BBC Music Magazine Christmas 2024

NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER
How a cherished tradition began in a lowly Cornish hut The story behind the greatest Christmas carol of all time
Christmas
Christmas
with the
Bevans
Celebrate the festive
season with Britain’s
famous singing family!
100
reviews by
the world’s
finest critics
See p72
Michael Tilson Thomas

A conductor’s life in music Giddy yap! Take a Sleigh
Wendy Carlos Ride with Leroy Anderson
Enigmatic pioneer of the Moog
An Alpine Symphony:
Jonas Kaufmann the peak recordings
When I forgot to appear on stage…
Alan Titchmarsh picks
his musical favourites
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For our cover stars, the Bevan
Family Consort, the ties of family
as expressed through music
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classicalmagazine these are just the current generation – their predecessors,
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about the great fun that can be had when working with
those ‘on a similar wavelength’.
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famous examples – from the Bachs, Mozarts, Strausses and
von Trapps to today’s ferociously talented Kanneh-Masons.
Have a Happy Christmas!
Charlotte Smith Editor
THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS
Rebecca Franks Ashutosh Khandekar Geoff Brown

Writer and editor Writer and critic Writer and critic
‘What a treat it was to sit down ‘The poet Christina Rossetti lived ‘Leroy Anderson’s orchestral
for a drink and chinwag with four for a time in Frome, the Somerset miniatures were part of my
members of the Bevan Family town I call home. So I was especially childhood, but revisiting his output
Consort and hear about the group’s fascinated to discover the prompted a new appreciation of his
new festive album, and why the talented cousins subversive Pre-Raphaelite inspiration behind the wit, ingenuity and instrumentation. I also learned
love singing in a choir together.’ Page 24 words of In The Bleak Midwinter.’ Page 38 what exactly makes a typewriter go “ping”.’ Page 62
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 3

Visit Classical-Music.com for the
very latest from the music world Christmas Radio 3
highlights
Contents
CHRISTMAS 2024
See p103
FEATURES
24 Cover: The Bevan Family Consort
Rebecca Franks enjoys festive frolics and more in the
jolly company of Britain’s multi-talented singing clan
30 Relative values
From the Bachs to the von Trapps and Kanneh-Masons,
Jeremy Pound takes a look at famous musical families
38 A winter’s tale
Ashutosh Khandekar puts his hat and coat on and heads
out to discover the story behind In The Bleak Midwinter
42 The first lesson
How did a 19th-century bishop get Cornishmen out of
the pub to sing carols in church? Andrew Green explains
48 A wonderful life
As he turns 80, the eminent conductor Michael Tilson
Thomas looks over his life in music with Michael White
54 Moog Music
Nick Shave celebrates Wendy Carlos, the pioneering
composer who switched millions onto electronic Bach
EVERY MONTH
8 Letters
12 The Full Score
24 The Bevan
Family Consort
The latest news and interviews from the music world
23 Richard Morrison
34 The BBC Music Magazine Interview Art editor Dav Ludford
Pianist Alexandre Kantorow talks to Jessica Duchen The Ronettes
Thanks to
60 Musical Destinations Jenny Price
Adrian Mourby takes in the musical delights of Oxford Subscriptions £64.87 (UK); £65 (Europe); Hannah Nepilova
£74 (Rest of World) ABC Reg No. 3122 MARKETING
62 Composer of the Month
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4 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Christmas reviews
Your guide to the best new recordings and books
42
Truro’s Nine Lessons
and Carols
Slide Action champion

imaginative new music
for trombone quartet
72 Recording of the Month

Re:Build
Works for trombone quartet
54 ‘Deliberate and fresh exploration
Wendy Carlos unique to this set of instruments
is what this ensemble is all about’
Brand sales executives Group managing director 75 Christmas 76 Orchestral 79 Concerto 82 Opera
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84 Choral & Song 88 Chamber 92 Instrumental
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Letters
Have your say…

Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST
Email: music@classical-music.com Social media: contact us on Facebook and Twitter
L ET TE Inconsistent stars
of the R Ludwig series (starring David
Inflaming passions: My query is a curmudgeonly Mitchell) that acknowledges
Stravinsky conducts his MONT H
one, so please forgive! It Beethoven Piano Sonata Op.
The Firebird; (below) Yes’s
Yessongs album concerns the stars at the foot 31 No. 2, ‘The Tempest’, as the
of the reviews. Quite often, theme. I found your article at
the rating seems at odds with classical-music.com but it does
the preceding text, at least not mention this (to me) very
to me. A couple of examples obvious match. I can’t be the
from the latest (December) only person who has noticed…!
issue…: For Barenboim’s Stuart Merrylees, Westerham
Franck/Fauré, the review
reads ‘…it is wonderful that DG Gentle questioning
have captured Barenboim’s Last night I watched (on
distinctive magisterial BBC4) an episode of Face The
vision’. That reads to me as Music from 1978. The guest
being worthy of five stars for was Kenneth McKellar and
A journey into classical Recording, but we have here I enjoyed the quiz’s format,
Your feature on the 150th anniversary of Pictures at an just four. Then the review which has stood the test of time
Exhibition by Mussorgsky (December) reminded me of for Pappano’s Mendelssohn over these past 50 years. This
my misspent youth and my journey into classical music. says ‘…the concrete-mud got me thinking about music
My introduction to this music was from the 1971 live acoustic [of the Barbican] is programming and wondering
recording by prog rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. inescapable’. Hmmm… so if a similar quiz could be
I had previously enjoyed Keith Emerson and The Nice’s what’s with the five stars for updated for the 21st century.
version of the Karelia Suite by Sibelius, which at that time Recording? Even if Jessica What appealed particularly
I only knew as the theme tune for the TV current affairs Duchen admires the engineers’ was the general ambiance
show This Week. I finally gave up on prog rock when I success here in making the of the setting: no unwanted
purchased the Yes triple live album Yessongs in 1973. The best of a problematic acoustic, graphics, no intrusive lighting
opening track has the band creeping onstage under cover the quintuple-starred rating effects, no background sound
of a fog of dry ice to the closing section of The Firebird Suite is surely inconsistent with her effects etc. I know most of this
by Stravinsky. Since 1971, words. Maybe the star ratings wasn’t available in the 1970s
WIN! £50 VOUCHER the year of the composer’s are applied editorially rather anyway, but the overall feel
FOR PRESTO MUSIC death, Yes had used the than by the critic? of the programme was that of
piece as the introductory Andrew Keener, having a few friends around
Every month we will award music to their concerts. The Independent recording producer, for a parlour game. The other
the best letter with a £50 recording of the suite on New Malden main point was that no money
voucher for Presto Music,
Yessongs is by the Boston The editor replies: prizes or points were involved,
the UK’s leading e-commerce
site for classical and jazz Symphony Orchestra, The Recording stars are just an educating probe into
recordings, printed music, conducted by Seiji Ozawa provided by the reviewers, classical music which the
music books and musical and first released in 1970. though we accept that viewer at home could partake
instruments. Please note: the Needless to say, the Firebird applying them to a consistent in and pit their wits against the
editor reserves the right to
shorten letters for publication.
was the best track on the standard can be a challenge. panel. This got me thinking
album and my conversion about a new quiz for your
was complete. Tempestuous Ludwig magazine along the same
Nick Matthews, Rugby I have been looking on the web lines as the programme. How
GETTY
for any analysis of the BBC about a page of classical music

questions in conjunction with It’s good to bray
Early inspiration:
a short podcast containing Andrew Davis
In a recent letter, Christopher
snippets of music in relation to conducting in Morley reports he found Sean
the questions? the 1970s Wilson’s depiction of Mozart
Anthony Lovatt, Kingsley (in a televised docu-drama) to
The editor replies: have been ‘far more convincing
Hopefully, you enjoy doing than the braying whoever-
our quiz in the back pages of it-was in the film Amadeus)’.
each issue! We are also looking Tom Hulce’s performance in
at how we might do something Milos Forman’s movie did
similar online. annoy some, I remember,
but I found it brilliant.
Prime example Remember, much of Salieri’s
Thank you for the remarks disgust with the younger
about Edward Heath the composer was based on
musician who, like Helmut Wolfgang’s obnoxious manner.
Schmidt, would often The frequent whinnying
end a demanding day by cachinnations marking
playing Bach (Power Players, Hulce’s characterisation were
November). Ted Heath also a believable manifestation
recorded Beethoven’s ‘Triple’ from that time was a recording has got off quite lightly after of the nervous agitation the
Concerto – with the English of Tippett symphonies this whole sorry saga. hyperactive, fidgety Mozart
Chamber Orchestra and conducted by the composer? Name and address withheld might well have suffered
Trio Zingara, coupled with a Robert Fletcher, Ingatestone when forced to kowtow to
Boccherini concerto – which The editor replies: Barn dance Bach royalty, nobility or anyone
the critic Edward Greenfield You are correct! Our February Tom Service’s Get Bach on the else who tended to patronise
described as one of the best in 1995 cover CD featured Dance Floor (The Listening him. Some viewers apparently
the catalogue. Tippett conducting the BBC Service, October) makes a found it hard to stomach, but
David Woodhead, via email Symphony Orchestra in his convincing case for finding criticising Tom Hulce’s acting
own Symphonies Nos 2 and 4. disco in Baroque music. in Amadeus because Mozart
Due appreciation Carlisle Floyd made a similar could be a jackass is like
Many thanks for the Andrew A sorry affair discovery. He lifted Bach’s criticising Margaret Hamilton’s
Davis cover CD (Tippett’s I read the letter from Hildburg Partita No. 3, note for note, performance in The Wizard of
Symphony No. 4; Holst’s The Williams (November) dropped it into his 1955 Oz because the Wicked Witch
Hymn of Jesus; and Debussy’s regarding ‘Monteverdi opera Susannah and called it of the West was so mean.
Pelléas et Mélisande suite) with mayhem’ with some disbelief. ‘Barn Dance’. David English, Acton, MA, US
the November issue. My first I agree it is terrible that Gary Drummond,
Shostakovich LP purchase was the Monteverdi Choir and Moraga, CA, US Holst discovery
Sir Andrew’s Tenth Symphony Orchestras’ era is at an end but, Being a continental subscriber,
with the LPO on Classics for regardless of the transparency Curtis concerts I know relatively little about
Pleasure in 1975. At a period of (or lack thereof) of its board, in As a lifetime Philadelphian, English music. However,
transition in my life, it affected my view the blame lies solely it was a pleasure to see your thanks to your magazine I’m
me greatly and it remains with the perpetrator of this recognition of our jewel, The learning more. The peak was
my best loved symphony by ‘unfortunate incident’ – which Curtis Institute of Music your September issue. The only
the Russian who, of course, was, by all accounts, a physical (The best of the best, October). work I knew of Holst was, of
died that year. The first assault. As many of the MCO It should be noted that the course, The Planets. I had no
performance was just over a members were insistent on his 100+ student recitals are free, idea that this composer was so
year after my birth, so possibly return (no doubt many other allowing us to watch gifted multi-faceted till listening to
another deep reason it moves talented conductors would artists mature over the years, the cover CD with the Japanese
me so. I sold my LP collection have loved the job), it is hard performing the usual as well Suite etc. I thank you for this
in the early 2000s and you to see how the board could as uncommon repertoire. How disc and the accompanying
can’t get that recording on CD agree without condoning his often, for instance, does one article, as I look forward to
or digitally now, apparently. behaviour. As he has already hear Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen studying more about this
Also, I have been a BBC Music founded another choir and played by a solo double bass? magnificent composer.
subscriber since the late 1990s orchestra with some of the Elihu N Goren, Kjeld Pedersen, Copenhagen,
and think one earlier cover CD same players, it seems to me he Philadelphia, PA, US Denmark

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Thefullscore
Our pick of the month’s news, views and interviews
Pole vault:
Chopin’s manuscript was
unearthed in The Morgan
Library and Museum
archive (above right); pianist
Katharine Lam (right) says it
is a ‘precious find’
Chopin waltz found in New York ‘It’s a noteworthy and precious find,
as several waltzes that Chopin originally
wrote are believed to have been entirely
Unknown work an exciting discovery, say scholars lost or destroyed,’ says Lam. ‘Finding lost
works of any great composer reminds us of
It’s not every day you come across a ‘new’ ears. But if the manuscript is unsigned, their unique musical fingerprint and gives
work by a long-dead composer, let alone can we be sure it really is by Chopin? us, no matter how small or fleeting, a fresh
one that is a household name across Evidence would suggest so – the Polish and treasured glimpse of their voice and
the globe. So, imagine how Robinson composer’s recognisable clef is said to be genius. Like any artist, or even a pop star
McClellan, music curator at The Morgan present and correct, and the style and form putting out a new single, it’s really exciting
Library and Museum in New York, of the piece bear his hallmarks, even if to experience hearing a piece of music
felt when he did just that. McClellan for the first time, especially one that you
was cataloguing items in the vault of ‘The waltz captures the never expected.’
the museum when he came across an While some long-lost manuscripts
unsigned music manuscript in a very listener with Chopin’s by great composers can prove more
familiar hand. The waltz in front of him, haunting gift for melody’ interesting for their discovery than their
thought to have been penned in the early content, Lam says there is plenty in this
1830s, has since been authenticated by an the opening is surprisingly tempestuous. case to warrant the attention: ‘In a mere
KRIS WORSLEY PHOTOGRAPHY, GETTY
expert and is believed to be by none other That said, there are also apparently errors, 80 seconds, the waltz captures the listener
than Frédéric Chopin. so it’s likely that Chopin never meant this with Chopin’s beloved and haunting gift
Soon after, the New York Times broke waltz to see the light of day. Either way, for melody, his distinctive harmonies and
the story with a special filmed recording explains pianist Katharine Lam from the the opening turbulent outburst which
by pianist Lang Lang, and major news Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, it’s a points to the drama and passion infused
outlets worldwide in turn pricked up their fascinating and exciting discovery. through so much of his work.’

Thefullscore
Shard graft:
Gareth Malone
is aiming high
Hitting the top notes

Gareth Malone has set himself a new target:
to get a choir singing higher than any before.
But no, we are not talking about the choral
guru asking his sopranos to reach a pitch that
only cats and dogs can hear – he will instead
be conducting a performance of We Wish You
A Merry Christmas at 867 feet above sea level.
As this issue goes to press, Malone and a select
group of singers are preparing to head 78 floors
up to the top of The Shard in London to mark
Lapwood puts Royal Albert Hall organ in Cruise control the switch on of the building’s Christmas lights
and set, it is believed, the record for the loftiest
As an associate artist at the Royal Albert feeling the need for reeds, diapasons ever carol recital in the UK. After that, anything
Hall, Anna Lapwood has become used to and flutes was none other than actor else will seem, literally, quite a come down.
people asking her to let them have a go Tom Cruise. ‘I think it’s like flying a plane,’
on the venue’s famous 9,999-pipe organ. explained Lapwood, as she guided the
Things reached a new level recently, hugely impressed Top Gun star around
however, when the figure wandering the instrument’s complex cockpit – an
inquisitively up to the console and clearly experience to take anyone’s breath away. Last-minute tenor:
Laurence Cummings
pitched in at late notice
Rotating pope leaves opera audience reeling

Ungodly scenes:
Sancta (left and below) did
not enjoy universal approval
Not my usual aria…

Picture the scene. You’re a conductor and, as
A new opera in Germany has created global you reach the final moments of a live opera
headlines by being so shocking that it left performance, you are suddenly aware that your
GETTY, MATTHIAS BAUS, ANTON SÄCKL ILLUSTRATION: JONTY CLARK
18 audience members requiring medical lead tenor has lost his voice. What do you do? If
treatment for nausea. Staged at the state you are Laurence Cummings, music director of
opera in Stuttgart, Florentina Holzinger’s the Academy of Ancient Music, you simply sing
Sancta pushed the limits with moments of his part yourself. This is exactly what happened
unsimulated sex, live piercing, naked roller- recently during Rameau’s Pygmalion, when
skating nuns and a female pope with dwarfism Cummings noticed that all was not well with
being rotated on a mechanical arm. Described tenor Thomas Walker. ‘My immediate thought
by its composer-director as a ‘feminist mass’, was “Oh no! But we can’t cut it – it’s the crux
the opera is, in fact, not entirely Holzinger’s of the whole opera!’”, he explained later. ‘So I
own creation, but is inspired by Hindemith’s made the split decision that I should sing it; love
Sancta Susanna which, with its depiction of a must reign supreme!’ Cummings’s unforeseen
nun’s sexual desires, itself caused a scandal at moment of vocal heroism quite rightly met with
the time of its premiere in 1922. a rapturous reception at the curtain call.

Thefullscore
RisingStar TIMEPIECE This month in history
Today’s up-and-coming talent
offer advice for their peers
Thinking small:
violinist Eva Zavaro
Violinist Eva Zavaro explains

why chamber music is central
to a soloist’s development
C
hamber music made me fall in love
with music, and later made me think
about becoming a musician. I think
what regular chamber music experience
has given me, and what I then bring to my
solo and concerto performances, is a sense
of deep listening. When you’re playing in a
small chamber ensemble, you are sensitive
to everything: to the surroundings, the
acoustics, the timings and, of course, to what
the other performers in the room with you CHRISTMAS 1951
are seeking to express.
Here, you forget about what you practised
the day before and you just concentrate on
re-creating this music on the spot. And, for
Menotti’s Christmas visitors
me, this kind of openness and sensitivity is
much more accessible with chamber music
than as a soloist – because there are other
people reacting, so nothing’s ever the same.
wow millions of TV viewers
The other great thing about chamber music
T
here is, they say, nothing like of the Magi, and it unlocked a flood of
is the shared experience. You are a team,
and you share so much: you create, travel, a looming deadline to focus memories from childhood Christmases
eat, cry, laugh together, and all of this feeds the attention. That is precisely in Italy, where the Three Kings
into the music you make. the situation composer Gian traditionally distributed the presents.
It might sound counterintuitive, but I Carlo Menotti addressed in November The ‘weird song’ they sang suddenly
think that playing with others actually gives 1951. A year previously he had accepted came back to Menotti, and the seed was
you more freedom. Obviously on one level, a commission from the NBC television planted of what was soon to become a
it’s a freer atmosphere than in an orchestra
network to write an opera for screening new 50-minute opera: Amahl and the
– you can plan rehearsals to suit the whole
group, and discuss what rep you would at the Christmas season. Mere weeks Night Visitors.
like to play together. But also, as a soloist before the broadcast was due to happen, Amahl was not the first opera to
you can tend to shut yourself inside certain his creative block was total. ‘I just didn’t be seen on television. That honour
parameters – you play this piece in this have an idea in my head,’ he admitted. belonged to another of Menotti’s pieces,
way. Playing with a small group gives you Then inspiration struck. One The Old Maid and the Thief, originally
more freedom, not less, because your level afternoon, as Menotti walked ‘rather written for NBC radio in 1939. Ten years
of communication can really impact
the whole experience and the music you
gloomily’ through the Metropolitan later it was the first opera televised by
make together. Museum of Art in New York, one the newly founded NBC Opera Theatre,
Eva Zavaro’s new disc of works by Fauré and painting in particular struck him. It whose brief was to put operas both old
Szymanowski is out now on La Dolce Volta was Hieronymus Bosch’s The Adoration and new on television screens across

Thefullscore
Yankee no more: Joe DiMaggio calls it a day
Bringing gifts: (main pic) Andrew McKinley, Leon Also in December 1951…
Lishner and Chet Allen star in Amahl and the Night
the US – ‘quality’ content which would, Visitors, 1951; (above) Menotti was inspired by
1st: Benjamin Britten conducts the world
executives reasoned, appeal to both Bosch’s Adoration of the Magi (above left) premiere of his Billy Budd at the Royal Opera
well-heeled viewers and the advertisers House, with baritone Theodor Uppman in the
who targeted their disposable income. New York Times reported. The paper’s title role, tenor Peter Pears as Captain Vere
and bass Frederick Dalberg as the unlovable
As the suits at NBC juggled the formidable classical music critic Olin Claggart. Though the opera, based on a
numbers, Menotti scrambled to get the Downes was also highly complimentary, Herman Melville novel, is enthusiastically
libretto of Amahl completed and the praising Chet Allen for his ‘remarkable received by public and press alike, the
music written. Chet Allen, a 12-year- interpretation’ of Amahl, and heralding composer later alters it from four acts to two.
old boy, was cast as Amahl, a crippled the broadcast as ‘a historic event in the 11th: After 13 Major League seasons with
shepherd boy who encounters the Three rapidly evolving art of television’. the New York Yankees, including nine World
Kings on their journey to see Jesus, with Menotti’s heartwarming seasonal Series wins, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio
announces his retirement. ‘I was full of aches
mezzo-soprano Rosemary Kuhlmann opera quickly became a staple of the and pains and it had become a chore for me
as his mother. A set was swiftly designed Christmas television schedule in the to play,’ he explains in an interview. ‘When
and built, and director Kirk Browning US, with numerous stage productions baseball is no longer fun, it’s no longer a game.
began grappling with a complex matrix And so, I’ve played my last game of ball.’
of stage movements and camera angles. ‘This work could hardly 13th: The Finnish composer and pianist
Would it all be ready in time? Selim Palmgren dies aged 83. A student
Thankfully, with Menotti’s partner
have fallen at any period on of Busoni, Palmgren was best known for his
Samuel Barber at hand to help with the more grateful eyes and ears’ highly melodious works for piano, not least his
Concerto No. 2 ‘The River’, and at the peak of
orchestration, it was… just. At 9.30pm his career as a composer enjoyed a standing in
on 24 December 1951, in Studio 8-H at both professional and amateur mounted Finland second only to that of Sibelius. He was
NBC’s headquarters in the Rockefeller since. Menotti wrote other operas after married to the opera soprano Maikki Järnefelt.
Center, Manhattan, the cast and crew Amahl and the Night Visitors, including 24th: President Harry S Truman sends a
of Amahl and the Night Visitors stood the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Saint of congratulatory message to King Idris as the
ready for the live broadcast. Menotti Bleecker Street in 1955. But none of them United Kingdom of Libya formally gains its
himself provided a spoken, to-camera enjoyed anything approaching Amahl’s independence. A colony of Italy from 1911, the
country was then administered by the Allies
introduction, before conductor Thomas enduring popularity.
following Italian defeat in the North African
Schippers cued the opera’s evocative Olin Downes, emphasising the campaign of World War II. King Idris will remain
prelude, complete with its exotically timeliness of the opera’s message in a in power until being ousted in Muammar
tinted oboe tune. brutally conflict-ridden century, was Gaddafi’s coup of 1969.
Across the US an estimated five in no doubt as to why. ‘The sight and 31st: The Marshall Plan, which has seen
million people watched Amahl that sound of this work,’ he wrote, ‘which so the US transfer $13.3 billion to European
Christmas Eve, on 35 of NBC’s simply and unpretentiously symbolises countries to aid their economic recovery
ALAMY, GETTY, OLIVIER LALANE
affiliate channels. Their response was faith, mercy and peace on the earth since April 1948, comes to an end. Named
after US secretary of state George Marshall,
overwhelmingly positive. ‘Enthusiastic that the meek shall one day inherit, the aid programme has prioritised industrial
listeners jammed the company’s could hardly have fallen at any period powerhouses, with the UK enjoying the
telephone switchboard for more than in modern history on more grateful greatest share. Under Soviet pressure,
an hour after the performance,’ the eyes and ears.’ Terry Blain however, Eastern Bloc countries declined it.

Thefullscore
Music to my ears Leading man:
tenor Jonas Kaufmann;
(right) in opera heaven
with Angela Gheorghiu
in La traviata at The Met,
New York, in 2006
Perfect pairing: Amy Beach

works beautifully with Elgar
The BBC Music Magazine

team’s current favourites...
Charlotte Smith Editor
I was very excited to see two of my podcasting
heroes – Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook
from The Rest is History – live at the Royal Albert
Hall in October. The two were there to talk about
the lives of Mozart and Beethoven, with lively
and engaging orchestral accompaniment from
the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. The pair
were on top form, applying their witty banter to
these well-known masters, and infusing them
with colour and fun. A great night!
Jeremy Pound Deputy editor
I was very sad to hear about the death of
conductor and composer Leif Segerstam, whom
I fondly remember arriving at the BBC Music
Concert Heaven
Concert Hell
Magazine Awards years ago proudly clutching
the score of his latest symphony (No. 250-ish).
Though I’ve never really got on board with his
own orchestral works, his majestic recording
of Sibelius’s Symphonies Nos 1 & 7 with the
Helsinki Philharmonic still hits the spot like no
other. Just check out those trombones…
Top artists recall their best and worst performances
Michael Beek Reviews editor
As a rather fitting extension of our October THIS MONTH super nervous, because the house is so
issue, in which we explored the points at which Jonas Kaufmann tenor big, and I’m pretty sure that nobody in
musicals and opera meet, I recently saw back- New York had heard the name Jonas
to-back productions of Puccini’s La bohème and CONCERT HEAVEN Kaufmann before – even though I’d
Jonathan Larson’s Rent. Staged by The Atlanta Verdi La traviata sung some parts at the Chicago Lyric
Opera in a specially created immersive theatre
space at the city’s Pullman Yards (where they Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Angela Opera beforehand. And then I sang
once made train carriages), it was fascinating Gheorghiu (soprano) et al and afterwards the audience burst into
to witness up close these emotional works, cut The Metropolitan Opera, New York applause; it’s in those moments that you
from the same cloth yet written a century apart. (Feburary 2006) tend to turn round and wonder if Plácido
Steve Wright Content producer If I look back through my career, Domingo just entered the stage. That was
I’ve been enchanted by Amy Beach’s 1907 there have been moments where I an incredible moment.
Piano Quintet, in a probing performance by the really was overwhelmed by what had I can’t explain to you honestly why,
Takács Quartet and pianist Garrick Ohlsson. just happened. One, certainly, was but for every young singer The Met is the
It’s paired on disc with the Elgar Piano Quintet, my debut at The Met, because that Olympus. You’re pinching yourself and,
and the two make a great coupling, with their radically changed my career. I’d already as they say, if you can make it there you
rich Romantic soundworlds and complex
interplay between piano and strings. Both are
performed in many places, at La Scala can make it anywhere; and that’s true
also grounded in slow movements of amazing and Covent Garden, but in 2006 I somehow. When I went back to Europe,
serenity and simple poignancy, each able to was finally at The Met, with Angela wherever I went people said, ‘Oh yes,
bring a lump to my throat! Gheorghiu in La traviata. I was obviously this is Kaufmann, he had a great success

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Fond memories:
Pavarotti took Pirgu
under his wing
MyHero
Albanian tenor Saimir
Pirgu recalls how lucky
he was to be mentored
at The Met…’ It was actually almost Also, I think twice in my career I by the legendary
ridiculous, because I’d been to all these forgot to enter… The first production Luciano Pavarotti
great theatres in Europe, like the Paris that I ever did professionally was Eine
Opera, Covent Garden, Munich, Berlin, Nacht in Venedig, a beautiful operetta by I was lucky enough to meet Luciano
La Scala… but suddenly Europe takes Johann Strauss II, in the small theatre Pavarotti when I was a student, back
notice of this young tenor only because of Regensburg – I was still a student at in 2000. I was studying singing at the
Conservatory in Bolzano, Italy – I had left
he was a success at The Met. I can’t the conservatory in Munich. We did 36 my native Albania for the first time two or
explain it, but it has this special thrill. shows in one season and I have to say I three months previously. Pavarotti turned
The sheer size of that hall causes was so bored I was sitting in my dressing up on holiday, and he was curious to know
some anonymity for a performer. It’s a room reading. I heard dialogue that I had who, in this little town, was a singer. So,
completely different animal to Covent never heard before and thought, ‘What our teacher told us, ‘Pavarotti is in town,
Garden, in terms of size; in London are they talking about?!’ Then I realised prepare something to sing and go and see
him at four o’clock today.’
you have the impression you can lean they were improvising because I was not
I was quite awestruck. To meet the
forward and touch the audience. I feel on stage! greatest tenor ever, in a little mountain
more and more at home over the years Even worse, when I did Carmen in town like that was… amazing. I sang ‘Una
in many of those houses. When you Zurich with Vesselina Kasarova, I was furtiva lagrima’ from Donizetti’s L’elisir
come back you know the stagehands, down under the stage in the catacombs d’amore. Quite a few of us went along –
the orchestra musicians and you can of the theatre, because I had to climb he sent the others home but he told me,
find your way to the canteen and back up from underneath for my entrance ‘Come back tomorrow’. So I went back the
next day and he listened to me again and
without getting lost. in the second act. I was down there
gave me some pointers, and told me to
chatting about this and that together keep in touch.
CONCERT HELL with the assistant conductor, who was For the next few years until his death
Bizet Carmen also waiting there; and I said, ‘Why is it in 2007, I would call Pavarotti from time
Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Vesselina so silent?’ We looked at the monitor and to time, and he would invite me to his
Kasarova (mezzo-soprano) et al saw a completely desperate conductor, house and coach me in some of the best
Zurich Opera House (2008) and I said, ‘Oh, this is me!’ So I started beginner’s roles – from L’elisir d’amore,
La traviata, Rigoletto. I think he wanted to
I can think of several moments. I was singing my part without hesitating, and protect me a little – he told me, ‘You are
singing one of the Knappen in Parsifal I ran onstage, singing, singing, singing, too young to be an opera lead; work on your
(Saarbrücken, 1995), which is really and I thought, ‘I made it!’ Then when I technique, your musicality, just sing bel
not much to sing, but I completely lost stop singing, the first thing that Carmen canto for now.’
my voice on stage. I had a cold and at says is ‘Enfin te voilà!’ (Finally you Pavarotti was very generous with his
that point I didn’t know how to judge are here!), and the whole house broke time. He was teaching young people
until the end of his life – he created his
how much I was capable of doing. I just down. I realised that it must have been
academy, in his hometown of Modena, on
couldn’t sing, there was no voice left. I an eternity, almost a minute of silence his deathbed. I will never forget him.
GETTY, PAUL SCALA
realised I really need to come up with before I had started singing. Saimir Pirgu’s album ‘Saimir’, featuring
a back-up plan, learn my technique, or Jonas Kaufmann’s album ‘Puccini Love arias by Puccini, Berlioz and others, is out
learn to read my instrument better. Affairs’ is out now on Sony Classical now on Opus Arte.

Thefullscore
THE LISTENING SERVICE
Dream machines
Just like fads for Tamagotchi
and Furbys, robotic
conductors are currently
flavour of the month – but
they’re not a patch on the
real thing, says Tom Service
ILLUSTRATION: MARIA CORTE MAIDAGAN
A
ll I want for Christmas is a
massive robot conductor. Too
much to ask? If Tamagotchi are
back – those electronic pets returning
from two decades ago to take over
Christmas 2024 – then why can’t I
be opening an animatronic maestro
under the Christmas tree?
We could finally be near the utopia of
so many orchestral musicians. Imagine
never having to deal again with the
all-too-fallible vicissitudes of human
conductors. Instead, give those pesky
time beating responsibilities to the
robots who will never get a beat wrong:
down with Abbado, all hail Asimo!
Asimo is Honda’s robotic project,
whose zenith of creativity was reached and robot, that pushed boundaires of Karlheinz Stockhausen might have
in 2008, when it conducted the Detroit coordination and improvisation with wished MAiRA had existed in 1958 for
Symphony in The Impossible Dream. the National Orchestra of Korea. his piece Gruppen, designed for three
Honda quoted a mere $2.5m if you And just a few weeks ago in Dresden, groups and three conductors. But then
too wanted Asimo to conduct your the snappily titled MAiRA Pro S again, he might not. Because none of
next concert. But there was a wee made her three-armed debut with these robots can meaningfully react
problem: it took engineers six months to the Dresdner Sinfoniker. Although to the music that’s happening in front
programme the two minutes of Asimo’s of them, and all of them, I reckon, are
performance, and the robot could None of these robots can destined to become like the Furbys
neither react in the moment nor come of Christmases past, ending up in the
up with an encore. In fact, so impossible
meaningfully react to the landfill of broken musical dreams.
was Asimo’s robotic dream that Honda music in front of them And anyway, if you really want to play
shut the project down in 2018. precisely in time, there’s a much better
But last year, the spirit of Asimo MAiRA’s pronouns are human, she has and cheaper solution: just use a click-
lived on in South Korea, with EveR 6, no face, just three robotic arms with track, available on any metronome app
which swapped Asimo’s Daft Punk style lightsaber-like batons protruding from on your phone. Less exciting under the
visor for a creepily human-ish face. a bank of futuristic servers. Dresden’s tree, I admit. So, if anyone’s got a spare
It replaced Asimo’s pre-programmed Robot Symphony also tried to fuse the Asimo – or a spare $2.5m – come and
gimmickry with something possibilities of robotic precision with make my Christmas Day!
approaching collaboration – using the expressive power of human players:
EveR 6’s precision alongside a human MAiRA’s arms conducted ensembles in Tom Service plays the best
conductor’s expressivity to create a three different time streams, in music music to start your weekend
musical cyborg, both homo sapiens by Andreas Gundlach. in Saturday Morning at 9am

NEW FROM
FAREWELL TO… DIVINE ART RECORDINGS GROUP
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RESONATING
EARTH
Pianist Carolyn Enger presents
sublime recordings of works from
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Caroline Shaw, Iman Habibi, John Cage, John Luther Adams, Marcos Balter, Meredith
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music that is sensitively performed and intelligently curated. ”
—Francis Wilson, Interlude
Fantastic Finn:
Leif Segerstam MEX 77128
shone in Sibelius
MEX 77129
Leif Segerstam Born 1944 Conductor and composer
Leif Segerstam, one of classical music’s most colourful yet supremely
talented personalities, wrote an astonishing 371 symphonies in total.
Though many have yet to be performed, a number have been recorded
DDX 21135
for the BIS label, not least his hypnotic and eerily unsettling No. 16
‘Thoughts at the Border’ in 1992. To concentrate solely on Segerstam’s
record-breaking symphonic writing, however, would come at the
expense of a proper appreciation of his achievements as a conductor.
Initially trained as a violinist and pianist, he went on to study at both
the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and the Juilliard School in New York, GRÁINNE MULVEY: DINA PARAKHINA:
making his debut with the baton in 1963. Early positions included THE TYNDALL EFFECT 200 YEARS DIABELLI
that of conductor of Stockholm’s Royal Opera before, in 1995, he was VARIATIONS
appointed chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra,
a post in which he enjoyed great success for 12 years, subsequently 6P P!,^ljl!ǿ^l!l
being named as chief conductor emeritus. It was with the Helsinki
MEX 77132
Philharmonic that Segerstam made some of his most distinguished

recordings. These included the complete symphonies of Sibelius plus,
in 2006, the same composer’s Luonnotar and Orchestral Songs which,
featuring the soprano Soile Isokoski, went on to win the following
year’s BBC Music Magazine Disc of the Year.
Quincy Jones Born 1933 Composer, arranger
DDX 21121
Quincy Jones cut his teeth in jazz, abandoning studies at the Berklee
School of Music to go on the road in the 1950s. A regular in New York’s
clubs and recording studios, he worked with many jazz greats before
heading to Europe to continue study, this time with Olivier Messiaen
and Nadia Boulanger. Jones went on to arrange music and work as a SOMETHING SO ROBIN STEVENS:
producer for some of the biggest artists of the day, from Ella Fitzgerald TRANSPORTING BRIGHT A QUESTING SOUL
Kreutzer Quartet Music for Violin and Piano
to Michael Jackson. A winner of 28 Grammys and nominated for an Roderick Chadwick, piano
Oscar seven times, Jones composed music for many films, including
The Italian Job and The Color Purple. EARTHRISE
Janusz Olejniczak Born 1952 Pianist Musici Ireland present blissful music from
Olejniczak had an affinity with Chopin, even portraying the composer contemporary Irish composers:
in Andrzej Zulawski’s 1991 film The Blue Note. That wasn’t his only Deirdre Gribbin, Deirdre McKay, Ian Wilson,
cinematic moment, as it’s also Olejniczak we hear on the soundtrack Liam Bates, Linda Buckley
of Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, and his hands we see at Szpilman’s
keyboard in close-up. Born in Wrocław, he took to the piano at a very MEX 77133
young age and studied in Warsaw, Essen and Paris. Competing at the
SEILO RISTIMÄKI
Eighth International Chopin Piano Competition in the same year as WWW.DIVINEARTRECORDS.COM

winner Garrick Ohlsson and runner-up Mitsuko Uchida (Olejniczak Available on CD, HD Digital and Streaming
came sixth), he would go on to serve on the competition’s jury. Distributed by Naxos
Thefullscore
Siegfried
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN What I love about Siegfried is his freshness.
He’s a pure child of nature: in Act Three
Pick a theme… and name your seven favourite examples of Siegfried, having already been singing
for around five hours, he then has an
amazing scene where he has to wake up
Brünnhilde. He doesn’t know who she is,
how to treat her, how to be with her. They
British soprano Susan Bullock selects the juiciest spend that last hour dancing around each
Wagner roles for singers to get their teeth into other and falling in love. For me that’s a real
study in meeting the world – without fear,
without any preconditioning. And there’s
S
usan Bullock has sung in opera also intelligent and loving. The moment something incredibly moving about it.
houses all over the world. when she’s standing there with Tristan, the
Attracted to roles of dramatic heft man she really loves, while the man she’s Sieglinde
and complexity, she is closely associated married to, King Mark, is pouring his heart To me, Sieglinde is all things woman: she’s
with late-Romantic and 20th-century out about how much she means to him is emotional, feminine, open and intuitive.
German repertoire, and has a particular heartbreaking. She is multifaceted and She immediately recognises something
affinity with the music of Richard such a fantastic character to play. in Siegmund – and then it turns out that
Wagner: a marathon achievement they are twins who fall in love. The music
was singing Brünnhilde in all the Wotan reflects these qualities, not least in the
performances of The Ring at Covent As a father, Wotan is a hero to Brünnhilde, third act of Die Walküre after Brünnhilde
Garden in the London Olympic year of and there’s an underlying dignity and has urged Sieglinde, who is pregnant with
2012. Next summer she will play Cosima godlike strength to his music. Even though the future hero Siegfried, to escape with
Wagner at the Longborough Festival in a everyone is warning him against it, he her. Before she leaves, Sieglinde sings the
new opera about the Wagner can’t overcome his need for stunning ‘O hehrstes Wunder!’. It is so
family by the Israeli-born power that only the Ring expansive, full of emotion and warmth.
composer Avner Dorman. will give him. Then he gets
that power, and he watches Tristan
Brünnhilde everything disintegrate When we first see Tristan in Tristan und
Brünnhilde has been part around him: when we see Isolde, he’s very aloof. He’s trying to keep
of my life for a long time but him in Die Walküre he is his distance, to save Isolde’s marriage
every time I sing this role, I increasingly conflicted and to King Mark and to remain loyal to his
find out new things about her. no longer the person that we king. He wrong foots Isolde so many times
From the moment we meet met in Das Rheingold. The end when she thinks she’s found a way in. And
her as this tomboy, a petulant of Die Walküre is especially yet he’s an incredibly passionate, loving
teenager in Die Walküre, to her emotional – parting from man, who sees in Isolde everything that he
final immolation scene at the Brünnhilde is killing him. At really wants. He is brave, complicated and
end of Götterdämmerung, she that point in the show, there enigmatic, and the audience really has to
covers the breadth of are always tears. work to figure out who he is.
emotional experience. And
as a vocal workout, there’s Brangäne
nothing like this part, both in I used to sing lot of Cio-Cio Sans and the
terms of the stamina it requires, and vocal relationship between Madam Butterfly
tessitura: Götterdämmerung has everything and Suzuki reminds me of that between
from top C’s to bottom G’s. To go on that Isolde and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde.
journey is shattering, but amazing. Brangäne is loyalty, she’s dedication, and
she only ever wants to do the right thing.
Isolde When she gives Tristan and Isolde the love
FRANCES MARSHALL, JEFF BUSBY, GETTY
Another marathon lady: Isolde hits potion, instead of the death drink, it comes
the ground running. We see her at the from a good place. She soon realises that
beginning of Tristan und Isolde, raging she has unleashed a disastrous situation
about having to go to Cornwall and about that can never be put back in the box.
the way she’s being treated by Tristan. There’s something very poignant in that.
She is tempestuous and emotional but Interview by Hannah Nepilova

Thefullscore
Dramatic highs and lows:

Susan Bullock loves Wagnerian
roles; (opposite) Stefan Vinke as
Siegfried and Susan Bullock as
Brünnhilde in The Ring, Melbourne,
2013; Anja Kampe as Isolde
and Sarah Connolly as Brangäne
in Tristan und Isolde at the
Glyndebourne Festival, 2009

Opinion
Richard Morrison
Making music together in the home
is a wonderful way to unite families
M
any decades on, my most now. Before radio and TV permeated span generations, bind families together
vivid memory of childhood every home, the Victorian parlour was and have largely escaped the taunts of
Christmases doesn’t involve somewhere where many families made ‘elitism’ flung at other classical music
twinkling fairy-lights, turkey with all music daily. We know this from the ensembles (even though their musical
the trimmings or boozy uncles behaving sheer volume of 19th-century sheet standards are frequently as demanding).
badly – though all of that featured in music published for home consumption. Similarly, the liveliest amateur
our little London semi. No, what I recall That era even invented a genre – the productions of Broadway musicals I’ve
most clearly is the magic moment, at parlour-song – specifically to meet the seen are ones where teenagers and older
about 7pm on Christmas Day, when a demand for ditties that amateurs could people are performing side by side,
dozen neighbours would crowd into perform. At least early in her reign, radiating a feeling of a whole community
our living room and my dad would sit at Queen Victoria and Prince Albert led having fun together. It’s remarkable how
the piano, a glass of Dubonnet perched the way with frequent music-making, many professional singers and actors I
precariously on top, and start playing joined by their friend Felix Mendelssohn meet who say they fell in love with the
song after song for everyone to join in. when he was in town. stage because their parents involved
He never used sheet music and never them in am-dram from a young age.
had to stop to think what tune to play But there’s also great value in learning
next. He had that gift, honed through Music is a priceless bond an instrument alongside your child,
years in dance bands and as a hotel so that you progress together. Indeed,
pianist, of being able to recall hundreds between generations certain teaching methods (Suzuki,
of Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, most famously) actively encourage that.
George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and that today often seem at And with electronic instruments now
Cole Porter tunes, perfectly harmonised, so cheaply available, there’s no reason
stylishly embellished, from memory. odds with each other why, as in Victorian times, every home
I don’t have anything like that talent shouldn’t possess a keyboard.
but I still try to keep the tradition The arrival of mass broadcasting, Which, again, stirs deep memories in
going chez Morrison by inflicting a the gramophone and its successors had me. When I was a boy my father used
Christmas singsong on my children and many beneficial effects, of course, but to listen surreptitiously while I picked
grandchildren. To be fair, they indulge also tended to turn the vast majority of out harmonies by ear on the piano.
my whim with a reasonable imitation people into passive consumers rather Occasionally he would come up, almost
of enthusiasm. Inevitably the repertoire than active performers in their own apologetically, and guide me towards a
has changed over the decades, but not homes. That’s regrettable. People like chord progression that he knew worked
the intention – that, at least once a year, me often bang on about the need for the better. Nothing was written down,
the whole family should engage in a bit state to provide more music-making in nothing ‘taught’ in a formal sense. It was
of communal music-making. schools. But there’s also much to be said just a passing-down of what you might
On page 24 you will read about the for parents taking matters into their own call ancestral intuition.
incredible Bevan family, who have hands – involving their children in their Today I find myself doing the same
carried genetically related music-making own music-making. with my seven-year-old daughter. It’s
to an exalted level. Few households can Where and how? Choirs are one like a secret code we share: a reminder
aspire to that professionalism. But all obvious answer, although choirs filled that in an era when the generations often
music-loving parents can at least try with people of all ages are a rarity and seem at odds with each other, music can
to create opportunities to sing or play teenagers are understandably reluctant be a priceless bond between all ages –
alongside their offspring. to join choral societies where they would intangible yet indelible.
Those opportunities used to be be the only members under 60. Brass Richard Morrison is chief music critic
much easier to engineer than they are and wind bands are a good bet. They and a columnist of The Times

Bevan Family Consort
Rebecca Franks meets

the delightfully jolly and
energetic Bevan Family
Consort – members of the
multi-generational, multi-
talented Bevan clan – as they
prepare to release a new
album for Christmas
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN MILLAR
‘W
hat says family more than
Christmas?’ asks Sophie Bevan,
hamming up the line and making
us all laugh. Gathered around a
pub table in London in blazing
summer sunshine that’s decidedly inappropriate for
talking about a Christmas album are four Bevan cousins.
Four, I should point out, of 56. All of whom are, in one way
or another, musical. The Bevan family sprawls, dwarfing
the von Trapps and Kanneh-Masons (see p30). And a
handful of them have formed the Bevan Family Consort,
which makes recordings and gives concerts, and this year
releases a gorgeous Christmas album. It features family
party pieces and festive favourites as well as the premiere
recordings of a Palestrina mass, Imogen Holst’s The Virgin
Unspotted and David Bevan Snr’s Lute-book Lullaby.

Dynamic dynasty:
the Bevan Family Consort,
photographed exclusively
for BBC Music at St Mark’s
Church, Clerkenwell

Festive family fun: the Bevans sing together
around the Christmas table; (below) the Consort’s
new Christmas disc; (opposite clockwise)
Francis, Benedict, Mary and Sophie Bevan
‘ACTUALLY, THE CHOIR is quite small

relative to the size of the family,’ says
Mary, who along with her sister Sophie,
has an international opera career. There
are 14 singers on the latest album, and two
other Bevan cousins join us to talk about
it: Francis, who used to be lead guitarist
for a rock band called Rocketeer and
now gets his kicks editing early music;
and Benedict, who is head of Sotheby’s
Islamic & Indian Department. Talents and
professions in the rest of the choir include
a make-up artist, a chef, an artist and an
events organiser, as well as singers starting
out on their careers. ‘There are definitely
cousins I didn’t know who I got to know
through the Consort,’ says Benedict. ‘The
four of us are at the older end of it, so it’s
nice to get to know a few new cousins,
because you find a lot in common.
Everyone’s on a similar wavelength, so
conversation is fast.’ Presumably there’s a
big family tree printed out somewhere to
keep track of who’s who, I ask. ‘We’ve got a
spreadsheet somewhere, which looks a bit
confusing,’ says Benedict. ‘Someone was
going to do a tea towel.’
‘You know the story about
Lizzy in a pub in Bristol?’
Francis throws out to the
table. ‘There was a lock-in
and she was chatting to this
girl at the bar for hours. They
got on like a house on fire.
One of them said, so my whereas if there’s a has been fun because we’ve found quite a
parents live in Croscombe, concert or a recording, good modus operandi by hiring out a great
and the other said, that’s we can arrange it.’ big house. Everyone’s quite outdoorsy. In
funny, that’s where my parents grew up The Consort released their first album between recording sessions, there’s lots
as well, and it turned out to be cousin of sacred choral works, Vidi Speciosam, of cricket and tennis. In the evenings,
Rebecca.’ ‘No!’ says Mary, incredulous. in 2023. A live professional debut at the everyone gets together for these massive
‘That’s hilarious,’ says Benedict, as the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, narrated meals of 20 to 30 people, including all the
conversation ricochets around the table by actor Rory Kinnear, followed that same people on the recording, and any other
(he was right, it is fast). year. When they got the call about making family who happened to come down.’
The Bevan Family Consort started a second album, they were delighted. Not Their first album was recorded at
around 2013, when they gave a concert least because it’s a good excuse to gather Buckland House in Devon, the second at St
to help raise money for St John’s Catholic the clan. The process of recording reads Nicholas’s Church in the grounds of Upper
Church in Bath, where their uncle Rupert like something out of Brideshead Revisited, Court in Kemerton, Gloucestershire. The
is director of music. It was swiftly followed with idyllic summer days ‘playing cricket, Bevan Family Consort’s Instagram page
by a concert to help fundraise for roof boating on the lake, eating the delicious (@bevanfamilyconsort) gives a flavour
repairs for Downside School, which has food cooked by our dear uncle Rupert and of the mood: jolly, energetic, everyone
CATHERINE YEATS, MARK PICKTHALL
played an important role in the family’s then hurrying off to the adjacent church in always ready to take the mickey or
history. ‘Somebody said, “Hey, look there’s the grounds of the house to sing together,’ make a joke. Their TikTok account (@
enough of us in the generation to make our as Sophie describes it in the booklet notes. bevancousinscringefest) gives a more
own choir”,’ says Mary. ‘It’s a really good ‘We all like to do the same things, unfiltered version, with Lord of the Rings
way of spending time together, as it’s hard which is why it works so well,’ adds Mary, spoofs, dance routines and tongue-in-
to organise all of us for a drinks gathering, before Benedict chips in. ‘The recording cheek introductions to the choir.

mass – which means, as Francis explains

in the notes, that ‘two of the voice parts
sing the same music a few beats and
pitches apart’. Not much is known about
when it was written, but the Bevans are
convinced of its quality. And there are
plenty more, so watch this space for future
recordings: 104 masses are known to be
by Palestrina, of which only about 35 have
been recorded. While there’s no Christmas
theme to this particular mass, there’s
plenty of festive cheer elsewhere on the
album. The Holly and the Ivy is a favourite,
harking back to the previous generation of
Bevans who would sing it together at home,
as are Jacob Handl’s Rorate Caeli and
Weelkes’s Gloria in excelsis Deo.
‘I can’t put our sound into words, but ‘We’re not trying to be The Sixteen or
Voces8,’ says Benedict. That’s not simply
WKHbWLPEUHLVLQVWDQWO\UHFRJQLVDEOHł because the group has a mix of amateur

and professional voices, with singers in
their twenties, thirties and forties, some of
But for the music, of course, turn to the That said, it’s clear Francis is the driving whom live abroad, or because, as Sophie
albums themselves. Vidi Speciosam ranged force behind the repertoire. ‘I spend all my quips, they can’t sing without vibrato. ‘It’s
from Victoria and Tallis to Stanford and spare time digging through Renaissance a snapshot of our family,’ she explains,
Holst. When it came to the difficult second manuscripts, and I do it professionally before Mary finishes her sentence, ‘and
album, it was a question of throwing in some of the time. During lockdown my how we are in that weekend, that year.
all sorts of ideas to the mix and whittling project was to try and catalogue all of The sort of voice we’re in. Whether we
down the programme. ‘There are hugely Palestrina’s works,’ he explains. ‘I had have Harry on tenor or Ed, his brother.’
varying tastes within the consort, so assumed with a name as big as Palestrina Harry is about to start the opera course
there’s a bit of to-ing and fro-ing,’ says everything had been recorded already, but in Dusseldorf, while Edward regularly
Sophie. ‘Francis tends to be on the more he was so prolific that at least two thirds of sings with the Monteverdis and Marian
conservative side but then there are some his music is untouched. There aren’t even Consort, explains Sophie: ‘So totally
people who are really cheesy and just do modern editions you can sing from. From different sounds. The tenor sound is a core
want to do Ding Dong! Merrily on High…’ that day, I’ve been transcribing Palestrina sound to a consort.’ Is there a distinctive
Benedict agrees. ‘I hate the word accessible, every day, as there’s a lot to get through.’ Bevan family sound, I ponder. ‘I can’t put
but you don’t want to get pigeonholed The Missa sine nomine a5 is the it into words but as soon as you hear the
as too academic.’ centrepiece of the programme. It’s a canon first edit, it’s instantly recognisable,’

A convivial clan: (left) alto Tess, baritone David
and soprano Daisy are three of the 14 siblings
and cousins who have come together to form
the lively and charming Bevan Family Consort
says Francis. ‘It’s something to do with the

timbre,’ reflects Sophie. ‘The intonations,
the breathing,’ continues Benedict.
There is often, however, one interloper.
The conductor. For concerts so far, they’ve
enlisted the likes of Jeremy Summerly,
John Butt, Edmund Whitehead and even
Sophie’s husband, the conductor Ryan
Wigglesworth. For the recordings, the task
of keeping the Bevans in order has gone
to Graham Ross, whose day job is music
director of the Choir of Clare College,
Nearest and dearest Harry: After studies on the Cambridge. ‘It’s very easy with Graham.
Royal Academy of Music’s He’s so efficient and he fell in with us
The other Bevan Consort members
Opera Course, Harry very quickly,’ says Mary. They’ve found it
SOPRANOS embarked on a career as helps to have someone outside the family
Agnes: Singing in the local a tenor soloist. He recently take control. ‘When it’s in the family, we
church choir and playing the joined Glyndebourne just resort back to the way we are, which
flute in the village orchestra Festival Opera and is is talking over each other, being loud and
were how Agnes came to about to join the Opernstudio of the
raucous. When it’s somebody else, we
love music. She now works Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
in music administration behave ourselves a bit more,’ says Sophie.
and performs as a jazz singer and flautist BARITONES This current generation of Bevans
in hotels and bars in Vietnam, where Henry: An artist who lives in aren’t the first to sing together. Their
she lives with her family. Wells with his family, Henry predecessors are the Bevan Family
Daisy (above right): After being a read Religion, Philosophy Choir, which began in the 1950s with
professional chef for over a decade, and Ethics at King’s the current singers’ grandparents, Roger
Daisy took up singing in 2018 and recently College, London, where and Molly Bevan. Roger and Molly had
graduated from the Royal Northern College he was awarded a choral 14 children who grew up on Parsonage
of Music. She now has a busy concert scholarship for the university choir. ‘Since Farm in Croscombe, a village in Somerset.
and operatic career. then, he has had little time for singing
Roger was director of music at Downside
practice,’ he claims, and ‘he humbly begs
ALTOS your pardon for any and/or all errors heard
School for 40 years, while Molly taught
Lizzy: An excellent pianist during the recordings herein.’ her children the piano and to sing at home.
and graduate in French David (above middle): David has broad ‘She quickly realised they were able to
from Bristol University, Lizzy musical interests, starting his musical life sing in harmony and some had perfect
worked as a secondary as a choral singer and horn player, before pitch, and grandfather thought maybe
teacher and freelance studying music at Bristol University and they should do something with this,’
singer. She now works for a discovering a love of composition and jazz says Sophie. An appearance at the Bath
FinTech company and sings with Chantage drumming. He now works at Wells Cathedral. Festival in 1958 (‘I think they got second
as well as depping on the church circuit. prize and fought over a box of chocolates,’
Tess (above left): Tess’s first career was BASSES she says) was their debut and by the 1960s
as a private violin teacher, but she has Hugh: Hugh read music
it had become more professional, after
recently retrained as a hair and makeup at Exeter University and
artist at the Brushstroke Makeup Academy taught himself the bagpipes some of the boys had a chorister training
at Longcross Studios in film and theatre. before spending several at Westminster Cathedral School. The
She grew up singing in choirs and playing in years racing, skippering and choir toured for years, made two vinyl
orchestras and chamber ensembles. maintaining yachts, and albums, gave a concert at St John’s Smith
building a biodiesel factory. He now runs an Square and were filmed for HTV. The
TENORS events company with his wife Bella. documentary Harmony at Parsonage
Dominic: A graduate of Michael: Primarily a pianist, Farm is now on YouTube, and captures the
the Royal College of Music, Michael works as a teacher, essence of life in a large family.
Dominic works as a tenor recitalist, organist, choir The Somerset connection is still strong
soloist, following five years director and composer. He
– all four of the Bevans in front of me have
working in financial services is currently organist and
and time spent living and choirmaster of Our Lady
lived in Croscombe at some point in their
studying in Paris at the Conservatoire of Loreto & St Winefride in lives – although the farm is no longer in
Gabiel Fauré. He was a finalist at the Kew and plays viola in amateur orchestras the family. ‘If BBC Music Magazine wants
2019 Wagner Society competition in London. He also loves cricket, creative to buy it for us, we can do recordings there
at Wigmore Hall. writing and theology. all the time for you,’ says Sophie, laughing.

Get the party started:
‘Christmas was a big
thing growing up’ for
the Bevan family
Eventually, the Bevan Family Choir came of a children’s choir. ‘The Bevan Family But first, there’s the small matter
to a natural end in the 1980s. Several of the Chorus,’ suggests Sophie. ‘We have to keep of Christmas. Any Bevan traditions?
children became professional musicians it BFC: Bevan Family Choir, Consort and ‘Christmas was a big thing growing up,’
– whether that was working at the Holy Chorus.’ Francis has a specific dream for says Benedict. ‘We had huge family
Redeemer Church in Chelsea, singing with the Consort. ‘I’m 40 in 2028. Do you think Christmases at Parsonage Farm. There
the Tallis Scholas or as founder members we could get a Spem in alium off the ground was a tree buried in presents and family
of the Clerkes of Oxenford. Some of the for my birthday?’ he asks his cousins, coming through the door.’ Invariably,
original choir have been to the Consort’s referring to Tallis’s 40-part masterpiece. remembers Sophie, there’d be a sing-song,
concerts. ‘They’re really proud,’ says The replies all come at once. ‘You might and always Midnight Mass and church on
Sophie. ‘They say their parents would be get it off the ground but then…’ (Benedict); Christmas morning. ‘In our family, after
smiling down on us.’ ‘Grind to a halt … or it’s no going back. You we’ve had Christmas dinner we tend to get
JOHN MILLAR, MARK PICKTHALL
The future looks busy. A third recording have to carry on.’ (Mary); ‘It’s just going Mary on the recorder, Tess on the violin,
of music for Easter is already in the round and round, until we do the right someone at the piano,’ she adds. ‘It sounds
can. The choir has two new recruits – version. The audience can go out. They’ll annoying, but it’s lovely when we play
Francis’s younger sisters – while Mary’s say, I was there when they did from bar 33 music together.’ Safe to say, singing is at the
teenage son is keen to join, sparking talk to bar 35 completely accurately.’ (Sophie). heart of a Bevan family Christmas.

Relative values
Jeremy Pound ponders nurture, nature and ancestral trees as he
admires the collective talents of history’s most musical families
‘S
o long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, was not just fiction, either, as the Rodgers and
goodnight…’ You probably know the Hammerstein musical was based on the exploits
scene. It’s that moment in The Sound of the real-life Trapp Family Singers, who toured
of Music in which all seven von Trapp in Austria and then, after fleeing the Nazi
children – Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, regime, the US, performing everything from
Marta and Gretl – take their leave from Captain Monteverdi and Holst to folksongs and carols.
von Trapp’s grand party by performing a little As well as singing, they also played instruments
song. As their father looks on proudly in front of and even composed their own music.
his admiring guests, each child does a charming The von Trapps are among many examples
little turn before heading upstairs – and only a of significant musical talent extending to more
curmudgeon would point out that, in the 1965 than just one member of a family. Not that we
film at least, Kurt’s high F is clearly dubbed. should be surprised by this. There’s the small
Little Kurt’s vocal deficiencies evidently didn’t matter of genes, for a start. And then there’s the
trouble the critics, as the movie won five Oscars. effect of being brought up surrounded by music.
It also proved one of the most commercially Many are the young performers who tell of
successful pictures of all time, introducing having been inspired by hearing parents or elder
millions to a host of memorable songs and Sibling harmony: (top) the Trapp siblings play and wanting to have a go themselves
Family Singers with priest Franz
instantly making the von Trapps the most Wasner; (above) JC Bach wielded – being able to make music within a family group
widely known musical family in history. This greater influence than his father often cements that enthusiasm further.

Musical families
Melodic genes: (above) Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart;

(left) Jeremy Menuhin (at piano) and father Yehudi; (above
left) Mischa and Lily Maisky; (below) Michael Haydn
Accompanying Wolfgang on that trip was,

of course, his father Leopold, who recognised
his son’s genius at a very early age and was
determined to squeeze every last drop out of it.
To what extent Leopold’s devotion to showcasing
his son’s brilliance might have come at the
cost of his own output as a composer is hard to
judge – scholars seem to differ as to how good
he was – though there is little doubt he was a
phenomenally able violinist and teacher. More
frustrating is the case of Wolfgang’s older sister,
Nannerl, the other participant in the Mozart
family talent tours of Europe. Also a child
prodigy, this time on the keyboard, Nannerl saw
Having a very large family increases the her career brought quickly to an end when she
chances of producing a musical offspring, of
Perhaps the reached a marriageable age (and as such, dare
course. Captain Georg von Trapp fathered an
impressive ten children in total; a couple of
Haydn that left one suggest, was deemed less marketable as a
performer). Tantalisingly, letters from Wolfgang
centuries earlier, Johann Sebastian (JS) Bach his trace most suggest she may well have been a fine composer
managed twice that number, among whom too… but no trace of her works survive today.
were Wilhelm Friedemann (WF), Carl Philipp evidently in While Wolfgang was complimentary to his
Emanuel (CPE), Johann Christoph Friedrich
(JCF) and Johann Christian (JC), all of whom
Mozart’s music sister in his correspondence, he and Leopold
rarely had good words to say about anyone else.
enjoyed renown as composers and performers. was not Joseph, JC Bach was an exception, as was Joseph Haydn,
Remarkably, in fact, until Mendelssohn with whom the Mozarts rubbed shoulders in
championed him in the 19th century, JS was by but his younger Vienna and to whom Wolfgang paid tribute with
no means the highest regarded of the Bachs –
CPE, a brilliantly inventive keyboard composer
brother, Michael his set of six ‘Haydn’ Quartets Op. 10. Perhaps,
though, the Haydn that left his trace most
plying his trade at the court of Frederick the evidently in Mozart’s music was not Joseph, but
Great, and JC, the ‘English Bach’ whose operas his younger brother, Michael. Greatly admired as
and concert series made him the toast of London a composer by his renowned sibling, who rated
in the 1760s, both stood higher in the pecking some of his music better than his own, Michael
order. Moreover, JC had a significant impact on Haydn produced a large volume of highly
the next generation of musicians, not least the accomplished works including a Requiem that
young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who, meeting quite clearly foreshadowed Mozart’s own – both
him during a trip to London in 1764, played Leopold and Wolfgang were at the 1772 funeral at
keyboard duets with him and, deeply impressed, which it was first performed, so would have been
GETTY
returned home clutching several of his scores. familiar with it. Had the family name not

Musical families
Dad’s lads: the Lloyd Webbers
At home with music

Julian Lloyd Webber
What is it like to grow up in an
intensely musical family? ‘To
me, it just seemed normal!’
says cellist Julian Lloyd
Webber. ‘My father, William,
was still composing just
about every morning at that
time. I remember him being
buried away in this room
that had this extraordinary
contraption: a piano that was
fitted with pedals so that he
could practise the organ on
it at home! My mother taught
children the piano and then been dominated by his brother, Giovanni, while the Italian
my brother Andrew, three
might Michael Haydn be better peninsular also later gave us the
years older than me, was
always into theatre music and
known today? father-and-son duo of Alessandro
composing his own tunes. That theory could definitely be and Domenico Scarlatti.
‘Lots of music students applied to Fanny Mendelssohn, Among 20th-century composers,
came to our house and then, though in her case prejudice on we find the sisters Nadia and Lili
for a while, the pianist John account of her gender played a big part. Snottily Boulanger – the former better known today
Lill actually lived with us. He informed by her father that, for her, being a as the composing teacher par excellence, the
would be there practising all composer could only ever be ‘an ornament’ latter tragically short-lived – plus a father-and-
the time, so my knowledge while her brother Felix would be able to make daughter combo in Gustav and Imogen Holst
of the piano repertoire is not a ‘profession’ out of it, Fanny also suffered the and, more recently, Elizabeth Maconchy and
too bad! And when I was in indignity of seeing some of her songs published her daughter, Nicola LeFanu. The big screen,
my teens, another person
under his name – and, for all his expressions of meanwhile, has been regularly adorned by
who came to live with us
was Andrew’s lyricist Tim love, little brother also shied away from publicly music from an equally big Hollywood dynasty:
Rice, who tended to have supporting her talent as a composer, instead the Newmans, beginning with nine-time Oscar-
girlfriends in various states of going along with what dad wanted. Eventually, winning film composer Alfred, and continuing
dress or undress. I look back Fanny lost patience, chose to go it alone and through his younger brothers Lionel and Emil,
at that time with affection, got her songs published under her own name. sons David and Thomas, daughter Maria
as you never knew what was Being part of a musical family isn’t always an and nephew Randy. And let’s not forget stage
going to happen next. advantage, it would seem. musicals, where we find Andrew Lloyd Webber,
‘People talk about us being While the Bachs, Mozarts, Haydns and son of British composer William and brother of
a musical family, but before Mendelssohns are the obvious big-hitters among Julian, the cellist (See ‘At home with music’, left).
my grandfather, an amateur
the multi-composer families, there are several Which brings us rather neatly onto families
singer and organ fanatic,
there was no real record of
others to be found. Such as the Strausses – father of performers, though here too a composer
music. And I was definitely Johann I, plus sons Johann II, Josef and Eduard – pops up now and then. Such as among the
the first to play a stringed who supplied 19th-century Vienna with waltzes, three generations of Lasker-Wallfisches, whose
instrument. My mother tried marches and operettas galore. Or, heading back musical experiences could hardly be more
to teach me the piano, but I to the Renaissance era, there are the Venetian different. First up is Anita Lasker who, born into
never got along with it.’ Gabrielis, Andrea and his celebrated nephew a Jewish family in Breslau in 1925, would later

Beat generations: (left) conductor Erich Kleiber with son
Carlos; (far left) Konya, Isata, Sheku, Braimah and Jeneba
Kanneh-Mason; Viktoria Mullova and Misha Mullov-Abbado
on disc; (below) cellists Anita Lasker and Raphael Wallfisch
handy – as parents like to say, they can play

together nicely. Violinists Pekka and the late
Jaakko Kuusisto, for instance, enjoyed each
other’s musical company into adulthood, as do
piano duos Katia & Marielle Labèque and Güher
& Süher Pekinel. Violinist Renaud and cellist
Gautier Capuçon often share a stage too, ditto
Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff, not least as first
violinist and cellist of the Tetzlaff Quartet.
But for combined sibling harmony, can anyone
match the Kanneh-Masons, no fewer than
seven of whom got together for a recording of
Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals in 2020?
By that stage, cellist Sheku had already become
a household name, with a BBC Young Musician
win and Royal Wedding solo appearance under
his bow, and pianist Isata was making waves
too. We’ll doubtless hear a lot more of Braimah,
Konya, Aminata (violin), Mariatu (cello) and
Jeneba (piano) in years to come. Despite having
been brought up at close quarters and practising
in adjacent rooms, the family insist in interviews
that they rarely bicker. We’ll believe them.
Sadly, siblings don’t always see eye to eye, as
was the case of conductors Semyon Bychkov
and Yakov Kreizberg, who pursued their stellar
careers at some distance from each other, both
find herself transported to Auschwitz. There, it geographically and emotionally – shortly after
was her cello playing, as a valued member of the Kreizberg’s death in 2011, Bychkov described
Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, that saved her their unresolved differences as ‘a source of
from the gas chambers. After the War, Lasker sadness’. Separated from each other they may
moved to England where she became a founder have been, but the Russian brothers were not
member of the English Chamber Orchestra alone in being conductors coming from the same
and, now married to pianist Peter Wallfisch, family. Plying their trade at a similarly lofty level
had a son, Raphael. In turn, Raphael Wallfisch are the Estonian brothers Paavo and Kristjan
has gone on to enjoy a career as a cellist of Järvi, sons of the much loved Neeme, while
international acclaim, a status he shares with Alexander Shelley has, in taking up the baton,
his Baroque violinist wife Elizabeth (née Hunt). also followed in the footsteps of his pianist-
They’ve had a son, too: Benjamin, who enjoys turned-condcutor father, Howard.
a life of bright lights and big stars, as a leading And then there are the Kleibers. Today,
Hollywood TV and film composer. Carlos Kleiber is remembered as one of the most
In some instances, top performers hand over revered, if enigmatic, conductors of the 20th
their abilities to the next generation on the century, a fitting heir to Erich Kleiber, himself
same instrument. Quite often, however, their The musical once the toast of opera houses and orchestras
brood forge their own path, such as pianists Lily across Europe. However, it would seem that
Maisky and Jeremy Menuhin, the children of, experiences of Erich may not have always wanted it that way.
respectively, cellist Mischa and violinist Yehudi,
or Andrew Marriner, clarinettist offspring
three generations While Kleiber Snr avidly steered his son towards
a non-musical existence that would lead to
of Neville, the violinist and conductor. As for of the Lasker- a degree in chemistry, Carlos’s innate ability
Misha Mullov-Abbado, the double-bass-playing as a pianist, singer, timpanist and composer
son of conductor Claudio Abbado and violinist Wallfisch family inevitably shone through. His father’s reaction?
Viktoria Mullova, he didn’t just opt to play a ‘What a pity,’ wrote a disappointed Erich to a
couple of octaves lower than his mum but turned
could hardly be friend, ‘the boy is musically talented.’
his sights jazzwards too.
Having more than one supremely able singer
more different Presented by Nicky Campbell,
Radio 3’s ‘Music, My Family and Me’
GETTY
or instrumentalist among siblings can prove series airs on 7, 14, 21 & 28 December

As a performer,
you bring into your
body extravagant
emotions – hell,
heaven, the struggle
of death and love
THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW
Alexandre Kantorow
volcanic, poetic and all-embracing are
The exciting young French
pianist shares with Jessica
the sounds he draws from the instrument
Duchen the enormous thrills that Fanfare magazine has called him
of performing at the 2024 Paris ‘Liszt reincarnated’.
Olympics and winning the 2019 It’s quite an image to live up to, but
Tchaikovsky Competition Kantorow, meeting me for a mountainside
coffee the next day, simply laughs: ‘It’s
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOEL SAGET/AFP/GETTY
a good catchphrase!’ Indeed, in certain
respects Liszt is almost his role model.
I
t’s 27 July 2024 and for the second time ‘What touches me is the fact that Liszt
in 24 hours Alexandre Kantorow is had one of the most curious minds I’ve
playing Ravel’s Jeux d’eau – but now ever heard of. He would change his ideas,
without actual water. The night before, a he would try to find better technique, he
global TV audience of tens of millions had would work on pianos, he could already
watched him perform the piece at the Paris imagine impressionism, atonality and
Olympics’ opening ceremony, battered by tone poems for orchestra, and he would
near-apocalyptic rain. In the morning, he take music everywhere in Europe. This is
navigated the flooding to reach the Verbier the part of him that I hope I will have in
Festival in the Swiss Alps, where his recital my life so that it’s always constant food for
is leaving his audience in ecstasies. The the soul and for music.’
Ravel is the obvious encore. Kantorow’s Verbier recital extended
The young lion of the piano, now 27, from Bach to Bartók, but his audience can’t
winner of the Gold Medal, First Prize and help thinking of him as a Romantic. Is he
the rarely awarded Grand Prix at the 2019 one? ‘I don’t know,’ he muses, ‘but I love
International Tchaikovsky Competition, the feeling of having no plan when you
tends to wander on to the platform looking start the performance. Even arriving with
as if he has tumbled out of a catnap, something that I’ve built in the rehearsals,
hair aslant, clothes crumpled. Yet so many elements are instinctive. You’ve

Alexandre Kantorow

‘Your hands won’t fail you’: (right) Kantorow
believes in being instinctive in concerts; (opposite)
performing during the 30th annual Victoires de la
Musique Classique ceremony in Dijon, 2023
prepared and your hands won’t fail you.

But the moment you start thinking too
consciously in a concert, then you take
shortcuts, and you can almost destroy
a certain natural circuit of music. That
can become challenging because you
Here comes the rain again: feel you are battling, or thinking twice
Kantorow at the Olympics;
(below) a Gendarmerie officer about things that are so natural. More
rides a metal horse along the and more, I think this instinctive part of
Seine at the opening ceremony a concert is important.
‘There’s certainly a Romantic element
Going for gold in the fact that, maybe as in theatre, you
take on emotions that you don’t experience
The Olympic pianist in normal life. You suddenly bring into
‘Performing in the Paris Olympics your body matters as extravagant as hell,
opening ceremony was an incredible heaven, the struggle of death and love, the
feeling,’ says Kantorow. ‘It was like immanence of things – all these feelings and had a big performing career,’ he
being in a big theatrical play that we that through music are much easier to remembers. ‘I loved working with him.
created together. At certain times every grasp than with words. They come into He didn’t treat the piano as an instrument,
act in the ceremony was separate – a
play at the moment of a concert and then but as an orchestra.’
big group here, or one person there
– but we also felt part of a bigger
go away when you come back to real life. He also loved Parisian life, having
narrative. It’s a very liberating feeling Maybe that’s the Romantic part.’ grown up in the countryside near
when it’s no longer you on your own, Kantorow grew up in a family of Clermont-Ferrand. ‘This was the first
and you just get immersed. musicians. His English mother is a time I’d lived in Paris. Compared to other
‘I felt nervous for the whole violinist, and his father is the celebrated students who had lived there longer,
afternoon. We had to be there very French violinist and conductor Jean- knew everybody and had a global view of
early and there was an extremely long Jacques Kantorow. ‘They treated music music, my view was very narrow. So, this
wait in the dressing room. But then, as such a normal part of life that it never was a time of expansion for me, a time
when we saw the ceremony begin on struck me that it was unusual to have two for learning everything.’
TV and understood what it was trying musical parents, to hear classical music all An epiphany arrived when he heard
to achieve, it felt very exciting. And the
the time and to hear my dad performing, Lucas Debargue play in the 2015
fact that it was pouring with rain – it
was as if the elements were on fire! giving recitals and always practising,’ Tchaikovsky Competition; the French
So, when I climbed on to the bridge on Kantorow recounts. ‘I was in a normal pianist won fourth prize and the special
my own to play, surrounded by all of school where I was nearly the only one prize of the Moscow Music Critics’
this, it was really touching. Again, it’s doing classical music. My parents were Association. ‘Everybody saw how special
no longer just you with your hands; you more focused on how I did my homework.’ he was. He had started in music quite late,
become part of something much larger, Unsurprisingly, he tried to learn the stopped, then went back to it much later,
amid the beauty of Paris, and you can violin. ‘It didn’t suit me at all! But I started so he had much less experience than the
only do what you know. piano very young, and it felt much more other competitors. But he had a voice, a
‘We had to stay in the rain for about natural. I loved the feeling of deciphering soul and a presence. I was curious about
ten minutes before the performance
a score and finding it immediately on the teacher who brought him to that and
and another ten afterwards to make
sure the camera had moved on to
the keys of the piano.’ After his teacher I called her.’ She is Rena Shereshevskaya,
another bridge. The rain certainly Igor Lazko asked him, aged 11, if he a distinguished pedagogue who had
left an image that stays with you. But was planning to get serious about the studied with Lev Vlassenko at the Moscow
I never imagined I would be part of instrument, Kantorow replied that he was, Conservatory and settled in Paris in 1993.
anything as powerful as that moment.’ ‘though I’m not sure I even knew at the Under her tutelage, Kantorow began to
time,’ he reflects. After that, he attended contemplate entering the Tchaikovsky
a music high school, surrounded by other Competition himself. ‘I had not done a
musical youngsters, and there played his major competition before,’ he says, ‘and I
first concerto. It showed him something thought it would be like playing a concert…
of what life would be like as a musician. My teacher knew better!’ Shereshevskaya
‘Then it clicked and I couldn’t go back.’ led him through an intense period of
At the Paris Conservatoire he studied preparation that involved, he says, delving
with Frank Braley, a former winner of the into the repertoire in enormous detail, and
Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. giving as many try-out performances of
‘He was in his first year of teaching there it as he possibly could. It was just as well:

Alexandre Kantorow
‘The first round was one of the most nerve- different programme. The sonatas are
wracking things I’ve ever done.’
Through the contest, he and his fellow
‘I thought a major youthful pieces, written when Brahms
was at his most experimental.
competitors scarcely looked up from their competition would ‘No. 1 is the closest to Schubert’s music
task. ‘We were in a bubble, just practising and I think it has many connections
near the Conservatory, cut off from the be like a concert... My with the “Wanderer” Fantasy. It is based
rest of the world.’ When he heard he had on a similar rhythm; its heart is the slow
won, he could scarcely believe it: ‘I think I teacher knew better!’ movement, which like the Schubert
blocked everything out!’ Only three artists unfolds as variations on a song; and the
had previously been awarded the Grand that Kantorow had ‘burst into the piano other movements use the same material.
Prix: the pianist Daniil Trifonov and the galaxy like a comet’. It seemed natural to put these two works
singers Ariunbaatar Ganbaatar and Hibla The Covid pandemic interfered, of together.’ Alongside them, Kantorow
Gerzmava. Kantorow is also the first course, but Kantorow treated it as ‘a time plays transcriptions of songs that reflect
French musician to win this competition. to reflect and to prepare a bit better for Schubert’s Wanderer, ‘who feels he is a
A roller-coaster existence ensued: he the future’. That was fortunate, because stranger wherever he goes and is never at
was immediately whisked off for a prize now the future is here and keeping home, never at peace’.
winners’ concert tour without going home. him extremely busy. Last year he won, I can’t help wondering if this ‘fire-
‘At first, I think I was still high on the unexpectedly, the Gilmore Artist Award, breathing virtuoso’, as one review termed
concerts and I didn’t have time to process for which winners are chosen in secret; it is him, has strategies for survival in a life that
it. A month later, when I had time off, I was worth a cool $300,000. His recordings (he also does not bring much peaceful time
able to think about what had happened now has an exclusive contract with BIS) at home. ‘When you feel the stress, the
– and there was an immense joy that my have been lauded to the skies and a new more you try to make it go away, the less
playing had touched people and that so one is just out: Brahms Sonata No. 1, Op. 1, effective it is!’ Kantorow says, laughing.
many possibilities were opening up. At the and Schubert’s ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, plus ‘But sometimes, if you feel a bit down
same time, there was a tremendous weight six Liszt transcriptions of Schubert songs. and a bit tired, you just go on stage with
of responsibility. I had to prove they had It is part of an inspiring series: ‘I wanted this feeling. You don’t try and change it.
made the right choice.’ The critics were in to finish my set of the three Brahms And suddenly the music will carry you
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little doubt, though: Diapason commented sonatas, each of which came with a and open you up.’

Ashutosh Khandekar heads back to a particularly bleak
midwinter in the early 20th century, as he traces the
chilly history of one of today’s most beloved carols
In the Bleak Midwinter
Snow had fallen:

a frozen landscape,
as depicted in In the
Bleak Midwinter by
Christina Rossetti (far
right), and set to music
by Gustav Holst (right)
D
ecember 1906 was one of the hardest and poet Gabriel Dante Rossetti, a central
on record. Fierce blizzards swept figure in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Her
Scotland, more than a foot of snow younger brother Michael was a leading critic,
was reported in Norfolk and most of editor and biographer, while older sister Maria
Britain lay under a deep blanket of white. When, was a respected scholar and writer (and latterly
on Christmas Eve, churches across the country a nun) whose works included A Shadow of Dante,
were filled with the sound of a newly published a well-received guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy
carol by the 30-year-old Gustav Holst, the for English speakers, published in 1871 – around
words of its opening verse must have resonated the time that Christina would have been mulling
with congregations, many of whom had braved In the Bleak Midwinter. The youngest of the four
treacherous conditions to get there: ‘In the bleak children, Christina was a poet-prodigy who
midwinter/Frosty wind made moan/Earth stood wrote her first rhyming couplet when she was
hard as iron/Water like a stone…’ just five years old. In family correspondence, she
was variously described as ‘bright and lively’,
Churches across the ‘curious… sharp, whimsical’ but also ‘fractious
and miserable’, often gripped by religious mania.
FRXQWU\ZHUHğOOHG Gabriele Rossetti, the father, was an exiled
Italian poet and academic, obsessed with
with the sound of a new esoteric thinking and the works of Dante
Alighieri, whose verses he quoted liberally while
carol by Gustav Holst striding around the family home in London’s
Fitzrovia. Gabriele dubbed his children ‘two
Holst had been commissioned to write three storms’ and ‘two calms’ – it’s easy to guess which
carols by his friend and mentor Ralph Vaugh category Christina belonged to. Christina’s
Williams, co-editor of the English Hymnal, mother, Frances Polidori, was a devout High
published in October 1906 by Oxford University Anglican who home schooled her children
Press on behalf of the Church of England. In and took special care of Christina and Maria’s
the Bleak Midwinter was the first of Holst’s religious upbringing.
contributions to the new volume, a setting of a The influence on Christina of both parents,
poem by Christina Rossetti which first appeared and especially of her sister Maria and her
as A Christmas Carol in the January 1872 edition Dantean leanings, is evident in In the Bleak
of Scribner’s Monthly, a respected and influential Midwinter. Dante’s Divine Comedy takes the
American literary periodical. The poem seems soul on a journey into the frozen wastes of the
simple, verging on banality in its rhyming Ninth Circle of Hell, finally emerging into the
schemes (…snow on snow/ …long ago). But delve light and warmth of Paradise, a realm of Divine
a little deeper, and the cultural influences and salvation beyond the confines of Heaven and
philosophical ideas are far reaching. Earth. The parallels in Rossetti’s poem are
The extraordinary Rossetti family was clear as she moves us from a world of wintery
something of a cause célèbre in the cultural desolation into a transcendental dimension
life of Victorian England. Most prominent and where ‘Heaven and Earth shall flee away’ and
GETTY
controversial was Christina’s brother, the painter God’s grace holds sway.

One-hit wonder?: Harold Darke
A spotlight on Darke
Harold’s other music
The figures don’t lie. While
commercial recordings of
Harold Darke’s In the Bleak
Midwinter go way past the
100 mark, his other works
all fail to muster more than
single figures.
Have a hunt around,
however, and you’ll find a
few gems. Start, perhaps, This is not the most obvious poem to set as by angels and beasts looking on adoringly, would
with O gladsome light for a congregational hymn. The meter is highly have struck a chord with Dearmer’s belief in
unaccompanied choir (1929). irregular, with the syllabic stresses falling in sensuality and beauty as inspirational forces in
This short but lovely anthem different places in each verse. Unwitting singers religious faith, embodied in the figure of Mary.
traces a similar journey to find themselves stumbling over lines such as Vaughan Williams, meanwhile, was concerned
Parry’s better known My ‘Our God, Heaven cannot hold him’ and ‘But with the musical quality of the new collection,
soul, there is a country
what I can, I give him…’, causing awkward and its appeal to a broad church of English
in moving from a hushed
opening to blazing conclusion.
blushes all round. So why did Holst choose speakers. Holst was a perfect choice.
An alumnus of the Royal Rossetti’s strange, rather obscure verse to set Holst’s tune, dubbed ‘Cranham’ after the
College of Music, Darke was as a carol to include in the English Hymnal of Gloucestershire village where the composer
presumably familiar with 1906? One reason must have been the religious spent much of his younger years, has often been
the renowned teacher’s leanings of its editors. Vaughan Williams’s criticised as being a dirge which ultimately fails
work, and in 1918 was one co-editor was Percy Dearmer, a controversial to reflect the epic Dantean journey on which
of 12 composers invited and charismatic High Anglican clergyman who Rossetti’s poem takes us. It’s true that the melody,
to contribute a movement wanted to challenge the hegemony of Hymns closely contained within the space of an octave,
to A Little Organ Book in Ancient and Modern, the standard Church of hardly captures the metaphysical expansiveness
Memory of Hubert Parry. That English hymnal dating from 1861 and published of a poem that juxtaposes the tender sincerity
movement is included on
in an unsatisfactory and much criticised revised of the love of Mother and Child with the
organist Jonathan Rennert’s
1991 The Organ Works of Dr edition in 1904. (The volley of complaints cosmic grandeur of God’s love in the vastness
Harold Darke, a rare instance included popular outrage over the decision to of creation. However, the understatement and
of the composer enjoying a change ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’ to Wesley’s sincerity of Holst’s setting chimes with Rossetti’s
whole album to himself. original text of ‘Hark, how all the welkin rings!’.) ultimate message that no amount of opulence
Heading back to the choral Dearmer insisted that the English Hymnal and pomp (so characteristic of the Edwardian
world, meanwhile, try his Te reflected the role of the saints, the angels and era) is worth the love contained within the hearts
Deum and Jubilate in F major the Sacrament and the importance of the Virgin of the simplest and poorest souls.
and his two settings of the Mary in the catholic traditions of the English Whatever its shortcomings, Cranham proved
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis church. All this would have drawn him to the to be a popular tune, and one which must have
– one, unaccompanied, in
High Anglican sensibilities and creative output come to the attention of an aspiring young
an austere A minor; and the
other, more upbeat and with
of the Rossetti family. In the Bleak Midwinter composer and organist called Harold Darke.
organ, in F major. Or, away had recently appeared in the first volume of Also in 1906, the 18-year-old Darke took up
from the church and into the Christina Rossetti’s complete collected poetry, the post of organist at Emmanuel Church in
concert hall, there’s Darke’s posthumously published in 1904 – the central the London suburb of West Hampstead, a great
passionate Sonata for Violin image of the Virgin in a humble stable with the Gothic Revival edifice with Anglo-Catholic
GETTY
and Piano Op. 2. child Christ suckling at her breast, worshipped traditions at the heart of its worship. At the time,

In the Bleak Midwinter
I would do my part: (right) Britten also set the words of
In the Bleak Midwinter, as did Bob Chilcott (below right);
(below) Percy Dearmer, co-editor of the English Hymnal;
(left) the house in Cranham where Holst wrote his version
he was a lodger at the Hampstead home of a There are plenty of other settings of Rossetti’s
family called Calkin, and it was there that the poem. Among the choral versions is Variation 5
budding composer presented his hosts with a of Britten’s A Boy Was Born (1934), which
rather special Christmas present: an autograph features a graphic account of a bleak, frozen
score of his own setting of In the Bleak Midwinter. landscape – you can hear the frosty wind
Dated 9 December 1909, the score bears the moaning in the opening dissonances and as
dedication ‘To MAC’ – Margaret Agnes Calkin. layers of voices overlap in a doleful refrain
Darke’s setting, published in 1911, owes much of ‘snow on snow’. At the opposite end of the
to Holst. After an unassuming but instantly spectrum is Bob Chilcott’s 1994 Mid-winter,
recognisable two-bar introduction on the organ, banishing the very idea of ‘bleak’ with its catchy
the meter and melodic contours of the solo melody, lush harmonies and dramatic key
soprano line of the opening verse echo the rise changes: pure Disney. Richard Allain’s 2012
and fall of Cranham. Thereafter, Darke breaks version is a beautifully textured, harmonically
free, imbuing Rossetti’s text with more nuance complex response to the imagery, while Joanna
and dynamic range than Holst, reflecting that Forbes L’Estrange turned to Rossetti’s poem in
this is an anthem for church choir rather than 2022, producing a haunting, painterly setting for
a congregational hymn. Darke was coy about upper voices and harp.
the more sensual elements in Rossetti’s poem, At the opposite Among all of these, the popularity of Darke’s
perhaps in consideration of his dedicatee’s setting endures. It continues to be performed all
sensibilities: in her 40s, it’s likely that Margaret end of the around the world in a variety of arrangements,
Calkin held traditional Victorian views on including for upper voices, for tenors and basses,
matters moral. So, he omits verse four which puts
spectrum is Bob and accompanied by strings in a version by John
the spotlight on a virginal mother’s intimacy Chilcott’s 1994 Rutter. In its original form, the carol continues to
with her baby son, sealed with a kiss. He also play a central role in the Festival of Nine Lessons
bowdlerised the phrase ‘A breast full of milk’ Mid-winter, and Carols from King’s College Cambridge,
to ‘A heart full of mirth’, utterly unsuited to the where Darke himself was organist during the
personal spirit of Rossetti’s poem. Later editions banishing the Second World War.
of Darke’s carol re-instated the original text.
The Calkins, celebrating their Edwardian
very idea of By the time of his death in 1976, Darke had
begun to voice his frustration that his most
Christmas, could hardly have known that, a ‘bleak’ with its famous work, lasting barely five minutes, had
century later, Darke’s setting of In the Bleak completely eclipsed a lifetime of achievement
Midwinter would be voted ‘The greatest carol catchy melody, as prolific composer of high-quality choral
of all time’ in a 2008 BBC Music Magazine poll lush harmonies music. Few share in his ambivalence. In the Bleak
GETTY, ALAMY, PETER PORCINÉ
involving 51 leading directors of music from Midwinter continues, year after year, to provide
Britain and the US. At the time, the magazine and dramatic a moment of humanity in a brutal world, and
posed the question, ‘Does any other song get to a message of hope that the simple virtues of
the very heart of Christmas as understatedly but key changes humility and sincerity will prevail. Christmas
effectively as In the Bleak Midwinter?’ wouldn’t be Christmas without it.

Nine Lessons and Truro
From grave to the cradle:

a 19th-century drawing of Truro
with the doomed St Mary’s in
the centre; (below) the Prince
of Wales lays the Corner Stone
of Truro Cathedral, 1890
TheğUVWlesson [between carols]’ was the understated way in

which a local newspaper heralded the birth
of a Christmas institution.
What may nonetheless surprise many is that
King’s was remarkably tardy in taking its cue
Although the Festival of Nine Lessons and from Truro, for all that the college’s dean, Eric
Milner-White, imaginatively refashioned the
Carols is today synonymous with King’s Cornish template. Parish churches, especially,
had long been inspired by the Truro precedent.
College Cambridge, the format originated For example, at Christmas 1897, Holy Trinity
Church in Maidstone staged ‘the festival service,
in Cornwall, as Andrew Green explains consisting of nine lessons with carols, according
to the use of Truro Cathedral’. In December
1909, St George’s Cunningham Park, Harrow,
A
nyone even half-interested in the put on the ‘festal service of the nine lessons
origins of the world-famous King’s and carols’. And so on.
College Cambridge Festival of Nine The Nine Lessons with Carols enjoyed no
Lessons and Carols is aware that the grand debut on that midwinter Truro evening in
format was borrowed, for Christmas 1918 and 1880. The venue was a £448 wooden structure,
thereafter, from a Truro Cathedral original. barn-like, holding no more than around 400
That ground-breaking occasion in Cornwall people. This was Truro’s new ‘pro-cathedral’,
took place at 10pm on Christmas Eve 1880, the a temporary place of worship being used
shape of the ‘Nine Lessons with Carols’ having while the neo-Gothic cathedral we see today
been masterminded by Truro’s bishop-cum- was being built. After a gap of more than 800
dean, Edward Benson. ‘Appropriate lessons years, Cornwall was once more blessed with a
GETTY
from the Scriptures were read in the intervals bishopric. However, the historic parish church of

Nine lessons masterminds:
Truro Cathedral bishop
Edward Benson; (left)
Somerset Walpole was
responsible for the choir
St Mary wasn’t deemed adequate to serve as the bishop. Once received into holy orders, Walpole
cathedral of the new diocese of Truro, formally was appointed the cathedral’s ‘vicar-choral’,
constituted in December 1876, with Edward with overall responsibility for the choir and
Benson as its first bishop from the following music. WJ Margetson’s 1930 memoir of Benson
year. St Mary’s was duly all but demolished by relates that ‘Walpole felt something was needed
the end of 1880 – save for the south aisle, which on Christmas Eve, both as a counter attraction
would be incorporated into the new building to the public houses and as a right prelude to
and named ‘St Mary’s Aisle’. Christmas. He suggested to Bishop Benson
A grainy, blurred 1880 newspaper photo of the holding of a Carol Service, and the bishop
the bare interior of the ‘Temporary Wooden drew up the present service, compiled largely
Church of St Mary’ conveys the impression from medieval service books.’ Margetson seems
of a large, rough-and-ready barn/village hall to elide the initial 1878 carol service and the
with a simple pitched roof, the space poorly 1880 Nine Lessons with Carols, but Walpole’s
illuminated by natural light. Once the new pivotal role is clear enough.
Truro Cathedral was habitable, the stop-gap Walpole had a passion for music and
structure had been moved to nearby Redruth music-making. On his arrival in Truro, he
in the 1890s, purchased by a footwear company
Singing joyously was soon banging heads together to bring
which promptly changed its trading name to the The 1880 Truro service about the formation of a Truro Philharmonic
reflected the ever-growing
Cathedral Boot Works. The building later served Society, which he helped run. He was a
popularity of carol singing
as the showroom and store for a brush-making at Christmas around Britain.
decent enough tenor to be able to tackle solos
business, before it burnt down in 1981. It is believed that the four in, for example, the society’s performance
In its brief reign as a cathedral, the old carols which featured at of Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. Walpole gave
St Mary’s church in Truro hosted Christmas Truro tapped into the first lectures to Truro audiences on Haydn and
Eve singing of carols in 1878 and ’79. This and second of the three Beethoven, organised a local music festival
was hardly an original notion – carol services series of Christmas Carols and conducted a performance of John Farmer’s
happened everywhere – but an innovation here. New and Old (above), brand-new oratorio Christ and His Soldiers in
Previously the cathedral choir had simply sung compiled by Henry Bramley the doomed St Mary’s.
door-to-door around Truro. At both the 1878 and John Stainer. By this So, in 1878 Walpole put the idea of a carol
and ’79 occasions the choir was conducted by time, carol anthologies service to Edward Benson, whose liturgical
– edited by the likes of
one GHS Walpole, an individual who deserves magic was duly sprinkled on the 1880 event.
William Sandys and Edward
no little credit for the birth of the Nine Lessons Rimbault – were becoming The bishop was an energetic, innovatory
with Carols – someone who was probably common, but the Bramley perfectionist. Born in Birmingham, he
considerably more musical than Benson. & Stainer collections were transcended a humble family background to
Somerset Walpole arrived in Truro in 1877 the first aimed especially demonstrate academic brilliance at Cambridge
in his early 20s, ready to be ordained by the at church choirs. and then make his mark as headmaster of

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Relics of the past:

the original St Mary’s
organ, built in 1750;
(left) the original pulpit
Wellington College. ‘As a former public school Methodist church services for the structure
headmaster, he rather expected deference at of his Nine Lessons with Carols, consciously
Truro,’ says Canon David Miller, an authority reaching out to the community around him.
on Benson’s episcopate in Cornwall. ‘Maybe A hymn sandwich would run something like
some found him dictatorial. However, he hymn-introduction-hymn-prayer-hymn-
was a born leader, with great organisational reading-hymn-sermon-hymn, and so on.
talents and an ability to relate to people of all You can see that it’s a model.’
classes and churchmanship.’ As soon as 1883, The impetus for Benson to create something
Benson’s qualities would see him translated distinctive in 1880 may have been his desire to
to Archbishop of Canterbury. help the grieving congregation of St Mary’s move
The bishop’s son, AC Benson (famously
the writer of the ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ This was a smart piece A theatrical event
text to Elgar’s music), wrote of how his father Bishop Benson conceived
‘arranged from ancient sources a little service
for Christmas Eve – nine carols and nine tiny
of packaging – an the 1880 Nine Lessons
with Carols in quasi-
lessons’. What exactly the ‘ancient’ or ‘medieval’
sources were is unclear, although Stephen
instant brand that theatrical terms. For
example, the congregation
Cleobury, the late director of music at King’s
College Cambridge, suggested the inspiration
caught the imagination was to stand at given
moments and kneel for the
final verse of the carol Once
might have been ‘the monastic office of Matins on from the lightning-quick demolition of their again, O blessed time, given
with its three groups of three lessons each historic church that autumn. What then set its reference to ‘On our
followed by a responsory’. apart his version of the common-or-garden carol knees confessing’. Benson’s
Maybe this was the case, but there very likely service? The first thing to say is that framing notes, written on the order
was another fascinating factor in the shaping things as ‘Nine Lessons with Carols’ was a smart of service, suggest he
of the service. As the bishop presiding over a piece of packaging. At a stroke, a brand was may have instructed the
predominantly rural county, Benson would created which caught the imagination. Inside the three choristers singing
the Messiah recitatives
have endorsed the Victorian Anglican church’s packaging was Benson’s forensically assembled
prefacing ‘Glory to God in
concern for the needs of country areas suffering sequence of intertwined words and music, setting the Highest’ to turn and
impoverishment as urbanisation advanced the Nativity firmly in the context of Biblical face East – towards the
inexorably. ‘Benson was also conscious that prophecy and God’s redemptive purposes for Holy Land. The nine readers
Methodism had deep roots in rural Cornwall,’ mankind. The nine lessons (five from the Old were instructed to do
observes David Miller. ‘So, it seems he borrowed Testament, four from the New) were read by nine likewise while Benedictions
GETTY
the time-honoured “hymn sandwich” from members of the Truro cathedral community, were given before lessons.

A continuing tradition:
Truro Cathedral’s boy and
girl choristers today; (below)
present music director
James Anderson-Besant
a pattern that was essentially adopted at King’s in ‘canonical stalls’ and Bishop’s throne, both
Cambridge, although Dean Milner-White opted placed in a designated chancel ‘within the
for a greater emphasis on conveying the Nativity altar rails’. In a corner was the old St Mary’s
narrative than Benson. organ. Built around 1750, it had just undergone
Was the appropriately knowledgeable renovation by local firm Brewer & Co but was
Somerset Walpole consulted over the selection apparently still feeling its age. Certainly at the
of music? More than likely. After all, at that 1880 console for the Christmas Eve service was the
Christmas Eve ‘festal service’ he conducted the St Mary’s organist, William Mitchell, soon to be
cathedral choir, which was very much centre superseded by the first official Truro Cathedral
stage. It delivered three choruses from Messiah, organist, teenager George Robertson Sinclair.
four carols (including The Lord at first had Adam Just a few of the sounds from the organ
made and Good Christian men, rejoice) and a heard on that historic 1880 occasion can still
magnificat. The congregation was allowed only be enjoyed today. The instrument now sits in
to join in the choruses of two carols and the the cathedral’s St Mary’s Aisle. ‘Not much of
singing of the hymns O come, all ye faithful and the original 1750 organ survives,’ explains the
Bethlehem, of noblest cities.
We can imagine the scents and sounds in the
‘Not much of present Truro Cathedral director of music, James
Anderson-Besant, ‘but the core of the instrument
air on this celebrated Truro occasion. There the original remains, and there are definitely stops and
was surely the aroma of the wood from which therefore sounds which can take us right back
the building had just been constructed. A organ survives, to that occasion in 1880.’
local newspaper reported that the smell of the Anderson-Besant is looking forward to
paint used for the interior decoration ‘makes
but there are finding innovative ways of marking the 150th
the atmosphere rather unpleasant’. Did the
midwinter cold in this Cornish ‘barn’ evoke
definitely stops anniversary of the famous Christmas Eve
service, in 2030. One gratifying element will be
thoughts of a Bethlehem stable? and therefore the inclusion of Truro Cathedral’s celebrated
As to the look of the wooden cathedral, the girl choristers. ‘Our boy and girl choristers sing
same newspaper report informs us that various sounds that take at separate Nine Lessons and Carols services
items of furniture including benches and the
pulpit (which survives) had been transferred
us back to that each year, with separate repertoire, but they’re
connected in both celebrating the living tradition
1880 occasion’
GETTY
across from ‘the old church’; likewise the of what happened here in 1880.’

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Emanuel Melchior grew up in an environment characterised by music.
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Today Emanuel Melchior is happy about the basic education he received
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surrounded Emanuel from a young age and left a lasting impression.
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concentrate on what was essential: the music itself.
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his heart. When he made the decision to record this
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Past and present:

today; (below left) MTT
as a young man in 1965
A wonderful life
As conductor Michael Tilson Thomas marks his
80th birthday, he speaks to Michael White about
continuing to make music while living with cancer
S
ome musicians seem incapable of
ageing; and until quite recently a prime
example was that most articulate,
engaging and all-round alive of
conductors Michael Tilson Thomas.
Decades passed and, with them, orchestras:
the London Symphony, which he directed in the
1980s/90s; then the San Francisco Symphony,
which he ran from the mid-90s through to 2020.
Eras changed. But MTT, as people call him,
somehow didn’t. He held onto a mercurially
boyish grace and elegance – until, in 2022, news
broke that he’d contracted a particularly cruel
and aggressive kind of brain cancer.
Since then, the music world has watched and
waited; and for MTT himself it’s been, to say the
least, an anxious time. But this December brings
his 80th birthday. He’s still here, still working, ‘That aside, my situation gives me a certain
though to a restricted schedule. He has concerts focus. When I’m asked to do things, I want
– handpicked for what he calls a ‘gentler, quieter to know how much actual music-making is
calendar’ – booked through to next spring. involved rather than organisation or promotion.
And from the emotionally charged Mahler 2 he I want everything to be musical.’
conducted at London’s Barbican a few weeks ago And occupying much of the focus right now
– pushing aside the chair that had been placed is his own music which, although it’s generally
on the podium, and standing for the entire 90 been in the shadows of his life as a conductor,
minutes – he can still deliver. Fragile but defiant. has accumulated over 40-or-more years into a
When I ask about his health he says, after serious if slowly emerging output: many of the
a pause, ‘There are a lot of different opinions scores are still works in progress. That the music
about that. I have energy, optimism, perspective. isn’t widely known hasn’t discouraged him.
It’s only when well-meaning people are so ‘When Mahler wanted to be buried out in
concerned about my welfare that I can’t operate a suburban cemetery rather than the central
BRIGITTE LACOMBE, GETTY
in the way I’m used to. It’s frustrating when I Viennese one, and people asked why, he said:
want to rehearse for a number of hours, and they “Those who love me will know where to find
say: “Oh, that might be too strenuous.” I say: “Let me, for anyone else it doesn’t matter.” In my
me do my work. If it’s too much, I will tell you.” case, many of these pieces are quite personal,

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Man of the people: (right) MTT with soprano Hildegard
Behrens and director Francesca Zambello during a
Houston Grand Opera Fidelio rehearsal, 1985; (below left)
chatting to the audience in San Francisco, 2019; (below
right) conducting the LA Phil at Hollywood Bowl, 2013
soliloquies for playing in a dark chamber at

night, and usually written for a particular
performer. But some people are quite devoted to
them, and when they tell me so, I’m pleased.’
And finding Tilson Thomas the composer has
just become considerably easier with the release
of four albums on the Pentatone label, stylishly
put together with a book of photos from his life
and looking very much like a legacy statement.
It’s collectively called Grace, after one of his song
settings, first written as a birthday tribute to one
of his chief mentors, Leonard Bernstein. And
with a self-deprecating lightness that masks the
importance to him of this project, he talks about
it as ‘an opportunity I felt the need to take before
I’m out of here. After experiences where I’ve had
to question my mortality more seriously than
before, there are some messages to the world I’d
like to get right. It’s a step in that direction.’
That the messages are often autobiographical
is no accident. And looking through the photos
in the Grace release, you get a sense of a charmed
life well lived from the start – born 1944 into an
intellectually curious, Jewish-theatre dynasty on
the American west coast, and growing up among
the European emigrés (Stravinsky, Schoenberg,
Korngold…) who had turned postwar Los
Angeles into a starry cultural melting-pot.
Prodigious talent catapulted MTT into exalted
circles. By his early 20s he was conducting
the Boston Symphony Orchestra, initially as flow of new work under heavy public scrutiny
an assistant to the BSO’s formidable music and the risk of being eaten alive by seasoned
director William Steinberg, but then thrust into players, he gives a cautious reply: ‘I was more
prominence when Steinberg was taken ill and confident in some repertory than others, but
Tilson Thomas found himself in charge of the that’s how you learn. And I wasn’t eaten alive.
remaining season: 37 concerts in succession. Sometimes, if you’re having a difficult time, you
As baptisms of fire go, it was extreme. And realise it’s not you people are having difficulty
from the photographic evidence, he looks so very with: something about the situation raises other
young and wide-eyed to be dealing with it. What, issues they have. You have to get past that.
I wondered, does he see now when he looks back ‘I had a nice experience recently with the New
at these pictures from the past? York Philharmonic, an orchestra I worked with
‘I see a young man completely filled with love a lot in my early twenties, and I said to them: “It’s
and energy for music and the people who make Grace is an such a joy to come back to you after a long time
it,’ he says. ‘And I very much connect with him – because, back then, there was so much I wanted
as I do with people who have that spirit whatever opportunity I to share with you but didn’t know enough to
their age. Over the years I respect more and more
the veteran musicians who’ve been around a long
IHOWbWKHQHHGWR make things as clear and graspable as I wished.
Now I think I can be much more helpful.”
time, frustrated or disappointed by what they’ve
experienced on the conveyor belt of concert
take before I’m ‘They replied: “We always knew you had the
vision, but you were searching. Now you know
giving but, in spite of everything, holding onto out of here how, let’s get it done.” And we did. That a fair
their first inspiration. It may not be up front and number of my colleagues are still pleased I’ve
centre all the time, but it’s tucked away and can turned up and can break into that certain space
be accessed. That’s important.’ of making music always makes me proud.’
Pressed about the Herculean challenge of Relationship with players has been one
GETTY
those Boston times, trying to master a relentless of MTT’s great gifts. He makes a point

Love and respect:

Tilson Thomas with the
LA Philharmonic at the
Walt Disney Concert
Hall, March 2024
Lifetime’s work: MTT’s anthology
In good grace
A composing collection
Not quite a boxed set, more
a book of memories with four
CDs inserted in the back,
Grace is a project designed to
showcase the compositions
MTT has written throughout of knowing everybody’s name. He doesn’t ‘Opera takes a lot of time,’ he says. ‘And I’ve
his life: some of them public grandstand. And his people skills developed sometimes been in the middle of rehearsing a big
and glitzy like The Diary of through the 1970s when he took what seemed opera production and had to say: “Can someone
Anne Frank, a melodrama like a step back from the whirlwinds of Boston tell me who’s in charge here?” There’s a bunch of
for narrator and orchestra and New York to become music director of people walking around and I’m wondering what
which premiered in 1970 with the not so front-line Buffalo Philharmonic we’re meant to be accomplishing: is it musical,
Audrey Hepburn. But more Orchestra. It gave him time and space to dramatic, some intricacy of lighting? Sometimes
of them intimate, personal, work out how to build trust, with the affably people can’t tell you. They don’t know. And
freighted with autobiography. relaxed and non-tyrannical didacticism though I try to retain a sense of humour about
Largely vocal, their sound
that is arguably his trademark. it – because I’ve always been able to retreat into
world tends to be lyrical, on
the cusp of Broadway but
that grateful and bemused place – it’s not easy.’
with a sometimes spikily Although MTT likes Easier by far is staying where he feels on surer
ground: orchestral repertoire. He’s always had
Mahlerian rigour that holds
back from easy listening.
There are settings of Walt
to work with singers, a wider range than he gets credit for, but with
a special focus on the broadly modern – from
Whitman featuring Thomas
Hampson; of Emily Dickinson,
he’s impatient with Debussy, Berg and Mahler to Adams, Ives and
(naturally) Bernstein. Of them all, his Mahler
handsomely sung by Renée
Fleming; and of Rilke that
the process of opera stands out. And there was peculiar poignancy
about his choice of Mahler 2, the ‘Resurrection’
come with unexpectedly He likes telling stories – in performance, Symphony, for his perhaps farewell appearance
up-tempo freshness.
in rehearsal. And some inner-educator in his with the LSO the other month: a piece that stares
But maybe the most
effective are cabaret-like psyche lies behind his founding of what’s now death in the face and looks beyond it.
songs to MTT’s own words, become a model for all training orchestras, the MTT is not especially religious, but he tells me
including the exquisitely New World Symphony. Like so much about he believes in God – a belief that has ‘probably’
Sondheimesque Not everyone MTT and how he operates, it has a laid-back, intensified of late – and that his illness prompts a
thinks I’m beautiful (sung by semi-showbiz glamour – based in a Frank Gehry combination of rage and acceptance: ‘From time
Sasha Cooke with Jean-Yves building by the seafront on Miami Beach. But to time it’s one or the other. Like Walt Whitman
Thibaudet), and Sentimental at the same time it’s serious, substantial. His said, I’m both in and out of the game.’
Again (Audra McDonald with involvement lasted 34 years, 1987 until 2022. Meanwhile, and more practically, ‘there are a
the SF Symphony), featuring And it’s perhaps the project that defines his life few big pieces I want to get finished before it’s too
the telling line ‘Don’t go
– more even than the LSO and San Francisco late. Pieces I’ve been thinking about for a long
thinking life is a one-way door’.
For MTT it’s been anything
connections, which are also beyond significant. time. One is called For the Fallen: a collection of
but. And this release, from Surprisingly, given a family background in orchestral portraits of people who have passed
Pentatone, gives chapter the theatre, one core area of music that he hasn’t but who I remember with gratitude for what they
and verse – on heartfelt, had significant connections with is opera. And brought to me and to others. I’m hoping next year
often beautiful, sometimes although he clearly likes to work with singers, it will be done: that’s something to aim for. And I
GETTY
confronting terms. he’s impatient with the process. can tell you, it will be memorable.’

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Wendy Carlos
Synthetic sounds:
Wendy Carlos at the
controls in 1972; (below)
a poster for Kubrick’s A
Clockwork Orange, to
which Carlos contributed
an eerie soundtrack
In 1968, Wendy Carlos’s Switched-On Bach became

an instant best-seller. As the experimental composer
turns 85, Nick Shave looks back at her life and career
W
hen in 1968 Columbia Records Purcell and Beethoven for Stanley Kubrick’s A
launched Switched-On Bach, a Clockwork Orange, and revamped the Dies Irae of
collection of works by JS Bach Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique for the director’s
reimagined on the modular adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel The
Moog synthesiser, little did they know it would Shining. Her collaboration with Annemarie
become one of the biggest selling classical Franklin produced the soundtrack for the cult
albums of all time. Anticipating poor sales, 1980s sci-fi film Tron, with its otherworldly mix
the studio executives offered its composer of orchestra and synths. With Robert Moog
Wendy Carlos a small advance and a high supplying her with the latest updates, Carlos put
royalty deal, and bundled her album up with his synthesiser at the forefront of developments
two others: Terry Riley’s In C, which would in new music – she released her ambient double
become a landmark work in the minimalist album Sonic Seasonings long before Brian Eno
canon, and Rock and Other Four Letter Words, came on the scene with 1978’s Music for Airports.
a psychedelic mix of Moog synthesiser, free But as she turns 85 this month, the composer,
jazz and sound collage that Robert Moog, who has lived much of her life in New York,
who attended the launch party, described as remains as elusive as ever; she hasn’t released
‘abysmal’. Riley was at the launch too, dressed in any new work or given any interviews since the
white robes and improvising on a Farfisa late ’90s. In 2009, she took her music off the
organ. Apparently taking umbrage at market; a firm advocate of analogue over digital,
being thrown into the marketing mix, and the owner of her entire music catalogue,
Carlos left early, leaving it to Moog to she has not made any of her works available on
demonstrate the commercial potential of downloading or streaming platforms.
his modular synthesiser on the night. None of this comes as a surprise when you
Even before you hear her music, the consider the single-mindedness with which
story behind Carlos’s debut album Carlos has developed her musical talent over
speaks volumes about its composer. the years, and the control she exerts not just
At the same time as bringing about a over, but within each of her works. Originally
revolution in synthesiser technology, from Rhode Island, she grew up in a musical
Carlos would steer clear of the limelight, family that was as cash-strapped as it was
working with just a clutch of close resourceful. At six, she began learning the piano,
collaborators from her studio at home practising between lessons on the keyboard her
in New York. With her producer and father had drawn her on a piece of paper. She
friend Rachel Elkind she created the taught herself music theory from library books,
chilling synthesiser renderings of learning about harmony, counterpoint and

Wendy Carlos
Xxxx xxxxxx xx xx xxx:

the original organ xxx
xx xxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx
xxx xxx; (left) the
original pulpit xxxx xx
xxxxx xxx xxxx xxxx xx
Performing pioneers: (above) Pierre Henry leads an

experience of musique concrète, 1955; (right) Carlos in
1979; (below) Switched-On Bach’s album cover
temperament. Not just musically gifted, she was

also scientifically brilliant – when she was 14, she
won a prize for inventing a computer; she also
built the home hi-fi system from scratch, using
bits of wood and a soldering iron. Inquisitive and
precocious, she was soon exploring the same
avant-garde ideas that were occupying the great
minds in the musical capitals of Darmstadt,
Paris and New York. She loved the music of
Pierre Henry – and after hearing his 1958 Orphée
Ballet, an early experiment in musique concrète, Gotham Recording Studios and creating sound
she set about manipulating everyday sounds on effects and jingles for television advertisements,
the tape machine she’d built for her home studio. Carlos had saved up enough money to buy
For Carlos, technical discoveries and musical one of Moog’s first 900-series modules. Moog
invention went hand in hand. At Brown delivered it to her apartment by hand. Over the
University, in Providence, she combined her months and years that followed, he would tailor
studies of physics with music before heading the modules to Carlos’s specification, meeting
to New York to study for a master’s in musical her need for greater nuance and expressivity.
composition at Columbia University, where As one of his most demanding and discerning
Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening had customers, she made a number of improvements,
co-founded the Computer Music Center, the first including a slide that controlled portamento and
research centre of its kind in America. Here she a polyphonic generator bank that could create
had access to brilliant minds and to the latest When the chords and arpeggios – Moog also built her a
electronic equipment, working on its flagship
RCA Mark II synthesiser with composer Milton
limitations of touch-sensitive keyboard, long before weighted
keys were commercially available.
Babbitt. Carlos could have easily embraced the Moog’s early When the technical limitations of Moog’s
ivory towerism that Babbitt became known for early synthesiser are taken into account, you
with his 1958 article entitled, ‘Who Cares if You synthesiser begin to see why Switched-On Bach is a work of
Listen?’ But a chance encounter with Robert vision and graft. To showcase the capabilities of
Moog at an engineering conference in New
are taken into the modular synthesiser, she chose repertoire
York in 1964 set her career on a different path. ‘I account, you that varied in size and complexity but whose
accidentally woke him up,’ she later recalled. ‘He form was crystal clear, from the simple two-
was taking a much needed nap on a banquette.’ begin to see why part inventions in F, B-flat and D minor, to the
Looking back, you can almost feel the much larger Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G.
intensity with which these two inquisitive minds Switched-On To hear the surprising array of sounds on this
clicked: Carlos, the music graduate who could
talk science, just starting out in Manhattan;
Bach is a work of album, you wouldn’t think that the synthesiser
could only produce one note at a time. Assisted
Moog, the creative engineer, able to develop the vision and graft by friend and musicologist Benjamin Folkman,
tools with which she could pursue her music Carlos built each note from scratch: first she
GETTY
career. After working as a sound engineer at determined its parameters – its pitch, colour,

Wendy Carlos
Enduring influence: (right) Carlos’s
Clockwork Orange soundtrack and
Sonic Seasonings; Milton Babbitt,
circa 1965, with a synthesiser; (below)
producer, composer and DJ Aphex Twin
duration and attack – before

placing it in a sequence to form
a melody. This was then layered
and synchronised to create the
counterpoint and harmony in
Bach’s work. The result – futuristic
yet neoclassical, human yet weirdly
mechanical, at times jaunty yet
eerily sinister – was not to everybody’s taste.
At the keys: Robert Moog, 1970 But while traditionalists shunned its kitschiness,
Feat of engineering there were classical purists who welcomed
Switched-On Bach, too. At a time when he was
Robert Moog’s synthesiser embracing studio performance, the reclusive include Monteverdi, Scarlatti and Handel on her
It took a bright young physics pianist Glenn Gould called it ‘the record of follow-up album, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer,
engineering student with a the decade’ and ‘one of the greatest feats ever she was ideally placed to capture the pitch-black
passion for building theremins achieved in a keyboard performance’. humour at the heart of A Clockwork Orange.
to come up with the idea for Carlos has said that she considered herself to Carlos and Elkind had already been developing
a new kind of synthesiser.
be the arranger, as opposed to the composer, of a synthesiser rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth
Unlike the RCA Mark II, which
was programmed using these works. But there are more personal reasons Symphony and Carlos was exploring parallels
punch cards, Robert Moog’s for her decision not to steal the limelight. In between her work Timesteps and the dystopian
early ’60s synthesiser could atmosphere of Anthony Burgess’s novel, when
be played in real time using
a keyboard; it used voltage
Her music offered the she heard that Kubrick was adapting it for the
screen. Her music – in particular her take on
to control the pitch of its
oscillator, the sound generator
perfect analogy for A Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary,
first heard during the opening credits – offered
that creates raw waveforms,
from the smooth whistle-like
Clockwork Orange’s the perfect analogy for Burgess’s brutal world in
which technology could transform humanity.
sine wave to the soft steam-
like sound of white noise.
brutal, chilling world In true Kubrick style, the director, who had
unceremoniously deleted Alex North’s score
These synths had no
presets – ‘no magic button her 2020 biography of Wendy Carlos, Amanda from 2001: A Space Odyssey, cut much of Carlos’s
marked trumpet, or violin Sewell explores the relationship between the score from his final edit. Her score for The
or drums’, as Carlos once composer’s gender identity and her music, Shining was even more savagely axed. But in her
explained. Instead, you could arguing that ‘Carlos’s gender identity has shaped subsequent release of the complete soundtracks,
shape the different tones via many aspects of her life, her career, how she they speak for themselves. Heard in its entirety,
a potentially infinite array of relates to the public, and how the public has Timesteps is a work of sheer brilliance: a vast
modules – amplifiers, filters, received her music.’ At the time of Switched-On ambient landscape that moves seamlessly
envelope generators, noise Bach’s release, Carlos had yet to speak openly between episodes of movement and repose, with
generators, ring modulators, about her transitioning as a woman. The name primitive rhythms, snippets of Beethovenian
triggers and mixers. These
on the album’s cover was Walter Carlos, the one counterpoint and Ligeti-like atmospheres.
were linked by cables and
played using keyboards, she went by at the time, but it was released on Like the nature-inspired soundscape of Sonic
joysticks or ribbon controllers. her Trans-Electronic Music Productions label. Seasonings, it offers a sense of total escape.
Unwieldy and expensive, Unprepared for its commercial success – and Whether in these early original works, or in
the modules were designed perhaps wanting her work to be the focus of the many reimaginings of classical repertoire
to specification for high-end attention, rather than her gender identity – the that she would return to over the years –
customers and mostly owned composer opted for solitude. from 1973’s Switched-On Bach II to 1992’s
by academic institutions Has Carlos’s retreat to the studio in any Switched-on Bach 2000 – Carlos revels in
or record labels. It wasn’t way held her back as a composer? She the beauty of sound itself. It’s one reason her
until the 70s that Moog once said she had ‘lost an entire decade’ music continues to influence what we hear
developed a more portable
by avoiding live appearances and public today, from Michael Stein and Kyle Dixon’s
and affordable version –
the Minimoog was the first
interactions with other musicians. And soundtrack for the hit Netflix TV
synthesiser available in yet, in those early years of her career series Stranger Things to the self-built
shops – and the sound of his she seemed to align herself with sounds of producer and DJ Aphex
analogue synths was filtering similarly brilliant and reclusive Twin. While Carlos might choose
into all genres of music, from thinkers. Having expanded the to say nothing, then, her music
GETTY
funk to disco, rock to pop. Moog’s range of repertoire to continues to speak to us all.

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MUSICAL DESTINATIONS
Oxford UK
The famous university city is home to an astonishing range of music,
from choral delights to orchestral concerts, explains Adrian Mourby
Choral splendour:
the Choir of Magdalen College
sing at Christmas; (below) Oxford
graduate Ian Bostridge; (above
right) Oxford Philharmonic
conductor Marios Papadopoulos;
the Sheldonian Theatre
I
t may not be able to boast the jewel In fact, in common with many other next generation of undergraduates as a
in the choral crown that is the Nine colleges, St John’s has long had a musical post-doctoral fellow. In 1995, he decided
Lessons and Carols from King’s reach that goes well beyond its that it was time for history itself to be
College Cambridge, but Oxford, the ‘City of chapel choir. It was, for instance, consigned to the past, as he took up a
Dreaming Spires’, is nonetheless also a city while studying at the college as an career as a professional tenor.
of teeming choirs. For several centuries undergratuate in the 1970s that Another famous musician to study
now, the three ‘choral foundation’ colleges Peter Phillips founded the now- history at Oxford – albeit briefly
of New College, Magdalen and Christ famous Tallis Scholars. The – was Andrew Lloyd Webber,
Church (home of the city’s cathedral) have following decade saw a young Ian while further alumni with
resounded to the voices of boys and men. Bostridge earn a first in history a musical bent include the
And today, top-quality mixed-voice choirs at St John’s, later returning to likes of conductor Thomas
at colleges such as Merton, Queen’s and the university – this time at Beecham, composer Lennox
St John’s are also part of the mix. Corpus Christi – to teach the Berkeley and comedian

MUSICAL DESTINATIONS
Some degree: Shostakovich in Oxford, 1958
Composers in red robes

Honorary doctorates
Oxford University has a long tradition
of inviting major composers to collect
an honorary doctorate and reciprocate
Dudley Moore, who was an organ scholar suffer a fatal heart attack down the road at
with a free concert. In 1733, Handel
at Magdalen in his undergraduate days. Exeter College, to a soundtrack of Fauré’s refused the doctorate but came to
Prime minister Edward Heath was also Requiem in The Remorseful Day. Oxford anyway, gave some concerts
an organ scholar, at Balliol College, and he But back to the real world, and you’ll and returned a wealthy man.
and fellow PM Margaret Thatcher both want to take a walk down the High Street In 1791 Haydn accepted a doctorate
sang as undergraduates in the Oxford Bach and over Magdalen Bridge, where you’ll and conducted the Minuet from his
Choir, which still goes strong today. find, in the riverside grounds of St Hilda’s Symphony No. 47. Confusingly, his
Head to Oxford on any day during the College, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Symphony No. 92, composed in 1789,
three university terms, and you’ll have the Building. Opened in 1995 in honour of became known as ‘The Oxford’.
chance to hear a superbly sung Evensong the Oxford-born cellist and blessed with And in 1914, Richard Strauss was
photographed in New College cloisters
at many of the colleges. And in fact, away a superb sound, the 168-seat ‘JdP’ is the
having just received an honorary
from the university, the rest of the city is doctorate. Since then, Shostakovich,
also uncommonly busy with music.
On Broad Street, for example, stands the Head to Oxford in Kodály, Britten, Tippett and Arvo Pärt
have all put on the famous red robes.
Sheldonian Theatre, built in 1664-1669 by
Christopher Wren. An ornate D-shaped
term, and you can
structure used for university ceremonies, it
also stages concerts, including those given
hear Evensong at modern are within the scope of Schola
by the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra,
an ensemble conducted by Marios
many of the colleges Cantorum of Oxford, one of the longest
established and most widely known
Papadopoulos and regularly joined by star proud home of, among other things, the chamber choirs in the UK. Founded in
soloists of the calibre of violinist Maxim Oxford Piano Festival, a fixture in the last 1960 as Collegium Musicum Oxoniense,
Vengerov and pianist Martha Argerich. week of July every year since 1998. the 30-strong ensemble has worked with
Admittedly, the building’s acoustics were From here, it’s another short-ish walk, famous musicians including Michael
never intended for a modern symphony this time down Iffley Road to the Church Tippett and Yehudi Menuhin.
orchestra, but the Baroque surroundings of St John the Evangelist. There’s more And bringing us right up to date, in 2025
make up for any aural shortcomings. first-rate keyboard tickling here, in the music-making in Oxford is set to take a
Much better acoustics are to be found form of the ten-year-old International big step forward with the opening of the
just a few short paces away in the Holywell Piano Series, as well as larger-scale fare Schwarzman Centre for Humanities in the
Music Room, completed in 1748 and said from the Orchestra of St John’s. new Radcliffe Observatory Quarter. This
to be the oldest purpose-built music room But how about a little more singing? imposing structure will house university
in Europe. Today it hosts chamber concerts Oxford Pro Musica Singers have been programmes in several subjects, and will
including 70 events for the annual Oxford around from the 1970s and have won also contain a 500-seat concert hall and
HUGH WARWICK, CHRIS GLOAG, GETTY
International Song Festival each October. particular praise for their performances two smaller performance venues.
In Colin Dexter’s Twilight of the Gods, it’s of jazz and 20th-century composers. There is rarely an evening in the year
shortly after giving a masterclass here that With their focus on a much earlier era, when music is not being performed in
the opera singer Gwladys Probert is shot meanwhile, are Contrapunctus, a vocal Oxford – and the city centre is awash with
dead, a murder investigated by Inspector ensemble dedicated to music of the 16th fly-posters advertising what can be heard
Morse. And Morse himself would later and 17th centuries. And both early and tonight… every night.

Composer of the month
Composer of the Week
is broadcast on Radio 3
at 4pm, Monday to
Friday. Programmes in December are:
Leroy Anderson
2-6 Dec Luise Adolpha Le Beau
9-13 Dec A Latin American Christmas
16-20 Dec JS Bach Geoff Brown hears sleigh bells jingling and
23-27 Dec A Latvian Choral Christmas
30 Dec – 3 Jan Schubert typewriters pinging as he celebrates the unique
talents of America’s master of light music
ILLUSTRATION: MATT HERRING
I
n the blazing hot July of 1946, Captain miniatures written by Anderson, a tall,
Leroy Anderson, late of Military blue-eyed American of Scandinavian
Anderson’s style Intelligence at the Pentagon, was stock, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Structurally conservative Very stripped to the waist, digging a trench at who carved a niche all his own with what
inventive phrase by phrase, Anderson his Connecticut cottage, trying to locate he termed ‘concert music with a pop
wasn’t a structural experimenter. some disused pipes. A jog-trot rhythm flavour’. He brought to the task the crisp
Thematic material proceeds in simple entered his head, suitable for horses’ craftsmanship expected of a composer
chunks, with the ABA pattern the most
hooves and sleigh bells. Once back inside, who had studied at Harvard, the local
common and ABAB the runner-up. This
might be a hangover from his classical he sketched out some ideas, subsequently university, in the late 1920s. His main
Harvard education, but it’s also the developed and polished over the course teacher was Walter Piston, recently
result of a simple desire for immediate of a year. The end product was Sleigh Ride, returned from his own palette-cleansing
communication with a wide audience. an orchestral piece lasting under three studies in Paris. But Anderson also had a
A popular touch Popular taste also minutes, premiered by Arthur Fiedler and feeling for the melodies and rhythms of
governs the genres deployed by the Boston Pops Orchestra in May 1948. American popular songs, Broadway shows
Anderson: waltzes, marches, a tango This winter bonbon had no specific and jazz. Throughout his career he worked
or two, some sentimental reveries. Christmas associations, but they gathered to marry popular and classical styles
Older dance forms like the sarabande
also appear. Most of the pieces
usually occupy around three minutes –
perfect for fitting onto one side of the
A jog-trot rhythm entered Anderson’s head,
mid-20th century’s shellac discs. suitable for horses’ hooves and sleigh bells
Lively instrumentation Anderson
initially found fame as an orchestral around it anyway as the piece speedily with skill and wit, crafting buoyantly
arranger, and his preference for bright,
grew in popularity. The fame of Sleigh optimistic musical jewels that surprise,
kaleidoscopic textures is equally
clear in his original compositions. Ride was further boosted after its first delight and quickly lodge in the listener’s
Illustrative effects (a speciality) are recording in 1949 and the emergence memory. The musical lexicographer
usually supplied by conventional in 1950 of a vocal version, with lyrics Nicolas Slonimsky considered him ‘one of
orchestral instruments. Notable by Mitchell Parish that equally didn’t the most completely inventive composers
exceptions include the typewriter in specify Christmas. By 2004, research who ever lived’.
The Typewriter and the three varieties had unearthed 214 Sleigh Ride recordings, He was also one of the most self-critical.
of sandpaper scraped during The a number that can only have ballooned Chicken Reel of 1946 may have been
Sandpaper Ballet. since. And such a variety of performers! completed in sketch form while waiting
A sense of fun This is everywhere in What other piece has been recorded in its for the furniture movers, but other pieces,
Anderson, sometimes beginning with time by the New York Philharmonic, the like Sleigh Ride, took months, sometimes
the work’s title, as in Plink, Plank, Spice Girls, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, years, to find their proper shape. Other
Plunk! (below) or Mother’s Whistler. Luciano Pavarotti, Liberace, the cathedral pieces were simply withdrawn by the
Themes are varied with stylistic
choirs of Lincoln and Chichester, Ella composer, notably the 19-minute Piano
interruptions
that take the
Fitzgerald, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Concerto of 1953, his sole exploitation of a
listener by Judy Garland, the Nashville Mandolin traditional classical format. But even when
surprise, while Ensemble, the Squirrel Nut Zippers and his ambitions were smaller, Anderson
a special joke is the Tennessee Tech Trombone Choir? maintained strict quality control, ensuring
often employed The best known of all his compositions, a core output of orchestral sparklers
GETTY
in the final bars, Sleigh Ride was one of almost 60 orchestral unmatched in their verve and wit.
COMPOSER OF THE MONTH

Let there be light music: (left) Arthur Fiedler
and the Boston Pops gave Leroy Anderson his
big break; (below) Anderson himself; (right) Ella
Fitzgerald, one of many to record Sleigh Ride
modern age. The typewriter might have

made its musical debut in 1917 in Satie’s
score for the ballet Parade, but Satie’s
typing pales beside the rhythmic flourish
of Anderson’s The Typewriter (1950),
complete with the ting of the bell that
warns the typist that the paper carriage
can go no further and needs to be pushed
back. The Classical Jukebox, from the
same year, earns its name not just from its
swing-era snippets of Wagner, Delibes and
Liszt, but also from the musical imitations
of a 78rpm record plopping onto the
turntable, the disc swiftly spinning up to
speed, and the needle getting
stuck in a groove.
Anderson also showed a
fondness for Latin-American
rhythms and dances. The
major showcase was Blue
Anderson’s interest in popular music Tango, which proved such an
didn’t always go down well with his unexpected hit that in 1952
Harvard superiors. Edward Burlingame it sat at the top of America’s
Hill, the music department’s chairman, Hit Parade for 15 weeks – a
thought he had less than a ‘proper attitude’ position never before reached
towards his studies, a view partly governed by any instrumental item. The
by the time Anderson spent conducting Girl in Satin, another tango,
the Harvard University Band. Turned glided across the imagination’s
down twice for a travelling fellowship, dance floor with a persistently rattling
Anderson enrolled in 1932 in a Harvard castanet. In both cases, however, the tango
PhD programme, studying Scandinavian ‘All a composer can was safely sedate and the temperature
languages, not music. Two years later, his
thesis unfinished, he finally left academia,
do is to write what he mild: Anderson, after all, hailed from
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and this was
playing in dance bands and finding
regular work as a freelance arranger.
feels and do it as best Eisenhower-era America. The traditional
genres of marches and waltzes weren’t
The big step forward came in 1936, when
he became associated with the Boston
he can,’ said Anderson ignored, though Anderson couldn’t resist
giving them a humorous tweak. While
Pops (offshoot of the Boston Symphony enlisting in 1942, Anderson’s gift for Belle of the Ball spent its entire time
Orchestra). He was asked to arrange a languages led him to Military Intelligence waltzing, The Waltzing Cat found plenty of
selection of student songs for a Harvard- and a stint in Iceland as translator and room for ‘miaow’ effects (slithering violins)
themed Pops concert. The success of interpreter. But in 1945, he was back in the and, at the end, musicians imitating
Harvard Fantasy spurred Arthur Fiedler, music business, writing, among others, yelping dogs. Note, too, a late frivolity from
the Pops’ feisty conductor, to ask for more. The Syncopated Clock, in which steady tick- 1970, March of the Two Left Feet.
Taking his time, in 1938 he offered an tock rhythms receive a syncopated kick A journalist interviewing Anderson in
original piece, Jazz Pizzicato, blessed with from the percussion section’s wood block. May 1953 asked if he wasn’t ‘a frustrated
a lazily skipping tune and plenty of charm. The next ten years found Anderson at his longhair who happened to hit the popular
With this and its successor, Jazz Legato, his peak, crafting his most popular pieces jackpot’. Anderson blinked his blue eyes
career finally took off. Many miniatures and reaching new levels of popularity, in surprise and replied: ‘All a composer
and orchestral arrangements followed in considerably helped in 1950 by a Decca can do is to write what he feels and do it as
a lengthy Pops partnership that gave him recording contract as composer/conductor best as he can. Whether it’s popular is up
precious access to top-level orchestral that allowed his music (always timed to to the public.’ Since he was months away
players, undaunted by the instrumental comfortably occupy one side of a shellac from the premiere of his longhair-fringed
acrobatics demanded in pieces like the disc) to reach living rooms worldwide. Piano Concerto, a mixture of diluted
trumpeters’ favourite, Bugler’s Holiday. One winning characteristic of this Rachmaninov, would-be Gershwin and
The Second World War inevitably new wave of miniatures was his music’s rather too little genuine Anderson, this
GETTY
brought disruption and challenges. After comic engagement with phenomena of the was a shade disingenuous. He also talked

COMPOSER OF THE MONTH
ANDERSON Life&Times
1908
LIFE: Leroy Anderson is born to Swedish
parents on 29 June in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. His mother Anna, a
church organist, teaches him the piano
in this period about possibly writing a from a young age.
ballet, a Broadway show, and a film score: TIMES: The first Ford Model T cars roll off
all signs of a successful composer of short the production line at the Ford Piquette
pieces itching to be stretched. Avenue Plant in Detroit. The price of the
Brought back into circulation in 1989 Runabout version is initially set at $825.
by Anderson’s widow, the concerto has
proved an uneven bundle, at its best when
the slow movement’s wistful melody
is suddenly given a Latin-American 1925
LIFE: He enters
shot in the arm. That’s certainly the
authentic Anderson. And for all its faults, Harvard University
where, studying
the concerto has led a happier afterlife
under composers
than his Broadway score for Goldilocks Walter Piston and
(1958), a musical set in the silent movie- George Enescu,
making scene of the 1910s. By Anderson’s he graduates in music before going
standards, one would have to rate his on to pursue a PhD in German and
contributions as pleasant-minus, though Scandinavian languages.
the greater problem with the show seems to TIMES: Husband-and-wife journalists
have been characters and a storyline that Harold Ross and Jane Grant found
didn’t encourage emotional involvement. the New Yorker weekly magazine,
The failure of both concerto and musical
seemed to give Anderson some pause,
which is aimed at a cosmopolitan and
sophisticated readership. 1936
LIFE: He is asked by the manager of the
and when he returned to generating
miniatures in 1962 they either looked back
fondly to past hits (Clarinet Candy, the
1945
LIFE: While working as chief of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra to arrange
Harvard songs for the Boston Pops
Orchestra, leading to a meeting with
clarinet equivalent of Bugler’s Holiday) or its conductor,
Scandinavian desk of military
took on a more abstract hue, occasionally intelligence at the Pentagon, he Arthur Fiedler.
with fetching results (the mildly Bachian composes The Syncopated Clock, TIMES: In the US
Arietta). None of the later works, however, later adopted as the theme tune for presidential election,
proved as popular as their predecessors. The Late Show. Franklin D Roosevelt
Still, Anderson’s legacy remains strong. TIMES: On the battleship USS is re-elected to a
For anyone who grew up in the 1950s, his Missouri, the surrender of Japan second term in a
music, always on the radio, was part of is accepted by supreme allied landside victory
childhood’s soundtrack. And its appeal commander General Douglas over Alf Landon, the
remains, even in an age when some of MacArthur, officially bringing World Republican governor
his imitations (typewriters, gramophone War II to an end. of Kansas.
needles getting stuck) need the equivalent
of footnotes. For better or worse, few pay
much attention now to the cut-and-dried
1975
LIFE: He dies, aged 66, of cancer in
1958
LIFE: Setting words by Jean and Walter
music of his teacher Walter Piston, still
Woodbury, Connecticut, where he is Kerr and starring Elaine Stritch as
less to the bookish creations of Edward also buried. He is survived by his wife Maggie, his musical Goldilocks opens on
Burlingame Hill. But Anderson’s music, Eleanor, to whom he has been Broadway, where it runs for
with its ebullience, humour and ingenuity, married since 1942. 161 performances.
keeps marching on in new and reissued TIMES: After two commercial TIMES: At the 30th Academy
recordings. And every Christmas brings disappointments, Bruce Awards, The Bridge on
Sleigh Ride jangling and clopping again, Springsteen’s third album, the River Kwai wins seven
lifting the spirits almost 80 years after Born To Run, proves a major Oscars, including those of
this winter landscape was first conceived, hit on its release and is widely Best Motion Picture and Best
without any thought of Christmas at all. praised by the critics. Director for David Lean.

Building a library
Richard Strauss
An Alpine Symphony
Malcolm Hayes ropes up and looks forward to the climb ahead as he
chooses the best recordings of Strauss’s mountainous orchestral work
The work
As one of the great composer-conductors only after finishing Der Rosenkavalier in
of his time, Strauss would surely have been 1910 that his thoughts turned seriously
untroubled by the persistent criticism towards An Alpine Symphony.
that An Alpine Symphony was an exercise Besides the armchair-mountaineering
in armchair mountaineering and little jibe being only partly true, it also misses
more. There is indeed a spectacular view the work’s broader point. The idea of a
across to the Bavarian Alps from Strauss’s 50-minute, single-movement portrayal
house in Garmisch – a situation that of the ascent of a mountain summit, the
did not distract him from composing a rapturous view from there and a storm-
huge amount of music in his more than battered descent was a natural vehicle
40 years there, including 12 of his 15 for Strauss’s descriptive musical powers.
operas – but the work also had a much Also, on a deeper level, he conceived
earlier inspiration, when the Munich- An Alpine Symphony as an image of an
born, teenage Strauss had climbed a local individual human being’s progress from
mountain with some friends. birth to death, spurred on by resourceful
The composer
Strauss conceived An Alpine Symphony as
Controversial it may have been, but an image of the progress from birth to death
Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera Salome
proved both successful and extremely On the way down they were caught in self-reliance and, by extension, personal
lucrative – as the composer later one of those ferocious alpine storms that growth through creative work. This
noted in his diary, the royalties from it can seemingly blow up out of nowhere and thinking related to the philosophical ideas
enabled him to build his lavish villa in just as quickly pass by. They dried off in a of Friedrich Nietzsche, much admired by
Garmisch less than three years later. hill farmer’s hut, and the next day Strauss Strauss and many others of his generation.
At the time of composing An Alpine found himself improvising on the piano His Also sprach Zarathustra was a musical
Symphony in 1911, the precociously at home his impressions of the expedition. paraphrase of Nietzsche’s work of that
gifted son of a Munich Court We have no way of knowing whether any name; and the book’s example also lies
Orchestra principal horn player had of those musical ideas ended up in An behind Ein Heldenleben, which charts a
already climbed high enough to be
Alpine Symphony. But the memory of the man’s inner development from youthful
able to stop and admire the view, but
in fact was not yet at the halfway point experience evidently did. aspiration and embattled creative success
in a very eventful career that would He started work on his An Alpine towards serene old age. The birth-to-death
continue right until the final months Symphony in 1911, and completed it sequence of An Alpine Symphony takes this
before his death, aged 85, in 1949. four years later. It turned out to be the idea an impressive stage further.
last of his great sequence of symphonic The orchestral forces required are
poems which had taken wing with a first among the largest ever assembled by
Building a Library
masterpiece, Don Juan, and eventually led Strauss – four of each woodwind family,
is broadcast on Radio 3
at 3.30pm each Saturday to Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Heldenleben eight horns with four of those doubling
as part of Record Review. A highlights and Symphonia Domestica. Operas then Wagner tubas, four each of trumpets and
podcast is available on BBC Sounds. became his central concern; and it was trombones, two bass tubas, two harps,

BUILDING A LIBRARY
Peaks of achievement:
Richard Strauss at his
Garmisch home later in life;
(below) Garmisch at the time
of An Alpine Symphony’s
composition; (right) Friedrich
Nietzsche by Edvard Munch;
(below right) a Samuels’s
aerophone in operation
an organ, a percussion section including Staatskapelle Dresden (at that time

cowbells and thunder and wind machines, called the Hofkapelle), Strauss remarked
and ‘at least’ 60 strings. Strauss also of An Alpine Symphony: ‘In this work
asks for an extra brass group of 12 horns I have finally learned to orchestrate.’
and pairs of trumpets and trombones, Each passing scene is depicted with
positioned offstage to suggest hunting such vividness and mastery that further
horns (and marked as such in the score). listening signposts are hardly needed,
There is also an intriguing instruction perhaps with one exception.
to sustain the score’s sometimes very long With the summit reached, a predictable
notes for woodwind and brass by using full-orchestral climax seems about
‘Samuels’s aerophone’. This did actually to break out – and instead, the music
exist: in 1912 a Dutch flautist, Bernard suddenly reduces to a quietly shimmering
Samuels, had invented a machine which chord on the violins, while a solo oboe
pumped air by a pedal mechanism On Flowery Meadows, On Alpine Pastures picks out an exquisite, hesitant melody,
through a narrow tube at the side of the (cue cowbells), Lost in the Undergrowth, as if tracing the outline of a neighbouring
player’s mouth. The development of On the Glacier, Dangerous Moments, and mountain ridge that the climbers see
circular breathing technique among wind The Summit; then – after this midway before them. The melody is repeated in the
players soon ensured that the aerophone point – Vision, The Mist Rises, The Sun same mood of wonderment – and then,
didn’t catch on very much, or for very long. Gradually Dims, Elegy, Calm before the sure enough, the brass section heralds the
An Alpine Symphony’s design and Storm, Thunderstorm, Descent, Sunset, grandest of perorations that follows.
trajectory are traced by the headings that Ausklang (a beautiful and untranslatable
Strauss inserted in the score. These are: word, suggesting the fading sounds and Turn the page to discover our
Night, Sunrise, The Ascent, Entering the colours of daytime) and, again, Night. recommended recordings of
Forest, Wandering by the Brook, By the At the final rehearsal before the Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony
GETTY
Waterfall, Apparition (seen in the spray), premiere in Berlin in 1915 by the

Symphonic splendour:
Seiji Ozawa coaxes some
spectacular moments
from his Vienna players
Three other
great recordings
Rudolf Kempe
(conductor)
Strauss dedicated
An Alpine Symphony
to the Staatskapelle
Dresden, which had
also played in the premieres of four of
his earlier operas. The fabled ‘Dresden
sound’ in subsequent decades resisted
the tendency elsewhere for orchestras to
get louder; instead, this 1971 recording
radiates understated class. Kempe’s
approach generates a sense of space
and adventure, with no shortage of
momentum; ‘On the Glacier’ builds to an
exciting climax. And the calm loveliness
of the woodwind playing in ‘Ausklang’ is
special. (Warner Classics 9029541143)
Marek Janowski
(conductor)
While this music is
natural territory for
Austrian and German
orchestras, the
mastery of their Pittsburgh Symphony
The best
colleagues in this 2009 recording is just
g An enthralling Alpine experience as impressive; exceptional precision
recordin in the quiet opening brass chorale is
matched by super-virtuoso ease in ‘By
the Waterfall’. Janowski’s conducting
soft-grained overall sound, subtly shaded phrases and moulds everything, like
rather than highly coloured. the quiet descending scale that begins
That said, there is something ‘Night’ at the opening. This approach
unanswerable about this orchestra’s doesn’t get in the way; instead, there’s
way of enthralling both ear and heart at an ongoing interplay of natural flow and
once. Viennese horns have a distinct tone moment-to-moment detail, attractively
quality whose fiery sound at full throttle
Seiji Ozawa (conductor) With four horns blazing,

Vienna Philharmonic and fairly swift, in a way that’s purposeful
Philips 454 4482 ‘Sunrise’ amazes even by rather than perfunctory, effectively
Deciding on Seiji Ozawa’s 1996 recording these players’ standards heading off any risk that the music’s
as a top choice has in one sense been self- expansive manner and design might begin
evident: more straightforwardly fabulous is one of classical music’s wonders; the to sprawl. When the summit is reached,
orchestral playing can’t be heard on this delivery of the work’s main theme at the climactic central section that follows
planet. But then again, it’s also fair to ask: ‘Sunrise’, by four horns in blazing unison, is as thrilling as expected, with Ozawa’s
does the level of incandescent intensity amazes even by these players’ standards. instinct to keep things moving along
achieved here by the Vienna Philharmonic Sure enough, the addition of 12 more successfully preventing overkill.
truly suit the music itself? The great of them in ‘The Ascent’, signifying the In the quiet sequence depicting the calm
German and Austrian orchestras of hunting horns in the middle distance, is before the storm, a slight shortfall in the
Richard Strauss’s own time operated at a another spectacular moment. growing tension is a minor reservation.
lower and mellower decibel level than they By now, Ozawa’s pacing of the episodes ‘Thunderstorm’ itself is delivered with
do today; and as a conductor, he himself in the journey up the mountain has begun furious power, yet the effect is also speedy
liked to conjure a rounded and quite to take shape. His approach is tight-reined and scherzo-like, brilliantly defining its

BUILDING A LIBRARY
Mediterranean postcard:
Riccardo Muti conducts
Strauss’s Aus Italien;
(below) Vaughan
Williams’s Sinfonia
Antartica is a much
bringing out the music’s story-telling chillier affair
quality. (Pentatone PTC5186339)
Herbert von Karajan

(conductor)
Dating from fairly
late on in the Berlin
Phil’s Karajan era,
this 1980 recording
showcases the extraordinary qualities of
that relationship. Karajan’s control of the
slow build-up of sonority in the opening
‘Night’ section, towards its radiant
release at ‘Sunrise’, has an unmatched
mastery, and he and the orchestra
emphasise Olympian splendour in their
by now trademark style, with wondrously
beautiful string-playing in ‘Vision’ and
‘Elegy’. In ‘The Ascent’, though, the
supposedly offstage hunting horns are
positioned much too close, missing the
mood of the moment. (DG 439 0172)
Continue the journey…
And one to avoid… We suggest five works to explore after Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony
While not at all ‘bad’
F
as such, this 2006 or another example of the the groundwork for his Byron-inspired,
recording leaves you youthful Richard Strauss Alpine-wandering Manfred Symphony,
with a frustrating enjoying the scenery around the second movement of which depicts
feeling that with a little him, there’s Aus Italien, his the impressive Staubbach Falls.
more of something ‘symphonic fantasy’ inspired by his (CBSO/Andris Nelsons Orfeo C895151)
– in this case from conductor Antoni travels in 1886. No storms or waterfalls Mountains don’t have to be snow-
Wit – it could have been special. A here, but instead Roman ruins, the capped and precipitous. For EJ Moeran
fine contribution by the Staatskapelle beach at Sorrento and, complete with a in his 1924 In the mountain country, they
Weimar, with lustrous strings and quote of the song ‘Funiculì, Funiculà’, a were the misty and grey landscape of the
taste of everyday Neapolitan life. (Berlin west of Ireland. Though the composer
excellent principal players, indicates
Philharmonic/Riccardo Muti Philips 422 3992) was more of an observer than adventurer
how much more they could offer if the
Strauss and Mahler had much in – he would not have gone haring up
necessary conductor-and-orchestra
common, not least any peaks – he
chemistry was there. It isn’t, and the
artistic result is neither epic nor idyllic,
a love of mountain For EJ Moeran, mountains nonetheless conjures
scenery and a
just disappointing.
scholarly interest
meant the misty and grey up an impressive
view in this short
in Nietzsche. landscape of Ireland symphonic poem.
Mahler in fact sets (Ulster Orchestra/
the ‘Midnight Song’ from the German JoAnn Falletta Naxos 8.573106)
function in the work’s single-movement philosopher’s Also sprach Zarathustra in Finally, for another orchestral
his Third Symphony, and while the work representation of awe-inspiring scenery
symphonic span. does not trace its journey as precisely – and, like An Alpine Symphony, another
When the slow finale arrives at ‘Sunset’, as An Alpine Symphony does, off-stage use of the wind machine – there’s
the rapturous response of the Viennese brass, woodwind bird calls and such Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica,
strings is as great a moment as a great like combine to paint a drawn from his score for
orchestra can give us. And Ozawa’s way similarly atmospheric picture. the 1948 film Scott of the
with the ‘Ausklang’ section is once again (Bamberg Symphony/Jonathan Antarctic. The quote from
beautifully direct, allowing the music to Nott Tudor TUD7170) Coleridge written above
speak with unaffected loveliness. With an Unlike Strauss, who the ‘Landscape – Lento’
enjoyed a view of the movement describes the
orchestra of this size recorded in Vienna’s
Alps on a daily basis, music well: ‘Ye ice falls! Ye
medium-large Musikvereinsaal, the Tchaikovsky had to make that from the mountain’s
overall sound in the bigger moments is do with a temporary visit. brow Adown enormous
sometimes a little constricted; elsewhere, Nonetheless, his time spent ravines slope amain’.
however, the hall’s famously gorgeous in Davos in Switzerland in (Bergen Philharmonic/Andrew
GETTY
acoustic is unmistakable. 1884 proved enough to lay Davis Chandos CHSA5186)

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RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Welcome
Christmas music is just
the thing to warm the
This exhilarating blast
cockles as winter creeps
in, not to mention the
perfect antidote to
is the future of brass
the daily onslaught of
crises and crackpots.
Anne Templer falls head over heels for this
So I invite you to partake in our festive thrilling rollercoaster of new works from
round-up, where you’ll find a dose of
magic and sparkle courtesy of college exceptional trombone quartet Slide Action
choirs, musical families and fabulous
soloists. There’s a sense of place this
issue, too, with musical accounts of an contributions from the group
Irish winter (our Orchestral Choice), two themselves) to harness the
album snapshots of music from North great harmonic, rhythmic
America and an emotional response to and melodic timbres offered
from a trombone quartet,
the war in Ukraine (our Choral & Song
and creators have gleefully
Choice). And then? We unbox a trio of leapt on these possibilities.
Michael Tilson Thomas celebratory Through live performance, the
releases, a final bow from pianist group has developed a concept
Kathryn Stott with cellist Yo-Yo Ma Re:Build of composing or arranging
and the winning recital from this year’s Ryan Latimer: C. Exigua; ‘Interludes’ to sit between new
Leeds International Piano Competition. Laura Jurd: Swamped; Emily pieces, exposing the audience
Michael Beek Reviews editor Hall: Close Palms; Alex Paxton: to connecting incidental
Hairy Pony Estampie; Joanna music, like scene changes in a
Ward: Playing Frisbee May 2022; theatrical production. These
plus works by Matthew interludes coalesce their
This month’s critics Locke, Benny Vernon et al
shouldering pieces in different
John Allison, Nicholas Anderson, Michael Beek, Slide Action
Terry Blain, Kate Bolton-Porciatti, Geoff Brown, NMC NMC D289 51:14 mins ways: a simple element such
Michael Church, Christopher Cook, Martin as pitch, or something more
Cotton, Christopher Dingle, Misha Donat, Jessica The future of brass ensemble abstract like a theme, vibe or
Duchen, Rebecca Franks, George Hall, Malcolm playing is – as yet – a fragment. From the opening
Hayes, Michael Jameson, Stephen Johnson, Berta relatively untapped area for arrangement of Henry Purcell’s
Joncus, John-Pierre Joyce, Ashutosh Khandekar,
contemporary composers. Brass March from Music for the
Erik Levi, Andrew McGregor, David Nice, Freya
Parr, Ingrid Pearson, Steph Power, Anthony Pryer, bands, 20th-century big bands Funeral of Queen Mary to the
Paul Riley, Suzanne Rolt, Jan Smaczny, Jo Talbot, and some orchestral playing funky, quirky, gospel grooves
Anne Templer, Roger Thomas, Sarah Urwin Jones, have certainly made inroads, of Laura Jurd’s Swamped, the
Kate Wakeling, Alexandra Wilson but the real development of ideas are in abundance – and
this soundworld is surely yet beautifully executed.
to come. If any group is likely For range and and original
KEY TO STAR RATINGS to move this on in leaps and concepts, Jamie Tweed’s
+++++ Outstanding bounds it is Slide Action. Smooth Place, Cool Drink
++++ Excellent This album commissions (Interlude I) enters an intriguing
+++ Good
++ Disappointing composers and arrangers soundworld reminiscent
+ Poor (including significant of a floating 1940s dream,

Recording of the Month Reviews
Performer’s notes
Joshua Cirtina
ICE
CHO
Slide Action are really pushing

boundaries with this album...
Absolutely. The trombone
quartet is often seen as a bit of
a pedestrian chamber music
format – if it’s seen as a format
at all – and there are lots that
already exist comprised of the
greatest orchestral players in
the world. So we quickly realised
that we needed a USP that was
different, and the format just
hasn’t developed since the
1960s. So we wanted to push
the boundaries but also the
capabilities of the sound you can
make on the instrument.
Musical high-wire act: Do any of the new works push the
Slide Action are gleeful limits of what is possible?
in their exploration of the Oh totally! Probably the most
trombone’s soundworld difficult is Alex Paxton’s piece,
Hairy Pony Estampie; it’s just
totally bonkers. Alex is an
incredible trombone player, as
producing otherworldly sounds set of instruments is what Hairy Pony Estampie by Alex well as a phenomenal composer; I
based on Jimmy Van Heusen’s this ensemble is all about – Paxton. For virtuosity alone, have a suspicion that he’s secretly
standard ‘Here’s That Rainy producing uncompromising this is a piece to entertain one of the greatest players in the
Day’. A second Interlude – Sit and outstandingly mastered audiences of any age, but there world. He knows just how far to
by Benny Vernon – literally dynamics, slide control, is so much more to it than push the instrument. He also has
a great way of describing things
creates sound whilst the group multiphonics and, at times, that. Sounding as if it has
that is absolutely spot on; on our
are changing their playing outrageously comical moments. been inspired by Bob Mintzer, parts we had things like ‘Needs
position. Beginning with The music unashamedly the piece starts with a great to sound more like gnomes in a
a timbre reminiscent of a big band template but then tumble dryer’ and stuff like that.
South American rainmaker For virtuosity alone, progresses through a seemingly Tell us about opening with the
instrument, but actually impossible ten-minute Purcell. It’s a surprising start.
created from sampled Alex Paxton’s work rollercoaster ride of sounds – That was a way of lulling the
recordings of the quartet is a piece to entertain including screamingly funny listener into a false sense of
playing on chairs with audiences of any age bombast, horse whinnying, security; particularly if there
random objects, the sound vocals and such warm are brass players listening, or
transitions into a harmonically takes the listener through a harmony. The scope of this people less accumstomed to
static, meditative mood. kaleidoscope of circus tricks creativity leads one to conclude the contemporary stuff. They’ll
The particular strengths of and sleights of hand, drawing that the answer to the group’s be thinking, ‘Oh this is fine, I
recognise that!’ and then it all
trombones in this are deeply on influences reminiscent final rhetorical question – starts to melt around them. So
explored; deliberate sliding of Gabrieli right up to ‘Where are we going next?’ – is it’s tongue in cheek; I’ve been
around with the tuning and a contemporary composers. If an exhilarating and thrilling thinking of it as an homage to
big, fat sound at the bottom end. only one thing is listened to on ride. What a blast. what’s come before, like ‘Thanks
Deliberate and fresh this recording, however, then PERFORMANCE +++++ very much, you’ve done lots of
exploration unique to this it must surely be the ingenious RECORDING +++++ cool stuff, but this is what’s next’.

REGENT RECORDS
New and Recent Releases
WELCOME YULE
A Chorister’s Christmas
The Choristers and Schola of
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin
directed by Stuart Nicholson
REGCD587
A captivating disc of new and rarely-recorded Christmas music for upper

voices. It includes two major works–William Mathias’s extended carol
sequence Salvator mundi and John Rutter’s Dancing Day–and the first
recording of a haunting arrangement of the Wexford Carol by Alice Parker.
‘This CD is a real delight...The choir is very impressive indeed: excellent tone,
diction and interpretation throughout.’ Organists’ Review on a previous
recording by the Choir of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin
I WAS GLAD
Parry Choral Music
The Choir of Christ’s College, Cambridge
directed by David Rowland,
Julian Collings (organ)
REGCD580
This celebratory recording marks David Rowland’s 40 years as Director of

Music at Christ’s College. The current choir were joined by alumni for the
recording of Parry’s larger anthems, and for the Songs of Farewell, a central
repertoire piece for the choir.
‘…sung with dramatic conviction and careful intonation…an instructive
perspective of these remarkable, deeply emotional pieces as they might have
been experienced in the era in which Parry lived’. Gramophone, October 2024
SAINT LOUIS
REFLECTIONS
The Saint Louis Chamber Chorus
directed by Philip Barnes
REGCD578
Choral commissions in a wide range of styles, from David Matthews and

Carl Rütti to Judith Bingham, Dobrinka Tabakova, Sasha Johnson Manning,
Kerensa Briggs, and Melissa Dunphy.
‘11 commissions from the past 15 years, all receiving their first recordings.They
are deeply felt and often emotionally moving tributes’
Gramophone, October 2024
‘The choir’s stamina is tested and its excellent tuning showcased’ ̣̣̣̣̣
Choir and Organ, September 2024
REGENT RECORDS, PO Box 528,Wolverhampton, WV3 9YW

01902 424377 www.regentrecords.com (with secure online ordering).
Retail distribution by RSK Entertainment Ltd, Tel: 01488 608900,
info@rskentertainment.co.uk. Available in the USA from the Organ Historical
Society www.ohscatalog.org. Scan QR code to sign up to our mailing list.
Christmas
Terry Blain has a listen to some of the very best of this year’s seasonal offerings
Christmas round-up mellifluous baritone. His duet

Christmas with the Bevan Family with boy treble Ilias Grau in the CHRISTMAS CHOICE
Consort features fourteen members ‘Abendsegen’ from Humperdinck’s
of the extended Bevan family –
some professional
opera Hänsel und Gretel is another
highlight, as is Joyful and triumphant
singers, some not. Gruber’s ‘Stille
Theirs is a warm, Nacht’, with Appl’s This recital from the Choir of St John’s College,
uniquely collegial mother Edeltraud
brand of music- on guitar. Florian
Oxford is unpretentious and full of pleasures
making, and they Helgath (another
don’t take it easy. Familiar options ex-Regensburg ‘sparrow’) conducts,
like Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine and plays his Styrian accordion on
a5 provide the spine of the recital, the jaunty, folk-inflected ‘Geh Hansl
and is claimed as a first recording, pack dein Binggerl zam’. (Alpha
as is Imogen Holst’s ‘The Virgin Classics ALPHA1079) ++++
Unspotted’. The Consort’s sentient, Vaughan Williams, his friends
mutually supportive part-singing and pupils dominate A Christmas
is particularly evident in Victoria’s Fantasia, where William Vann
‘O magnum mysterium’, where conducts the Chapel Choir of the
conductor Graham Ross elicits a Royal Hospital Chelsea. Much of
glowingly blended tone. Purists the music is unfamiliar, including
may cavil that the use of vibrato Vann’s own ‘Carol’ and Rebecca
varies among the singers, but it Clarke’s delicately voiced ‘There Is
scarcely matters in performances No Rose’, where Ashley Riches is a
so engaging and emotionally firm-voiced baritone soloist. VW’s
articulate. (Signum Classics folk song arrangements are among
SIGCD909) ++++ the most striking
Composers with ties to the college moments in the
feature prominently in the Choir of recital. ‘God
Christ Church, Oxford’s A Lullaby Rest You Merry,
Carol, and director Steven Grahl Gentlemen’
has taken pains to avoid obvious differs completely Perfect ingredients: the St John’s choir has warmth and luminescence
selections. ‘Make we joy now in this from the standard congregational
fest’ and ‘All this time’ by William tune, while ‘On Christmas Day’ News of Great Joy – Christmas
Walton, a Christ Church alumnus, paints an unusually solemn
showcase the choir’s robust, ripe- picture of the season. A rousing
from St John’s College, Oxford
toned attack. Nimble agility is ‘Wassail Song’, however, restores Carols by RR Bennett, Holst, Vaughan
added in Cheryl the traditional festive spirit. (Albion Williams, Warlock, John Rutter et al
Frances-Hoad’s Records ALBCD063) ++++ The Choir of St John’s College,
‘Good Day, Sir When Pembroke College Oxford/David Bannister
Christemas!’, and Girls’ Choir was founded in 2018, Resonus RES10348 54:15 mins
in Giles Swayne’s it stuck to relatively simple two- Occasionally all the ingredients which go
acrobatic part repertoire. The inclusion on into a choral recording come together in a way that makes for a purely
Magnificat. Piers Connor Kennedy, this new EP of Kerensa Briggs’s pleasurable listening experience. Such is the case with News of Great
a former choir member, contributes seven-part motet ‘Seek ye, first, Joy, The Choir of St John’s College, Oxford’s new Christmas recital.
three harmonically adventurous the kingdom of The performances are, in the best sense, unpretentious – there’s no
carols, while organist Benjamin God’ shows how straining after forced jollity or attention-grabbing effects, and each
Sheen excels in virtuosic solo works far the group individual voice is comfortably embedded within the warmly integrated
by George Baker and Francis Pott. has progressed ensemble sound cultivated by conductor David Bannister. Peter
(Avie AV2721) ++++ technically in Warlock’s ‘What cheer? Good cheer!’ opens the recital, revealing the
Benjamin Appl once sang the six years luminescence of the choir’s female voices. The tonal blend is just as
in the renowned Regensburger since. The choir adds limpidly satisfying when the men’s voices are added, as euphonious accounts
Domspatzen, and reunites with expressive performances of works of Poston’s ‘Jesus Christ the Apple Tree’ and Praetorius’s ‘Es ist ein
the choir to make The Christmas by James McCarthy, Owain Park Ros’ entsprungen’ involvingly demonstrate. Diction is precise yet
Album. The warm emotions of and Josef Rheinberger, along with unaffected throughout, and Adam Binks’s engineering is the icing on
the occasion infuse both Rutter’s two pieces written by the choristers. the cake, allowing just the right amount of atmospheric resonance
‘Christmas Lullaby’ and Reger’s Anna Lapwood elicits crystalline around the voices, without compromising on transparency and
‘Maria Wiegenlied’, where the tone and a pristine balance of nuance. These intimate, companionable performances are strongly
choir’s caressing contribution voice parts from her singers. (Sony recommended as a perfect antidote to the more self-indulgent aspects
meshes seamlessly with Appl’s G010005346514X) +++++ of the modern Christmas. +++++

Orchestral
a ORCHESTRAL CHOICE JS Bach
Overture in the French Style in
B minor; Overture for Strings
A shimmering, shivering and Basso Continuo in G etc
(More Bach, Please!)
landscape brought to life Concerto Italiano/

Rinaldo Alessandrini
Naïve OP8454 54:50 mins
Steph Power is captivated by Donnacha Dennehy’s More Bach,

Please! – who
poetic portrait of Ireland’s unforgiving seasonal shifts could argue with
that?! For Rinaldo
Alessandrini,
however, it’s
Playful palette: not a case of simply revisiting
Alan Pierson and the canon. Two decades ago he
Alarm Will Sound are
excellent partners reworked the keyboard Italian
Concerto, BWV 971 for ensemble,
and the Goldberg Variations plus
an album of Cross-dressing Bach
have continued his fascination with
the Bachian art of transcription.
Now the Italian Concerto is joined
by its Clavier-Übung II companion
as the Ouverture in the French
Style is reimagined deploying the
scoring of the Orchestral Suite No.
1. And Alessandrini goes further,
assembling a Partita and another
Ouverture, both drawing on sundry
movements to create two rather
fetching hybrids. The Ouverture
is for strings and continuo while,
taking its lead from the Second
Orchestral Suite, the Partita
includes flute.
Alessandrini chooses carefully.
In both cases he fashions a
seamlessly convincing sequence
days of grey or piercing light in the winter to the much
Donnacha Dennehy longer, warmer but mercurial light of summer.’
of movements that reveal familiar
Land of Winter friends in unfamiliar guises – both
The result is a propulsive yet static, intensely in terms of context and colouring.
Alarm Will Sound/Alan Pierson
melancholic yet knowingly playful cycle for large The French Ouverture of course is
Nonesuch 7559789949 53:51 mins
ensemble that starts with December and only simply a matter of applying oboes
The Larne-born musicologist Bob Gilmore (1961- nominally ends with November. Overlapping layers of
2015) once observed that Donnacha Dennehy and bassoon to the strings, adding,
sounds, colours and rhythms expand and contract – where necessary, a little infilling to
(b1970) writes ‘music that deals with big issues, but both vertically and horizontally, as sheets and spatters
has such an appealingly odd the inner parts. But how delicious
of modal-microtonal rain fall are the discrete flurries that garnish
way of addressing them.’ Land
of Winter (2022) is typically
The result is propulsive yet on surfaces born from aeons of the Gavotte, while Passepied II is
oblique while being utterly static, intensely melancholic shifting subterranean strata.
Alarm Will Sound are
engagingly consigned to winds
direct – and wonderfully subtle, alone, and artful concertino effects
yet knowingly playful excellent under conductor enliven Alessandrini’s transcribing
with a palette that combines Alan Pierson: from piccolo to
Dennehy’s keen poetic instincts across all three works.
contra bassoon via inventively muted brass, strings As a performer, something of La
awareness of his Irish roots with his fine, spectral ear and bowed, sometimes thudding percussion. Through
for the physical properties of sound, and love of pulse- mist and shafts of sunlight, snippets of JS Bach’s dolce vita informs his response to
driven post-minimalism. Bach. There’s energy in abundance
yearning advent chorale Wie soll ich dich empfangen but it’s never gratuitously aggressive.
The land of the title is Ireland, seen through half-emerge, alongside the spectre of climate change.
shivering, ancient Roman eyes: ‘Hibernia’, its cold BWV 831’s Courante is invested with
PERFORMANCE +++++ patrician grace, its Gavotte with
seeming to penetrate every month of the year. +++++
GETTY, KEMAL MEHMET GIRGIN
RECORDING spry resolution; and everywhere

Dennehy has professed a fascination with weather
both literal and metaphorical, and here it’s the You can access thousands of reviews from our his players respond with their
interplay of light and time that underpins his 12, extensive archive on the BBC Music Magazine customary flair and genial music-
through-composed movements, ‘from the shorter website at www.classical-music.com making. Paul Riley
PERFORMANCE ++++
RECORDING +++++

Orchestral Reviews
Britten Giovanni
Antonini’s
The Prince of the Pagodas ongoing Haydn
Hallé Orchestra/Kahchun Wong
symphonies
Hallé CDHLD7565 129:03 mins (2CD) cycle has thus far
Britten’s featured either
astonishing his own ensemble, Il Giardino
music for the Armonico, or the Basel Chamber
ballet The Prince Orchestra; but for the grander
of the Pagodas – sonorities of the late works on this
the composition latest issue, Antonini has called
of which Britten likened to ‘18 on the combined forces of the
months hard labour’ – has always two orchestras. The two ‘London’
proved problematic on stage. Two symphonies here, Nos 94 and 98,
hours long, and composed to a are familiar masterpieces, but less
threadbare and unlikely scenario well known is No. 90, written for
by choreographer John Cranko that the Masonic Concert de la Loge
is best described as Beauty and the Olympique in Paris. Its finale offers
Beast meets King Lear, it has been an example of Haydn’s malicious
variously cut and rechoreographed sense of humour: the music comes A welcome ‘Surprise’:
to mitigate its difficulties. Those to what seems to be a fortissimo conductor Giovanni
of the narrative and dance were conclusion, but after a full four Antonini’s Haydn is
occasioned largely by the fact that bars’ rest the music starts up again a real pleasure
Britten was given no choreographic pianissimo and in the ‘wrong’ key. It’s
pointers during a process that was a favourite piece with Simon Rattle,
entirely new to the composer. who likes to confuse – and amuse – Symphony (the orchestra it calls the SCO’s leader, Stephanie Gonley,
Yet Britten created some thrilling his audience by doing all the repeats, for, with only a single flute among but it’s a rather rambling piece, and
music, substantially invigorated so that the combined false and real the woodwind instruments and no Emelyanychev makes somewhat
by his burgeoning fascination with endings come round four times, trumpets or drums, is the smallest heavy weather of it, trying, perhaps,
the Balinese gamelan – recreated and there’s plenty of applause in the to be found among all Schubert’s to draw more significance out of the
with astonishing verisimilitude in wrong places, which is obviously symphonies), with tautly-sprung music than it actually has to offer.
the orchestra in Act II – his thrilling what Haydn wanted. Antonini does rhythms in the outer movements Misha Donat
orchestration and brilliant (if far it well enough, and with the same and a glowing performance of PERFORMANCE ++++
too inconsistent for the stage at full repeats, but it really needs some the slow movement. The minuet, RECORDING +++++
length) rhythms. audience participation. palpably influenced by the similar
It’s a personal choice for Kahchun There’s a more famous joke in piece in Mozart’s 40th Symphony, Shostakovich
Wong, new principal conductor of the slow movement of the ‘Surprise’ is played with an energy reflecting Symphonies Nos 6 & 9 (Santtu
the Hallé, who in the sleeve notes Symphony No. 94, with its crashing Schubert’s Allegro molto marking, conducts Shostakovich)
cites the inspiration he found in chord in the middle of the quietest though perhaps Emelyanychev Philharmonia Orchestra/
Britten’s music as a student and his passage, designed to wake up the could have afforded to relax a touch Santtu-Matias Rouvali
own fascination with the gamelan. ladies of Haydn’s audience. When more in its Ländler-like trio. Philharmonia Records SIGCD877
His opening concert last September the main tune returns later on in The ‘Unfinished’, composed 58:47 mins
featured a new suite made from the the same piece it’s decorated with exactly a half-dozen years after The two
work, but here, the whole score is a ‘chattering’ oboe part which No. 5, inhabits an altogether more symphonies
recorded, full of vim and shimmer, makes it sound rather like Rossini. mature and darker world. Is there, featured here
freed from the (albeit fundamental) Certainly, the oboe has a lot to do for instance, a more achingly intense highlight the
issue of making it work for dancers in Rossini’s sparkling La Scala di passage in all Schubert than the ambivalence
on stage. The Hallé, as ever, are seta overture, which makes an start of the first movement’s central many of us feel
brilliantly sculptured, lush and appropriate companion-piece section, with the violins unfolding a towards the Philharmonia’s often
evocative, creating ravishing to the symphonies. With fine melody of infinite yearning (derived inspirational chief conductor
sound and images in the mind performances throughout, this is a from the symphony’s famous Santtu-Matias Rouvali. He clearly
that transcend the monumental real pleasure. Misha Donat unaccompanied opening bars has the ability to get a special magic
structure. The evocation of the PERFORMANCE +++++ deep in the bass), above a growling from his players, but he sometimes
sound of the gamelan in Act II is RECORDING +++++ tremolo for cellos and basses? It is has a wilful way in interpretation,
thrilling, here, the energetic drive a truly heart-stopping moment in and first acquaintance with his
in the rhythms elsewhere a sharply Schubert any good performance, and this one Shostakovich was ever so slightly
defined tapestry. Sarah Urwin Jones Symphonies Nos 5 & 8 is very good indeed. Particularly mixed. Positives first: the deep
PERFORMANCE ++++ Scottish Chamber Orchestra/ impressive is the magical pianissimo and harrowing first movement
RECORDING +++++ Maxim Emelyanychev playing of the strings in the slow of the Sixth Symphony, too often
Linn Records CKD748 68:52 mins movement, alternating with overlooked in the concert hall,
Haydn Maxim passionate fortissimo outbursts for seems to bring out the best in its
Symphonies Nos 90, 94 Emelyanychev the full orchestra. interpreters. Relatively recently
‘Surprise’ and 98 etc and the Scottish The Rondo in A major for violin we’ve had Noseda, Mäkelä, Paavo
Il Giardino Armonico; Chamber and orchestra, D438 was composed Järvi and an unfamiliar name
Kammerorchester Basel/ Orchestra give an in the same productive summer of to me – Steven Lloyd-Gonzalez
Giovanni Antonini elegant account 1816 as the Symphony No. 5. The with the BBC National Orchestra
Alpha Classics ALPHA698 84:47 mins of Schubert’s chamber-like Fifth solo part is sweetly played here by of Wales – all drawing awesome

Orchestral Reviews
focus from their strings in the long, poised between the abstract and
tragic lines and climaxes, none of Fabulous follow-up: programmatic, and orchestrated
their orchestral woodwinds letting Robert Treviño’s with all of Williams’s expected flair.
them down either here or in the two Americascapes Geoff Brown
scherzos that follow. Rouvali and sequel is a PERFORMANCE ++++
the Philharmonia are as fine as any, rewarding listen RECORDING ++++
and the bonus of a live recording
makes the ferocity of the circus American Opus
finale’s coda all the more stunning – Americascapes 2
(there are even naughty but effective Works by Crumb, Revueltas
trombone slides as at the end of and Walker
Ravel’s Bolero). Basque National Orchestra/
Results in the Ninth are more Robert Treviño
mixed. The neoclassical opening Ondine ODE-14452 67:41 mins
needs to be more sprightly to let the Quibbles may
heavyweight aggressions surprise have been
us; the second movement isn’t a possible over
slow one, more like a Valse triste, but some items
Rouvali treats it as such, and though picked by Robert
all the wind solos are superbly Treviño for
nuanced, I think Shostakovich his first American panorama for
wanted more numbness. No qualms Ondine. None are possible with
about everything that follows, its sequel. Each of the contrasting
though: another circus romp them up. There is also a touching of the 20th century’s dominant works fully reward the listener’s
that turns nasty, ferocious brass orchestral miniature in Dirge for female Welsh composer could attention, starting with the 1959
answered by the most eloquent Fidele, for strings and harp, inspired never stay channelled in abstract Address for Orchestra by George
of bassoons (the impeccable live by the wonderful poem sung by the forms for long. Welsh legends, Walker, not a composer whose
recording captures its reedy edge), disguised Imogen in Cymbeline. history, landscapes and seascapes work always falls easily on the ear.
and ideal accumulation of terror Otherwise, hand on heart, it’s a constantly keep us company in Inspired by Lincoln’s Gettysburg
in another movement that begins bit of a plod. Neither the Henry V this most stimulating collection of Address, this mini-symphony
innocuously. David Nice Overture, lost but restored by David pieces, excellently performed by an passes from declamatory statements
PERFORMANCE ++++ Owen Norris, nor the two more orchestra and conductor absolutely to motoric syncopations to stately
RECORDING ++++ substantial pieces arranged by at home with her colourful musings, pierced in the middle with
Nathaniel Lew, Stratford Suite and instrumentation and fondness for a brief and sinuous adagio. At every
Vaughan Williams the Richard II Concert Fantasy, come long melodic lines. Sometimes, one step, rigour of thought never hinders
Richard II; Richard III; Henry IV anywhere near Vaughan Williams’s senses Vaughan Williams, one of her the delight of surface attractions.
– incidental music; Three Songs music for Aristophanes’s The Wasps teachers, looking over her shoulder; George Crumb’s 1984 A Haunted
from Shakespeare* etc in energy, colour or tunefulness. at other times, Sibelius. The Landscape is equally attractive,
*Eloise Irving (soprano), *Malcolm When he uses traditional Tudor composer’s voice, even so, remains though very different. Mysterious
Riley (piano); Kent Sinfonia/ tunes, he shows nothing like entirely her own. and beautiful sounds occupy a
James Ross et al the panache of Peter Warlock’s The Sea Sketches for strings, a meditative space that stretches
Albion ALBCD062 72:12 mins Capriol Suite, and the version of superbly crafted nostalgic creation out like the flat surfaces in Yves
Vaughan ‘Greensleeves’ featured in Stratford from a homesick composer Tanguy’s surrealist paintings,
Williams loved Suite is pretty pallid compared to marooned in London during the dotted with bizarre and colourful
Shakespeare RVW’s own famous Fantasy. The Second World War, are the most shapes. Treviño’s excellent Basque
from childhood performances are respectable, if on familiar pieces here: Williams’s sea orchestra really show their finesse
and returned to the whole not very stirring, but I do remains essentially benign even in this piece, littered with exotic
him throughout wonder if the players are entirely when the movement is headed percussion and underpinned
his long life. If the only major result to blame. For Vaughan Williams ‘High Wind’. The album’s most by two re-tuned double basses
had been the glorious Serenade to super-enthusiasts only, I’m afraid. startling music is found in the plumbing the depths of the lowest
Music, it would still have been worth Stephen Johnson Four Illustrations for the Legend possible B-flat. We then cross the
all that time and devotion. Sad to PERFORMANCE +++ of Rhiannon of 1939, a cheerfully border to Mexico for the biggest
relate, there’s nothing on that level RECORDING ++++ episodic suite of incidents from sonic bombshell of all: a suite from
here. Judging from this assortment the hectic life of the horse-riding Silvestre Revueltas’s ballet La
of largely unknown songs and G Williams goddess featured in the Welsh Coronela, left incomplete on his
incidental pieces one might Four Illustrations for the national epic, The Mabinogion. death in 1940, but reconstructed
conclude that Vaughan Williams’s Legend of Rhiannon; Castell Musical events are understandably into a dizzying 33-minute suite,
creative engagement went up when Caernarfon; Ballads etc much less dramatic in the heraldic built round a narrative about a
he was actually working with the BBC Philharmonic/John Andrews pageantry of Castell Caernarfon, female colonel in the 1910 Mexican
words. The Three Shakespeare Resonus RES10349 71:02 mins written for the Prince of Wales’s revolution against the dictatorship
Songs from 1925 are rather lovely Grace Williams’s Investiture 30 years later. The of Porfirio Díaz. Brassy dissonances,
– the setting of ‘Orpheus with his orchestral subtlest spell of all is cast by the sentimental waltzes, downtrodden
lute’ comfortably outshines the output may have Ballads of 1968 – four deftly woven marches, cries of rage: each mood
CHRISTIAAN DIRKSEN
1903 version, also recorded here included two tone pictures conjuring up images jaggedly cuts into another in a vivid
– and Eloise Irving’s sweet, nicely symphonies of feasts, combats, proclamations kaleidoscope. Geoff Brown
enunciated performances may and several and laments from the time of PERFORMANCE ++++
well persuade other singers to take concertos, but the musical thinking medieval Wales: music beautifully RECORDING ++++

Concerto
a
CONCERTO CHOICE JS Bach
Violin Concerto in E major etc
Nemanja Radulović (violin);
An exceptional selection Double Sens et al
Warner Classics 2173239954 59:52 mins
of virtuosic Sibelius riches The notes tell

us this album
is ‘a homage to
Violinist James Ehnes turns in a stellar performance the stupendous
Johann Sebastian
with the Bergen Philharmonic, says Malcolm Hayes Bach’; it’s also
something of a homage to Nemanja
Radulović’s playing since he appears
not only in all three concertos on
Likeable artistry: offer, but in the handful of Bach
James Ehnes delivers favourites also included. Hyperbole
technical firepower
aside, much of the performing is
and the richest tone
excellent. Double Sens’s approach
in the concertos is unfussy, but also
expressive. Their performance of
the C minor Concerto for violin
and oboe is a delight with buoyant
tuttis and attentive, imaginative
accompanying of the soloists. The
oboist, Sébastien Giot, phrases his
part exquisitely and in the slow
movement both he and Radulović
achieve an attractive, almost
vocal quality. There are places
where ensemble could be neater,
in particular the start of the slow
movement of the D minor Concerto
and in the first of the E major.
Shorn of their context, the shorter
items recorded here feel like a
succession of lollipops though all
of them are beautifully played.
Radulović’s solo in ‘Erbarme
dich’ from the St Matthew Passion
partners the affecting singing of
Sibelius of Sibelius’s later output of short works for violin
Philippe Jaroussky splendidly. In
Violin Concerto; Serenades; Humoresques etc and small orchestra. Some are almost as technically
contrast, the Badinerie from the
James Ehnes (violin); Bergen Philharmonic/ demanding as the Concerto: the third and last
Second Orchestral Suite is simply
Edward Gardner number of the Suite, Op. 117 is a full-tilt moto perpetuo,
too fast to enjoy the virtuosity. The
Chandos CHSA 5267 79:17 mins delivered by Ehnes at a scintillating pace. In the two
recorded sound is clear and if it isn’t
Sibelius’s ultra-virtuosic Violin Concerto demands sets of Humoresques and the Two Serenades especially,
exactly a landmark, it’s mostly an
stellar qualities from its soloist. James Ehnes has Sibelius found a way of transferring his theatre
appealing listen. Jan Smaczny
them all, and then some – vast music’s matchless command
PERFORMANCE ++++
technical firepower, full-on The accompaniments by of touch and atmosphere to
RECORDING ++++
richness of tone without
Gardner and the Bergen Phil this different genre. This is
technicolor gloss, phenomenal where the accompaniments by Sally Beamish •
tuning and a likeable artistry are never less than excellent the Bergen Philharmonic and Beethoven
that’s direct, unpretentious and Edward Gardner, never less
Sally Beamish: City Stanzas;
instantly responsive to every musical situation. than excellent in the Concerto, now truly come into
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1
With all this on offer, it’s no surprise that the their own. Spellbinding sounds are conjured at every Jonathan Biss (piano); Swedish Radio
Concerto’s interplay of brilliance and introspection point, and the recorded balance beautifully catches Symphony/Omer Meir Wellber
comes across so well. Following on from the first the ensemble’s interplay with Ehnes’s solo violin. Orchid Classics ORC100339 61:23 mins
movement’s big solo cadenza, the way Ehnes captures PERFORMANCE +++++
If the essence of
the surge of the main theme’s reprise is memorable. In RECORDING +++++
Jonathan Biss’s
the Adagio slow movement he is warmly expressive Beethoven were
without excess. And the finale’s near-outrageous to be bottled up,
difficulties are handled with dazzling precision. You can access thousands of reviews from our
extensive archive on the BBC Music Magazine it would be the
BEN EALOVEGA
This release is then raised from very fine to purest spring

website at www.classical-music.com
exceptional by its rather larger second half – a survey water: utterly clear, crisp and fresh.
That clarity is there right from

Concerto Reviews
the off with the Swedish Radio
Symphony Orchestra’s transparent
sound and is only magnified when,
after the concerto’s expansive
orchestral introduction, Biss
begins. It’s matched by the quality
of Orchid’s recording, which you
may only realise is live from the
applause at the end. Not that this
is a performance lacking character
or colour. In his engaging booklet
notes, Biss makes the case for the
first concerto being ‘the work of a
young man looking to be noticed’.
It’s a compelling argument when
backed up by the energy and spark
of Biss’s playing, nowhere more so
than in the playful finale.
Biss has long been obsessed
with Beethoven and in 2015 he
launched ‘Beethoven/5’, for which
five contemporary composers Top-drawer player:
(Timo Andres, Caroline Shaw, Alec Frank-Gemmill
Brett Dean, Salvatore Sciarrino impresses in Mozart
and Sally Beamish) responded horn concertos
to the five piano concertos. Here
we have Beamish’s response, City
Stanzas, from 2017, written using intense ascending scale. The LSO cello line. Capuçon sharply defines The finale of K495 (the most
material, whether a group of notes know this work like the back of their the first solo cadenza, accents frequently heard movement among
or rhythmic pattern, derived from hands, are absolutely in step and alternating with softer hues before these concertos) highlights the
Beethoven’s piece. It is an anxiety- alert to every nuance. The Allegro the orchestra explodes into the clarity of articulation of his playing
ridden, urban work, which has a Molto second movement sparkles texture. A more reflective second throughout this album, while the
restless energy and bleak beauty in with brilliance. As a student of cadenza ensues before the LSO winsome Romanza preceding
the opening Burlesque. The Requiem Heinrich Schiff – himself a pupil offer mystical shimmering textures it readily brings Dennis Brain’s
for ‘those who die alone in the of André Navarra – it’s no surprise which recall the exquisite opening peerless musicianship to mind.
midst of the city’ is as uneasy as it that Capuçon’s spiccato bowing is music, though perhaps more Nicholas McGegan’s adroit
sounds, and particularly poignant peerless here, both light and clearly persuasively than before. Jo Talbot direction and periodist credentials
when clarinet bird calls and cymbal articulated. Elgar litters the score PERFORMANCE ++++ ensure attentive orchestral support,
shivers punctuate the musing with performance details, nowhere RECORDING ++++ too, a reminder that it’s entirely
solo piano. The grotesque finale more than in the ensuing Adagio, possible to return to the spirit, if
skitters about, as reminiscent of where each dynamic is carefully Mozart not the precise letter of historically-
Bartók and Prokofiev as Beethoven, graded, by turns anguished in the Horn Concertos informed performance practice
albeit with added drum kit. Biss fortes and eloquently whispering Alec Frank-Gemmill (horn); using modern instruments.
throws himself into it with gusto the next moment – aspects Capuçon Swedish Chamber Orchestra/ But irrespective of Frank-
and conductor Omer Meir Wellber delivers to perfection. Incisive Nicholas McGegan Gemmill’s easygoing brilliance
keeps everything taut and engaging. conducting from Antonio Pappano BIS BIS-2635 72:24 mins and dazzling agility, part of me still
Rebecca Franks seals the deal. Throughout the wishes he’d recorded these concertos
PERFORMANCE +++++ Walton’s Cello Concerto is the past decade, Alec using a natural horn, for there’s no
RECORDING +++++ perfect coupling, although here Frank-Gemmill doubt that Mozart’s Salzburg horn
it receives a slightly more mixed has enjoyed player Joseph Leutgeb (for whom
Elgar • Walton performance. Featuring in the a productive these works were composed) could
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor; concert halls less frequently than synergy with the never have imagined such seamless,
Walton: Cello Concerto the Elgar, the orchestra never feels Swedish label BIS. It now reaches richly upholstered performances.
Gautier Capuçon (cello); London quite as comfortable in their role its apogee with this traversal of Lastly, there remains the issue
Symphony Orchestra/ here, nor as blended in their timbres. Mozart’s horn concertos, heir of completions (here by Stephen
Antonio Pappano The opening tempo seems a little apparent to Frank-Gemmill’s Roberts), both of the D major
Erato 2173226483 58:09 mins deliberate, and misses the magic previous album, Before Mozart, a work, left unfinished at Mozart’s
What an iconic of some other performances, but useful survey of Early Classical horn death (some listeners might well
opening defines later regains momentum, with concertos, released in 2018. question the appropriation of the
the Elgar fervently depicted golden melodies Alec Frank-Gemmill is the slow movement of the K211 violin
Concerto, the from Capuçon. Tricky articulation Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s concerto), and of the so-called
thunderingly characterises the Allegro solo horn, whose top-drawer playing ‘Concerto No. 0’ from surviving
powerful chords Appassionato, and there is a brittle consistently impresses, with its fragments, not that such concerns
yielding to impassioned yet tender edge to their performance. The distinctive, open-throated timbre seriously diminish an otherwise
invention. Gautier Capuçon delights lento theme in the next movement in slow movements, and fluency admirable release. Michael Jameson
JEN OWENS
with sensitive lilting delivery of the is beautifully performed, with and seemingly effortless delivery PERFORMANCE +++++
melodies, in contrast to a searingly sumptuous lyricism in the solo of perilous passagework elsewhere. RECORDINGS +++++

Concerto Reviews
Prokofiev • at a slightly slower tempo than in minor Concerto has a radiant beauty We exit after listening to 4.33
some other performances. This – quite different from the familiar minutes of New York street sounds,
Shostakovich however enables Feng to press his version for the plangent and reedy aka John Cage’s signature tune. I can
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1 foot on the accelerator in the manic oboe – and the slow movement think of better stories to tell about
in D major; Shostakovich: Violin Coda, thereby bringing the concerto of Alessandro Marcello’s Oboe American music. Michael Church
Concerto No. 1 in A minor to an extremely exciting conclusion. Concerto in the same key is sung out PERFORMANCE +++
Ning Feng (violin); Bochum Erik Levi with affecting pathos. RECORDING ++++
Symphony/Tung-Chieh Chuang PERFORMANCE ++++ Kate Bolton-Porciatti
Channel Classics CCS45924 59:27 mins RECORDING +++++ PERFORMANCE +++++ Resonance
With its RECORDING +++++ Works by Rachmaninov,
intriguing Baroque Concertos Schönberger, Weinberg et al
mixture of Works by Albinoni, Handel, My American Story Matilda Lloyd (trumpet); London
fairy-tale Marcello, Telemann and Vivaldi – North Symphony Orchestra/Lee Reynolds
naïveté, savagery, Alison Balsom (trumpet); Pinnock’s Works by Carter, Copland, Chandos CHSA 5339 62:54 mins
wistful lyricism Players/Trevor Pinnock Gershwin, Mason Bates et al Echoes of music
and spikey humour, Prokofiev’s Warner Classics 2173227329 60:09 mins Daniil Trifonov (piano); Philadelphia from the past
First Violin Concerto requires Alison Balsom’s Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin informs both of
an interpreter of exceptional latest album DG 486 5756 102:11 mins (2CD) these concertos,
flexibility and imagination to features six This is not an giving the album
fully encapsulate these varying Baroque anthology, Daniil its title: in the
emotional ingredients. In this concertos Trifonov declares. case of the Weinberg, the echoes
beautifully engineered release, transcribed for ‘These are simply include brief quotations from
Ning Feng draws the listener the piccolo trumpet – the bright- favourites of mine earlier composers in the finale,
into the composer’s magical voiced baby of the modern trumpet that speak to me although the first movement
soundworld through his wispy if family, often used as a substitute for on a musical level.’ America is now recalls Shostakovich at his most
somewhat introverted shaping of the natural trumpet in early music. his adoptive home, and he wants to grotesquely humorous. Matilda
the wonderful opening melody She’s joined by period-instrument share its variegated musics ranging Lloyd, who barely has time to draw
while at the same time he engages players hand-picked for the from jazz and swing to modernism, breath, captures the quirky mood
in an intimate chamber-music like occasion and directed by veteran minimalism and film scores. And of the disjointed phrases, and Lee
dialogue with the marvellously ‘Baroquer’ Trevor Pinnock. the story is only half told. Later in Reynolds runs a tight rhythmic
expressive solo flute. I need hardly Balsom’s experience in the 2025 My American Story –South will ship in the orchestra. The slow
add that Feng has all the requisite early music world makes her showcase Latin American music. movement is a complete contrast in
technical brilliance to negotiate all sensitive to period style and her This album starts with Trifonov’s its elegiac flow, and, after a lengthy
the acrobatic fireworks in the second playing is highly idiomatic. The transcription of Art Tatum’s orchestral introduction, Lloyd seizes
movement. But Feng’s interpretation valved piccolo is nifty enough to arrangement of John W Green’s song the chance to show off her subtle
here is perhaps a little straitlaced negotiate the intricate soloistic ‘I cover the waterfront’ (written for and restrained cantabile playing,
and could project more playfulness parts of concertos originally a film of that name). And listening especially fetching when very quiet
and mischief. Nonetheless, this written for violin or oboe, but it blind to Trifonov’s immaculate and muted. In the last movement the
much-recorded work receives an lacks the raw beauty of the natural high-octane performance, you quotes – Mahler, Stravinsky, Bizet
extremely compelling performance, trumpet and its soave, sheeny might assume it was actually and Mendelssohn, among others –
the Bochum Symphony under sound is rather mismatched with Tatum himself. This is followed by never quite add up for me, and the
Tung-Chieh Chuang providing an the period-instrument ensemble Gershwin’s Concerto in F, which whole thing sounds like a hastily
incisive orchestral accompaniment. – though such a juxtaposition the pianist and the Philadelphia assembled scrapbook.
There’s much to admire too in seems to be the guiding ethos of Orchestra despatch with gently The echoes of the past in
this account of Shostakovich’s this project. The least convincing swung assurance. Schönberger’s concerto are more
First Violin Concerto. The musical of the transcriptions is Handel’s Next comes Piano Variations, generalised ones from the Austro-
landscape in this work is far more Concerto Grosso, HWV 323 where a work by Copland I have never German tradition, going back to
forbidding than in the Prokofiev, the trumpet dominates the delicate heard before, and by the time it’s Haydn or Hummel in some of the
and Feng’s intimate and fragile concertino – not so much in volume over I never want to hear it again. Its trumpet figurations, as well as
phrasing of the opening idea in (which Balsom skilfully controls) enigmatic theme, and the way that more romantic harmonic conceits:
the Nocturne already hints at the but in its sheer brilliance of timbre. is developed, has a curmudgeonly Mendelssohn and Mahler raise
more threatening atmosphere that There is, nonetheless, much tone, which gradually builds a their heads again, as does Brahms.
pervades later passages in this to enjoy here. Ensemble playing curmudgeonly edifice, but at least It’s all very idiomatically written for
movement, not least the violin’s is light, lithe and transparent: it’s over in 12 minutes. the soloist, with fanfare-like figures
jarringly dissonant double-stops, Pinnock animates fast movements Then come two jazz trifles by Bill contrasted with more sustained
the eerie celesta notes and the without driving them too hard Evans and John Adams, beautifully melodies, again beautifully played,
ominous strokes from the tam-tam. and shapes musical lines most delivered by Trifonov, before we but it seems to be in search of a
The Bochum Symphony Orchestra gracefully. Balsom’s technique is reach John Corigliano’s Fantasia memorable tune, and never quite
certainly matches more illustrious flawless and she draws a remarkable on an Ostinato, that being that rare escapes the feel of note spinning.
ensembles in its tautly rhythmic kaleidoscope of colours from thing, a minimalist work which is For a completely affecting tune,
playing of the Scherzo, and the the instrument. She also has an both ravishing and original. After turn to Rachmaninov’s Vocalise,
ensuing Passacaglia, taken at a extraordinary capacity to make the two film-music trifles we reach where there could be a little more
broad and stately tempo, builds up trumpet sing: slow movements, in Mason Bates’s Concerto for Piano rubato and broader tone, but the
to an intense and deeply felt climax. particular, are poured out with all and Orchestra which was written for Goedicke is an exciting gallop to the
Following a carefully calibrated and the lyricism and eloquence of an Trifonov. That trundles along quite finish. Martin Cotton
architecturally satisfying Cadenza, opera aria. The beguilingly lovely pleasantly, without leaving much PERFORMANCE ++++
the orchestra begins the Burlesque Adagio of Albinoni’s cherishable D residue in the mind. RECORDING +++++

Opera & Stage
a
OPERA CHOICE Bizet
Carmen
Deepa Johnny et al; Orchestre de
Rewarding Rihm with a l’opéra de Rouen Normandie; Chœur
Accentus et al/Ben Glassberg; dir.
tour-de-force performance Romain Gilbert (Rouen, 2023)

Bru Zane BZ3001 168:51 mins (DVD)
Filmed at the Opéra
Small numbers make a big impact in this recording of de Rouen, this is no
conventional take
the late composer’s Jakob Lenz, says George Hall on Bizet’s opera.
Drawing on various
archives, it makes
use of designs and
Magnificent lead: illustrations of the
baritone Joachim very first staging, which opened at
Goltz stands out in
the Opéra-Comique, Paris, in 1875,
the title role
to a notoriously mixed reception.
More such resources seem to be
available than one might imagine.
Livrets de mise en scène (or staging
manuals) exist for a number of
operas, including Carmen, as well
as diagrams, allowing companies
to come much closer to the look
and dramatic style of Bizet’s day.
Photographs also exist of standard
gestures used by operatic and other
theatrical performers which period
audiences would have understood to
convey specific emotions.
The result is fascinating and
delivered to a high musical
level under the stylish baton of
the company’s music director,
Ben Glassberg, with standout
performances from Deepa Johnny
and Stanislas de Barbeyrac.
In some ways, the company
could have gone further. The
impressive orchestra does not use
Rihm Goltz), Pastor Oberlin (bass Patrick Zielke) and Lenz’s period instruments, and the edition
Jakob Lenz friend Kaufmann (tenor Raphael Wittmer), both of employed is not the dialogue edition
Joachim Goltz (baritone) et al; Nationaltheater- whom who try to help him; plus a group of six adult premiered at the Opéra-Comique
Orchester Mannheim/Franck Ollu offstage voices and a handful of children’s voices. but what was for many decades the
Oehms OC 981 66:14 mins In addition, there’s an instrumental ensemble of standard version at international
The German composer Wolfgang Rihm died in July 11 players – here members of the Nationaltheater- houses using, instead, sung
at the age of 72. He was well Orchester Mannheim under recitatives by Ernest Guiraud.
known for his operas, of which The result is a stark drama, the skilful baton of Franck Ollu. Unusually, a comic scene in Act
Jakob Lenz (1979) was an early Recorded live during a run of
and notable example.
but it possesses integrity the opera in January/February
1 included in the vocal score Bizet
saw through the press is performed:
The subject is the eponymous in every bar 2022, the performance has known as the Scène à l’Anglais, it
Baltic German Sturm und Drang considerable conviction. shows an elderly Englishman’s
poet and playwright (1751-92), an episode from whose Given the dour subject and Lenz’s tragic existence, involvement with a young Sevillian
sad life (he seems to have suffered from schizophrenia the result is a stark drama clothed in appropriately woman and her young Spanish
and eventually died homeless on a Moscow street) straight-down-the-line modernism; but it possesses admirer. Many Carmen fans will
was turned into a novella by the early Romantic writer integrity in every bar, the composer’s extraordinary never have seen it before.
Georg Büchner. It’s his text which forms the basis of technical skills making it dense but rewarding. Overall, it’s fascinating to
Michael Fröhling’s libretto. PERFORMANCE +++++ experience the opera from a
Lenz’s unrequited love for Friederike Brion, a PICTURE & SOUND +++++ different visual angle and to
former flame of his sometime friend Goethe, runs like discover how effective such an old-
a leitmotif through the score. You can access thousands of reviews from our
extensive archive on the BBC Music Magazine fashioned approach can be.
The forces are small: three principal singers – the George Hall
tormented Lenz (a tour de force by baritone Joachim PERFORMANCE ++++
PICTURE & SOUND +++++

Opera & Stage Reviews
Moniuszko
The Pariah A cracking Carmen:
Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Marta Torbidoni, Paulina Boreczko and Deepa Johnny are
(soprano), David Astorga, Matheus outstanding in Bizet
Pompeu (tenor), Germán Olvera
(bartone) et al; Podlasie Opera
and Philharmonic Choir; Europa
Galante/Fabio Biondi
NIFC NIFCCD093-094 127:48 mins (2CD)
Fabio Biondi,
a long-time
champion
of Stanisław
Moniuszko’s six
operas, has finally
recorded the Polish composer’s last
work for the stage. The Pariah was
unsuccessful when premiered in
Warsaw in 1869, but it’s stuttered on
and off Polish stages for 150 years
as a vital part of Polish national
musical identity.
Sung in Italian here, with an
international cast and set in India
where the warrior Idamor is
rewarded with the hand of a Hindu
Priestess Neala, The Pariah scarcely Les Musiques de Christie and Les Arts Florissants, is the surname, with a new album
seems particularly Polish. Only recycled from earlier recordings. Le of altogether weightier material.
Moniuszko’s score with its stamping Molière Malade imaginaire was originally Puccini is the best-represented
rhythms, shorn of any oriental Works by Lully and Charpentier released in 1990. Le Bourgeois composer, with nine arias, and
accents hints at traditional life along Les Arts Florissants/ gentilhomme – the best-known there are also familiar numbers
the banks of the Vistula. William Christie Lully-Molière collaboration (of from Carmen, Eugene Onegin and
Yet perhaps the Pariah, Djares, Harmonia Mundi HAX8904097 which we only hear the brief March Lohengrin, but elsewhere Pirgu
a member of the despised lowest 69:04 mins for the mock-Turkish ceremony) has selected far less well-known
Hindu caste searching for his This recording – dates from 2022. The only new music, particularly by Puccini’s
son Idamor who is ‘passing’ as of music from track is a version of the March giovane-scuola contemporaries,
a Brahmin, suggests the idea of Molière’s stage arranged for two harpsichords Giordano, Leoncavallo and Cilea.
internal exile that was reality for works looks back and played by Christie and Justin Two real oddities also feature: a
so many Poles who yearned for to the late 1970s Taylor, which is itself lifted from lollipop from Pablo Sorozábal’s
independence in the 19th century. when William their album Conversation, released zarzuela La taberna del Puerto and
The score looks backwards to Christie founded his acclaimed in June. But the album does give a an aria from the Albanian composer
Italian bel canto, with handsome band of musicians, Les Arts sensitive and studied insight into Prenk Jakova’s Skënderbeu, an opera
melodies and properly dramatic Florissants. One of their original the comédies-ballets and gives voice written in 1968 which, nevertheless,
set pieces played here on original aims was to explore the relationship to two generations of singers and stylistically complements the turn-
instruments. All credit to the between music and language and instrumentalists who, together with of-the-century verismo numbers.
Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic to revitalise the musicality of Christie, have been at the forefront The prevailing mood of the
Choir who make the most of the speech. This led them to rediscover of the French Baroque revival. album is one of fevered anxiety,
choruses that punctuate the work. the comédies-ballets of Molière, John-Pierre Joyce and Pirgu really gets under the skin
Costa Rican tenor David Astorga Lully and Charpentier. These were PERFORMANCE +++ of these agitated men. He brings
seizes all the vocal trophies as a plays that merged drama, poetry, RECORDING +++ a yearning, urgent quality to his
heroic Idamor and Germán Olvera is music, dance and visual spectacle performance that must be truly
a suitably anguished Djares. Marta in a unified artform two centuries Saimir thrilling on stage, even if, when
Torbidoni’s Neala, is less satisfying before Wagner came up with the Arias by Bizet, Puccini et al placed under the microscope, there
though she begins well enough. idea. Most were conceived as court Saimir Pirgu (tenor); Orquestra de la is some occasional unevenness
Truth to tell, her character lacks entertainments for Louis XIV. The Comunitat Valenciana/ in tone and diction and a sense
dramatic interest as does much exception is Le Malade imaginaire, Antonino Fogliani of ever so slightly overdoing it.
of the libretto, based on a French which was written for the Théâtre Opus Arte OACD9052D 74:06 mins The orchestral sound quality is
drama. You need a proper baritone du Palais-Royal in Paris. It was In 2016 the at times rather heavy and two-
villain and some sense of the Orient. Molière’s only collaboration with Albanian tenor dimensional. There is nevertheless
But then as Moniuszko’s biographer Charpentier and was written after Saimir Pirgu much to enjoy here, particularly in
observed, ‘he saw Hindu pariahs the playwright had fallen out with appeared some of the numbers that require
dressed in coarse heavy clothes of Lully over the latter’s monopoly of beaming on the greater sensitivity, from an artist
Belarusian and Polish peasants.’ staged musical performances. front of a solo who is never less than passionately
MARIO KERNO
Christopher Cook The album disappoints in that album, Il mio canto. Eight years committed. Alexandra Wilson
PERFORMANCE +++ most of the music, brilliantly later he is back, minus the smile PERFORMANCE ++++
RECORDING ++++ directed and played as it is by (moody photos abound) and minus RECORDING +++

Choral & Song
CHORAL & SONG CHOICE
A potent and powerful set of new works

Composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s is a distinctive voice, says Christopher Dingle
expressed directly through pre-

verbal communication’.
Written a year later, Ululations
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė sadly makes a natural partner
Aletheia; Chant des Voyelles; to Aletheia, giving voice to the
Ululations; The Blue of Distance consequent mourning. Initially
Latvian Radio Choir/Sigvards Kļava dolefully elegiac, the female singers’
Ondine ODE-1447-2 59:39 mins coruscating outburst to halt the
These works go beyond words. This men’s rhythmic insistence is an
latest release from the superlative extraordinary moment. Chant
Latvian Radio Choir and conductor des Voyelles (2018) sustains a
Sigvards Kļava explores the choral contrastingly positive sense of simply
music of New York-based Lithuanian being, while the more quizzical The
composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė. Blue of Distance (2010) ebbs and
Specifically, it flows, objects
presents four This is a stunningly drifting in and out
unaccompanied of focus.
works, written
sung hour of The extensive
between 2010 and immersive listening conceptual
2023, that dispense and technical
with text. Having spent her formative challenges are negotiated with
years under the oppression of Soviet deceptive ease by the choir. While it
rule, music’s ability to express what is natural to present these four works
words cannot is paramount in together, their individual potency
Martinaitytė’s creative explorations may be enhanced still further in a Superlative sounds:
of identity and place. Especially so mixed programme. Nonetheless, Sigvards Kļava
for Aletheia (2022), written as Russia this album presents a powerfully directs the brilliant
launched its attack on Ukraine. Its compelling, stunningly sung, hour of Latvian Radio Choir
deep emotions elicit a wall of choral immersive listening to a distinctive
sound within which there is living and important musical voice.
You can access thousands of reviews from our extensive archive on
movement, Martinaitytė connecting PERFORMANCE +++++
the BBC Music Magazine website at www.classical-music.com
with ‘the truth that can only be RECORDING ++++
JS Bach • Handel distinctions between this version respexit’ with Xenia Löffler’s Elgar
JS Bach: Weihnachts-Magnificat; and the other include the presence limpid oboe partnership, Roderick Part-Songs – There is sweet
Handel: Utrecht Te Deum of recorders instead of flutes and Williams’s ‘Quia fecit’ and Marie- music; The Fountain; Death
Nuria Rial (soprano) et al; RIAS adjustments to the melodic material. Sophie Pollak’s ‘Et exsultavit’. The on the Hills; Serenade; Good
Kammerchor Berlin; Akademie für Just over ten years earlier Handel backbone of Handel’s Te Deum is Morrow; The Shower etc
Alte Musik Berlin/Justin Doyle wrote a Te Deum celebrating the a sequence of wonderfully varied Proteus Ensemble/Stephen Shellard
Harmonia Mundi HMM902730 Treaty of Utrecht which, in 1713 choruses containing comparably Avie AV2716 56 mins
56:33 mins brought to an end the War of the varied vocal textures. Alex Potter’s Beyond his
For his first Spanish Succession. solo introduced by oboe and violins grandiloquent
Christmas Both pieces are generously scored and leading to a short four-part masterpieces,
at Leipzig in for trumpets, drums, woodwind, vocal a cappella and five-part Elgar wrote
1723 Bach strings and continuo and, under chorus is rewarding. a substantial
performed his Justin Doyle’s supple direction The booklet contains full number of
newly composed soloists, the RIAS Kammerchor texts, though among otherwise part-songs, produced throughout
Magnificat. This earlier of two Berlin, variously in four, five, six and fulsome details of the instrumental his composing life and acting as a
versions, in E flat as opposed seven strands, and the Akademie personnel, there is no mention running commentary on his creative
to the more familiar D major, für Alte Musik Berlin enliven of recorder players. Probably the inspiration while in the English
includes four additional vocal the music with stylistic aplomb. oboists. Nicholas Anderson countryside or on his frequent
pieces intended specifically for the Among the alluring moments in PERFORMANCE ++++ visits to Italy. Some are charming
Christmas festival. Other important the Bach are Nuria Rial’s ‘Quia RECORDING ++++ personal offerings for family and

Choral & Song Reviews
friends, based on favourite poems Glover’s rhetoric, as expressed by
by Byron, Shelley and Tennyson. A festive Magnificat: band and chorus, is outstanding:
Others are official commissions soprano Nuria Rial phrasing is crisp, choruses
for formal occasions, while others sparkles in Bach’s have declarative bite and word
still are better defined as ‘choral seasonal variation meaning is meticulously conveyed.
songs’, composed for competitions Musically, however, the ensemble’s
that were becoming popular across smoothness, blend and control,
Britain, putting amateur choirs to steadied by an acoustic which tends
the test. to make inner parts disappear,
This collection of 17 works from dulls the edges of Jephtha’s drama.
the eight-strong Proteus Ensemble This recording may appeal to fans
under Elgar aficionado Stephen of Glover more than to followers of
Shellard, provides a satisfying Handel. Berta Joncus
cross-section of Elgar’s output, from PERFORMANCE ++++
‘To her beneath whose steadfast RECORDING +++
star’, a hyperbolic 80th-birthday
tribute to Queen Victoria, to O Gabriel Jackson
Happy Eyes, a serene, intimate The Christmas Story
billet-doux dedicated to Elgar’s The Choir of Merton College, Oxford;
new bride Caroline Alice Roberts, Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia et al
to the technical challenges of There Delphian DCD34331 73:41 mins
is sweet music written in different Premiered
keys, with upper and lower voices a ten years ago,
semitone apart. Gabriel Jackson’s
Shellard shows meticulous The Passion of
attention to detail, with superb of characterisation, especially at To open her 20th our Lord Jesus
control over the ebb and flow that harrowing moment where he season leading Christ proved
of rubato and rapidly shifting says in a hoarse (‘rancosa’) voice Chicago’s Music a terrifically appealing work.
dynamics in Elgar’s music. Stripped ‘weeping woman behold thy son’ of the Baroque, Commissioned by Merton College
down to such small numbers, the – the word ‘rancosa’ is set to the Jane Glover (with an outstanding recording
individual voices can feel exposed highest note and the directness of programmed, later released by Delphian) the piece
and the blend in the upper voices, expression seems clear. Ave Dei directed and recorded this live draws on an imaginative melding
characterised by a reedy quality, Patris, was also recorded by The Jephtha in 2022. Assisted by star of texts, including all four gospels
can upset the overall balance. Cardinall’s Musick in the 1990s American vocalists and her poised alongside other texts ancient and
However, the love that has gone into (ASV/Gaudeamus), and provides chorus and band, Glover’s handling modern. This excellent new work,
this project is palpable, with the a useful comparison. The Tallis of the score is characteristically deft. The Christmas Story again places
performers clearly revelling in the Scholars’s version is beautifully Renowned operatic tenor David Merton College Choir at its centre
high drama, the lyrical sweep and clear and serene, partly aided by the Portillo brings great passion to the and follows a similar format in
beguiling tonality that encapsulate more leisurely pace (they take over title role of the warrior who, to win bringing together passages from
Elgar’s style in miniature. 13 minutes, the Cardinall’s Musick, a battle, promises to sacrifice the the King James Bible with smart
Ashutosh Khandekar not quite 12). They also brighten first living being he encounters and affecting new poems by writers
PERFORMANCE ++++ the sound by transposing up the afterwards. He is however quietly Penny Boxall and Mary Anne Clark.
RECORDING ++++ written notes by a minor sixth which upstaged by soprano Lauren Jackson’s score once more
accommodates the women singing Snouffer as Jephtha’s daughter sparkles with verve. There is a sense
Fayrfax the upper voices, and their textures Iphis, the promised sacrifice. of warm anticipation to the work as
Maria plena virtute; Ave Dei are more transparent. O Maria, Portillo’s robustness and command a whole but no shortage of pathos,
Patris; O Maria, Deo grata; Deo Grata lacks the treble and bass of dynamics coalesce in moments as well as plenty of harmonic and
Eterne laudis lilium parts in the original source, but Nick which must have been riveting timbral fizz. In part, this is due to
The Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips Sandon’s excellent reconstruction to watch, but his vibrato and Jackson’s novel instrumental line-
Gimell CDGIM054 60:29 mins has allowed us to hear its innovative ‘sobbing’ upward leaps – for up which includes a delicious mix
Robert Fayrfax dependence on chordal progressions instance in ‘Open thy marble of solo strings, flute, alto saxophone,
(b1464) was at rather than polyphonic lines, and jaws’ – belong to a Romantic, rather trombones and percussion. The
the coronation Fayrfax’s advanced techniques than a Handelian, character. By score is wonderfully eclectic, from
of Henry VIII, can also be heard in the ‘Amen’ of contrast, Snouffer’s incandescent the playful folksong feel of ‘And
and one of his Eterne Laudis Lilium. This recording core, straight sustained notes and there were in the same country’,
last duties was to provides a welcome advocate for his rainbow-bright colours make her complete with snapping rhythms
accompany the King to France in music. Anthony Pryer character’s growing strength subtly and gorgeous fiddle-style playing,
1520 on a diplomatic mission. The PERFORMANCE ++++ audible. Among other principals, to the radiant ‘O nata lux de lumine’
four great motets here bear witness +++++ countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum that sees a restrained (newly-
MERCÈ RIAL/SWEET EVENTS BCN S.L., GETTY
RECORDING
to the extraordinary devotion of the Cohen as Hamor (in love with composed) passage of plainsong
English to the Virgin Mary during Handel Iphis) stands out for the richness blossom into full-blown choral
this period. Jephtha of his timbre and the visceral celebration.
Maria plena virtute (Mary Full David Portillo (tenor) et al; Music of persuasiveness of his acting, while Under the skilful direction of
of Virtue) is a moving description the Baroque Chorus & Orchestra/ the refined expressiveness of Benjamin Nicholas, the recording
of her thoughts at seeing her son on Jane Glover mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski as features some especially splendid
the cross. The speeches from Christ Reference Recordings FR-755 Storgé (mother of Iphis) deepens our choral singing from the Girl
probably needed a slight inflection 132:42 mins (2CD) empathy with her character. Choristers of Merton College

harmonic ‘togetherness’ are quickly
polarised with spikier moments of
tension, all the while maintaining
a clear flow. This is aided by the
impressively delicate playing of the
string trio, who handle the work
with such an even tone it is difficult
to know where one player stops and
another starts.
The largest work is Waley-
Cohen’s most overt experiment
with witchcraft, based on a series
of short ‘spells’ from Witch, a cycle
of poems by Rebecca Tamás, which
Waley-Cohen used as the basis
for her 2022 opera. ‘A spell asks to
be performed out loud in a ritual
setting,’ she writes. ‘It seemed fitting
and almost natural to bring these
Incandescent incantation: incantations into the ritualistic
mezzo-soprano Katie Bray setting of the concert hall.’ Featuring
casts a spell with Freya
soprano Héloïse Werner and mezzo
Waley-Cohen’s music
Katie Bray, the eight movements are
captivating, gradually building to a
punchy climax.
and an exuberant turn from the while the bubbling brook in ‘Auf having only previously released an If this is Waley-Cohen’s first
Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia dem Flusse’ becomes a river in full EP on Signum Classics, which saw complete outing on album, it’s
(albeit with some occasional spate. It accompanies her when it her collaborating with her sister, the exciting to consider what more is
lapses of intonation). Jackson’s should be travelling alongside. violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, who to come. Plus, the cover art by Julia
new score is indeed a triumph of As the rejected lover she is often makes an appearance again here. Soboleva is genius. Freya Parr
the imagination, injecting fresh ‘outside’ individual songs, not Drawing inspiration from literature, PERFORMANCE ++++
emotional and musical colour into always turning each into the next folklore and the natural world, RECORDING +++++
this most familiar of stories. emotional step in the drama. There’s Waley-Cohen wanted to evoke
Kate Wakeling little sense of lost happiness at the ‘spirits, conjurings, magical objects’ Walton
PERFORMANCE ++++ end of ‘Der Lindenbaum’. And is and, as the title work suggests, ‘a Complete Songs
RECORDING +++++ this really a mind at the end of its book of spells’. Siân Dicker (soprano), Krystal
tether when the wanderer meets the Waley-Cohen has assembled a Tunnicliffe (piano), Saki Kato (guitar)
Schubert hurdy gurdy man? With bright lyric crack team for her debut album, Delphian DCD34328 53:42 mins
Winterreise tone Fenlon’s voice sits naturally in with the Manchester Collective The singing voice
Rachel Fenlon (soprano, piano) the middle register. But there are bringing the two central works – was the young
Orchid Classics ORC100343 74:03 mins gear-changing drops into the chest Talisman and Naiad – to life, each William Walton’s
There’s nothing and an absence of those nuances weaving a thick tapestry of sound passport to Christ
novel about a of colour and tone that mark through thin, floating soloistic lines, Church Oxford
woman singing the most satisfying Winterreise with layers multiplying. Colour and as a boy chorister.
Schubert’s performances. The despair that texture supersedes melody: ethereal, And that facilitated everything that
wanderer. Lotte overwhelms Schubert’s wanderer wispy musical ideas pass over and followed. Ironic, then, that the solo
Lehmann, somehow seems borrowed here. under one another to create vivid songs are arguably the least known
Christa Ludwig and Alice Coote Christopher Cook imagery. In Conjure, moments of among his works, and in total fall
have all recorded Winterreise. What PERFORMANCE ++
makes the Canadian soprano Rachel RECORDING +++
Fenlon’s debut album unique, if we
are to believe her record company, Freya Waley-Cohen
is that she accompanies herself at Spell Book; Conjure; BACKGROUND TO…
the piano. Naiad; Talisman Handel’s Jephtha
If the partnership between piano Héloïse Werner (soprano), Katie Bray, Based on a tragic story from The Book of
and jilted lover is all the closer, then Fleur Barron (mezzo-soprano), et al Judges in The Old Testament, Jephtha would
the irony at the heart of the cycle is Manchester Collective; London ultimately be Handel’s last oratorio and indeed
somewhat submerged, namely that Philharmonic Orchestra/ his last major work. For the libretto he turned
the wanderer is not alone trudging Edward Gardner to his regular collaborator Thomas Morell who,
through the snow. The piano is on NMC NMC D284 70:50 mins
though rooting the text in the bible story, drew in
the road too, mapping the wintry It’s surprising, words from poets like Pope and Milton. Handel
GETTY, TIM DUNK PHOTOGRAPHY
landscape, listening to the broken somehow, that undertook work in early 1751, but had to pause
heart and offering consolation. this is Freya due to failing sight in one of his eyes. Returning to it in the summer, Handel
Fenlon’s forthright keyboard style Waley-Cohen’s was able to complete Jephtha in the August and had just enough sight
gives her wanderer a heavy tread in first complete remaining to conduct its premiere at Covent Garden in February 1752.
the left hand, rattles the leaves on recording. She
a winter tree in ‘Letzte Hoffnung’, is a well established name, despite

well short of an hour’s worth of composed just two years earlier? Why such a operatic drama of Haydn’s Insanae et
music. Conceived to coincide in ‘Fain would I change that note’ hotch-potch of vanae curae.
2023 with the 40th anniversary of sounds a little laboured initially, sacred choral Three young organists do the
Walton’s death (and the centenary and Dicker doesn’t seem entirely pieces, ranging honours. Edward Byrne and
of the public premiere of Façade), comfortable with the vocal line. from Edwardian Romain Bornes are current organ
this project unites all the songs on ‘My love in her attire’, however, stalwarts to music scholars at Magdalen, and you
one album and includes premiere bristles with wry sauciness. The of our own times? And why the sense them revelling in the new
recordings of the teenage composer’s espagnolerie of ‘Through Gilded singular outburst of 18th-century sonic possibilities, mechanical
youthful excursions into the genre. trellises’ all a-quiver, the Three Sturm und Drang? and electronic, at their fingertips.
Except for ‘The Winds’ – Façade Songs ensure that the album All is explained when you Alexander Pott shows his
delivered with tempestuous signs off on a high. But the bookends learn that the starring role on this experience and virtuosity in a rare
churning and ardour – they’re not remain triumphant standouts in an recording belongs not to the choir, choral work by Marcel Dupré,
especially memorable though; and uneven output; a tantalising glimpse but to Magdalen College Chapel’s a great luminary of the French
Siân Dicker and Krystal Tunnicliffe of what might have been if Walton splendid – and thunderous – organ world: Laudate Dominum
save the best for first and last. had written more. Paul Riley new organ, the first large-scale juxtaposes the tremendous power
At the outset is an undoubted PERFORMANCE +++ instrument to be built in the UK by of the ‘Grand Orgue’ with intimate
masterpiece: A Song for the Lord RECORDING +++ Germany’s Hermann Eule Orgelbau. interactions with the choir. Such
Mayor’s Table, a cycle that opens Each piece showcases different thrilling dynamic contrasts are
with a festive flourish and musters Voices of Thunder – facets of this vast instrument, characteristic of many of the works
a veiled, mysterious setting of Monumental Choral whose special features include a in this selection, from the gradual
Wordsworth’s ‘Glide Gently’ and the Works with Organ harmonium-like Physharmonica crescendos in Balfour Gardiner’s
chiming translucence of ‘Rhyme’ – Works by HB Gardiner, Dupré, stop, and a tuba stop (unique in ‘Evening Hymn’ to the explosive
pungently characterised by Dicker Haydn, Parry, Stanford, Oxford) with its own blower. The ‘Amen’ in Pärt’s Beatitudes.
with exuberantly clangorous Jonathan Dove, Libby Larsen, broad range of sonorities and CORO’s recording beautifully
accompaniment from the piano. James MacMillan, Arvo Pärt, vibrant palette of colours seem to captures the spacious acoustic of
The other set – Anon in Love Dobrinka Tabakova and energise and intensify the singing, Magdalen’s chapel and the airy
– isn’t quite as successful. Was Judith Weir especially in the cosmic ecstasy resonance of the choir’s classic –
Walton inhibited making his debut Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford/ of Jonathan Dove’s ‘Seek him and classy – English sound.
writing for the guitar? Or wary of Mark Williams et al that maketh the seven stars’, the Ashutosh Khandekar
comparison with Britten’s similarly CORO COR16209 playfulness of Judith Weir’s ‘Like to PERFORMANCE ++++
scored Songs from the Chinese 77:27 mins the falling of a star’, and the quasi- RECORDING ++++
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Chamber
a CHAMBER CHOICE Brahms
Cello Sonatas
Alisa Weilerstein (cello), Inon
An immaculate selection Barnatan (piano)
Pentatone PTC 5187 215 76:47 mins
of Schumann to cherish Performing on

her Montagnana
cello, Alisa
Weilerstein stuns
Jessica Duchen enjoys these expressive performances the listener with
by Maxim Rysanov, Julian Bliss and Dasol Kim her sumptuously
golden tones which are eminently
suited to Brahms’s richly romantic
invention. Her lyrical playing is
Singing qualities: equally convincing, eliciting a
Maxim Rysanov gives wide range of tonal variety and
vocalists a run for dynamic nuance. The piano’s role
their money
is uncompromisingly important
in these works, and Inon Barnatan
proves himself masterly at being
the chameleon of texture – one
second accompanying, the next
taking over the mantle of the
melodic line. Generally, Brahms’s
full-blooded piano writing needs
careful handling to obviate
swamping the cello, and Barnatan’s
fine ear for balance and colour –
and of harmonic voice-leading
– wins the day. This is crucial in
the fugal writing in the finale of
the E minor Sonata, and here the
strands are really clearly depicted
with an excitingly high-voltage
ending. There is plenty of sturm
und drang too in their conception
of the opening movement with
impassioned playing in the
climaxes, followed by a more gently
reflective approach in the coda.
R Schumann its potential loss (in his case, all too imminent). The
Brahms scholars have never
Fantasiestücke, Op.73; Adagio und Allegro; performance feels as if they are cherishing every note.
reached a consensus as to whether
Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132 etc Rysanov and Kim offer technically immaculate,
the composer himself arranged the
Maxim Rysanov (viola), Julian Bliss (clarinet), expressive and intimate performances of the viola
G major Violin Sonata for Cello near
Dasol Kim (piano) and piano works, plus a selection of songs from
the end of his life and transposed
Onyx ONYX4245 57:26 mins the cycles Dichterliebe and Liederkreis, which they
the work into the key of D major.
Please don’t fall for the old chestnut that Robert successfully transform into rewarding instrumental
But Weilerstein’s arrangement
Schumann’s late works were of pieces. Rysanov’s nuanced
opts for the violin’s original key.
inferior quality because he was Dasol Kim’s piano playing phrasing and excellent variety This is tonally brighter, though
mentally ill. Among Rysanov, of tone colour would present
is a special joy in the a challenge for some actual
occasionally some passages sound
Kim and Bliss’s achievements quite high. Yet the sonata receives
is to prove – if it is necessary selection of songs singers to match, and Kim’s
such a committed and sensitive
– that these pieces can reach piano playing is a special joy.
performance, that this issue
an emotional space subtler and even richer than the The best Lieder pianists can establish a magical
becomes all but irrelevant.
heady passion of Schumann’s early piano works. atmosphere of raptness and longing from the very first
A compelling, fiery heroism
The Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132 for viola, clarinet note of Dichterliebe, and he is to the manner born.
imbues the opening movement of
and piano are positively heavenly and the group It’s wonderful to find a recording like this: one that,
the F major Sonata. In contrast,
makes the best possible case for them. These rare as soon as it finishes, you want to start it all over again.
these artists are poetic and sensitive
pieces date from that crucial month of October 1853, PERFORMANCE +++++
in the Adagio, the melodies tender
when the Schumanns first met the young Brahms, RECORDING +++++
and beautifully shaped. The ensuing
and are thus contemporaneous with, for instance, Allegro tears away with emblazoned
the Violin Concerto’s finale. Rysanov, Bliss and Kim You can access thousands of reviews from our
extensive archive on the BBC Music Magazine intensity, and the finale projects a
capture the knife edge of heightened awareness light-hearted bravura. Jo Talbot
upon which Schumann balances between love and PERFORMANCE +++++
RECORDING +++++

Chamber Reviews
Busoni
Violin Sonatas; Four Bagatelles High-voltage Brahms:
Alisa Weilerstein and
Francesca Dego (violin), Inon Barnatan master
Francesca Leonardi (piano) the cello sonatas
Chandos CHAN 20304 65:15 mins
I found Francesca
Dego’s recording
of Busoni’s Violin
Concerto rather
underpowered
when I reviewed
it in May, but she has more going for
her in these sonatas. The opening
of the First has a bite and rhythmic
tightness which seemed to elude
her in the Concerto, and her sound
is altogether bigger. As ever with
Busoni, the interest in structure
is often more striking than the
melodic content, which means that
a heightened level of engagement
from the performers is a must. And
Dego certainly provides that here,
with a fine variety of tone, vibrato
and phrasing. Leonardi could be Capitalising on violin/guitar arrangement reveals an unforced, explorative post-
weightier in the first movement, the popularity rather than detracts, and Roth is romantic sensibility.
but impresses more in the ensuing of Vivaldi’s more stylish and disciplined. Ngwenyama is herself an award-
Sostenuto, where Dego runs the Four Seasons, However, as an interpretation of winning violist, and her feel for
gamut between full-hearted Evil Penguin Vivaldi, this album denies listeners the medium and its instrumental
outpouring and and half-veiled Classic presents any understanding of 21st-century interplay is clear from the opening
intimacy. The finale is forceful and a new arrangement for violin and attitudes to such canonical music. ‘Prelude - Tear in space/time’.
energetic from both players, with guitar. We hear the fruits of a recent Amidst the rich selection of Yet there is nothing traumatic
Leonardi getting her mojo back, and collaboration between violinist currently available recordings of the about the creation impulses she
Dego driving the music forward. Linus Roth and guitarist Petrit Four Seasons this release falls short. symbolises in the ensuing ‘Epochs
The Second Sonata is more Çeku, replacing the traditional Ingrid Pearson of reionization B = H for Hydrogen’,
adventurous, its ten sections orchestral forces with a more cost- PERFORMANCE +++ ‘BE = he for helium’ and on. Rather,
played without a break: the first effective ensemble. RECORDING ++++ the eruptions are ones of joy and
is the longest, creeping in with an Published in 1725 in the Op. 8 expansion, cast in glissandos
almost tentative demeanour, before collection ‘The contest of harmony Nokuthula Ngwenyama and pizzicato pulses, framed by
rousing itself to greater energy, and invention’, each work depicts Flow fundamentally lyrical tapestries
then gently slipping back into flora and fauna at a particular time Takács Quartet both tonal and dissonant.
sleep. One of Busoni’s tarantellas in the year, imitating birdsong, Hyperion CDA68468D (EP) 21:52 mins The Takács respond in turn with
makes a marked contrast in the water trickling, insects, the wind The musical gentle vigour. Their performance is
ensuing Presto, then there’s a gently as well as human behaviours. The processes in this supplely committed, and laudably
rocking siciliano before the central combination of bowed and plucked engaging string allows the music to breathe.
Bach-based chorale. The overall string sonorities is most effective in quartet are aptly Steph Power
structure and different moods are moments of intimacy – the second summarised PERFORMANCE ++++
finely characterised by both players, movement of ‘Spring’ (No. 1 in by its title, Flow RECORDING ++++
through brief marches, a ghostly, E major), the second movement of (2022-23) – while its underlying
chromatic Andante, a tranquil ‘Summer’ (No. 2 in G minor) and spirit is equally described by the Shostakovich
fugue and a final section which the second movement of ‘Winter’ easy-going encouragement of its String Quartets Nos 1-5
begins passionately, and gradually (No. 4 in F minor). Roth needs eighth and final movement to ‘Enjoy (Complete String Quartets,
unwinds to rest in a major key. more discipline with intonation, and go with the flow’. Vol. 1)
After that, the four Bagatelles particularly in fast passagework, Commissioned by the Takács Cuarteto Casals
form a series of encores – but it’s the where the transcription leaves the Quartet for a piece ‘about anything Harmonia Mundi HMM90273132
Second Sonata which stays in the solo violin exposed. Çeku valiantly in the natural world’, the US-born, 139:45 mins (2CD)
memory. Martin Cotton attempts to recreate ensemble Japanese-Zimbabwean Nokuthula By and large,
PERFORMANCE +++++ sonorities including virtuosic Ngwenyama searched long and hard this first volume
RECORDING +++++ touches in the third movement of for a scientific-cum-metaphysical in a projected
‘Summer’, although in the second starting point. But while her complete
Corelli • Vivaldi
LASZLO EMMER, PAUL STEWART
movement of ‘Autumn’ (No. 3 in inspiration embraces quarks, Shostakovich

Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (arr. violin, F major) the scoring breaches the pranayama, starling murmurations String Quartet
guitar); Corelli: Sonata in D minor harmonic tension. The album and more, no knowledge of this cycle is an impressive achievement.
Linus Roth (violin), concludes with Corelli’s D minor is needed to appreciate what The Cuarteto Casals approaches
Petrit Çeku (guitar) Op. 5 No. 12 ‘La Follia’ sonata, by far is, in essence, a finely crafted the music with fresh ears and
Evil Penguin EPRC 0065 53:21 mins the most convincing track. Here the work from a composer who has is not afraid to take different

Chamber Reviews
in the overlapping, interrupting rich and varied seam of modern
dialogue of the Sérénade, one of the and near-modern jazz. The original
composer’s quirkier creations. material includes classic tunes
The nine Fauré pieces are by the likes of Garner, Monk,
interleaved with two each by four of Mingus and Miles Davis (hence
his friends. Ma and Stott both have the title), thus ranging from swing
links to his pupil Nadia Boulanger, to contemporary via bop, free and
their versions of her songs ‘La mer’ modal, with each style demanding
and ‘Cantique’ moving sublimely and happily getting the individual
beyond the need for words. Usually approach to arrangement it
heard on violin, the intimate deserves. The few brief instances
Nocturne by Nadia’s sister Lili is where the interpretations seem
equally affecting on cello, while to tread water before the next big
the sudden climax and mysterious statement are unobtrusive in what
conclusion of the darker hued D’un is overall a programme of
soir triste are spellbinding. In ‘Mon reworkings that are both
coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ from Saint- imaginative and fearless, with
Saëns’s opera Samson et Dalila, Ma pizzicato-driven bass parts and
melts the heart in holding back in excursive harmonies underpinned
ways beyond any singer. The same is by a clear respect for the music’s
Energetic and joyful: true of Pauline Viardot’s charming familiar melodic elements.
Quatuor Ébène offer a
fearless jazz survey
‘Haï Luli!’, while the imploring Central to the success of this
declamations of her Aimez-moi are project is the realisation that note-
simply, yet searchingly delivered. for-note transcriptions would
In other hands, this would be a produce fairly absurd results, so
interpretative decisions to those Klezmer-inflected dance of a sense mere assemblage of works, but, once what we hear are heads, choruses,
adopted by the Beethoven or of struggle and of fighting valiantly again, Stott and Ma captivate with phrases and riffs that have been
Borodin Quartets during the against the odds, thereby reducing a coherent and engaging musical expertly dismantled and rebuilt
Soviet era. Or for that matter, the the effectiveness of the emotionally world. A reminder theirs has been a in the quartet idiom, somewhat
more recent and equally acclaimed equivocal coda. Erik Levi partnership for which we should be like an extended evocation of the
versions from the Emerson and PERFORMANCE ++++ truly grateful. Christopher Dingle way Charles Ives draws on popular
Pacifica Quartets. Inevitably, not RECORDING +++++ PERFORMANCE +++++ hymns in his quartets. It’s also
everything is entirely convincing. RECORDING ++++ interesting to note that the Ébène
For example, I feel that the third Merci generally insert pieces of this
movement of the First Quartet Fauré: Berceuse; Andante; Papillon; Milestones nature into otherwise conventional
requires a more hushed timbral Sicilienne; Morceau de Lecture; Works by Davis, Ellis, Garner, programmes, a crossover-by-stealth
quality to create a greater aura Romances, Opp 28, 36 & 69; Kirkland, Mingus, Monk, Shorter approach that coincidentally
of mystery in the scurrying Sérénade; Élégie. and Thielemans celebrates the value of recorded
passagework. Likewise, I miss an Plus works by L Boulanger, Quatuor Ébène music; a whole live programme
underlying sense of anxiety in the N Boulanger, Saint-Saëns Warner Classics 5419789789 48:47 mins of this nature would probably be
somewhat straitlaced approach to and Viardot Long associated rather tiresome for chamber music
the Valse from the Second Quartet. Yo-Yo Ma (cello), with the enthusiasts and jazz lovers alike
On the other hand, there is some Kathryn Stott (piano) infiltration of but is an absolute joy to have as a
simply marvellous and insightful Sony Classical 19802822812 72:02 mins non-classical go-to library item. The recorded
playing elsewhere, especially in The gratitude repertoire into sound captures the music’s energy to
a gripping account of the Fifth heartfelt. The more traditional perfection. Roger Thomas
Quartet. One really imaginative ‘Merci’ of this quartet programming, this release PERFORMANCE +++++
touch is the sudden slamming of beautifully sees the Quatuor Ébène mining the RECORDING +++++
the brakes for the desiccated ghostly curated album
jabs that make up the melodic is a mutual
material in the middle section of thanks between cellist Yo-Yo Ma
the second movement of the Third and pianist Kathryn Stott as their
Quartet. The impact is all the more 40-year collaboration comes to a BACKGROUND TO…
unsettling at this slower tempo. close with the latter’s retirement as Fauré’s Papillon
Just as compelling is the expansive performer. The album celebrates
After Fauré’s Élégie for cello and piano was
conception of the first movement numerous inter-relationships. In the
first perfomed in 1883 and met with wide
of the Fourth Quartet. The sheer centenary of his death, Fauré is the
admiration, his publisher (Editions Hamelle) –
richness of sonority that Cuarteto album’s focus and a composer who
evidently imagining the influx of cash – coaxed
Casals achieves in the big drone- has been central to Stott’s repertoire.
him into penning a follow-up for the same
dominated climax sends shivers From the Berceuse’s good-natured
forces. So in 1884 Fauré began work on what
down the spine, and I don’t think opening to the final teasing
he would simply call Pièce pour violoncelle,
I’ve ever heard a more moving and exchanges as the Romance Op. 28
though it was 14 years before the publisher got
deeply felt projection of the second winds down, there is a palpable
JULIEN MIGNOT, GETTY
his hands on it. Hamelle suggested the title,

movement. The finale, however, sense of music-making between
Libellules (Dragonflies) before Papillon (Butterfly). Fauré, it seems, didn’t
is more problematic. In adopting a friends. Papillon’s outer sections
care a jot. His response? ‘Butterfly or Dung Fly, call it whatever you like!’
rather easygoing and flowing tempo, flitter playfully, while Stott and
the Cuarteto Casals seems to rob the Ma genially nudge each other aside

Composers do not dwell in ivory towers...
SO WRITTEN TO AFTER-TIMES
John McCabe – A Life in Letters
Compiled by Monica McCabe
A compilation of letters or extracts from letters between composer-pianist

John McCabe and eminent composers and performers from across the world,
including also letters home from his various foreign tours. They range from
the scholastically interesting to the frivolous and the emotionally moving.
Correspondents include Britten, Barbirolli, Ursula Vaughan Williams, Previn,
Beryl Bainbridge, David Bintley and Richard Rodney Bennett. The book is
therefore interesting as a historical document, as an intimate disclosure of the
thoughts of great artists and even as light-hearted bed-time reading.
Available from Forsyth Music £15.99

126 Deansgate, Manchester M3 2GR www.forsyths.co.uk
Experience the latest album

release from the Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra
SYMPHONIES 5 & 6 Buy and Stream now!

CHIEF CONDUCTOR JAIME MARTÍN Released in partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra
Instrumental
a INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE Abel • JS Bach • Hume
Solo Cello Works
Anja Lechner (cello)
Yuletide piano treats that ECM 4875882 60:37 mins
A recent trend
go straight to the heart whereby the

viola da gamba
has been making
Michael Church gets a warm glow from Duo Pleyel’s incursions to cello
repertoire is here
festive selection of four-hand piano arrangements reversed. Anja Lechner has chosen
a programme in which music by
Tobias Hume and Carl Friedrich
Abel, unequivocally intended for
Danube adornments: viola da gamba, shares a platform
Duo Pleyel decorate
J Strauss II with a bit with two of Bach’s Suites for
of tinsel and Glühwein unaccompanied cello.
Englishman and soldier Hume,
the earliest of the three composers,
spanned the last 30 years of the 16th
and the first half of the 17th century.
He was among the first to publish
music for solo viola da gamba, some
of it transferred from lute repertoire.
Many of his imaginative titles are
probably indecipherable, a mixture
perhaps of homage to aristocrats or
patrons and personal reference.
Abel was the son of one of Bach’s
colleagues and is best remembered
for his collaboration with Bach’s
youngest son Johann Christian in
the Bach-Abel concerts in London
between 1765 and 1781. He was also a
successful composer of symphonies
and concertos as well as music for
the viola da gamba of which he was a
celebrated virtuoso.
Lechner’s playing is
communicative. The Hume pieces
Yuletide Treats celebratory atmosphere, which transports us back to
are engagingly rhetorical and
Works by Handel, Liszt, J Strauss I, J Strauss II when George II felt impelled to stand up in honour of
capricious. The Arpeggio and
and Tchaikovsky its premiere in 1743.
Adagio of Abel come from one of his
Duo Pleyel Duo Pleyel admit that they added some ‘tinsel and
finest sonatas and are declaimed
Linn Records CKD757 56:36 mins Glühwein’ to Strauss II’s encomium to the Danube,
with concentrated introspection.
Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya and Richard Egarr and also to Strauss the elder’s Radetsky-Marsch:
In the Bach Suites lightly bowed
name themselves after the 1848 Pleyel they own, as it’s amazing what a few trills and tremolos can do.
articulation and conversationally
the four-hand entity Duo Pleyel. But the pièce de résistance is
punctuated dialogue do not
But the instrument on which Czerny’s arrangements of their arrangement of Eduard disappoint. Nicholas Anderson
they play here is a Chris Maene Handel exude a ringingly Langer’s take on Tchaikovsky’s
Nutcracker Suite which was
PERFORMANCE +++++
straight-strung concert grand, RECORDING +++++
which allows for a particularly celebratory atmosphere made at the same time as the
crystalline sound. And they ballet score’s first appearance. JS Bach
are currently half way through a recording project on Every one of the little musical vignettes is delectable,
Cello Suites
it of all Beethoven’s symphonies in his student Carl and it’s nice to learn from the internet that a mirliton
Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello)
Czerny’s four-hand arrangement. That same Czerny is a West-Indian fruit, as well as being one of the Harmonia Mundi HMM902388.90
also makes an appearance on this album. seductive figures which swirl through Tchaikovsky’s 134:58 mins (2CD)
Duo Pleyel’s Yuletide offering is the latest in a long penultimate dance. A Yuletide treat indeed.
Bach’s Six Suites
tradition of convivial Christmas music, but their PERFORMANCE +++++
for cello are
programme is unusually recherché. It begins with RECORDING ++++
deceptively
three sections of Liszt’s Christmas Tree Suite, each of neat. Composed
which has an artless simplicity which goes straight to You can access thousands of reviews from our
extensive archive on the BBC Music Magazine around 1720 for
the heart. Czerny’s arrangements of Handel’s ‘Unto Prince Leopold
us a child is born’ and ‘Hallelujah’ exude a ringingly of Cöthen, a keen musician, they
are all built on the familiar pattern

Instrumental Reviews
of the contemporary French of his original scores. The title of
suite with a prelude followed by this release, BACH THARAUD, Communicative cellist:
a succession of dances, and yet is unambiguous: centre-stage is Anja Lechner engages
the wealth of invention in these Bach, but you’re invited to listen the listener in solos by
short movements has provided through the prism of transcriptions Abel, Bach and Hume
challenges for performers and written, or chosen, by French pianist
entertainment for listeners for much Alexandre Tharaud.
of the last century. Pablo Casals’s Don’t be deceived by the
legendary recording from the late seemingly arbitrary array of
1930s set something of a standard multiple short pieces. What
for performers and the variety of Tharaud has created is not unlike
interpretation now available is the architecture of Bach’s music
enormous. This is Jean-Guihen itself, a structure of multiple
Queyras’s second recording of the layers of reinvention. The first
suites and is presented alongside a block, Bach’s own transcription of
filmed version, made in 2022, with an oboe concerto by Alessandro
dance choreographed by Anne Marcello, leads into Tharaud’s
Teresa De Keersmaeker, a clear sensitively voiced arrangements of
source of inspiration. music conceived for flute, lute and
In the interview accompanying strings, interspersed with original
this release Queyras speaks of keyboard works given new life
his lifelong fascination with the through agile and crisply articulated
Cello Suites and the profound performances on modern piano. To
personal significance of much end, the famous homage by Gounod
of the music, in particular the to Bach of his Ave Maria,
Fifth in C minor. There is a huge an improvised meditation on a deep, velvety, cushioned sound Recorded sound is very good and
amount to enjoy in these thoughtful the First Prelude from The quality, an under-the-microscope it is lovely to listen to a pianist who
performances. The preludes have Well-Tempered Clavier – itself sensitivity to shifts in harmonic never, ever ‘bangs’. Jessica Duchen
an appropriately improvisatory subsequently imitated in a colour and their structural PERFORMANCE ++++
quality drawing the listener in and succession of arrangements. significance, and a marvellous feel RECORDING ++++
holding the attention with a real But it is the transformation for long-breathed phrasing and
sense of exploration. Phrasing in of excerpts from Bach’s choral wide-spanned lines, such as those Chopin • Ligeti • Ravel
the dances is carefully considered masterpieces that transfix, whether at the start of the Sonata No. 3’s Chopin: Scherzo No. 1 in B minor;
without being four-square and via French pianist/composer Jean second movement. Ravel: Miroirs; Ligeti: Études, Book
the ornamentation in the repeats Wiéner or Tharaud himself; his You often feel that although 1 – Nos 5 & 6
has a captivating spontaneity. agonisingly intense transcription of Williams assuredly could ‘let rip’ Jaeden Izik-Dzurko (piano)
Selecting individual movements the opening chorus of the St John should he wish to, he chooses not Warner Classics 2173250050 (digital)
is invidious, but the Prelude to Passion is exhilarating in its to. When he does decide to turn 48 mins
the Sixth Suite, with its robust climactic ascent. Tharaud shows up the glitter a little bit – as in the By all accounts
‘hunting’ rhythms has a superb, how a tradition of reinterpretation extremely effective and moving a very
life-enhancing quality. Queyras’s extending back to Liszt and Busoni performance of the Variations on deserving – and
reading of the Fifth Suite has depth is an authentic means of translating a Theme of Schumann – it makes a uncontroversial
and urgency, although some may unfamiliar, or rarely performed, strong and rewarding impression, – winner of this
find the withdrawn, almost spectral pieces into a more accessible form to perhaps that is because he uses it year’s Leeds
tone adopted in the Sarabande too reach wider audiences. One senses so sparingly and only when International Piano Competition,
introspective. Excellently recorded that Bach would have approved. completely appropriate. Jaeden Izik-Dzurko (b1999) came
in a gently resonant acoustic, these Suzanne Rolt The only downside is that with away with a package of prizes.
performances offer a complete and PERFORMANCE ++++ what can feel like almost an excess These include a contract with
appealing view of these remarkable RECORDING ++++ of carefulness, the individual Warner Classics, which is due to
works. Jan Smaczny characters of the late miniatures record a studio album with the
PERFORMANCE +++++ Brahms do not always feel differentiated young Canadian pianist but has
RECORDING ++++ Schumann Variations; Seven to quite a sufficient degree. There lost no time in releasing some of his
Pieces; Four Pieces could be a wealth of colour and performances from the competition.
JS Bach Llŷr Williams (piano) adventure even within the different In the finals he played Brahms’s
Various works transcribed Signum Classics SIGCD916 sets from Op. 116 to Op. 119, but the Second Piano Concerto, which is
for solo piano 149:33 mins (2CD) palette feels relatively restricted, one way of showing he can perform
Alexandre Tharaud (piano) The Welsh pianist despite moments of great beauty. almost anything; yet any heaviness
Erato 2173242335 59:21 mins Llŷr Williams This affects the F minor Sonata, that might also suggest is absent
So much of has an enviable Op. 5 still more. A very early work here in a sequence of Chopin, Ravel
classical music reputation written when the youthful composer and Ligeti.
MARCO BORGGREVE, MARTIN HANGEN
is firmly of its for pianism was aflame with ambition and There’s little doubt that Izik-
time, but Bach of a deeply creative adventure, possibly already Dzurko – who also won the 2024
has always considered, even considerate kind. experiencing his life-changing Montreal International Music
transcended With his attention turning to a passion for Clara Schumann, it Competition – is a major talent to
such temporal boundaries, sizeable tranche of Brahms’s solo emerges as relatively ponderous and watch, but the Chopin Scherzo
reaching forward to inspire not piano music, his special qualities could use an extra spoonful or two No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20, that opens
only new works but re-imaginings are on ample display: they include of impetuosity. this recording may not show him at

Instrumental Reviews
his absolute best. It is full of detail Viennese Rhapsody
and lives up to its Presto con fuoco
marking, though possibly lacks that Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in
feeling of a long arc across it. As a C sharp minor ‘Moonlight’; Brahms:
live recording, it is not unblemished; 2 Rhapsodies, Op. 79; Mozart:
but that hardly matters and Izik- Fantasy in D minor; Piano Sonata
Dzurko is very consoling in the No. 13 in B flat; Schubert: Der Hirt
middle section’s Christmas lullaby. auf dem Felsen, D965; Dejan Lazić:
Izik-Dzurko is impressive across Rhapsody in Istrian Style
all five movements of Ravel’s Dejan Lazić (piano)
Miroirs, though there are still Onyx ONYX4248 82:23 mins
highlights here. ‘Oiseaux tristes’ Vienna, through
is achingly sad and ‘Une barque the ages. That’s
sur l’océan’ features beautifully the loose thread
flowing arpeggios. ‘Alborada del that links this
gracioso’ is crisply characterised – recital from
and it’s always nice to hear a piece pianist Dejan
dedicated to a critic (Michel-Dimitri Lazić, although it was recorded live
Calvocoressi). Two pieces from not in Austria but in Switzerland,
Ligeti’s Etudes Book 1 round off this at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival
short programme in performances in 2022. (The rustle and murmur
that confirm Izik-Dzurko’s wide of the audience just audible at the
musical horizons. John Allison starts and ends of pieces.) Still,
PERFORMANCE ++++ Continuing the family business: Daniele Pollini follows in Maurizio’s footsteps no special pleading is needed to
RECORDING ++++ bring together Mozart, Beethoven,
subtle mastery of sound. Daniele’s superbly captured by the recording Schubert and Brahms, and perhaps
Schubert solo tracks are basically fine, engineers. Designed exactly 70 years from a musical point of view the
Piano Works but I listened in vain for the way ago by one of Bloor’s predecessors more interesting aspect is the way
Maurizio Pollini, Maurizio could imbue the simplest as organist there, Ralph Downes, in which these composers explored
Daniele Pollini (piano) phrase with magic. Daniele conjures this great neo-classical instrument ideas of fantasy, rhapsody and
DG 486 6398 77:33 mins up whirlwind force in the fifth of the is well suited to various styles of improvisation.
For many people Moments musicaux, but doesn’t find repertoire, and it comes across It’s a quality Lazić captures
this album will the delicate spell his father would with bite and clarity in the opening beautifully in Mozart’s unfinished
bring back a host have found in the sixth. track, Arthur Wills’s Carillon on Fantasy in D minor, with its stop-
of memories. For The coming-together in the ‘Orientis Partibus’. starts and spontaneous spirit, its
me they include Fantasia is, however, all one could Fittingly, Downes’s own music is ending neatly completed here by
interviewing wish, with the fingers in the fast represented, and a certain English Lazić himself. It’s there too in the
Maurizio Pollini at his house in sections gracefully interwoven, and thread runs through the programme ornamentation of the first repeat in
Milan, with him apologising for the the receding succession of minor up to Matthew Martin’s specially the Andante cantabile in the Piano
sound of someone playing a Chopin chords sounding the end both of commissioned Prelude on ‘Conditor Sonata in B flat K333, and his sense
étude in an adjoining room. That the piece, and of Maurizio Pollini’s alme siderum’. Otherwise, and of drama, though sometimes there’s
was his 18-year-old son Daniele: was magnificent career. Michael Church apart from two pieces by Sigfrid a mannered feel to the dynamic
he going to become a professional PERFORMANCE +++++ Karg-Elert, the tone is mostly shading. Rubato comes to the fore in
pianist too? ‘Perhaps. We’ll see,’ RECORDING +++++ French, given the deep tradition the moody ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, or
replied the maestro cautiously. there of Gregorian chant-based as it was first known, Sonata Quasi
Well, Daniele has indeed become L’Orgue Grégorien music exemplified in the work of un Fantasia, and the exhilarating
a professional, and it feels very Organ works by Alain, Daniel- Charles Tournemire. The Beirut- Presto agitato is echoed in the steely
appropriate that this father-and- Lesur, Demessieux, Downes, born Naji Hakim sets the mood fire he brings to the two Rhapsodies,
son album should be devoted to Duruflé, Fauchard, Karg-Elert, with his Antienne, and notable Op. 79 by Brahms.
Schubert, and that its first work – Wills, Naji Hakim and pieces include the In paradisum of Lazić also gives us a glimpse of
here played by Pollini Sr. – should Matthew Martin Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur and the his other musical talents, in his own
be the last sonata Schubert wrote. Ben Bloor (organ) Rorate caeli of Jeanne Demessieux, arrangement of Schubert’s
The Moments musicaux are played Ad Fontes AF011 72:37 mins the first female organist to sign a The Shepherd on the Rock, which
by Daniele, with the Fantasia in F Subtitled ‘A year record contract. Among the musical was originally composed for
minor uniting all four hands. of chant-based highlights of the programme are soprano, piano and – Lazić’s other
Maurizio Pollini makes strikingly music from the Maurice Duruflé’s Choral varié sur instrument – clarinet.
free with the tempo of the first London Oratory’, le theme du ‘Veni Creator’ – whose And he rounds off the programme
movement of the sonata which has Ben Bloor’s debut beautiful colours are all brought with his own composition,
a disarming sweetness, while the album traverses out in Bloor’s registrations – and Rhapsody in Istrian Style, which
second exudes a benign force. With the liturgical calendar through Jehan Alain’s Variations sur Lucis arguably could benefit from some
exquisite shading, his playing has a 20th- and 21st-century works Creator. The most substantial work reining in, but it certainly gives a
YORK CHRISTOPH RICCIUS/DG
gentle authority, and his pay-off is inspired by plainchant. Not all the is by the little-known Auguste the listener a snapshot of music
an Allegretto which skips gaily off music is first-rate – there’s a certain Fauchard: his rewarding Le mystère from Lazić’s home country, Croatia.
into the distance. element of ‘organists’ music’ here – de Noël is certainly one to enjoy this Vienna is, by now, seen from afar.
Maurizio’s artistry was rooted in but it is all atmospheric, thanks not Christmas. John Allison Rebecca Franks
his touch, and his son has a long way least to Brompton’s famous Walker PERFORMANCE ++++ PERFORMANCE ++++
to go before he attains his father’s organ and the church’s acoustics, RECORDING +++++ RECORDING ++++

Books
Our critics cast their eyes over the latest selection of books on all things music
Cello – A Journey Through Messiah’s compound styles

Silence to Sound embracing English anthem,
Kate Kennedy German Passion and dramatic
Head of Zeus 468pp (hb) £30 oratorio are challenges for another
Loss and the type of survey altogether, as are
re-emergence of a the pitfalls and relative futility
cello voice defines of searching for a definitive
this narrative. version. In addition there is a lively
Kate Kennedy introduction, copious footnotes
revisits the lives and a comprehensive bibliography.
of four cellists, The inclusion of Charles Jennens’s
two of whom were Messiah libretto is a thoughtful
victims of the addition. Nicholas Anderson ++++
Holocaust. Particularly poignant is
her vivid portrayal of Pal Hermann The Schubert Treatment –
– a Hungarian cellist on the cusp of A Story of Music and Healing
international fame. She reconstructs Claire Oppert; Translated by
his days in hiding and final transfer Katia Grubisic
to the death camps with empathy. Greystone Books 216pp (hb) £16.99
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch faced an ‘Ten minutes of Schubert is the
equally traumatic journey in losing equivalent of five milligrams of oxy,’
her own cello. Yet her prowess as remarks a doctor at the palliative
a performer saved her life as she care unit of the Sainte-Périne
played in the Auschwitz orchestra. Musical healing: hospital in Paris, where cellist Claire
Alongside this we learn that Claire Oppert makes Oppert plays
Kennedy suffered from tendonitis regular visits to patients regularly. Oppert
armed with her cello
at school, but that she continued is an experienced
her studies at the RCM and is now art therapist, and
a professional cellist. Her complex this beautiful,
relationship with her cello flavours musician during a most colourful Every Valley – The Story of meditative book
the text, as she carts her instrument career, one unfairly overshadowed Handel’s Messiah documents 20
around Europe, following the by his chart-topping work with Charles King years of her
paths of her subjects, playing to all The Wombles. Bodley Head 352 pp (hb) £25 therapeutic
and sundry – a curious gesture in Singer, In an engagingly written story of music sessions for people with
literary format. songwriter, Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, Charles terminal illness, neurodegenerative
Slightly chaotic and lengthy, composer, King explores the background to a disease and autism, and in doing
Kennedy’s book ambitiously fuses conductor, work which he considers the greatest so, demonstrates the extraordinary
biography, autobiography and arranger, piece of participatory art ever enriching power of music.
a travelogue, alongside various producer... he’s created. King’s discursive and genial With deft, poetic prose
interludes. Throughout, she places done it all and approach to the circumstances (skilfully translated by Katia
herself relentlessly centre-stage, and almost lost which led to the Grubisic), Oppert offers a series of
despite intricate documentation and everything composition and vignettes which capture her varied
an approachable written style, it’s a in the process, several times over. performance of encounters, using a wonderful
‘marmite’ book. You’ll either love it… Batt’s dogged determination to see Messiah make breadth of music (everything from
or not. Jo Talbot +++ his musical and artistic visions for enjoyable Schubert to Puccini to Édith Piaf
to fruition is one of the biggest reading. While to Johnny Hallyday to traditional
The Closest Thing to Crazy – takeaways from this book. The there is colourful Arab music to heavy metal). Perhaps
My Life of Musical Adventures highs, such as hit songs like ‘Bright conjecture, most striking of all is her work at the
Mike Batt Eyes’ and ‘A Winter’s Tale’ and his mostly in the Parisian autism clinic founded by
Nine Eight 368pp (hb) £22 work with singer Katie Melua, were provision of historical background, the psychologist Howard Buten. The
At the end of this very readable certainly hard won. The lows, like King never allows it to dissipate young people she plays to here are
memoir, Mike Batt shares that self-funded albums and a musical the main thread of his account. largely non-verbal and sometimes
he’s writing his Ninth Symphony. (The Hunting of the Snark) that The point of departure is a bird’s- violent – her cello is on one occasion
Not that he’s written eight prior sank largely without a trace, not eye view of Georgian London, smashed to pieces – but the impact
symphonies, he just thinks the to mention a messy divorce and a seasoned with apposite quotes from of her work is profound in its
Ninths are usually the best and near-death experience on a Spanish leading literary figures of the time, capacity to enable communication:
so why not start there? Such is the clifftop, all make for quite a story. including Alexander Pope and ‘where words are inaccessible,
likeable bravado of this British But it’s Batt’s ability to dust himself Jonathan Swift. sometimes music – its silent breath
musical polymath, who has perhaps off and keep going which is rather King wisely avoids detailed – can reach below the ground.’
GETTY
been taken less than seriously as a inspiring. Michael Beek ++++ discussion of the music itself. Kate Wakeling ++++

Brief notes
This month’s selection features poetry, pianos and a touch of Christmas sparkle
A dark-to-light cantata. The voices of London’s

narrative covering King’s College Choir are accented
the nervous by Anneke Hodnett’s harp and
uncertainty of the Martin Owen’s horn, and it sets out
Covid-19 period is at the composer’s stall with its buoyant
the heart of Hoyer’s First Symphony, radiance. There’s a real timeless
and the American composer uses a quality to this music. (MB) ++++
large orchestra and tonal language
to tell it. The spiky, angsty first John Rutter Brass at Christmas
movement is the most successful Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus; Black
of the four, though it’s also hard to Dyke Band et al
suppress a smile at the work’s feel- Naxos 8.574564
good finale. (JP) +++ Rutter’s popular
carols are here
Khachaturian Symphony No. 1 etc given the brass
Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie/ band treatment,
Frank Beermann CPO 777919-2 sometimes with
Though never quite chorus, sometimes without. The
reaching the excesses composer’s accessible harmonic
of his Second and language is hard to resist, though
– frankly bonkers – the mellow, sometimes melancholy
Buried treasure: Third symphonies, timbre of the brass instruments
Erland Cooper’s Khachaturian’s First is nonetheless mutes the brilliance and treble
unearthed music is a thrilling listen, packed with those sparkle of such staples as the
poetic and beautiful touches of orientalism that make Shepherd’s Pipe Carol and Jesus
the Armenian composer’s music so Child. Nonetheless, a Christmas
distinctly his own. It is given a richly treat. (CS) +++
Robert Burns Arnot is three movements of really soul- colurful outing here, as is the lively
The Christmas Symphony stirring music for violin and string pan-Caucasian Dance Suite that Schumann Cello Concerto etc
Vienna Synchron Orchestra/ ensemble (atop words by George follows. (JP) ++++ Kian Soltani (cello), Julien Quentin
Bernhard Voss Mackay Brown). This is poetic and (piano); Camerata Salzburg
Wiener Klassische WK96622 unassuming in its beauty. Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 1-4; DG 486 6489
With sleigh bells, (MB) +++++ Overtures (Vol. 10) Kian Soltani’s
glockenspiel and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano); Schumann
soupy melodies Alexis Ffrench Classical Soul Manchester Camerata/Gábor Takács- collaboration
galore, the American – Piano Works, plus works by Nagy Chandos CHAN 20323 with Camerata
composer Robert Bacharach, Cooke, Withers et al The tenth volume in Salzburg brings
Burns Arnot clearly likes a Alexis Ffrench (piano); Royal Liverpool this brilliant Mozart together the epic Cello Concerto
traditional Christmas. Nothing Philharmonic Orchestra/Ben Palmer series features very with transcriptions from the
wrong with that – his symphony is Sony Classical 19802800452 early works by Myrthen, Dichterliebe, Waldszenen
quite charming, and at 16 minutes The production the child-genius and Liederkreis song cycles, among
long, doesn’t outstay its welcome. values here are as composer. These first concertos others. Soltani’s muted tone and
Don’t, though, expect to be wowed high as ever, and by an 11-year-old Mozart were clean articulation are a delight. And
by his originality or have your Ffrench supplies an composing exercises set by his father though the Concerto and the cello-
emotions pulled to the max. endless stream of Leopold, based upon existing works. piano arrangements are superb, it’s
(JP) +++ hummable songs without words. Bavouzet and the Manchester forces the orchestrated songs that really
His pieces are interspersed with imbue the concertos with delightful deliver emotionally. A revelation.
Erland Cooper Carve the Runes fragments of familiar tunes such energy and ferocious facility – and (CS) +++++
Then Be Content With Silence as ‘Killing Me Softly’, and there’s the overtures, too, are charming.
Daniel Pioro (violin) et al a danger in doing so in that such (CS) ++++ Vaughan Williams
Mercury 6576069 iconic melodies make the new items Carols from Herefordshire
The short version of seem rather pale in comparison. Edward Nesbit Nativity; Wycliffe Derek Welton (bass-baritone), Iain
this fascinating story There is plenty of charisma here, Carols; Four Christmas Lyrics etc Burnside (piano); Chapel Choir of the
is: Erland Cooper however, and no small amount The Choir of King’s College London et al Royal Hospital Chelsea/William Vann
wrote this, recorded of heart-on-sleeve romance. Delphian DCD34267 Albion Records ALBCD064
it, destroyed all (MB) +++ There’s a decade’s Two for the price of
but one tape and buried that in a worth of Christmas one: the first ever
secret location on Orkney, only Gustav Hoyer Symphony No. 1 choral music by this complete recording
promising to release it if anyone Royal Scottish National Orchestra/ British composer of the choral
ever found it. Well thank goodness Miran Vaupotić here and it is edition of Vaughan
someone did, because the result Navona Records NV6674 crowned by Nativity, Nesbit’s 2022 Williams’s Twelve Traditional Carols

Brief notes Reviews
Light Stories Works by JS Bach Réflexions Piano Trios by
Elgar and Matthew Barley Debussy, Françaix, Ravel et al
Matthew Barley (cello; electronics) Trio Gaon Hänssler HC23045
Signum Classics SIGCD701 Flanked by youthful
Barley’s concept Debussy and lively
album draws on the Françaix trios, dating
ongoing emotional from 1880 and 1986
fallout of a psychotic respectively, Ravel’s
episode the cellist 1914 masterpiece of the genre is
experienced at the age of 16. At times performed here with admirable
tuneful and soothing, at others agility and poise, building to a
terrifyingly chaotic, sections with blistering final movement. Lili
names like ‘Spell’, ‘Unravelling’, Boulanger’s short but lovely
‘Timefolding’ and ‘The unwaiting completes a very enjoyable
sky’ are part-improvised programme, excellently played.
composition, part fragments of Bach (JP) +++++
and Elgar. It’s fascinating, if not easy
listening. (CS) ++++ Welcome Yule Works by Mathias,
John Rutter et al
Player 1 Works by Korngold, Jung Choristers and Schola of St Patrick’s
Enchanting: the Windsbacher Knabenchor create a perfect festive atmosphere Jaeil, John Powell et al Cathedral, Dublin et al
Ray Chen (violin); Royal Philharmonic Regent REGCD587
from Herefordshire, added to one of is performed by an array of staff and Orchestra/Cristian Măcelaru This rather mixed
the same work in its version for voice students, past and present. Imani Decca 487 0322 bag features
and piano. The fruits of VW’s folk- Winds’s picturesque take on Autumn A labour of love Christmas music
collecting efforts, the cycle makes an Music by Jennifer Higdon alone for the always for upper voices
enjoyable festive alternative to the proves that US music-making is in enthusiastic Chen, – slightly ragged
norm, with well-known texts sung rude health. (MB) ++++ this album blends in execution, though performed
to less familiar tunes. (JP) ++++ music from the world with evident enthusiasm. William
Golden Thread of gaming with television, Anime Mathias’s Salvator mundi with
Debbie Wiseman The Art of the Piano Transcription and film themes, from Pokémon to piano accompaniment is a bit of a
Jack Frost: A Winter Story Aron Rozsa (piano) Squid Game – alongside Korngold’s slog, but Rutter’s tuneful Dancing
Alan Titchmarsh (narrator), Grace Acis Productions APL53561 highly cinematic Violin Concerto. Day, with gentle, introspective
Davidson (soprano); Vienna Synchron ‘The Art of Piano It’s attractive stuff, though Chen harp accompaniment, is genuinely
Orchestra/Gottfried Rabl et al Transcription’ indulges in sentiment perhaps a enchanting. And Mathias’s
Silva Screen Records SILCD1771 maybe… but sadly tad too much. But his impressive powerful Toccata giocosa for solo
This is completely not the art of how virtuosity, and the inherent organ is magnificent. (CS) +++
charming. Alan to play it. Heavy- sincerity of the works, carries us Michael Beek (MB), Jeremy Pound
Titchmarsh handed, muddy textured and at through. (CS) ++++ (JP), Charlotte Smith (CS)
narrates his own times woefully ponderous, much
story, accompanied of this album sounds more like
by Debbie Wiseman’s tuneful a laboured effort to get from one Concerto delights:
orchestral score, itself topped end of a piece to the other rather Kian Soltani’s
off by not one but two original than a celebration of the piano Schumann is a bit
carols. Grace Davidson and Cerys arrangement skills of Busoni, Liszt of a revelation
Matthews (and son)’s warm vocals and all. (JP) ++
could melt the frostiest of hearts.
Piano solos and orchestral suites In dulci jubilo Carols and Works
are a welcome addition to the by Various Composers
underscored story. (MB) +++++ Windsbacher Knabenchor; Members of
Lautten Compagney Berlin/
A Century of New Sounds Ludwig Böhme
Chamber Works by Barber, DHM G010004761772X
Bernstein, Rorem, Jennifer The voices of this
Higdon et al great German boys’
Dover Quartet, Imani Winds et al choir really do
Curtis Studio PLAT24809 create a most festive
GETTY, KATHARINA GEBAUER, MARCO BORGGREVE
If you were in any atmosphere, and

doubt as to just this selection, which combines their
how large a mark voices with the Baroque soundworld
Philadelphia’s of Berlin’s Lautten Compagney, is
Curtis Institute plump with riches both ancient
has made on American music, this and modern. Ariel Ramírez’s
selection makes the strongest case. La Peregrinación is a highlight
Celebrating the music school’s discovery for me, but who won’t be
centenary, the programme features becalmed by Stille Nacht when it is
music by notable Curtis alumni and sung like this? (MB) ++++

From the archives
Andrew McGregor looks over this month’s reissued and live archive recordings
Monthly round-up Contrappuntistica, in its first

ARCHIVE CHOICE What could possibly improve the recording, is played by Brendel with
simple appeal of Adolphe Adam’s hypnotic intensity
Magical operatic tales evergreen O Holy Night? If your
answer is the
and focused
power. Although
thrilling operatic he’s famous
Param Vir’s pair of one-act operas are a vivid tenor of Luciano for his Liszt,
Pavarotti, Brendel never
feast for the ears in these Radio 3 recordings in heavily- returned to his Weihnachstbaum,
accented English, (the Christmas Tree) after this 1952
underpinned by soupy strings and recording capturing the simplicity
Shimmering storytelling: harp, then you’ve found your perfect of the traditional carols and Liszt’s
Markus Stenz conducts
Param Vir’s compelling present. This is peak Pavarotti in virtuosic invention. Priceless. (APR
musical soundscape the 1970s, the voice at its passionate APR-55) +++++
best surfing Wandsworth Boys Pianist Mitsuko Uchida burst
Choir in Franck’s ‘Panis angelicus’ onto the London scene playing the
and the Bach-Gounod ‘Ave Maria’. complete Mozart Piano Concertos,
Added are tenor solos from the Verdi directing the English Chamber
Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater Orchestra from the keyboard, and
and, for this latest reissue, three they were invited to take the cycle to
bonus tracks from the ’90s recorded Uchida’s birthplace, Tokyo, in 1987.
with the bambini of Il Piccolo Coro Filmmaker Tony Palmer’s award-
dell’Antoniano. You’d have to have winning documentary Mozart in
a heart of stone not to be beaten Japan is released for the first time
into submission by this Christmas on DVD, and it’s
classic. (Decca 487 0728) +++ impossible not
From 17th-century Ukrainian to be moved by
Nikolai Diletsky to 20th-century the rapt intensity
Rachmaninov, via Bortniansky, with which
Grechaninov and others, Orthodox Uchida directs,
Christmas eyes often closed,
Chants is a and the insights
compilation of and images captured on tour,
different choirs, despite the grainy reproduction and
performing styles variable sound. (Tony Palmer Films
and acoustics. TPGZ130DVD) +++
Hearing the distantly recorded Mendelssohn from the
Param Vir Bulgarian National Choir is like Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Snatched by the Gods; Broken Strings eavesdropping on a service from the and Romanian music director
Almeida Opera; London Sinfonietta/ back of a great cathedral, before the Sergiu Comissiona in the 1970s,
Markus Stenz almost close-harmony intimacy of from Naxos’s ongoing exploration
Metier MEX77211 111:18 mins the all-male Moscow Rybin Choir, of the VOX label’s vaults, doesn’t
Magical storytelling for any time of year: or the wide-screen embrace of the look glamorous or glint like buried
Delhi-born, London-based composer Sofia Radio Choir. The breadth treasure. But don’t pass it by. The
Param Vir was commissioned by Hans and depth of the sound, and the ‘Scottish’ Symphony takes us to the
Werner Henze to write two one-act operas for the 1992 Venice tradition, has an utterly timeless rugged landscapes
Biennale. Snatched by the Gods from Rabindranath Tagore’s appeal. (Capriccio C3033 +++ pictured on
narrative poem describes an emotional and physical pilgrimage There’s a Christmas element the sleeve with
to a Hindu festival, the tensions caused when a young widow joins to this next rediscovery, but that’s character, energy
them with her son, the storm that threatens their boat on the not the draw. Alfred Brendel’s and a jubilant
return journey and the terrible consequences of the communal recordings for the American label finale. The four
panic that breaks out. Broken Strings is an ancient Buddhist SPA in the early 1950s, at the start excerpts from A Midsummer Night’s
legend of mythical creatures and profound moral lessons. An old, of his career, have just reappeared Dream are theatrically expressive,
poor musician’s playing becomes ever more extraordinary as the for the first time, bringing back two and playing as light, agile and
strings of his instrument break one-by-one. Param Vir’s music major works he never re-recorded. effortlessly airborne as this should
encompasses east and west in vividly spiky and shimmering Busoni’s homage to Bach, his be welcomed with open arms. (VOX
sounds, and the performances from Almeida Opera and the London hugely demanding Fantasia Classics VOX-NX-3046CD) ++++
Sinfonietta, recorded for BBC Radio 3’s Hear and Now and released
for the first time, are as compelling as the soundscapes that frame Andrew McGregor is the presenter of Radio 3’s Record Review,
them and the stories themselves. +++++ broadcast each Saturday afternoon from 2pm-4pm

Reviews Index
Abel Solo Cello Works 92 Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor 81
JS Bach Cello Suites 92 Sibelius Humoresques 79
Overtures etc 76 Serenades 79
Violin Concerto in E major etc 79 Violin Concerto 79
Weihnachts-Magnificat 84 Michael Tilson Thomas
Works transcribed for Piano 93 Complete Works 99
Sally Beamish City Stanzas 79 Vaughan Williams
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 79 Carols from Herefordshire 96
Bizet Carmen 82 Henry IV – Incidental Music 78
Brahms Cello Sonatas 88 Richard II – Incidental Music 78
Four Pieces 93 Richard III – Incidental Music 78
Schumann Variations 93 Three Songs from Shakespeare etc 78
Seven Pieces 93 Param Vir Broken Strings 98
Britten The Prince of the Pagodas 77 Snatched by the Gods 98
Robert Burns Arnot Vivaldi The Four Seasons 89
The Christmas Symphony 96 Freya Waley-Cohen Conjure 86
Musical polymath:
Busoni Naiad 86
Michael Tilson
Fantasia Contrappuntistica 98 Spell Book 86
Thomas is a jack
Four Bagatelles 89 Talisman 86
of all trades
Violin Sonatas 89 Walton Cello Concerto 80
Chopin Scherzo No. 1 in B minor 93 Complete Songs 86
Erland Cooper Carve the Runes G Williams Ballads 78
Then Be Content With Silence 96 Castell Caernarfon 78
Unboxed Corelli Sonata in G minor
Donnacha Dennehy
Land of Winter
89
76
Four Illustrations for the
Legend of Rhiannon etc
Debbie Wiseman
78
This month’s round-up is a triple celebration of Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor 80 Jack Frost: A Winter Story 97
the great Michael Tilson Thomas’s 80th birthday Part-Songs
Fayrfax Ave Dei Patris
84
85 COLLECTIONS
Eterne laudis lilium 85 American Opus
There’s nothing like a big birthday to inspire a new release,
Maria plena virtute 85 Basque National Orchestra 72
but when it’s the great American conductor-pianist-composer O Maria, Deo grata 85 Baroque Concertos Alison Balsom;
Michael Tilson Thomas (affectionately known as ‘MTT’; see Alexis Ffrench Classical Soul 96 The English Concert 81
p48) just one won’t do. Indeed, to mark his 80th birthday Handel Jephtha 85 A Century of New Sounds Dover
we’ve been blessed with three collections, and between Utrecht Te Deum 84 Quartet; Imani Winds et al 97
them no musical stone is left unturned. The first is more a Haydn Symphonies Nos 90, 94 The Christmas Album Benjamin
‘Surprise’ and 98 77 Appl; Regensburger Domspatzen 75
book than a box, and at just four discs you might say it is Gustav Hoyer Symphony No. 1 96 A Christmas Fantasia Chapel Choir
small but perfectly formed. Grace – The Music of Michael Hume Solo Cello Works 92 of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea 75
Tilson Thomas (Pentatone PTC 5187 355) focuses on MTT the Gabriel Jackson Christmas with The Bevan Family
composer, presenting a survey of 18 works written from 1985- The Christmas Story 85 Consort Bevan Family Consort 75
2020. The majority of the selection is made up of archival Khachaturian The Complete Columbia, Sony,
Symphony No. 1 etc 96 RCA, Deutsche Grammophon and
recordings going back to 1999, but there are a few new items, Ligeti Études – Book 1, Nos 5 & 6 93 Argo Recordings
the most recent of which (Urban Legend and Not Everyone Liszt Weihnachtsbaum 98 Michael Tilson Thomas et al 99
Thinks That I’m Beautiful) were captured this year. The Žibuoklė Martinaitytė Aletheia 84 Golden Thread Aron Rozsa 97
handsome presentation includes a photograph archive and The Blue of Distance 84 In dulci jubilo
notes by the man himself, making this an intimate portrait. Chant des Voyelles 84 Windsbacher Knabenchor et al 97
Ululations 84 Light Stories Matthew Barley 97
On the opposite scale, Sony’s 80-disc Complete Columbia, Mendelssohn A Lullaby Carol Choir of Christ
Sony and RCA Recordings (Sony Classical 19802819932) is an A Midsummer Night’s Dream 98 Church Cathedral, Oxford 75
epic account of MTT the conductor. It’s a remarkable Symphony No. 3 ‘Scottish’ 98 Les Musiques de Molière
collection of recordings, made from 1973-2005 with Moniuszko The Pariah 83 Les Arts Florissants 83
orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic, from Buffalo to Berlin. Mozart Horn Concertos 80 Merci Kathryn Stott; Yo-Yo Ma 90
Overtures etc 96 Milestones Quatuor Ébène 90
MTT is a conductor as open as they come, as happy to put
Piano Concertos 98 My American Story – North Daniil
a Broadway score on the music stand as he is a Beethoven Piano Concertos Nos 1-4 96 Trifonov; Philadelphia Orchestra 81
symphony. With that in mind, it’s the most eclectic mix of Edward Nesbit News of Great Joy
European masterworks and American classics, and some of Four Christmas Lyrics 96 Choir of St John’s College, Oxford 75
the albums featured here are benchmark recordings – like Nativity 96 O Holy Night
the pair of Copland releases MTT and the San Francisco Wycliffe Carols 96 Luciano Pavarotti et al 98
Nokuthula Ngwenyama Flow 89 L’Orgue Grégorien Ben Bloor 94
Symphony delivered in 1996 and 2000. It’s a real bounty. Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 81 Orthodox Christmas Chants
MTT the pianist makes an appearance on one disc of Ravel Miroirs 93 Bulgarian National Choir et al 98
The Complete Deutsche Grammophon & Argo Recordings Rihm Jakob Linz 82 Player 1 Ray Chen 97
(Eloquence 484 6918). That performance of Debussy, with the John Rutter Re:Build Slide Action 72
Boston Symphony Chamber Players, is one of many highlights Carols etc (arr. brass band) 96 Réflexions Trio Gaon 97
Schubert Piano Works 94 Resonance Matilda Lloyd; LSO 81
in the 14-disc collection. It also charts the earliest recordings Symphonies Nos 5 & 8 77 Samir Saimir Pirgu 83
MTT made with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the early Winterreise 86 Viennese Rhapsody Dejan Lazić 94
1970s when he was assistant conductor. It’s followed by a Schumann Adagio und Allegro 88 Voices of Thunder Choir of
typically varied programme made with the LSO and his own Cello Concerto 96 Magdalen College, Oxford 87
New World Symphony. MTT’s endless musical curiosity is in Fantasiestücke 88 The Waiting Sky
Märchenerzählungen 88 Pembroke College Girls’ Choir 75
clear evidence once again, with William Schuman, Stravinsky, Shostakovich Welcome Yule Choristers and Schola
Bernstein and even a ballet by Elvis Costello. Michael Beek String Quartets Nos 1-5 89 of St Patrick’s Cathedral 97
GETTY
Symphonies Nos 6 & 9 77 Yuletide Treats Duo Pleyel 92

Audio gift guide
From cute bedside radios to tantalising turntables, Chris Haslam suggests a
wide range of perfect gifts at every price point for audio lovers this Christmas
THIS MONTH: CHRISTMAS GIFTS
RETRO GLAMOUR
Ruark R610 Music Console
£1,200
A gift for those at the very top of Santa’s
Nice List, Ruark’s latest music system is
an absolute beauty, with a retro aesthetic
harking back to the company’s inception in
1985. Available with or without matching
Sabre-S speakers (£699 per pair), and in
walnut or charcoal lacquer, the all-in-one
streaming system features Spotify Connect,
Tidal Connect, Apple Airplay 2 and Google
Cast, plus Internet/DAB/DAB+ and FM
radio tuners. The 75w Class D amplifier and
32-bit/384kHz resolution DAC promises
great things, and there’s also HDMI for
TV connectivity, a phono stage for your
Past and present:
Ruark R610 pairs
turntable and rumours of a CD drive being
current capability launched soon to complete the package.
with retro design ruarkaudio.com
OUT IN THE OPEN BLUETOOTH BOOST

Nothing Ear (open) £129 Fiio BT11 Lossless Bluetooth
It’s good to see uber-cool tech Transmitter £42
brand Nothing adopting the latest
A brilliantly affordable audio upgrade for the
‘open’ style earbuds, which allow
headphone user in your life, this tiny USB-C
you to enjoy your music while
plug-in transmitter upgrades the quality of
remaining aware of the world
your Bluetooth streaming. If you’re an iPhone
around you. This is especially
user (limited to AAC quality of 320 kbps),
important when exercising, Modern versatility:
you can now enjoy the improvements of
where noise cancellation can JBL Spinner BT
Bluetooth 5.4 aptX Lossless (420 kbps),
be dangerous. Early examples
aptX HD (576 kbps) and Sony’s LDAC
were a little clunky, but these A REAL HEAD-TURNER
(up to 990 kbps). Your headphones will
are elegantly designed, weigh JBL Spinner BT £379
need to be compatible, and most are
just 8.1g each – so you barely
these days, but you can also plug it into JBL isn’t a traditional turntable
notice they’re there – and sound
your laptop’s USB-C port and boost the brand, but this Bluetooth-streaming,
genuinely impressive without
streaming from there too. fiio.com belt-driven design is worth your
leaking audio to those who
happen to be in the vicinity. attention. Pairing to any Bluetooth
nothing.tech device is easy, making it a great option
for those new to the joys of vinyl. But
there’s also a built-in phono preamp,
and traditional line-in so you can
add active speakers for an audio
quality boost, or plug into an existing
amplifier. It comes with the popular
Audio Technica AT3600L cartridge,
which punches above its weight, but
if you want to boost the performance,
you can esily upgrade it. jbl.com

Delightful dreaming:
Roberts Revival
Rest is the perfect
bedtime companion
All-round satisfaction: Anker

Soundcore Space One Pro
HEADS UP
Anker Soundcore
Space One Pro £149 Good old days: turntables
I’m not suggesting £150 is loose have made a comeback
change, but compared to many
headphones launched this year,
the Space One Pro are possibly AND SO TO BED And onto 2025…
the best value. The four-stage
active noise cancellation (ANC) Roberts Revival Rest £129 Over the summer I noticed
is superb, the battery lasts an Instantly recognisable, and utterly adorable, this tiny bedside something unusual: young
impressive 40 hours (60 hours radio alarm clock could only be from Roberts Radio. It’s a fashionable types were all
if you turn off the ANC), and shrunken (15cm wide) version of their classic kitchen design, but wearing wired earbuds. At
the engineers have developed a has all the features you need for bedtime, including dimmable first I thought Gen Z had
flexible head-band design that LCD display, sleep timer and alarm clock that can be set to buzz experienced an audiophile
folds down to half the size of you awake, or wake to your favourite radio station – Radio 3, epiphany, realising the best
the competition. With detailed, naturally – as well as enjoy FM and DAB (DAB+) radio stations. sound quality comes from
balanced audio, they’re a superb Available in black or classic duck egg blue. robertsradio.com plugging in. Sadly, it was
all-rounder. soundcore.com simple 1990s nostalgia and
a fashion rather than audio
POCKET PERFECTION statement. And at £19, Apple
Activo P1 £399 EarPods (apple.com) are
even priced nostalgically.
Regular readers will be well
accustomed to my love letters to
But nostalgia remains a
Astell & Kern and their fabulous big driver for audio brands,
– and fabulously expensive – with retro-style turntables
hi-res music players. Well, good and speakers selling by
news: Activo is their sub brand, the truckload. While rarely
and the P1 is a pocket-friendly offering the best in hi-fi
hi-res audio player that will quality, these inexpensive
happily compete with designs Bluetooth designs help to
Small and mighty: thrice the price. At its heart is bridge the gap between
Activo P1 is great the superb ES9219Q SABRE analogue and digital worlds.
value for money DAC that does magical things to What next? I won’t be at
your hi-res recordings and, with all surprised if portable CD
multiple connections and aptX players make a comeback in
HD and LDAC codec, supports the next 12 months.
your new Bluetooth headphones At the other end of the
with fantastic streaming spectrum, audio products
performance. That said, it will now offer health screenings.
still sound best using wired Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 2
headphones. astellnkern.com
wireless earbuds can give
a clinical-grade hearing
test and use their multiple
SPEAKERS’ CORNER microphones as hearing
Audio Pro T3+ Jepson £180 aids. Described as Audio
You don't need to be familiar with the oeuvre of glam rock Swedish Computers, rather than
icon Mikael Jepson to appreciate the unique aesthetic of his limited headphones, the IYO One
edition portable Bluetooth speakers. This gorgeous multi-coloured (iyoaudio.com), launched
design has a 30hr battery life and impressive sound quality, and it soon, uses AI to adjust the
supports Apple lossless, MP3, WMA and FLAC1 files, while a 3.5mm volume of sounds, just by
input means you can also plug in a media player. audiopro.com looking at the object. New
parents can thank me later.

t
Gif
.90
JUS
T £22
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TV&Radio
We pick out this year’s seasonal highlights, from Latvian choral classics to Latin Baroque
Switching on the Sound Mindful Mix

of Christmas THE 12 SHOWS OF CHRISTMAS Whether you need a time out from
Radio 3 kicks off the festive family chaos, or a little moment
season with an Advent to rejuvenate before the main
adventure across the UK. Right Feast of words and music: day, set aside an hour to unwind
across the day’s programming, the Choir of King’s College with a sequence of warm and
nature reserves, islands, Cambridge broadcasts the reflective classical music, selected
pubs and chapels throughout Nine Lessons and Carols especially for the festive season.
the four nations play host to Radio 3, 24 Dec, 7pm
live broadcasts celebrating
some of our unique yuletide Nine Lessons and Carols
musical traditions. The annual broadcast from
Radio 3, 1 Dec, all day King’s College, Cambridge is an
appointment not to be missed – a
A Latin American Christmas feast of words and music featuring
Kate Molleson takes Composer choral gems old and new. If you
of the Week on a festive armchair miss it live on Christmas Eve,
journey to five countries in you can catch the repeat while
Latin America, introducing us rustling up Christmas dinner on
to composers and traditions the big day itself.
spanning centuries and Radio 4, 24 Dec, 3-5pm
longitudes. From sumptuous Radio 3, 25 Dec, 1-3pm
Baroque choral music in
Mexico to cool Brazilian bossa How to Play: Prokofiev’s Peter
nova, Argentinian folk carols, and the Wolf
Venezuelan guitar music and An opportunity to eavesdrop
irresistible Puerto Rican salsa, behind the rehearsal room doors,
there are plenty of treasures as players from the Manchester
throughout the week to refresh Camerata and narrator Josie
your seasonal playlist. d’Arby share a personal
Radio 3, 9-13 Dec, 4pm performer’s-eye-view on one of
classical music’s most beloved
Christmas Around Europe works for all ages.
Strap in for a sonic sleigh ride Radio 4, 25 Dec, 9.30am
as Radio 3 joins in the European
Broadcasting Union’s annual New Year’s Concert
December celebrations. Concerts we pass on and are nurtured soul singer Vanessa Haynes. from Vienna
come live throughout the day by music, BBC Radio 5 Live’s BBC Four, date and time TBC Waltz your way into 2025 with
from cities including Prague, Nicky Campbell speaks to conductor Riccardo Muti and the
Copenhagen, Munich, Cologne, the Archbishop of Canterbury A Latvian Choral Christmas Vienna Philharmonic in the annual
Helsinki and Reykjavík. about his experience of family Donald Macleod heads to the celebratory concert, broadcast
Radio 3, 15 Dec, all day life – with a sprinkling of cobbled streets and Christmas to 90 countries around the
seasonal numbers. markets of Riga to discover the world, live from the Musikverein’s
Friday Night is Music Night Radio 3, 21 Dec, 1pm richness of Latvia’s thriving choral splendid Golden Hall.
Live from Snape Maltings, the BBC tradition. Along the way, he meets BBC Two & BBC Four, 1 Jan,
Singers and Concert Orchestra Hallelujah: A Gospel Messiah some of today’s top composers time TBC
take centre stage in a special Conductor Marin Alsop’s – including Erīks Ešenvalds –
edition of the programme, with reimagining of Handel’s perennial who have captured the hearts Goose: Camel)
arrangements of time-honoured choral favourite has been an of audiences around the world Mother Goose: Ravel; The Snow
singalong classics including annual fixture in the US since with their often mysterious and 10.Goose (The Goose of Cairo: Mozart;
Adam’s O Holy Night and Irving its premiere in 1993, injecting always enthralling soundworlds. 9. Hans Zimmer
Berlin’s White Christmas, the famous arias and choruses Radio 3, 23-27 Dec, 4pm 8. Le boeuf sur le toit (The ox on the roof)
plus instrumental treats from with a dose of jazz, gospel and 7. Soprano, clarinet and piano
Prokofiev, Coleridge-Taylor and R&B. In this energetic European In Tune: Gareth Malone 6. Emperor Joseph II of Austria
5. Thomas Tallis
Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride. premiere, recorded at the Royal The nation’s choirmaster and 4. Ottorino Respighi
Radio 3, 20 Dec, 7.30pm Albert Hall, Alsop conducts BBC musical motivator takes a guest 3. Sergei Prokofiev
ensembles and the London spot in the drivetime slot, joined 2. Puccini’s Tosca (aria by Cavaradossi)
Music, My Family and Me: Adventist Chorale – with solos live by special guests to curate a 1. Olivier Messiaen
Justin Welby from South African tenor playlist full of comfort and joy. QUIZ ANSWERS from p104
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In this new series about how Zwakele Tshabalala and British Radio 3, 23 & 24 Dec, 5pm

The BBC Music Magazine
PRIZE CROSSWORD NO. 406
Crossword set by Paul Henderson
The first correct solution of our crossword ACROSS

1 Cop a Requiem arranged to involve
picked at random will win a copy of
old French stage company (5,7)
The Oxford Companion to Music. A 10 Versatile performers turned on
runner-up will win Who Knew? Answers by celebrity backing bass and
to Questions about Classical Music (see soprano (3-3,5)
THE QUIZ oup.co.uk). Send answers to: BBC Music 11 Quantity of current is roadie’s
concern? (3)
Magazine, Crossword 406/Christmas 2024,
Gather round the manger PO Box 501, Leicester, LE94 0AA to arrive
12 Woodwind player writing about
stringed instrument omitting
for this month’s questions… by 20 Dec 2024 (solution in Mar 2025 issue). conclusion (7)
13 Pianist having more money
1. Whose solo piano work Vingt with tenor on board (7)
14 Woman bowling over Handel’s
Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus was heart (4)
premiered by Yvonne Loriod in 15 Ballet fanatic attending excellent
March 1945, interspersed with performance? (10)
commentary from the composer? 19 What first concert will do when
anyone can participate (4,6)
2. Which opera’s title character is 20 Colours in Schubert work?
fondly, if mournfully, remembered Certainly (4)
by her lover in the aria ‘E lucevan le 23 Waltz subject in 15?
stelle’ (And the stars were shining) Loud, then quietens (7)
as he awaits execution? 26 Successful presentation style
of mechanical piano music (2,1,4)
3. Whose 1927 opera The Fiery 27 One behaving foolishly over
Angel ends with the demonically a forte (3)
possessed Renata being burned at 28 Crucial moment in reduced
scale performance by composer
the stake, accused of corrupting the Whitacre (11)
fellow members of her convent? 29 Character in 15 seems orderly
4. The Adoration of the Magi was when dancing (12)
the middle of three paintings that
DOWN
inspired which composer to write 2 Piano line sharp or calm? (6)
his Botticelli Triptych in 1927? 3 Slow trilling? Curious trait tuba
5. A celebration of the pregnancy shows here (9)
4 One wielding stick is able to
of Mary I is given as the inspiration become conductor at last (5)
for which Tudor composer to write 5 American in charge, one drilling
his festive Puer Natus Est mass? male player? (8)
6 String chamber group: last
6. An avid music lover, the
couple leaving for some drink? (5)
ruler pictured above set up the 7 Representative in historic city turned
Nationalsingspiel company, which Your name & address up to provide name of concerto (7)
in turn commissioned Mozart’s 8 Company payment bringing in
opera Die Entführung aus dem fine dancers in 15 (6)
Serail. Who is he? 9 Reformed Queen about
to participate in Home Counties
7. For what combination of series (8)
performers did Schubert score his 16 Dancers in 15 teach cool dancing (9)
1828 Lied The Shepherd on the Rock? 17 Directors supporting crucial
contribution to piano? (8)
8. Named after a 1920 ballet by 18 Final parts of The Trojans
Milhaud, which celebrated Parisian OCTOBER SOLUTION OCTOBER WINNER – various scenes showing
cabaret-bar was once the regular No. 403 Brian Tipler, Stockport distinctive qualities (8)
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Our Media, publisher of BBC Music
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Music that changed me
Alan Titchmarsh
Broadcaster, author
A household name in the UK, Alan to remember when they first met, and
Titchmarsh has helped our gardens they refer to a bed: ‘and the canopy of red,
grow as one of TV’s most trusted needing repair… I think you were there’.
horticulturalists. But his talents stretch We went to Cornwall on our honeymoon
far beyond his green fingers; he’s also a but our first night was spent at the Royal
much-loved chat show and radio host, Hotel in Winchester and we looked up and
a bestselling author and, now, a lyricist. there was a canopy in red, needing repair!
Jack Frost – A Winter Story is a new Twenty years later, when I interviewed
album, featuring his wintry words and Stephen Sondheim, I told him about it and
sparkling music by Debbie Wiseman, he signed the cover of my LP saying, ‘For
out now on Silva Screen Records. Alan and his canopy’. I treasure that.
We had everybody on [the chat show]
I
was an odd lad who liked classical Pebble Mill; I remember asking Plácido
music, and when all my friends were Domingo if he’d sing. He was sitting next to
buying the Stones and the Beatles, I Evelyn Glennie on the sofa and he ummed
was buying Borodin and Beethoven. But and ahh’d a bit, but he took her hand and
I did buy ‘She Loves You’ and I was the sang ‘Your Tiny Hand is Frozen’. I was
first in our street to have it; we didn’t call made aware then of not the volume, but
it ‘street cred’ then, but I feel I bought it so the size of a voice. When he came off he
my mates would think I was more normal. apologised and said, ‘I’m sorry I delayed
We were very posh because we had one of a little, I was just getting the equipment
those Dansette record players where you The choices ready’, which was wonderful. One piece of
could actually put the lid down when you Beethoven Violin Concerto music that is very special to me also came
had a LP on. My dad had two LPs and an Alfredo Campoli (violin); RPO/John Pritchard from those years, and that’s ‘Always and
EP; his LPs were The Band of HM Royal Classics for Pleasure CFP40299 Forever’ by PAT METHENY. It is the most
Marines and Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave, Heneker Half a Sixpence glorious piece of music; Pat’s on guitar
which always reminds me of my dad and Original London Cast and Toots Thielemans comes in on the
I still love it. The EP was Maria Callas Decca SKL 4521 harmonica a third of the way through. I
in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. That Sondheim A Little Night Music did Radio 3’s Private Passions with Michael
spurred me to start collecting my own; I Original London Cast (1975) Berkeley, and the actress Anne Reid, who
bought Ivor Novello music, which I still RCA Red Seal LRL1 5090 I later interviewed, said, ‘I owe you a big
love to this day, but I remember sitting Pat Metheny Always and Forever thank you, because you introduced me to
down and listening to the BEETHOVEN Pat Metheny (guitar), Toots Thielemans “Always and Forever”.’ It ended up being
Violin Concerto in my early teens and (harmonica) et al one of her choices on Desert Island Discs.
finding tears coming to my eyes. There Geffen Records GED 24468 I did an album with DEBBIE
was just something about the music. I’ve Debbie Wiseman The Glorious Garden WISEMAN called The Glorious Garden,
still got all my vinyl up in the attic and I’ve National Symphony Orchestra/ where Debbie wrote pieces of music to go
bought one of these modern players for Debbie Wiseman with poems I’d written about individual
Classic FM CFMD57
my shed; it’s not sophisticated at all, but it’s flowers, plants and trees. It’s the first
basically like the one we had. time I was ever involved with or initiating
I sang in the school choir and then in music, so I like to think of myself, in that
the church choir, and I met my wife in an Just before we got married in 1975, we respect, as Madame von Meck in terms
operatic society. We met in a production saw SONDHEIM’s A Little Night Music of Debbie, as she was to Tchaikovsky. We
of HENEKER’s Half a Sixpence so I really at the Adelphi Theatre starring Jean love working together and it’s infinitely
ought to include that. I played one of the Simmons, Joss Ackland and Hermione pleasurable. If I don’t do any more
NEIL HEPWORTH
shop boys, Buggins, who was the pessimist Gingold. We were blown away by it and I narration that’s fine, but I do want to carry
with a Yorkshire accent, and Alison bought the LP. There’s a song in the show on writing lyrics; that’s become a delight.
danced; that was back in 1972. called ‘Remember’ where they’re trying Interview by Michael Beek

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NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER

Michael Tilson Thomas

A 31-CD COLLECTION OF ALL OPERATIC AN EXTENSIVE 80-CD COLLECTION TO

SUBSCRIPTIONS There’s a strong familial bond

Charlotte Smith Editor

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

Rebecca Franks Ashutosh Khandekar Geoff Brown

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 3

EDITORIAL Direct marketing manager

4 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Slide Action champion

72 Recording of the Month

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 5

Have your say…

for any analysis of the BBC about a page of classical music

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Have BBC Music Magazine delivered

12 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Hitting the top notes

Rotating pope leaves opera audience reeling

Not my usual aria…

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Violinist Eva Zavaro explains

14 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Yankee no more: Joe DiMaggio calls it a day

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 15

Perfect pairing: Amy Beach

The BBC Music Magazine

16 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 17

ILLUSTRATION: MARIA CORTE MAIDAGAN

18 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

“This is a most engaging collection of ambient pieces, offering

Philharmonic that Segerstam made some of his most distinguished

Quincy Jones Born 1933 Composer, arranger

Eighth International Chopin Piano Competition in the same year as WWW.DIVINEARTRECORDS.COM

20 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Dramatic highs and lows:

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 21

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Rebecca Franks meets

24 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

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‘ACTUALLY, THE CHOIR is quite small

26 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

mass – which means, as Francis explains

WKHbWLPEUHLVLQVWDQWO\UHFRJQLVDEOHł because the group has a mix of amateur

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 27

says Francis. ‘It’s something to do with the

28 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 29

30 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

Melodic genes: (above) Wolfgang and Nannerl Mozart;

Accompanying Wolfgang on that trip was,

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE 31

Dad’s lads: the Lloyd Webbers

At home with music

32 BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

handy – as parents like to say, they can play