symphonic music, younger-generation to established artists, all played out in picturesque venues in and around the ancient city of Montpellier. Plus, more than 80 per cent of these concerts are free, making it a festival where you’ll often find yourself sitting alongside the locals. The 2019 festival theme is ‘Soleil de nuit – Les musiques du nord’ (‘Night Sun – The Music of the North’), taking festival-goers on a journey around Northern Europe, notably the Baltic states. To that end, it’s the National Orchestra of Estonia under Neeme Järvi playing the opening concert, with a programme to include Sibelius’s…

Chelsea Music Festival June 6-15 The 10th season of this lower- Manhattan festival is themed ‘200° Due Clara’, inspired by the 200th anniversary of the birth of Clara Schumann, and includes new commissions from 10 female composers. Events take place throughout the Chelsea neighbourhood of New York City, and feature a mix of classical, jazz, and contemporary music as well as lectures, walking tours and family events. There are also two exciting new venue partners in Chelsea: at High Line Nine, visual artist-in-residence Julianne Swartz exhibits her ‘Sine Body’ sound sculptures, while at Hauser & Wirth gallery a composer has been commissioned to respond to Brooklyn-born artist Lorna Simpson’s exhibit. chelseamusicfestival.org…

Edward Seckerson hears the latest Shostakovich from Andris Nelsons: ‘The long first movement of the Sixth Symphony completely wrong-footed the powers-that-be in  Stalin’s Soviet Union’ Charlotte Gardner listens to recorder player Lucie Horsch: ‘Horsch’s technique was always immaculate, but there’s been a clear growth in naturalness  and confidence’ Adès Colette Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Lakeshore F LK535352 (40’ • DDD) Thomas Adès has composed his first film score, for Colette, a biopic based on the Claudine novels by the French writer, with Keira Knightley in the title-role. The film was the dream project of the director Wash Westmoreland and his choice of Adès to compose the soundtrack, though an unlikely one given the recent paucity of classical composers working in this medium, is nevertheless welcome and, it has…

Every opera fan has their favourite singer whom they never saw live but wished they had. My operatic hero died before I was even born – although, by rights, that’s when he should have been in his vocal prime. Ettore Bastianini was the reigning Italian baritone of the late 1950s and early 1960s, singing regularly at La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and the Wiener Staatsoper until his career was tragically cut short. In November 1962 he was diagnosed with throat cancer (kept a closely guarded secret), and he died on January 25, 1967, aged just 44. A burnished, rich baritone, as dark as espresso, but with a top that bloomed. It was truly ‘a voice of bronze and velvet’ Bastianini actually started out as a bass, but…

Tim Ashley is enthusiastic about a debut disc from Marie Perbost: ‘The emphasis she places on the texts serves her wonderfully well in the chansons and operetta extracts’ Alexandra Coghlan welcomes an Irish-themed album from Dublin: ‘Whatever their director and voice coach are doing, every other choral director should be knocking down their door to discover’ Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Op 45 Carolyn Sampson sop André Morsch bar Cappella Amsterdam; Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century / Daniel Reuss Glossa F GCD921126 (70’ • DDD • T/t) Recorded live at De Doelen, Rotterdam, May 2018 De Doelen hall in Rotterdam may not boast the six-second echo of Bremen Cathedral, birthplace of the German Requiem, or the cavernous acoustic of Antwerp’s De Singel which hosted these forces in a fine Missa solemnis…

Jazz Trish Clowes Ninety Degrees Gravity Basho F SR-CD 562 The title is a nod to Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi hit Arrival, whose themes of communication and shifting perceptions Clowes explores alongside tracks that see her comment on anything from the mechanics of sound – ‘Lightning Les’ refers to the fast setting of Ross Stanley’s Hammond organ – to the overawing nature of the universe. Themes aside, the set is a consolidation of where Clowes’s quartet left off on 2017’s My Iris insofar there is a balance between the players, and a stylistic openness in the material, which shifts stealthily between a grounded, melodic accessibility and airy abstraction. Stanley’s intelligent movement between piano and organ provides a significant variety of detail and density in the ensemble sound. This is also reinforced…

When it comes to nominating a default position for gemütlich string playing in the latter half of the 20th century, Willi Boskovsky, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic from 1936 to 1979 and long-standing conductor of the Vienna New Year’s Day Concerts, fits the bill to perfection. And while Boskovsky’s discography is by no means restricted to the Decca label, Decca captured his genial and persuasive style both in chamber music and, most famously, a plethora of Strauss family masterpieces. Also, one mustn’t forget his solo work in the music of Richard Strauss under the likes of Krauss (Ein Heldenleben) and Karajan (Also sprach Zarathustra), legendary recordings included in this set and it’s good that we have duplicate recordings by members of the Vienna Octet (of which Boskovsky was leader), including…

Symphony No 2, ‘A London Symphony’ London Symphony Orchestra / Richard Hickox Chandos It was during the summer of 1911 that George Butterworth first suggested to Vaughan Williams that he should write a purely orchestral symphony. VW dug out some sketches he had made for a symphonic poem about London, while at the same time deriving fruitful inspiration from HG Wells’s 1908 novel, Tono-Bungay. VW subsequently dedicated the score to Butterworth’s memory. Over the next two decades or so, the work underwent three revisions (including much judicious pruning) and was published twice (in 1920 and 1936). In his compelling 1941 recording with the Cincinnati SO, Eugene Goossens employed the 1920 version, which adds about three minutes of music to that definitive 1936 ‘revised edition’. Now Richard Hickox at long last…

Odense Concert Hall & online Carl Nielsen Competition, March 21-31 The Carl Nielsen Competition is a contest whose winners are worth watching – its 2016 joint winners, violinists Jiyoon Lee and Liya Petrova, have both featured in ‘One to Watch’ in our pages in recent months. It’s a fresh new format this year too, because while traditionally the competition has annually rotated its three disciplines (taken from the instruments for which Nielsen wrote a concerto), this year it will for the first time be running its violin, clarinet and flute competitions concurrently. Plus its judges are a seriously high-profile bunch: Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider – a former Carl Nielsen Competition winner himself – is Competition President, supported by Artistic Advisors the clarinettist Martin Fröst and the flautist Emmanuel Pahud. As for the…

A small but impressive pair of speakers, a multi-room streaming solution, and can digital networks be improved? Andrew Everard, Audio Editor Austrian-based Pro-Ject is a frequent visitor to this news page, and for one simple reason – the company just keeps on launching interesting products. But its latest arrivals see it spreading its influence into new areas, with the launch of cartridges to complement its turntables, and a new record label. Pro-Ject has long had an association with celebrated cartridge manufacturer Ortofon – the Danish company supplies the pre-fitted pickups on Pro-Ject turntables, including the Pick-IT 25A and Ortofon 2M Silver, but now Pro-Ject is voicing its own cartridges under the Pick-IT name, which are being made for it by Ortofon. The two new Pick-IT models are the £125 S2,…

Multiroom audio is big news, and it’s not hard to see why: the latest systems have made simple what was once possible only with a substantial investment in custom installation, not to mention all the domestic disruption involved in putting the systems into your home. These days you no longer need a server rack in the cupboard under the stairs or a hub in the attic: you can start with nothing more than a single wireless speaker and the home Wi-Fi you probably already have, plus your smartphone or tablet device to control a system – you can start small and expand as your budget allows. What’s more, it’s all totally portable: unlike a dedicated installation, you can take today’s whole-house audio systems with you should you move. The Bluesound…

What brought the string quartets of Matthew Quayle to your attention? We were actually hired to play his first two quartets in a concert series, the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society in New York City. We quickly took a liking to this music, which felt fresh and genuine, and when Matthew contacted us later with the proposal to record all of his quartets (which now included the Third Quartet) we immediately agreed. The musical style is eclectic, from haunting beauty to punchy dissonance – are there particular influences you detect? Quayle uses many elements of American, often popular, music that surrounded him as he grew up. These works give us a window into his mind and his memories. We feel that his style changes progressively through each quartet, with the…

Andrew Achenbach • Nalen Anthoni • Tim Ashley • Mike Ashman • Michelle Assay Richard Bratby • Edward Breen • Liam Cagney • Alexandra Coghlan • Rob Cowan (consultant reviewer) Jeremy Dibble • Peter Dickinson • Jed Distler • Adrian Edwards • Richard Fairman • David Fallows David Fanning • Andrew Farach-Colton • Iain Fenlon • Neil Fisher • Fabrice Fitch • Jonathan Freeman-Attwood Charlotte Gardner • David Gutman • Christian Hoskins • Lindsay Kemp • Philip Kennicott • Richard Lawrence Andrew Mellor • Ivan Moody • Bryce Morrison • Hannah Nepil • Jeremy Nicholas • Christopher Nickol Geoffrey Norris • Richard Osborne • Stephen Plaistow • Mark Pullinger • Peter Quantrill • Guy Rickards Malcolm Riley • Marc Rochester • Patrick Rucker • Edward Seckerson • Hugo Shirley •…

Marie Perbost’s debut album couldn’t be better suited to her passions and ambitions. When interviewed for a Gramophone podcast last year, the young French soprano described herself as a ‘fervent defender of operetta’. And in ‘Une jeunesse à Paris’, a beautifully prepared and charmingly performed recital of operetta arias, mélodies and chansons released on Harmonia Mundi’s Nova series, she leaves listeners in no doubt of her affinity with this repertoire. A young artist’s biography usually lists the colleges, the teachers, the awards: in Perbost’s case, early musical experiences included singing with Maîtrise de Radio-France under conductors including Kurt Masur and Myung-whun Chung, before studying at the Paris Conservatoire, then in the 2017/18 season joining the Paris National Opera Bastille opera studio; competition successes include the Grand Prix at the 2015…

Podcasts This month’s podcast episodes include an interview with recorder player Lucie Horsch (pictured) whose new album, ‘Baroque Journey’, takes the listener on a thrilling and diverse voyage through some of the recorder’s most beautiful repertoire. Read our review of this album on page 71. Plus, James Jolly pays a visit to Dame Emma Kirkby’s North London home to celebrate her 70th birthday and to talk about the composers, artists and producers who have all played a major role in her long career. Face-to-face with André Previn We had the privilege of interviewing André Previn on a number of occasions, often at turning points in his career – as he embarked on his relationship with the LSO, as he wrote his first opera, and as he wrote a concerto for…

• Recipent of Gramophone’s 2018 Recording of the Year Award for Les Troyens, conductor John Nelson continues his service to Berlioz with a recording, for Erato, of the composer’s Requiem, the Grande Messe des morts. Captured live in St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the vast work called on the services of the tenor Michael Spyres, the Philharmonia Orchestra and a huge choir. To add to the sense of occasion, the concert took place on the exact 150th anniversary of the composer’s death on March 8, 1869. • Steven Osborne went into the studio – in fact, into St Silas’s Church in Kentish Town, London – towards the end of February to record Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos 6, 7 and 8, the War Sonatas premiered by Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels…

Aldeburgh Festival June 7-23 As ever, it’s impossible to squeeze into a listing the wealth and breadth of the Aldeburgh Festival, so we strongly recommend a thorough exploration of the website. To give you a flavour of what’s on offer for this year though, there are three featured artists-in-residence for 2019, each of whom curates a part of the festival. First, composer Thomas Larcher, whose acclaimed first opera The Hunting Gun opens the festival. Second, Mark Padmore, who performs in seven concerts, and explores the relationship between words and music with leading poets. Third is soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, who appears in five events, singing Satie, Grisey and Gershwin, as well as conducting the Ludwig Orchestra in several works including Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Beyond that high-profile trio there…

Cheltenham Music Festival July 5-14 Cheltenham Music Festival’s 75th year includes an immersive venture celebrating Clara Schumann, the return of Classical Mixtape, a new Free Stage, an inaugural ‘Composium’ for the classical music industry, and a community opera. This year also marks Alison Balsom’s arrival as artistic director. The first weekend begins with a bang: Elim Chan conducts the London Symphony Orchestra in a programme that gives British audiences a chance to hear fast-rising Austrian virtuoso violinist Emmanuel Tjeknavorian playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto; then Balsom herself joins forces with the CBSO under Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla for an all-British programme based around the world premiere of Thea Musgrave’s new Trumpet Concerto. Violinist Nicola Benedetti also appears with the Academy of Ancient Music directed by Richard Egarr. cheltenhamfestivals.com/music…

Leeds Piano Festival March 28 – April 7 Taking place at LSO St Luke’s in London and Leeds College of Music, the second edition of this festival connected to the rejuvenated Leeds International Piano Competition continues the event’s learning and engagement activities. ‘Discover the Piano: Piano Fantasia’ returns; the festival’s biggest primary school event to date, engaging with 1000 schoolchildren. The Young Scholars also participate in learning activities in primary schools and adult care settings in both Leeds and London. The festival also continues as it began, championing the piano through a mix of major artists and young talent. Highlights include Beethoven sonatas from Steven Osborne, Russian repertoire from Barry Douglas, and Chopin from 2018 Leeds competition winner Eric Lu. There are also performances from Lang Lang International Music Foundation…

Festival d’Auvers-sur-Oise June 6 – July 4 With its concerts taking place in the Gothic Église de Notre-Dame d’Auvers-sur-Oise, immortalised by Van Gogh, this festival on the outskirts of Paris deserves to be better known in the UK. One of the reasons for this is the way it gives back to its community, having built a 30-pipe organ for the church that is used for projects such as children’s workshops and establishing a choir school. The festival is crucial for the stage it gives young artists of all nationalities not just to perform but to develop their recording careers (as witness its recent recording and DVD with BBC New Generation artist cellist Anastasia Kobekina and pianist Paloma Kouider). It also welcomes some major visiting artists each year; for 2019 they…

Tsinandali Festival September 8-22 Tsinandali Festival is a brand-new festival in Georgia under the musical direction of Gianandrea Noseda, founded by George Ramishvili (Chairman of the Silk Road Group), Martin Engstroem (Verbier Festival founder) and Avi Shoshani (Verbier Festival founder and Secretary General of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). At its heart is the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra and the Verbier Chamber Orchestra Music Academy for young musicians from the extended area. The festival boasts two new, state-of-the-art concert spaces: a modern 1200-capacity open amphitheatre with a retractable roof where Mahler’s Symphony No 2 opens the festival, and a chamber concert hall. Then it’s all about big-name visiting artists, which in this inaugural year include pianists András Schiff and Yuja Wang, violinists Pinchas Zukerman, Renaud Capuçon and Lisa Batiashvili, mandolin player Avi…

Ravinia Festival May 31 – September 15 It’s a big year for America’s oldest music festival in terms of its community and outreach work: it’s opening an immersive ‘Experience Center’ to help introduce audiences to classical music. In total, the festival presents 140 events including the annual summer residency of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Its expansive Bernstein celebration continues with the composer’s final protégé, Marin Alsop, conducting a command encore of Mass featuring 200 artists, from the CSO to the local high school band. She will also lead the rarely performed Trouble in Tahiti. The Knights will present Ravinia’s first full Candide, and the CSO will perform live to the films On the Waterfront and West Side Story. Away from Bernstein, winners of the second annual ‘Bridges’ competition for Jazz/…

• 1945 – November Stage debut (as a bass) as Colline in La bohème in Ravenna • 1952 – January 17 Debut as a baritone – Germont in La traviata in Siena • 1955 – May 28 Legendary first night of Luchino Visconti’s new production of La traviata , with Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano and conductor Carlo Maria Giulini • 1958 – July 26 Salzburg Festival debut – Rodrigo in Don Carlo under Karajan • 1962 – February 23 Covent Garden debut – Renato in Un ballo in maschera , his only Royal Opera House performance • 1965 – December 11 His final performance, as Rodrigo in Don Carlo at the Met Opera…

Born Vienna, January 3, 1943. Musical roots His great-great-grandfather Franz Xaver Gruber wrote the carol ‘Stille Nacht’. Wiener Blut After singing in the Vienna Boys’ Choir, Gruber studied at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik, and later played the double bass in the ORF Symphony Orchestra for several decades. A Kurt Weill connection Gruber got in touch with David Drew of Boosey & Hawkes after reading some programme notes of his for a Kurt Weill concert. He eventually signed with Boosey and Drew remained a key influence in his development. On the podium Gruber has long been in demand as a conductor, and not just to perform his own works. He has worked closely with ensembles including Ensemble Modern and the BBC Philharmonic, and has recorded numerous CDs. Gruber on…

A fairly large proportion of RCA’s Gregor Piatigorsky: The Art of the Cello has already been reissued on CD more than once, in ‘The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts’, ‘Jascha Heifetz: The Complete Album Collection’ (and its brown-cased predecessors) and ‘Jascha Heifetz: The Complete Stereo Collection’, and as various single releases. Not that I’m complaining. So many of these performances set standards: Mozart’s G minor String Quintet, Mendelssohn’s Octet, Brahms’s String Sextet in G as well as various recordings that were not part of the original Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts sequence, such as the complete string trios of Beethoven (stereo and mono), where the instrumental interplay between Heifetz, Piatigorsky and viola player William Primrose is both expressive and animated. The Kogan-Barshai-Rostropovich trio comes close, but not that close. Years ago when I conducted a public…

Nigel Simeone welcomes a guide to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring: ‘The most original chapter looks at The Rite’s enduring impact on later generations of musicians’ Andrew Mellor on a study of the English choral tradition and its roots: ‘The author is excellent when recounting the specifics of choral style and the emergence of alternatives to the King’s approach’ The Rite of Spring The Music of Modernity By Gillian Moore Head of Zeus, HB, 288pp, £18.99 ISBN 978-1-786-69682-3 There is a substantial literature on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, from major theoretical studies such as Pieter C van den Toorn’s Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring: The Beginnings of a Musical Language (OUP: 1987) to more compact guides to the work, of which Peter Hill’s Cambridge Music Handbook (2000) is particularly valuable.…

When it comes to setting up an audio company, one making loudspeakers often looks like the easy option: after all, many audio enthusiasts of the past have built their own speakers, either from a kit or using one of the ‘recipes’ easily found in books or (latterly) online. With some woodworking and basic electronic skills, plus ‘off the shelf’ drive units, it’s relatively simple to build yourself a pair of boxes that both look and sound pretty decent. Trouble is, after that first pair is when the problems set in: you look and listen, and you think ‘that wasn’t so hard; maybe I can make more of these and sell them’, before (hopefully) realising that making one pair is OK, but making many of them to a repeatable standard is…

JEAN GUILLOU Organist, pianist and composer Born April 18, 1930 Died January 26, 2019 Born in Angers in the Pays de la Loire, Guillou studied both the piano and organ, becoming organist of the church of St Serge in his home town at the age of 12. He later studied with Dupré, Messiaen and Duruflé at the Paris Conservatoire. He moved to Lisbon to teach and then to Berlin for five years where he composed before returning to the French capital in 1963 as Titulaire of St Eustache. He remained in the role (later taking on an emeritus title) for 52 years. Guillou was a man of wide culture with interests that included Asian music, Nô theatre, whale song and mime (he worked with Marcel Marceau). In the great French…