Table of contents for August 2025 in Gramophone Magazine

Gramophone may focus on recordings, but we know concert-going is also an integral part of many, if not most, readers’ lives. Listening to music in the finest auditoriums is an extraordinary experience, offering unparalleled clarity and precision, an enveloping acoustic and, ideally, perfect sight-lines. Talking to those involved in building such venues, it’s also clear how important is the ability of the musicians on stage to hear each other; get that right and their communication with each other transfers to audience members too. And yet … it’s not the only way to hear live music. In recent weeks I’ve probably seen just as many performances in non-traditional venues as in the classic concert hall. A converted warehouse in Berlin (a city that’s no stranger to the concept, thanks to DG’s…

In 2011 the violinist Peter Hanson was looking for a label to issue a recording he had made with the Eroica Quartet and friends of the original 1825 version of Mendelssohn’s Octet, Op 20. There was no coupling and at 36 minutes this was deemed too short for a traditional album on a physical CD. At this time, digital-only albums were widely viewed as offering inferior recordings that were not worth the expense of physical manufacture. Countering this impression, the producer and engineer Adam Binks, together with Jonathan Manners, founded Resonus Classics as a digital-only label focusing on high-quality recordings made without compromise. The recording of Mendelssohn’s Octet became the new label’s first release and was described by David Threasher as ‘a performance as exhilarating musically as it is absorbing…

Do record labels have a life-span? It certainly appears that unless they are subsumed into another, often larger, business, 40 to 50 years would seem to be the life expectancy for a family-owned company run exactly as its founder intended. Harmonia Mundi was owned by Bernard Coutaz from 1958 until his death in 2010 (52 years), now it is part of the Belgian PIAS corporation, its A&R policy, once shaped by Eva Coutaz, now re-energised by Christian Girardin; Hyperion was owned by Ted and then Simon Perry from 1980 until its sale to Universal in 2023 (43) and Chandos belonged to the Couzens family, Brian and then his son Ralph, from 1979 until it was bought by Klaus Heymann in 2024 (45), though Ralph remains in the driving seat. The…

LUIGI ALVA Tenor Born April 10, 1927 Died May 15, 2025 The Peruvian singer Luis Ernesto Alva y Talledo, known professionally as Luigi Alva, was the possessor of a light and flexible tenor voice, making him an ideal interpreter of the operas of Mozart and Rossini. Born in Paita, Peru, he studied in his native country before, in 1953, moving to Milan where he worked with Emilio Ghirardini and Ettore Campogalliani (whose pupils included Tebaldi, Scotto, Freni, Bergonzi and Pavarotti). He made his debut the following year as Alfredo in La traviata. His La Scala debut came in 1955, and in 1956 he sang Count Almaviva opposite Callas’s Rosina – it was a role he’d sing in the great Milan house 300 times. His career would take him all over…

rażyna Bacewicz appears ever more frequently on concert and recording programmes, yet I still sometimes hear ‘Grażyna who?’ – even from musicians and musicologists. I try to explain who she was, but end up telling poeple they can go and choose any random piece, and they’ll see why her reputation is gaining ground. Whether early, middle or late, every piece is engaging, lively and often witty. And no one can miss the fact that her music is always expertly crafted, but she never descends into mere ‘worthiness’ – her music never outstays its welcome. The style runs the range from late echoes of Romanticism through to hints of Western avant-gardism, but she usually occupies a terrain we could blandly dub ‘moderate modernism’. But I don’t want to dismiss my Gramophone…

Martinů ‘Complete Works for Cello and Piano’ Cello Sonatas – No 1, H277; No 2, H286; No 3, H340. Seven Arabesques, H201. Ariette, H188b. Four Nocturnes, H189. Six Pastorales, H190. Romance, H186bis. Suite miniature, H192. Variations on a Slovak Folk Song, H378. Variations on a Theme of Rossini, H290 Vilém Vlček vc Denis Linnik pf Supraphon (SU4364-2 ② • 149’) These compact and tough-minded cello sonatas are hardly standard repertoire, but they’ve been recorded repeatedly – for good reason, since they offer Martinů distilled. They perfectly capture his voice: not only its recognisable cadences and rhythmic gestures but also its nervousness and flashes of jazziness, as well as the characteristic way, inspired by Janáček, it tends to speak in small shards of material rather than long paragraphs. The cello sonatas…

Charlotte Gardner hears Rachel Barton Pine in Chausson’s Concert: ‘The finale is proof that you don’t have to go for virtuosic speed to create something dramatically gripping’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 53 Guy Rickards on South African works from the Signum Quartet: ‘On the evidence of this beautifully played programme, string quartet composition is alive and well in Southern Africa’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 57 Biber ‘Just Biber’ Sonatae violino solo (1681) – No 1 in A; No 2 in D minor; No 3 in F; No 5 in E minor; No 6 in C minor. Sonata violino solo representativa in A Rachel Podger vn Brecon Baroque Channel Classics (CCS48525 • 70’) You know that old adage about waiting an age for a bus and then two coming along at once ……

Alexandra Coghlan on a Gabriel Jackson portrait from Canterbury: ‘Is there another composer currently writing Anglican liturgical music with such reliable invention and appeal? ’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 74 Pwyll ap Siôn enjoys a revelatory Pärt album from Tõnu Kaljuste: ‘Pärt’s music is transformed into a dramatic chiaroscuro of Caravaggio-like bold colours and contrasts’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 79 Binchois ‘Loyal Souvenir’ Anonymous Adyeu ma tres belle (Adieu mes tres belles amours). Geloymors (Je loe Amours). Qui vult messite (Qui veut mesdire si mesdie). Redeuntes in re Binchois Adieu, jusques je vous revoye. Adieu mes tres belles amours. Agnus Dei ‘cum jubilo’. Depuis le congié que je pris. Dixit sanctus Philippus. En sera il mieulx voustre cuer. Gloria ‘hominibus’. Jamais tant que je vous revoye. J’ay tant de deul que nul…

Brought to you by Jazz Tereza Catarov Koren PKmusik London-based vocalist Tereza Catarov’s remarkable debut album Koren was born from video calls with her grandmother, a folk singer who preserves hundreds of traditional songs in her memory. When her grandmother shared a notebook of lyrics left by her own mother and sang some pieces, including personal compositions, Catarov was moved to record these voices and stories. Inspired, she travelled to Romania to capture her grandmother’s voice for the album, ensuring this living treasure’s presence in the project. Koren masterfully intertwines Romanian and Bulgarian heritage with contemporary jazz, honouring women’s intergenerational struggles through intricate arrangements which envelope Catarov’s intensely powerful vocals, often sung in Palkensiki (a Bulgarian dialect). Many lyrics originated with Catarov’s grandmother Terezia, whose sharp emotional insights inform songs…

THIS MONTH Advanced technology and ‘holistic design’ makes better speakers; a new spin on foreign takeovers; and how to choose interconnect cables Andrew Everard, Audio Editor AUGUST TEST RECORDINGS An impressive restoration of recordings from the 1930s to 1950s for the Somm label, and a fascinating insight into Poulenc’s performances Captured with a glowing sound, packed with detail and ambience, this recital by Kožená and Uchida is an absolute joy There’s an occasional game played among those in the audio industry, and it’s about trying to guess who’s going to take over whom next. The takeover of those Sound United brands by a medical technology company a few years back threw us something of a curveball, but as I wrote in these pages last month, their new home as part…

The Light Programme provided my introduction to music, with Eric Coates Calling All Workers at the start of Music While You Work. His patriotic march was intended to buck up spirits during and after the war and encourage factory production, but at my prep school in the 1950s the art class tuned in on Tuesday mornings to keep us focused on our paintings. At night romantic music floated up to our dormitories from the headmaster’s drawing-room where Mr Fothergill was polishing his Chopin. If the drama of the Ballade No 1 kept us awake, we nodded off peacefully to the mazurka-like Prelude in A, Op 28 No 7. My public school introduced me to the liturgy of High Anglicanism, especially SS Wesley’s delicious setting for boys’ voices, Love one another…

This special Collectors’ Edition of Gramophone includes ■ 100 pages of expert and authoritative articles to explore ■ Interviews with today’s leading interpreters ■ In-depth and expert insight into some of Mozart’s major masterpieces Order your copy for just $22.00 today Go to www.magsubscriptions.com/mozart Call: 0800 137201 (UK) or +44 (0)1722 716997 (Overseas) An additional charge will be added for shipping overseas.…

Andrew Achenbach • Tim Ashley • Richard Bratby • Alexandra Coghlan • Rob Cowan (consultant reviewer) • Jed Distler • Adrian Edwards • John Fallas • David Fallows • Andrew Farach-Colton • Fabrice Fitch • Jonathan Freeman–Attwood • Marina Frolova–Walker • Charlotte Gardner • David Gutman • Christian Hoskins • Rob Hubbard • Arthur Kaptainis • Philip Kennicott • Lindsay Kemp • Aleksander Laskowski • Geraint Lewis • Thomas May • Andrew Mellor • Jeremy Nicholas • Richard Osborne • Mark Pullinger • Peter J Rabinowitz • Guy Rickards • Malcolm Riley • Donald Rosenberg • Patrick Rucker • Edward Seckerson • Mark Seow • Hugo Shirley • Pwyll ap Siôn • Harriet Smith • David Patrick Stearns • David Threasher • David Vickers • Laurence Vittes • Richard Whitehouse…

Léo and Luka Ispir Cellist and violinist Why have one when you can have two? – is not, for obvious reasons, a logic we usually apply to our One to Watch. However this month’s chamber pages carry the review of a debut album from French cellist and violinist brothers Léo and Luka Ispir which merits the bending of our usual rule. The brothers, who are each pursuing separate careers, have come together to make this recording in their capacity as 2023 laureates (again, as individuals) of the Fondation Gautier Capuçon. They are also both artists in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels, 23-year-old cellist Léo under the tutorship of Gary Hoffman, and 26-year-old violinist Luka under Augustin Dumay. Further feathers in their respective caps include, for Léo,…

Classical figures recognised in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours included Alexander Beard, Chief Executive of the Royal Ballet and Opera, who was appointed a Knight Bachelor. Gabriella Di Laccio, soprano and founder of the Donne Foundation, was awarded an MBE for services to music and gender equality. The foundation has become an influential voice in highlighting the underrepresentation of women in classical music, producing research reports, commissioning new works, and curating performances. Other people recognised included David Pickard, who served as Director of the BBC Proms from 2015 to 2024, who was awarded an OBE; Angela Dixon, the Chief Executive of Saffron Hall, who received an MBE; and Ann Atkinson, opera singer and Artistic Director of the North Wales International Festival, who was awarded an MBE.…

Music and fiction Edward Breen’s article in the July issue (page 32) was delightful but I’d like to put in a word for an extraordinary Victorian musical novelist – Elizabeth Sara Sheppard (1826-62). Her first novel, Charles Auchester (1853), revolves around a fantasy version of Mendelssohn with a lot of convincing scenes of the Birmingham Festival, then it moves to an idealised music college in Germany where a leading character dies conducting the premiere of her symphony. More fantastic is her novel Rumour (1858) about a composer and his opera based on Disraeli’s play Count Alarcos. Sheppard, who was proud of her partly Jewish ancestry, was obsessed with the underrated novelist Disraeli. Rumour partly takes place in an imaginary Mediterranean kingdom. A third novel, Counterparts, features another female composer and…

Arvo Pärt As one of the most performed and recorded composers of our time turns 90, Andrew Mellor explores the impact he continues to have on the contemporary music world through conversations with artists and other cultural figures Lea Desandre and Thomas Dunford Mark Seow talks to the soprano and lutenist about their new album, ‘Songs of Passion’ Debussy’s Le Martyre de saint Sébastien Tim Ashley listens to the available recordings of the composer’s 1911 music for Gabriele D’Annunzio’s five-act mystery play, and recommends his favourite ON SALE AUGUST 13 DON’T MISS IT!…

William Yeoman on an imaginative framing of Mendelssohn: ‘Niklas Liepe and friends dive into an extended riff on the rift between Romantic and contemporary sensibilities’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 44 Richard Wigmore hears prodigy violinist Chloe Chua in Mozart: ‘Founded on refined legato phrasing, Chua’s poised, immaculately honed playing can hardly fail to give pleasure’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 46 Adès. Leith. Marsey Adès Aquifer. Dawn: Chacony for Orchestra at Any Distance. Shanty: Over the Sea. Tower (for Frank Gehry) Leith Cartoon Sun Marsey Man with Limp Wrist Hallé Orchestra/Thomas Adès Hallé (CDHLL7567 • 68’) Thomas Adès returns to the orchestra that gave him some of his earliest professional opportunities on this album of four of his recent pieces, plus two by younger composers, which he also conducts. Of his own works,…

We don’t see Werther enough. If opera is a song of love and death, Werther is the consummate example. Massenet’s score is an underrated gem, its third act as beautiful, impassioned and dramatically virile as anything in Puccini. That makes any performance worth seeking out. While it might not present cutting-edge theatre, this spring’s production of Werther from the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb hits plenty of musical nails on their heads. The thing to do with this score, as its opening bars suggest, is dig deep. Pier Giorgio Morandi, now Music Director here and a theatre musician of huge experience, obliges. Morandi is known as a safe pair of hands but he’s more than that in this performance, powering the opera’s climaxes and giving the impression of sound sculpted…

The hugely gifted Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz has over the years proved a prolific recording artist, her performances attentive to detail, sprightly and invariably at one with her chosen repertoire, which ranges from solo works by Janáček and Bartók to Bach (an exceptional Goldberg Variations, included in this set), Mozart (her widely admired cycle of the sonatas, also included here), Beethoven (violin and cello sonatas, with well-matched soloists), Schubert (important sonatas, Impromptus, piano trios), Schumann (piano suites and sonatas) and Brahms (violin sonatas). This generous ‘Celebration’ not only includes these but a small clutch of concertos as well. In Ravel’s G major, Würtz’s patient unfolding of the central Adagio assai is as close to perfection as anyone could hope to reach, ‘cool’ in the extreme, evenly paced tempo-wise but never…

Tim Ashley reads a short introduction to the life and work of Ravel: ‘This is a portrait of a man who remained aloof and apart from a musical establishment that treated him warily almost from the beginning’ Alexandra Coghlan on a personal reflection of music and grief: ‘MacGregor is good in contrasting the amateur experience of music and the chillier, more codified relationship of the professional’ Maurice Ravel by Emily Kilpatrick Reaktion Books Critical Lives, 192pp, PB, £12.99 ISBN 978-1-83639-089-3 ‘I am Basque,’ Ravel once told the writer Jacques de Zogheb, a neighbour at Monfort-l’Amaury, west of Paris, the composer’s home from 1921. ‘The Basques feel intensely but rarely show it, and then only to a very few.’ Knowingly self-aware, his words form the starting point for Emily Kilpatrick’s new biography in…

Del Tredici ‘Monsters and Songs’ Ballad in Yellow. Three Baritone Songs – No 1, Quietness. Gay Life – No 1, Here. Monsters. My Favorite Penis Poems – No 1, Now you know; No 4, Hot to trot Rob Frankenberry sngr/pf Eric Moe pf Albany (TROY1996 • 68’) This wonderful tribute to David Del Tredici, recorded in 2019 and released two years after his death, begins with songs celebrating love, beautifully sung, and ends with a splendid melodrama in the tradition of Strauss’s Enoch Arden and Poulenc’s Babar. ‘Here’ was written in memory of a lover who died of Aids at 34. ‘This song was written in one day, and I cried the whole time’, the composer wrote, its monotone piano part accompanying a touching melismatic dialogue. ‘Now you know’, the…

On May 25 Minneapolis marked the fifth anniversary of the evening when George Floyd took his last breath beneath the knee of one of the city’s police officers. As Memorial Day weekend arrived, there was much reflection among locals about what had changed, what had not and what others were trying to rewrite about what we’d experienced. The night before the anniversary, I attended a powerful concert assembled for the occasion at Minneapolis’s Ted Mann Concert Hall. Spearheaded by One Voice Mixed Chorus, it featured the Twin Cities premiere of Philadelphia-based composer Rollo Dilworth’s Weather, a setting of a poem that Claudia Rankine wrote in response to Floyd’s murder that was first published in The New York Times. Dilworth took Rankine’s words and set them to a score for winds…

RECORDING OF THE MONTH MARTINŮ Complete Works for Cello and Piano Vilém Vlček vc Denis Linnik pf Supraphon ▶ PETER J RABINOWITZ’S REVIEW IS ON PAGE 36 These works for cello and piano perfectly capture Martinů’s voice, and the duo of Vilém Vlček and Denis Linnik convey them with completely compelling brilliance. BLOCH Schelomo, etc Parry Karp vc BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Kenneth Woods Signum Cellist Parry Karp and conductor Kenneth Woods bring an intense interpretative depth to these works by Bloch, colour and detail well thought-through and presented. ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 40 TCHAIKOVSKY Orchestral Works, Vol 3 BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Alpesh Chauhan Chandos Lesser-performed Tchaikovsky – but after listening to Alpesh Chauhan and the BBC Scottish SO’s superb advocacy, you’re left scratching your head as to why! ▶…

Podcasts This month on the Gramophone Podcast we celebrate 20 years of VOCES8 as Editor Martin Cullingford talks with three key figures behind this most innovative of ensembles – co-founders Barnaby Smith, Artistic Director, and Paul Smith, CEO, and soprano Andrea Haines. Also this month, Hattie Butterworth meets Kitty Whately to discuss her album featuring lesser-known French women composers writing at the turn of the 20th century, and conductor John Andrews joins Hattie to speak about the debut recording of Sir Granville Bantock and Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s folk opera, The Seal Woman. Finally, Martin Cullingford discusses the ensembles nominated for this year’s 2025 Orchestra of the Year Award with James Jolly. New Horizons James McCarthy offers an introduction to five composers who are using electronic and acoustic instruments to build their…

In collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Gramophone has produced a special digital magazine celebrating 20 years of the LPO’s own label. Free to read, it includes archive interviews with conductors Klaus Tennstedt, Vladimir Jurowski and Edward Gardner, plus reviews of more than 20 recordings from the past 20 years from our pages. In his introduction, Editor Martin Cullingford writes: ‘I hope it inspires you to either return to, or discover for the first time, some of the greatest moments on record that the London Philharmonic Orchestra has captured and preserved for us all.’ Find it at gramophone.co.uk…

Strauss’s string music In his fulsome appreciation of Franziska Pietsch’s recent recording of the Violin Concerto by Richard Strauss (July issue, page 47), Rob Cowan says, correctly, that the Concerto has not had a ‘classic advocate’ compared with Heifetz’s devotion to the Violin Sonata, which that great violinist performed so frequently from 1933 and throughout his career. He insisted, against advice, on its inclusion in a recital in Israel, where the composer was shunned. The event provoked considerable controversy, a physical attack from an audience member (injuring Heifetz’s right hand), and an ice-cold reception without applause. He included the Sonata (with the Franck) in his very last recital in 1972, and he recorded it three times. Without doubt, Heifetz’s advocacy did inspire others to take up the piece. Whilst he…

Jed Distler surveys recent albums of Beethoven piano sonatas: ‘I’ ll be returning with pleasure to much of HieYon Choi’s cycle, especially the early sonatas’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 68 Lindsay Kemp hears Yoann Moulin play Bach and his predecessors: ‘Chorale melodies are deftly sustained with eloquent rolled and flowing ornamentation’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 69 JS Bach Six Keyboard Partitas, BWV825-830 Céline Frisch hpd Alpha (ALPHA1138 ② • 152’) The first of Céline Frisch’s Bach assignments was a solo debut recording for Harmonia Mundi’s ‘Les Nouveaux Interprètes’ series (9/00). I recall, above all, its rhythmic authority and broad-shouldered tonal presence. Since then, Frisch has traversed a good deal of the Bach keyboard ‘map’, but the Partitas always feel a particular rite of passage for any harpsichordist as they measure up to,…

Drifts. Stonework. Transit Ismo Eskelinen gtr Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu BIS (7/18) This is an essential disc if only for its inclusion of perhaps Fagerlund’s finest orchestral work to date, Drifts, which sees the composer extending the orchestral style of Magnus Lindberg while proving his ability to whip up his layered harmonies to cataclysmic effect. The disc includes the first part of his orchestral trilogy, Stonework, and the 2013 guitar concerto, Transit. These are fine performances from Lintu’s Finnish RSO. Autumn Sonata Anne-Sofie von Otter mez Erika Sunnegårdh sop Tommi Hakala bar Helena Juntunen sop Finnish National Opera Chorus and Orchestra/John Storgårds BIS (11/18) The cold grandeur of the score to Fagerlund’s second opera is magnificently caught on this recording from its premiere run in Helsinki under John Storgårds.…

Andrew Mellor enjoys a concert account of a Saariaho opera: ‘Articulation from the San Francisco Symphony is outstanding; it all sounds wondrous under Salonen’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 86 Hugo Shirley on a radical staging of Strauss’s Arabella from Berlin: ‘Tobias Kratzer is one of the most intelligent directors active today, and Deutsche Oper show their faith in him’ ▶ REVIEW ON PAGE 87 Janáček Jenůfa Agneta Eichenholz sop ............................................. Jenůfa Katarina Karnéus mez ..................................... Kostelnička Aleš Briscein ten ................................................................. Laca Nicky Spence ten ............................................................. Števa Carole Wilson mez ................. Grandmother Buryjovka Jan Martiník bass ............... Foreman of the Mill/Mayor Hanna Hipp mez ............................... Mayor’s Wife/Auntie Evelin Novak sop ........................................................ Karolka Claire Barnett-Jones mez .......... Shepherdess/Barena Erika Baikoff sop ................................................................ Jano London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle LSO Live (LSO0897 ②…

Great violinists of the 20th century Not all collections that attempt to laud musicians of the last century as ‘great’ realise their ambitions, but this one from Parnassus certainly does. Every featured player was a giant in his or her particular way, starting with the Ukrainian Mischa Elman, born in 1891 and who was still tonally resplendent in 1963 when he made records for the American Vanguard company. Parnassus cleverly includes his 1929 HMV account of the Tchaikovsky Concerto under John Barbirolli and follows it with a dozen piano-accompanied ‘encores’ recorded in 1963. Switch from the Concerto to the disc’s last track, Tchaikovsky’s Melodie, and you soon realise that time left the celebrated Elman tone – with its emotive ‘gulp’ – more or less intact. The transfer of the Concerto…

How fitting that work on this Collection, planned months ago, should dovetail the end of one pontificate and the start of another. For, its title aside, both the myth and the known facts about Palestrina’s Mass for Pope Marcellus are bound up in the papacy, and several recordings have direct links to that institution. As to facts: on Good Friday of 1555, Marcellus II exhorted his chapel singers that the words they sang should be clearly heard – one of the few recorded acts of his three-week reign. Palestrina’s Mass was printed only a dozen years later, and there’s little evidence of its existence much earlier than that; it’s reasonable to suppose that his dedication stemmed from that event, which took place against the backdrop of debates within the Catholic…

What did you do in the cable wars, daddy? For newcomers to hi-fi, increasingly a wireless technology, it may seem bizarre that grown adults spent hours or even days online, verbally beating seven bells out of each other over bits of wire. Anyone suggesting a particular cable made their system sound better would hear the rumble as the ducking-stool was trundled down to the riverbank; and any proposing spending more than a couple of pounds on a no-name cable from an online shop was a foolish, irresponsible spendthrift. Fortunately, the big battles seem to have died down, and although there’s still the odd flare-up, they do seem to sputter out for lack of interest. Yet as you can see from the picture on this page, there’s an often-bewildering range of…