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BBC Music Magazine|September 2022WelcomeIn September 1992, 30 years ago this month, the first issue of BBC Music Magazine was published. Celebrating that magnificent milestone, some 377 issues later, presents the perfect opportunity to take stock of how far the classical world has come – from the streaming revolution to welcoming a more diverse and gender-balanced cohort of composers and performers. Underlying these developments has been a continued commitment to creativity and excellence on the part of musicians and composers – and how better to recognise that achievement than to celebrate some of the very best recordings of the past three decades. To that end, we’ve asked 30 of our reviewers to choose a personal favourite from the period, and the resulting list on page 26 is a fascinating snapshot of the great wealth…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022SEPTEMBER 1910Vaughan Williams’s Tallis Fantasia entices Gloucester‘A queer, mad work by an odd fellow from Chelsea.’ Herbert Brewer’s comment on hearing the premiere of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis undoubtedly ranks as one of the more flippantly dismissive put-downs in music history. Brewer was the organist at Gloucester Cathedral, where the Fantasia was first performed on 6 September 1910 as part of the Three Choirs Festival. The new work was a Festival commission, and a large audience of 2,000 was present, mainly because Elgar was conducting his oratorio The Dream of Gerontius in the second half of the concert. While Elgar drew heavily on the orchestral palette of 19th-century composers such as Wagner and Richard Strauss, Vaughan Williams looked much further back in time for his inspiration. As co-editor of The English…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022REWINDThis month: ANNA LUCIA RICHTER Mezzo-soprano MY FINEST MOMENT Brahms Lieder Anna Lucia Richter (mezzo-soprano), Ammiel Bushakevitz (piano) Pentatone PTC 5186 968 (2022) I changed from soprano to mezzo two years ago. I had the feeling my lower voice register was growing and I enjoyed the lower tessitura more and more, but the high tessitura stayed the same. So with my old singing parts I had to copy my old voice. Of course, I hope to sing for at least 30 more years and don’t want to have to copy my 20-year-old self for all that time! This programme of Brahms Lieder, performed together with Ammiel Bushakewitz, is my first complete mezzo-soprano recording. I wasn’t sure, in the beginning, whether I should first record Brahms or Hugo Wolf, because I…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Music to my earsJennifer France Soprano In preparation for a concert in the autumn, I’ve been immersing myself in Dutilleux’s Correspondances, in a recording by Barbara Hannigan, and George Walker’s Lilacs, sung by Nicole Cabell – both are conducted by Simon Rattle. These pieces are new to me as a performer and are both really beautiful but very contrasting. They are such interesting works, as they are dense in their subject matter and emotionally very complex, and Lilacs isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard before. Shortly before we got married, my husband and I listened back to a lot of music that meant a lot to us, and one of our favourite songs is ‘Beyond’ by the American singer-songwriter Leon Bridges. It’s the perfect wedding song in that it’s about a man who…6 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022GLORIOUS YEARS!The year was 1992. The USSR had split apart and the Cold War had ended – albeit temporarily. In the UK, the Conservative Party under John Major won a fourth term, while the Queen’s Ruby Jubilee could not brighten an otherwise ‘annus horribilis’. But a far more notable event was on the horizon – in September, the first issue of BBC Music Magazine was published. During the 30 years since that auspicious landmark, the world has changed almost beyond recognition – politically, culturally and by way of the all-encompassing digital revolution. In pop music, all but the most tenacious of artists have faded to make way for a new generation of polished stars, and the classical world, too, has borne witness to exciting new trends – not least in the…18 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 20223 ISSUES FOR £5When you subscribe to Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine today! Great Reasons To Subscribe Today Receive your first 3 issues for only £5* After your trial, continue to save 30% on the shop price when you pay by Direct Debit Build a library of expert family history advice and tutorials Never miss an issue of the UK’s bestselling family history magazine SUBSCRIBE ONLINE www.buysubscriptions.com/WHHA22 BY PHONE 03330 162120 QUOTE CODE WHHA22 *All savings are calculated as a percentage of the Basic Annual Rate. The UK Basic Annual Rate is £68.25 which includes event issues (issues charged higher than standard cover price) published in a 12-month period. This special introductory offer is available to new UK residents via Direct Debit only and is subject to availability. Offer ends on…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Roger and outOn 18 November last year at Sage Gateshead, Roger Norrington left the concert stage for the final time. A programme devoted to his favourite composer, ‘Joe’s the guy’ Haydn, brought the curtain down on an illustrious career that had totally changed the way we listen to music. Thanks largely to Norrington’s benign radicalism, we now take almost for granted historically accurate orchestral layouts, authentic instruments and playing techniques, flowing tempos, aerated textures and senza vibrato (without vibrato, ‘that wobbly stuff’). Looking back 60 years to when it all began with the Schütz Choir and London Baroque Players, I wonder whether Norrington had always seen himself as a musical crusader. ‘In fact, I really didn’t have any idea where it was going to go,’ he smiles. ‘I was 28 when I…8 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Benjamin BrittenComposer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in September are: 29 August – 2 September Buxtehude 5-9 September Schubert 12-16 September Bruckner 19-23 September Emilie Mayer (rpt) 26-30 September Weber Britten is widely celebrated for his profound connection with Suffolk’s flat, open landscapes, its coast and its rich birdlife of waders and waterfowl, one of which is celebrated in his opera (or ‘Church Parable’) Curlew River. It’s a curious paradox, then, that much of his music, even some that is most apparently rooted in that East Anglian region – including in his great ‘home coming’ opera of 1945, Peter Grimes – was profoundly inspired by music from even further East, virtually the other side of the world. It was not through travelling…8 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Three other great recordingsJohn DeMain (conductor) ‘The whole truth at last’ was one reviewer’s verdict when Houston Grand Opera’s epochal production of Porgy and Bessh*t the stage in 1976. It was the first time the opera had been staged absolutely complete, and this cast recording crackles with theatrical energy. Donnie Ray Albert and Clamma Dale are excellent in the title roles, and conductor John DeMain’s swashbuckling players sound more like a Broadway pit band than a symphony orchestra. Slightly dry, occasionally harsh sound puts this just behind Maazel in the ratings. (RCA 88697985112) Simon Rattle (conductor) Simon Rattle’s Porgy derives from Glyndebourne’s classic 1986 production and has been widely lauded. Compared to Maazel, however, Rattle’s tempos are more extreme, at times over-excitable. Act I, for instance, scoots off at Keystone Cops velocity, sounding…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022RECORDING OF THE MONTHJohnAllison basks in the musical brilliance of the Orchestra of the 18th Century and soloists Alena Baeva and Erich Hoeprich Dobrzyńsky • Kurpiński • Wieniawski Dobrzyńsky: Overture de Concert, Op. 1; Symphony No. 2 in C minor; Kurpiński: Clarinet Concerto**; Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor* *Alena Baeva (violin), **Erich Hoeprich (clarinet); Orchestra of the 18th Century/José Maria Florêncio NIFC NIFCCD078 74:34 mins As the first recording on period instruments of a Henryk Wieniawski violin concerto, this release would be self-recommending. But the sheer musical brilliance of Alena Baeva’s collaboration with the Orchestra of the 18th Century under the baton of José Maria Florêncio makes their performance of the Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor essential listening. No one ought to take the Lublin-born composer for granted,…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022TRY 3 ISSUES FOR £5when you subscribe to HISTORY today! Receive your first 3 issues for only £5 Risk free trial offer– you may cancel your subscription at any time. Free UK delivery direct to your door, at no extra charge! Never miss an issue of this action packed magazine, suitable for all members of the family SUBSCRIBE ONLINE OR CALL US www.buysubscriptions.com/HRHA22 03330 162 116† Quote code HRHA22 UK calls will cost the same as other standard fixed line numbers (starting 01 or 02) and are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff. Outside of free call packages calls charges from mobile phones will cost between 3p and 55p per minute. Lines are open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Overseas readers call +44 1604 973 723. *3…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022A convincing patchwork of Vivaldi hitsVivaldi The Great Venetian Mass Sophie Karthäuser (soprano), Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano); Les Arts Florissants/Paul Agnew Harmonia Mundi HAF8905358 68:09 mins Among Vivaldi’s various roles at the Pietà for orphaned or abandoned girls was the annual composition of two settings of the Mass; it is something of a surprise, therefore, that not one has come down to us complete. The work presented here, then, is a reconstruction of a hypothetical Mass with Vivaldi’s famous Gloria as its centrepiece. The choir produces a warm, light, ingenuous sound Flanking the Glorira are the majestic double-choir Kyrie, RV 587 and the rapt Credo, RV 591. For the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei (no settings of which survive by Vivaldi) movements from his Beatus Vir, RV 597, Dixit Dominus, RV 807 and the Magnificat, RV…12 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Keyboard icons and Mercury mastersAmerican pianist Lorin Hollander was the very definition of the words ‘child prodigy’, making his recording debut aged just 14. That 1958 recording kicks off The Complete RCA Album Collection (Sony Classical 19439928782), an eight-disc collection of the young artist’s cuts for the label from 1958-66. It’s a real pot pourri of solo works by an array of composers from JS Bach to Paderewski, plus notable and acclaimed concerto recordings with the likes of the LSO and André Previn. In Wanda Landowska plays… (Profil Hänssler PH22027) we’re treated to another fantastically talented keyboard player. This ten-disc set is dominated by JS Bach harpsichord works, though a single disc of Mozart piano items offers variety. A 1944 Bach Violin Sonata with Yehudi Menuhin is just one of the treasures in a…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022JazzJAZZ CHOICEAyler in blistering form Now released in full, this 1970 gig in France shows the avant-garde saxophonist’s full range Albert Ayler Revelations – The complete ORTF 1970 Fondation Maeght Recordings Albert Ayler (saxophones, musette, vocals), Mary Maria (saxophone, vocals), Cal Cobbs (piano), Steve Tintweiss (bass), Allen Blairman (drums) Elemental 5990443 (4 discs) Ayler was arguably the most controversial member of the generation that developed the ‘New Thing’ in the early ’60s. Towards the end of his life he introduced elements of rock and soul on albums like New Grass (1969), but here his ‘purer’ style dominates, with echoes of gospel music and New Orleans marching bands. These performances, available in full for the first time and handsomely packaged, were taped at the arts complex a few miles outside Nice…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Sheku Kanneh-MasonCellist Now 23, Sheku Kanneh-Mason first drew widespread attention by winning BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2016. In 2018 he played at the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle, and in 2020 he was awarded an MBE for services to music. As well as solo albums, he has made recordings with his talented siblings, whose extraordinary story has been told in several TV documentaries. Sheku’s solo album, Song, comes out on Decca in September, and on 10 September he plays at the Last Night of the Proms. I started playing the cello at six and ELGAR’s Cello Concerto was the first classical music that I fell in love with and felt I understood. Of course, my feelings towards the piece have changed as I’ve got older –…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Have your say…LETTER of the MONTH Doubly important One influential practitioner of the double bass (Déja vu, July) was Paul Simon’s father, Louis. When the future pop star was growing up, Louis was a professional musician, playing double bass in nightclubs and in the studio during the taping of TV variety shows like The Garry Moore Show. Paul and his brother Eddie would stay up past bedtime and watch, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of their dad in the background. Louis grew disenchanted with the lot of a freelancer, so went back to school, eventually becoming a professor of education. He is no longer with us, but his double bass stands in the corner of Paul Simon’s office. Paul’s path took a different direction, but having a musician for a…6 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022DÉJÀVUWith Covid continuing to create havoc in China, the organisers of the 2020 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition have finally given up on trying to find a winner. Two years on, the six players who reached the final will instead share the prize money and take part in a special concert. It is not the first time a well-known competition has ended in a draw… Probably the most famous contest in classical music history took place in Vienna on 24 December 1781, when Joseph II of Austria challenged Mozart, the home favourite, to take on the visiting Italian virtuoso Clementi in a keyboard duel. But evidently, the Emperor was all mouth and no trousers, as when it came to naming a winner, he declined to do so. Nearly two…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022No laughing matter?Can music without words ever be funny? Joseph Haydn’s music suggests it can be. Haydn is the acme of the wittiness of late-18thcentury music in the way he soothes and startles his audience from one moment to the next, as in the contrast between the nursery-rhyme banality of the tune that opens the slow movement of his Symphony No. 94, lulling the audience into a false sense of security before a fortissimo thwack shocks us out of our reverie. But all I’ve ever really heard that piece do to an audience – and it’s the same with the the stop-start ending of Haydn’s so-called ‘Joke’ Quartet – is produce a smattering of cleverer-than-thou tittering, as some people want to show the rest of us that they’re frightfully clever for getting…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Our Choices The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favouritesCharlotte Smith Editor As head of music at a school in Somerset, my sister generally prepares the music for the students’ Wells Cathedral carol service during the summer holiday. This year she sought my opinion, and on the agenda were the likes of Gardner’s setting of Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day and Rutter’s Shepherd’s Pipe Carol. But new to me was Lully, Lulla, Lullay, Philip Stopford’s 2008 setting of the Coventry Carol. This beautiful lament for a child is definitely one to add to my Christmas list. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor Having bought The King’s Singers’ 25th Anniversary Jubilee! songbook (above) on a whim, I’m now happily working my way through it and singing – loudly – the baritone and/or bass parts along to recordings by the group itself.…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 202230th Anniversary SpecialBBC Music Magazine A year-by-year guide September 1992 Weeks after becoming a mum, editor Fiona Maddocks (left) takes the reins for the first ever issue(above) of BBC Music Magazine. Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter is chosen to grace the cover. April 1993 A 20-page Choral Music Guide takes readers through its history and greatest works, plus introduces the finest choirs, conductors and recordings. Further guides soon follow. September 1994 Author Germaine Greer’s ‘Why don’t women buy CDs?’ feature evidently gets under the skin of several male CD collectors – The BBC Music post bag subsequently bulges. January 1995 In what would have been her 50th-birthday month, Jacqueline du Pré is remembered by her brother and sister, and her artistry celebrated by fellow cellist Steven Isserlis. November 1996 Actor Simon Callow is guest…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Fifteen composers at 30At some point over the next couple of weeks, we will be heading to some where in Bristol that serves nice beer and raising a pint or two to 30 years of BBC Music Magazine. That’s 378 issues, 46,872 pages (or thereabouts) and Lord-know-show-many words and pictures in the can. But before we go slapping ourselves on the collective backs, maybe we should put our achievement into context with a look back over history. By the time of their 30th birthdays, where along life’s path had some of the best known composers got to? Here are 15 notable examples… 1Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart By the time he reached his 30th birthday on 27 January 1786, Mozart had already racked up, among many other works, 37 symphonies, 22 piano concertos, 19 string…7 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022BRITTEN Life & Times1913 LIFE: Benjamin Britten is born on 22 November in Lowestoft. His father, Robert, is a dentist and his mother, Edith, a talented pianist and singer. TIMES: Hunger strikes by imprisoned Women’s Social and Political Union members lead to Parliament passing the notorious ‘Cat and Mouse Act’; by this, WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested and released 12 times in a year. 1935 LIFE: He meets poet WH Auden when they first collaborate on a documentary film, Coal Face. They work on further projects, including Night Mail, and in 1939 Britten follows Auden to the US where he stays three years. TIMES: With his health in decline, Ramsay MacDonald, Britain’s first Labour prime minister, resigns. He is succeeded by Stanley Baldwin, whom he himself had replaced in 1929. 1953 LIFE:…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Continue the journey…The succession of memorable tunes in Porgy and Bess – ‘Summertime’, ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ and all – make it ripe for turning into a concert suite, not least Gershwin’s own Catfish Row. Some clunk along disjointedly, but among the more successful in keeping the opera’s spirit and sense of flow is the Fantasy on Porgy and Bess for violin and orchestra by film composer Alexander Courage (Joshua Bell (violin); LSO/John Williams Sony G0100009115651). Grant Still’s 1941 A Bayou Legend didn’t receive its premiere until 1974 And what about Gershwin’s other stage works? These include the 1926 musical Oh, Kay!, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Set on Long Island during the prohibition era, its plot is splendidly dotty – including swapped brides and pirates pretending to be tax officers –…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022An interview with José Maria FlorêncioYou’ve recorded a lot of Polish music. Do you have an affinity with these composers? I have lived in Poland for a very long time and have long been fascinated by Polish culture. Since I first came to Poland I tried to enter into the mentality of the people, the country and its history. Aspects of the music depend on history and the conditions the government created for composers. The Dobrzyński symphony and overture were prohibited from being played, because there was no Poland on the map. The symphony really stands out among the selection… When I started to work with the orchestra, I had the impression that the musicians liked the music very much; it was very clear for them to understand the compositional form of the piece, and…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Piemontesi brings piano works into sharp focusMessiaen • Ravel • Schoenberg Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques; Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Schoenberg: Piano Concerto Francesco Piemontesi (piano); Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Jonathan Nott Pentatone PTC 5186 949 (CD/SACD) 57:11 mins You have to envy the citizens of Geneva, regularly able to hear music-making on this level from their resident orchestra and conductor. Add a pianist in Franceso Piemontesi’s class, and here are stellar interpretations of three very different concerto-type works, ordered into a journey from easier listening to (notionally at least) more difficult. Francesco Piemontesi’s musicianship is both deft and searching Ravel was so determined to avoid portentousness in his winsome G major Piano Concerto – the first work heard on the disc – that it can easily sound trite in performance. Any such risk vanishes in the…14 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Ries is on the rise in this convincing reassessmentRies Piano Trio; Sextets, Opp. 100 & 142; Introduction and a Russian Dance The Nash Ensemble Hyperion CDA68380 77:31 mins Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) has long been lurking in the shadows of musical history, simply thought of as Beethoven’s student, amanuensis and agent (as a director of the Philharmonic Society, he helped to secure the commission for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony). His father had been one of Beethoven’s tutors in Bonn, and he himself became one of Beethoven’s two pupils in Vienna (the other was Carl Czerny). Though seldom regarded as a composer in his own right, he was eminent both in that role and as a virtuoso pianist. All these works should be in the mainstream chamber repertoire So it’s good to hear his music brilliantly performed by musicians of the…13 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022SUBSCRIPTIONS FROM JUST £1 SUMMER SALEGREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE Subscriptions from £1 Free delivery direct to your door Fantastic summer savings 2 EASY WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE Visit buysubscriptions.com/SS22SP Call 0330 053 8660† quote code SS22SP *This offer closes on 14th August 2022 and is valid for UK delivery addresses and by direct debit only. The discounts shown are savings calculated as a percentage of the full shop price, excluding Radio Times which is calculated as a percentage of the basic annual rate. For overseas rates visit www.buysubscriptions.com. Should the magazine ordered change in frequency; we will honour the number of issues and not the term of the subscription. You are free to cancel your subscription at any time–if you cancel within 2 weeks of receiving your pen ultimate issue you wil pay no more than…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022BooksClaiming Wagner for France – Music and Politics in the Parisian Press, 1933-44 Rachel Orzech Rochester 272pp (hb) £80 Wagner’s humiliating experiences in Paris, not least the debacle surrounding the 1861 revised version of Tannhäuser, undoubtedly prompted his strong aversion towards France. Yet by the early 1920s, any hostilities between composer and nation were long forgotten, and in 1933 Wagner’s popularity at the Paris Opéra appeared so unassailable that performances of his music-dramas accounted for 28 per cent of the season’s entire repertoire. However, the threat to Wagner’s reputation posed by Nazi appropriation of the composer provoked French critics into presenting their alternative universalist claim to his legacy. Inevitably, this position would be subverted after the Germans marched into France during the Second World War. Rachal Orzech’s fascinating book traces…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Live choiceOrchestra of English National Opera Printworks, London, 3 September Web: bbc.co.uk/proms Forsaking the Royal Albert Hall for the industrial chic of Printworks, the Proms makes operatic bedfellows of Handel and Philip Glass in a multi-media project devised by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. A specially commissioned work by Glass is woven into a tapestry combining choreography, sound design and live painting. Karen Kamensek conducts. Consone Quartet St George’s Bristol, 6 September Web: stgeorgesbristol.co.uk The life of philosopher Immanuel Kant and the mathematical ‘Seven Bridges’ puzzle provide the inspiration for Gavin Bryars’s new sextet, The Bridges of Königsberg. Joined by violist Renée Hemsing and cellist Guy Fishman, the Consone Quartet partners it with Haydn and Brahms’s genial G major Sextet. Philadelphia Orchestra Royal Albert Hall, London, 8, 9 September Web: bbc.co.uk/proms After…6 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022THE QUIZ1. Which composer’s Op. 30 is a set of four mazurkas, written in 1837? 2. Beginning with a famous ‘Sunrise’, Richard Strauss’s Op. 30 is a tone poem named after a novel by Friedrich Nietzsche. What is it? 3. Who performed the world premiere of his own Third Piano Concerto Op. 30 at the New Theatre in New York on 28 November 1909? 4. In a well-known opera from 1911, the character pictured above, played here by Renée Fleming, mourns that in her early 30s her youthful looks are fading fast. Name the character and opera. 5. Starting upwards from the bottom A, what is the 30th note on a piano? 6. What word links Haydn’s Symphony No. 30 and a 1984 single by Leonard Cohen? 7. Which conductor had…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Abel SelaocoeTalking to Charlotte Smith, the South African cellist discusses his new recording, thoughts of home and the importance of improvisation William Walton Symphony No. 2 Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Tadaaki Otaka PLUS! We head out into the countryside with Vaughan Williams; flautist Sharon Bezaly is in conversation with Claire Jackson; Leon Bosch takes a look at the work of the BuskAid charity in South Africa; Francis Pott introduces Medtner as Composer of the Month; and Andrew Stewart names the best recordings of Vivaldi’s Gloria. Competition terms and conditions Winners will be the senders of the first correct entries drawn at random. All entrants are deemed to have accepted the rules (see opposite) and agreed to be bound by them. The prizes shall be as stated…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022The fullscoreAnna Netrebko slammed for blackface Aida in Verona Fellow soprano Angel Blue cancels her debut performance at the Arena in protest The Arena di Verona has come under fire from the press and performers alike after Anna Netrebko sang the title role in its production of Verdi’s Aida wearing blackface make-up. Among those voicing their dissatisfaction at the Russian soprano’s appearance was African American soprano Angel Blue, who promptly cancelled her upcoming performances as Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata at the Italian venue. Writing on Facebook after seeing pictures of Netrebko on Instagram, Blue described the use of blackface make-up as ‘a deeply misguided practice based on archaic theatrical traditions which have no place in modern society. It is offensive, humiliating and outright racist. Full stop.’ She then went on…6 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Gabriela Lena FrankStories and notions of identity are at the heart of prize-winning composer’s Gabriela Lena Frank’s music. Born in Berkeley, California, she is currently composer-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which performs her 2001 work Leyendas: An Andean Walkabout at the Edinburgh Festival on 26 August. Iwas 16 when I took my first formal music composition programme. I was fortunate that my first teacher at the San Francisco Conservatory, Dan Becker, had a deep love both of classical music and of music from non-western cultures and popular idioms. This, combined with my lifelong enjoyment of music as a young piano student and improviser plus my exposure to South American folkloric styles, paved the way for me to choose composition the following year when I enrolled as a freshman at Rice University. Imposter…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022FAREWELL TO…Bramwell Tovey Born 1953 Conductor Bramwell Tovey enjoyed major careers on both sides of the Atlantic, holding a string of chief conductor posts, most recently at the BBC Concert and Rhode Island Philharmonic orchestras. Also a composer, he was ardently committed to bringing classical music to a wide audience, contributing to TV broadcasts and naming similarly minded conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and André Previn among his major influences. Born in Ilford, Essex, Tovey played various instruments in local brass bands before winning a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London. His first posts as a professional conductor saw him work at London Festival Ballet before taking the reins at Scottish Ballet and Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet as, respectively, music director and principal conductor. It was in 1989…2 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Richard MorrisonFirst, congratulations to all those who have worked on this magazine over the 30 years that we celebrate with this issue. When I told my university tutor that I was aiming to become a classical music journalist, he said: ‘Forget it. Those jobs will disappear in five years.’ That was in 1976. Somehow, we stagger on. People still want to read about music, thank goodness, as well as perform and listen to it. They still want to be stimulated, provoked, amused, perhaps even annoyed. Over the decades I have certainly learnt more from readers’ comments, encouraging or vitriolic, than they have ever learnt from me. The day this dialogue around classical music ceases is the day I will worry seriously about the future of the artform itself. How has the…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW‘Where does my voice come from? I don’t know– I’m a farmer’s son from North Wales‚ As for every musician, it’s been a rollercoaster last couple of years for Sir Bryn Terfel. I’m speaking to him during a run of performances as Balstrode in Britten’s Peter Grimes at Covent Garden, in which he was a standout star turn; and it’s just a few weeks after he received one of the awards that means the most to him even in his glittering career, after singing the same role at the Vienna Staatsoper. He was made an Austrian Kammersänger, effectively a Mastersinger of Austria, and he’s still glowing with pride. After three decades walking the corridors of Vienna’s opera house, looking at photographs of previous winners, he knew there was only one…9 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Bodø NorwayNordland is sparsely populated, but Bodø, the Norwegian county’s largest town, is something of a mini metropolis. Visitors flock to this corner of the Arctic for its jaw-dropping scenery – it would be hard to forget the mountainous landscapes descending to crystal waters, jagged coastlines and the sight of native sea eagles – but increasingly it is culture that has become one of Bodø’s biggest draws. Since it opened in 2014, the Stormen Kulturhus has swiftly become the beating heart of the town’s cultural life and it is the perfect home for a music festival-with-ambitions like Aria Borealis Bodø. We were invited for the final few days of events, which began the week before, and I caught up with Mari Giske from Nordic Baroque Scene, an organisation made up of…4 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022George Gershwin Porgy and BessThe work The year was 1926, and it had been a busy day for George Gershwin. His new musical comedy Oh, Kay! was in rehearsal, and when the composer went to bed that evening he reached for some light reading material to lull himself to sleep. Instead he picked up Porgy, a recently published novel by the American writer DuBose Heyward. Heyward’s wife Dorothy reported that, far from dozing off swiftly, Gershwin ‘read himself wide awake’ that night, gripped by her husband’s dark, gritty tale of African American life in the tenements of Charleston, South Carolina. By four in the morning, Gershwin knew the story was ideal for an opera, and dashed off a letter to Heyward suggesting a meeting. Murder, race issues, domestic violence and substance abuse all feature…6 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022WelcomeThe likes of Bach, Beethoven and Mozart tend to hog the limelight, so it’s really nice when we’re able to give lesser-known and overlooked composers a moment in the sun. That’s not to say this issue doesn’t feature Johann, Ludwig and Wolfgang, because they’re very much accounted for, but spare a moment for the likes of Polish composers Dobrzyński, Kurpiński and Wieniawski (our Recording of the Month stars opposite), or Ferdinand Ries, who is dragged out of Beethoven’s shadow to become our ‘Chamber Choice’. We’ve also got music by Hans Winterberg, Johann Wilhelm Wilms, a couple of Schmitts and a whole disc of shiny new Estonian Premieres to discover. And if you’d prefer something more vintage, then don’t miss our Reissues page. This month’s critics John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael…1 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022A distinct and diverse set of premieresEstonian Premieres Works by Tauno Aints, Tõnu Kōrvits, Ülo Krigul, Lepo Sumera and Helena Tulve Estonian Festival Orchestra/Paavo Järvi Alpha Classics ALPHA 863 58:35 mins Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi has long championed his homeland’s orchestral composers, and the combination of his tautly expressive Estonian Festival Orchestra (EFO) and the five creatively diverse voices here is captivating. All are aged between 44 and 53 – except for the much-missed Lepo Sumera (1950-2000), whose Olympic Music I makes a poignant album close. Written for a 1980 Moscow Olympics opening ceremony, its intriguing contrasts helped lay the groundwork for the robust, surging soundscapes of younger peers while looking forward to his own six symphonies to come. Sumera’s Olympic Music I makes a poignant album close Tauno Aints (b1978) is more overtly muscular in…12 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022A lyrical spoof with bags of charm and humourLampe The Dragon of Wantley Mary Bevan, Catherine Carby, Mark Wilde, John Savournin; The Brook Street Band/John Andrews Resonus RES10304 107:56 mins (2 discs) Even crotchety King George II loved The Dragon of Wantley, a bold 1730s spoof of Italian opera. Librettist Henry Carey originally conceived The Dragon, its action based loosely on a Yorkshire folk ballad, as a mock-Handelian oratorio for the celebrated Kitty Clive. Thwarted by Drury Lane’s manager, Carey and composer John F Lampe mounted their work independently, with opera now the genre of elite taste to be deflated. Carey shoehorned standard tropes satirical of dramma per musica – an absurd hero, two jealous prima donnas, an illogical happy ending – into his story of a drunken knight who, as the champion of rival lovers, kills a…7 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022A landmark survey of violin treasuresL’Aurore JS Bach: Solo Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; G Benjamin: Three Miniatures; Enescu: Fantaisie concertante; Hildegard: Antiphons; Ysaÿe: Solo Sonata in G, Op. 27/5 Carolin Widmann (violin) ECM 485 6803 67:18 mins An ECM artist since 2008, Carolin Widmann at last makes a solo disc for the label. L’Aurore is far greater than the sum of its parts. In her self-proclaimed ‘little encyclopaedia’ Widmann pays tribute to the violin, traversing 12th- and 21st-century repertoire. The album takes its name from the first movement of Ysaÿe’s fifth solo sonata, a work dedicated to his friend and former pupil Mathieu Crickboom. Widmann’s recording of this work is a timbral revelation. Dawn unfolds in the opening movement through delicately spaced gestures, serving to articulate the overall structure, and…12 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Brief notesLuke Bedford Besilvering Holst-Sinfonietta et al Bastille Music BM019 There’s quiet ferocity and unusual beauty to be found in these pieces by the British composer, written from 2002-19. Explorations of texture and timbre are wrought in a variety of chamber combinations, some – like that for bass drum and piano – unexpected and rather captivating. (MB) Peter Boyer Balance of Power LSO/Peter Boyer Naxos 8.559915 Boyer’s broad-brush cinematic works have the orchestral buoyancy of John Williams and the absorbing emotionalism of the late James Horner. The LSO sparkle in items like the rousing Fanfare for Tomorrow, written for President Biden’s inauguration last year. (MB) Richard Blackford Mirror of Perfection; Vision of a Garden Philharmonia Orchestra et al Lyrita SRCD.406 Blackford’s 1996 Mirror of Perfection is a big-boned and breathtaking opener,…5 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022Audio choiceTHIS MONTH: BLUETOOTH TURNTABLES SUPERB VALUE SIMPLICITY Sony PS-LX310BT £249 Though around for a couple of years, this is still one of the best entry-level turntables, with push-button automatic operation, 33 1/3 and 45 rpm, built-in phono stage, line-out and aptX Bluetooth which easily connects up to eight devices. Small and relatively light, the low-profile, mostly plastic design is modern and stylish. The tonearm and cartridge are pre-installed and pre-weighted – you just need to attach the belt to the platter – and with push-button controls, you don’t have to cue up records manually. Even with all these features, it sounds significantly superior to any other ‘bargain’ Bluetooth turntable. sony.co.uk DEPENDABLE DO-ALL DESIGN TEAC TN-400BT £449 This offers 33 1/3, 45 and 78rpm, has a USB output for digital archiving…3 min
BBC Music Magazine|September 2022BACKSTAGE WITH… Cellist Guy JohnstonAs artistic director of the Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival, what have you got up your sleeve this year? This year, we’ve gone for a combination of traditional programmes with something quite different! So, for instance, we’ve got the bandoneon player JP Jofre coming from Argentina, the guitarist Morgan Szymanski from Mexico, Nirmala Rajasekar, an Indian veena player, and Lodestar, a Scandinavian folk trio. In what is a bit of an experiment, we’re mixing the groups up in concert, which should be quite a change for our audiences! How did you come up with the inspiration for it? When I played in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, which was run by the pianist Kathryn Stott, she put all these different styles together in one festival programme and…2 min
