Home//Gramophone Magazine/June 2019/In This Issue
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Celebrating a star – and an era, and an art formA colleague and I were playing that old parlour game the other day: who is the most famous person you’ve ever met? Given our jobs, we’re both privileged to regularly meet some of the most high-profile classical artists today – and yet even the greatest of those are still likely to be trumped by, say, a pop star, or an actor, or royalty. And yet if you’d ever met Pavarotti, then he, most likely, would have given you the winning card. The tenor was, quite simply, one of the world’s most famous people. That a classical artist achieved such fame in today’s world is extraordinary. It didn’t happen that often before either (Jenny Lind, Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas are potential exceptions), and for all the prominence of the likes…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE Editor’s choiceGOUNODSymphonies Nos 1 & 2 Iceland Symphony Orchestra / Yan Pascal Tortelier ChandosThese works are rarely recorded – or indeed, performed – which makes this coupling, full of wit, charm and fine playing, all the more valuable.SAINT-SAËNSPiano Concertos Nos 3-5 Alexandre Kantorow pf Tapiola Sinfonietta / Jean-Jacques Kantorow BISThere’s tough catalogue competition for these works, but this virtuoso’s fabulous performances more than make the case for a new addition.BEETHOVENCello Sonatas Leonard Elschenbroich vc Alexei Grynyuk pf OnyxImaginative and inventive throughout, alive to textural detail, Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk offer an engaging and beautifully played exploration of these sonatas.REICH‘Live at Fondation Louis Vuitton’ Colin Currie; Steve Reich; Synergy Vocals; Colin Currie Group Colin Currie RecordsColin Currie is at the summit of percussion performance today, and an interpreter of great instinct…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Igor Levit’s Beethoven plansIgor Levit is to release a set of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas in September, ahead of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth next year. Levit, who won Gramophone’s Recording of the Year Award in 2016 for his Sony Classical album of variations by Bach, Beethoven and Frederic Rzewski, and who was shortlisted in the Instrumental category in 2013 for his set of the last three Beethoven sonatas (‘a debut of true significance. Everywhere you turn, you encounter thoughtfulness, an utter engagement with the composer and a clear sense of Levit’s personality’ wrote Harriet Smith in Gramophone), recorded the cycle after performing them in concert. Igor Levit, says: ‘For me, this recording is a conclusion of my past 15 years. The literally life-changing encounter with the Diabelli Variations at…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019ONE TO WATCHThe Georgian pianist Nicolas Namoradze, the winner of the 2018 Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, has already impressed pianists of rare knowledge and experience. Like the two Honens winners before him (Pavel Kolesnikov in 2012 and Luca Buratto in 2015), Namoradze will make his debut recording for Hyperion. In July he goes into the studio to record music by York Bowen – a composer in whose revival the label has played a significant role – including the 12 Studies, Op 46 and Fragments from Hans Anderson. The album, hardly a conventional calling-card for a young pianist, will include numerous first recordings and suggests an artist willing to explore interesting areas of repertoire.That sense of exploration may partly stem from Namoradze’s work as a composer. As well as studying the…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE GUIDE TO ... SerenadeA lovelorn youth, perhaps with a guitar, but certainly with a song in his heart. A balcony. A fervent wish to entice the object of his desire from her boudoir, however briefly. That’s the archetype of the serenade, and it’s one that translated to the opera stage most famously in Don Giovanni, as the luckless libertine attempts his seduction of Elvira’s maid.The nocturnal implications of the term gave rise in the late 16th century to the serenata, a sort of solo cantata sung outside by artificial light, but also transferred in the 17th century to the instrumental sphere, originally signifying a musical greeting performed in the open air at evening-time. By the 18th century it had become a catch-all term for a piece in one or more movements, usually of…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019FROM WHERE I SITThere is an undeniable thrill in hearing special talent from other cultures embrace our music as their own. A few nights ago I had the pleasure of hearing Vassily Petrenko power the London Philharmonic through the incendiary pages of Walton’s First Symphony – a work that I have grown to admire and love beyond reason over the years. It is without question a total masterpiece, a work full of incident, surprise, febrile excitement, and beauty – probably the best thing Walton ever wrote and frankly was ever going to write. And even that belated finale – arrived at after the deadline for the first performance had passed (necessitating a three-movement premiere) – takes us to a new place. It’s a place called home, a place where this very ‘international’ symphony…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Riccardo – UN BALLO IN MASCHERAI’m too young to have caught Pavarotti in his prime, and was too impecunious – or slow on the uptake – to have grabbed a ticket for his final Cavaradossi in London. My encounters with him have therefore, alas, been confined to records. But before I’d encountered his recordings of L’elisir d’amore, Rigoletto, La bohème or any other of his more mainstream signature roles, I’d discovered him in Bruno Bartoletti’s 1971 recording of Verdi’s enigmatic middle-period masterpiece, Un ballo in maschera.He was joined in the cast by Renata Tebaldi (tackling Amelia too late), and an equally youthful Sherill Milnes. But I had ears only for Pavarotti’s contributions. In Riccardo, the opera’s ardent, carefree – and somewhat careless protagonist – he seemed to find an ideal role: his golden tone, the…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Calaf – TURANDOTPavarotti was still in his thirties when he recorded the role of The Unknown Prince in Puccini’s Turandot (9/73). Only at the end of that decade did he perform the part onstage (at San Francisco Opera), and he didn’t return to it often.One aria, however, ‘Nessun dorma’, was a favourite, and after the 1990 World Cup in Italy it stuck to him like glue. It would stand not just as a symbol of Pavarotti’s lung-busting fervour but also as the Three Tenors’ calling card. And for a certain type of Englishman, it was the proper soundtrack to the tear-streaked face of Paul Gascoigne.All of which adds clutter, not lustre, to Pavarotti’s triumphant performance of that role in that zesty recording, so expressively conducted by Zubin Mehta. Mehta and Decca’s esteemed…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019MUSIC FIT FOR A KINGBritish coronation services are something of a rarity: only three in the 19th century and just four in the 20th.As state occasions, they remain unrivalled in splendour and spectacle, in their visual and aural glory – and also, no doubt, in expense. The musical element of a coronation service, though merely one part of the huge organisational jigsaw, is among the most important, providing entertainment for the congregation, creating the mood, setting the pace of the event, and accompanying processions, hymns and anthems. Very few parts of a coronation do not involve music.An attempt to reproduce the entire service for a recording is ipso facto a mammoth undertaking. One man has boldly ventured to go where none has ventured before: Paul McCreesh who, with the help of his Gabrieli Consort…10 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE RECORDING OF THE MONTHWeinbergSymphonies – No 2, Op 30a ;No 21, ‘Kaddish’, Op 152bb Gidon Kremer vn Kremerata Baltica;b City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra /Mirga Grazinyte-TylaDG F 483 6566 (89’ • DDD)The UK premiere of Symphony No 21 in Symphony Hall last November was a watershed moment for Weinberg’s reputation. It actually proved two things I wouldn’t have dared to predict: that one of his longest symphonies (55 minutes, six movements without a break, composed in 1991) could hold a full-size regular concert audience enthralled from first note to last, and that it could comfortably withstand the comparison with Shostakovich’s Fifteenth in the second half. The appearance of this performance on a major prestige label will surely prove one of the highlights of this, his centenary year.‘It takes a performance of fierce concentration…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Richard Strauss’s Four Last SongsWhen the 84-year-old Richard Strauss laid down his pen on completing a set of four orchestral songs in 1948, he was doing more than resting from a task that had taken him six months. He was both bidding farewell to a particular sound world – soprano voice and orchestra – that he had made uniquely his own, and was also closing a musical chapter, gently ending an era of richly orchestrated, harmonically ripe yet often incandescently transparent music of which he was the last, and greatest, surviving exponent.Strauss died the following year, never having heard the songs performed, but he did have a particular soprano in mind for the premiere. ‘I would like to make it possible,’ he’d written to Kirsten Flagstad, ‘that [the songs] should be at your disposal…7 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Christopher HogwoodWere he alive to read this article today, Christopher Hogwood would, one suspects, politely dismiss the idea of being an icon. He was surely always too gentlemanly to think himself that. But whatever it was – vision, sussedness, intellectual curiosity, academic dogmatism? – that drove him to follow the pathways of historically informed practice just as they were beginning to really lead somewhere, the wholeheartedness with which he did it turned him into a prolific and influential recording star.The new sound world was illustrative of his favourite metaphor of removing the dirty varnish from an old paintingBorn in Nottingham in 1941, he studied music and Classics at Cambridge and could have made a mark either as a harpsichordist – his solo recordings of Byrd, Louis Couperin and Bach’s French Suites…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE Focus COMPLETE COUPERINF Couperin‘Complete Works for Harpsichord’Carole Cerasi hpdMetronome S j METCD1100 (11h 12’ • DDD)A recording of the complete harpsichord music of Fran ç ois Couperin is a major project in any circ*mstances. But to record all 10 discs’ worth in the space of a year and time their release for the 350th anniversary of the composer’s birth looks not just like a labour of love but also a real statement of intent, not least because in a recording career that began in 1997 with a Gramophone Award-winning set of the complete harpsichord music of Jacquet de la Guerre, Carole Cerasi has always chosen carefully when and with what to enter the studio. One need not suspect her of throwing this one off, then, and indeed it takes only a few…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019SELECTED RECORDINGS OF RUDERS‘Piano Works’Rolf Hind pf Dacapo (11/01)The two piano sonatas are among the most important of his earlier works in setting out the formal and expressive qualities that have evolved over the intervening decades into the singular idiom of today.Selma JezkováSols; Royal Danish Opera / Michael Schønwandt DacapoRuders may have been tempting providence by basing this opera on Lars von Trier’s film, but the outcome impresses in its formal economy and emotional veracity. Ylva Kihlberg and Palle Knudsen are charismatic in the main roles.Nightshade TrilogyCapricorn / Oliver Knussen; Odense SO / Paul Mann, Scott Yoo Bridge (1/15)Arguably the most intriguing of Ruders’s numerous trilogies, this evolved over a period of 17 years, while remaining consistent as to its underlying musical trajectory in what is a perfect instance of ‘unity within diversity’.Symphony…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019OperaRichard Osborne on a recent Paris staging of a late Rossini comedy:‘The orchestra pit doubles as the imagined cellar from which the roistering nuns haul up, their cache of vintage wines’Mark Pullinger watches Weber’s Der Freischütz from La Scala:‘Günther Groissböck’s muscular bass is perfect for the role of the tortured forester in league with the devil’AuberLa SirèneJeanne Crousaud sop ................................................ZerlinaDorothée Lorthiois sop ...........................................MathéaXavier Flabat ten......................................................ScopettoJean-Noël Teyssier ten .............................................ScipionJean-Fernand Setti bass.......................Le Duc de PopoliBenjamin Mayenobe bass.................. Nicolaio BolbayaJacques Calatayud bar......................................PecchioneLes Métaboles; Orchestre des Frivolités Parisiennes / David Reiland Naxos B 8 660436 (70’ • DDD) Recorded live at the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne, France, January 26, 2018 Includes synopsis; French libretto downloadable from naxos.comFor Naxos’s booklet to describe La Sirène (1844) as Auber’s 14th most popular work hardly raises expectations. But…26 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019A pianist of elegance: Robert CasadesusOutside France, Robert Casadesus (1899-1972) was arguably the best-known French pianist of his generation, one whose artistry has long warranted extensive representation on CD. To be sure, there have been substantial reissue efforts in the past, from Sony France’s extensive ‘Casadesus Edition’ to Scribendum’s recent 30-CD retrospective. Sony Classical’s ‘Complete Columbia Album Collection’, however, brings us the most comprehensive authorised Casadesus project to date.The collection’s 65 CDs encompass Casadesus’s complete CBS Masterworks recordings, spanning from 1941 to 1969, together with a pair of 1960 and 1964 recitals first issued on LP by the Association Robert Casadesus, plus all the CBS and RCA Victor releases involving his wife Gaby and son Jean. Each volume is packaged in an original LP jacket facsimile, numbered more or less chronologically by initial LP release…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019BerliozLes TroyensSols; Royal Opera House Chor & Orch / Colin DavisPhilipsColin Davis’s command of the score in all its splendour has never seemed to me more complete. A splendid rhythmic impetus lies at the heart of his interpretation, matching the nervous intensity of the metres and the constant sense of unrest. Energy characterises the performance so much that it is difficult to allow the sections where repose and a sense of stillness fill the score to assume their role without imposing a pull back. But this is exactly what they must do; and even so simple and touching a song as poor drowsy, homesick Hylas’s ‘Vallon sonore’ needs more calm than Davis seems willing to allow. Andromache’s marvellous scene is oddly tame: the clarinet is too determined, and hardly seems…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Ockeghem’s RequiemJudging by the number of recordings made since the 1950s (well over a dozen), Ockeghem’s Requiem is one of the best-known large-scale works composed before 1500, but of the circ*mstances of its creation we know next to nothing. By the mid-15th century, Mass cycles were a well-established genre, but the use of composed polyphony in the funeral liturgy took longer to catch on. The first record of a Requiem (or ‘Mass for the Dead’) concerns the one by Dufay, copied in 1470 and apparently quite recent; but because the music has been lost, Ockeghem’s setting is usually described as ‘the first surviving Requiem’, even though it may conceivably have predated Dufay’s. Ironically, there are several references to Dufay’s lost work in the following decades (one of which tells us it…14 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019ARCHIVE CONCERT REVIEWVerdiAt every turn Teodor Currentzis continues to mock the frivolous tag of conducting enfant terrible. Personally convinced of Verdi’s Requiem not as a covert opera but a sacred drama by a troubled believer, he moulds the a cappella section of the Kyrie as cantabile Palestrina and swings the Sanctus like a spring round-dance, a missing link between Bach and free jazz.Early in April, he brought the Mass back to the site of its 1874 premiere in the Chiesa di San Marco in Milan: a high-stakes setting of ecclesiastical resonance enhanced by a spoken liturgical introduction, the clerical robes worn by his choir and orchestra and a camera and lighting scheme that, like his direction of unexaggerated extremes, evokes shades of the 1967 film made at La Scala by Henri-Georges Clouzot…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Or you could try …Denon 800NEIf you’re looking for a less expensive alternative to the Musical Fidelity pairing, the Denon 800NE series is a good entry-level choice, combining fine engineering with an attractive sound. The DCD-800NE CD player is a real bargain at just £349, while the £449 PMA-800NE amplifier offers surprising levels of performance for the money. Find out more at denon.co.uk.Audiolab 6000Audiolab takes a slightly different approach with its 6000 series duo, which draws on the design of the long-running 8000 series models. The £379 6000CDT is merely a CD transport, with no built-in digital-to-analogue conversion; that circuitry is built into the 6000A amplifier, which sells for £599 and has four digital inputs plus Bluetooth, as well as line and moving magnet phono sections. For more details see audiolab.co.uk.Arcam CDS50Arcam, meanwhile, brings…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019NOTES & LETTERSThe stylish Alfredo KrausIn 1958, near the beginning of his career, Alfredo Kraus sang alongside Maria Callas in the now legendary live recording of La traviata in Lisbon; then, in 1993, the year he made his very last complete operatic recording in the studio, he sang alongside Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – and the work was, remarkably, La traviata again. As Richard Fairman pointed out in his reflection on Kraus’s distinguished career (May, page 62), his voice was little touched by age. A singing career spanning nearly four decades is indeed something for one to marvel at!The longevity of his career can doubtlessly be attributed to his wisely chosen repertoire and his superb breathing technique. As Nicolai Gedda, another tenor who enjoyed a long singing career, once suggested, discipline is…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019NEXT MONTH MONTH 2019Gerard Schwarz’s guide to rare 20th-century US symphoniesThe American conductor flies the flag for works by Schuman, Hanson, Creston, Diamond, Mennin and HovhanessVox Luminis at 15Founder Lionel Meunier’s vision for his early music French vocal group has never waivered, he tells long-time devotee Lindsay KempFour Serious SongsBrahms’s final song set has attracted a range of singers to its dark sound world, finds Richard Wigmore in this issue’s CollectionON SALE JUNE 19 DON’T MISS IT!…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE SOUNDS OF AMERICAT HarrisRosemoor Suitea . Aulos Triptychb . Concertino for Horn and Chamber Orchestrac . Flowersd . Sonata for Two Bassoons and Pianoe . Concertino for Flute and Chamber Orchestraf abf Alice Kogan Weinreb,b Aaron Goldman,b Carole Bean,b Leah Arsenault Barrick flsad Nicholas Stovall obad Paul Cigan clad Truman Harris,e Sue Heineman,e Steven Wilson bnsacd Laurel Bennert Ohlson hnbe Audrey Andrist pfcf Eclipse Chamber Orchestra / Sylvia Alimena Naxos American Classics B 8 559858 (76’ • DDD)Naxos’s American Classics series turns to Truman Harris (b1945), his tenures as bassoonist in Washington’s National Symphony and Eclipse Chamber orchestras explaining why woodwind features prominently across his output – with the present disc a representative selection.His fluency is well demonstrated in both the vignettes of Aulos Triptych and the laconicism of the Double Bassoon…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS‘In the probable absence of an invitation to the next coronation, the next best thing was being in Ely Cathedral for Paul McCreesh’s thrilling live recording with his Gabrieli forces,’ says JEREMY NICHOLAS, who interviews the conductor this issue. ‘We even got to participate – it was an unforgettable experience.’CHARLOTTE GARDNER enjoyed chatting with Matthew Barley about recording Tavener’s The Protecting Veil in the footsteps of Steven Isserlis. ‘He told me he didn’t think he could better Steven’s recording, but that he could place it in a different context – and that made for a fascinating interview.’FABRICE FITCH was delighted to write about Ockeghem’s Requiem for this issue’s Collection: ‘I’ve lived with and thought about this work for so many years that getting to grips with its discography seemed long…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019FOR THE RECORDNicholas Collon, Principal Conductor of the Aurora Orchestra, has been named the new Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He will become the first non-Finn to hold the post.Collon’s three-year deal – with an additional two-year option – will begin in autumn 2021, and he will be with the orchestra for a minimum of 10 weeks every season.Aurora – the chamber orchestra which Collon co-founded with Robin Ticciati in 2004 – has become famed for its eclectic repertoire, innovative approach to performance, and a commitment to contemporary music. Consequently, the young conductor has already developed a diverse and growing discography, including appearing on such albums as the music of Finzi on Decca, a John Adams programme on Warner Classsics, and an Augusta Read Thomas survey on Nimbus. He…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019BBC Proms 2019 season revealedThe BBC Proms has announced its 2019 season, featuring key themes including marking 150 years since the birth of Proms founder Sir Henry Wood (33 works that Wood introduced at the Proms are being reprised, with another 33 new commissions receiving their first performances), and 50 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing.As always, some of today’s most revered artists and ensembles will take to the Royal Albert Hall stage throughout the eight weeks of events, including, this year, the Vienna Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink (with Murray Perahia in Beethoven), the Bavarian RSO under Mariss Jansons, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique (in a complete performance of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini), the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, and the Orchestre de Paris and Daniel Harding. There will…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019IN THE STUDIO• Marc-Andé Hamelin has been in the Teldex studios in Berlin recording opera paraphrases by Liszt (including those on Bellini’s Norma and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, as well as the collaborative Hexaméron) and Thalberg (including Don Pasquale and Moses) for Hyperion. This is music that has long been in Hamelin’s repertoire, and the prospect of hearing it on record will whet the appetites of piano-lovers everywhere. Look out for it in the spring of 2020.• Also for Hyperion, the Takács Quartet and pianist Garrick Ohlsson have been in the studio at Wyastone Estate in the Wye valley to record piano quintets by Elgar and Amy Beach. Elgar’s Quintet was part of the late flowering of chamber music he composed towards the end of the First World War, while the Beach…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Celebrating PAVAROTTI’S GENIUSThe director Ron Howard has turned his attention to one of the biggest stars of classical music, Luciano Pavarotti. Following on from his hugely successful documentary on The Beatles, Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years, Howard’s new film, Pavarotti: Genius Is Forever, explores the magic, as well as the graft, that made the Italian tenor a household name. Made by CBS Films, Imagine Entertainment and White Horse Pictures, in association with Polygram Entertainment (a partner of Universal Music Group, whose Decca label owns Pavarotti’s extensive recorded catalogue), the documentary is released in the US on June 7 and in the UK and Ireland on July 13.Almost 12 years on from Pavarotti’s death at the age of 71, Howard has talked to many of the musicians with whom the…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Nemorino – L’ELISIR D’AMOREPavarotti’s acting skills were often dismissed, but he could actually do comedy very well. Even in a serious role such as Cavaradossi, the way he teased Tosca in Act 1 always had a knowing smile. But his finest comic role was undoubtedly Nemorino, the country bumpkin in L’elisir d’amore, smitten with Adina. His first – and finest – recording of the role was in 1970 for Decca, with Richard Bonynge opening up all the cuts.From his first entry, ‘Quanto è bella’, you can’t help but fall for Pavarotti’s lovestruck Nemorino; the open voice, the bright, forward sound and boyish charm have the quality of aural sunshine as he sings Adina’s praises.The scene where the quack Doctor Dulcamara sells him an elixir – in reality a bottle of cheap Bordeaux –…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Radames – AIDAThe inclusion, in a tribute to Pavarotti, of his performances as Ancient Egypt’s compromised army captain might seem controversial, even perverse. Critics in Italy and America wondered if the role was not a little too heavy for him and might even spoil his more lyrical tones. Yet Radames sits, like many later 19th-century opera roles, on the borders of the lyric, the robust and the dramatic – all descriptions that fit Pavarotti’s voice. And he had much to contribute to the role, as did Jussi Björling, another supposedly ‘lighter’ voice – and a comparison that Pavarotti himself drew in interview.This was always a voice which was remarkably successful in ensemble with louder and lower partners because of its clarity and concentration. It was never merely a question of volume or…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019The cellist with the MIDAS TOUCHWere you to attempt to draw some sort of visual chart of Matthew Barley’s musical exploits to date, you’d be setting yourself a fearsome challenge.The mass of separate genre and activity categories dotted around the page would likely resemble an inky, abstract fireworks display, such would be the sheer number of separate lines shooting out of each category to then explode with those from others. The same approach to his discography would yield similar results: a fizzing cornucopia of new classical works mixed with world music, electronic music and jazz, none of it repeating anything previously recorded by any other artist.So while it was clear that this cellist and I would begin our chat with a focus on his new recording of Tavener’s The Protecting Veil, it was much less…10 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019OrchestralAndrew Farach-Colton explores some lesser-known Saint-Saëns: ‘The Adagio is so lovely I wish it were at least three times longer, while the Scherzo takes us on a wild and thrilling ride’Charlotte Gardner rejoices in the recorder-playing of Maurice Steger: ‘Extreme ensemble virtuosity, and the crackest of crack continuo units, are non-negotiables when Steger’s around’BeethovenComplete Symphonies Laura Aikin sop Ingeborg Danz contr Maximilian Schmitt ten Tareq Nazmi bass WDR Radio Choir; WDR Symphony Orchestra / Jukka-Pekka Saraste Profil M e PH18066 (5h 44’ • DDD • T/t)From the early days of its work with Klemperer, Wand and Rosbaud, and then the ’60s tenure of Christoph von Dohnányi, the radio symphony orchestra in Cologne has a distinguished history of Beethoven performance in the school of ‘new objectivity’ which predated the period-performance movement…50 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019ChamberHarriet Smith listens to the Albion Quartet playing Dvorák and Suk: ‘The players make a strong case for this youthful piece, powerfully refuting the notion that it took Dvorák time to hit his stride’David Threasher enjoys lively period-instrument Schubert: ‘Modern instruments have developed to be better-behaved but these players exult in the timbral differences’Antheil‘Complete Violin Music, Vol 1’ Violin Sonatas – No 1; No 2; No 3; No 4 Alessandro fa*giuoli vn Alessia Toffanin pf AVI-Music F AVI8553934 (79’ • DDD)Antheil composed his first three violin sonatas in 1923-24, while he was living and working in Europe. They are cut from similar cloth, with striking use of repetition and stark juxtaposition, yet each has its own distinct personality. Stravinsky’s influence is readily apparent in all three – the borrowings from…37 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019InstrumentalJeremy Nicholas listens to the debut album from Martin James Bartlett:‘In the vicious, visceral reading of the second of Prokofiev’s “War Sonatas” Bartlett shows his true pianistic colours’Michelle Assay on Lang Lang’s educational ‘Piano Book’:‘The choice of repertoire is eclectic: from folk tunes to silly tunes (Chopsticks), from “classic favourites” to film themes’JS BachSix Cello Suites, BWV1007-1012 (arr for violin) Rachel Podger vnChannel Classics M 2 CCSSA41119 (128’ • DDD/DSD)Because she can; and why not? Rachel Podger has earned the right to deal briskly with the rights and wrongs of appropriating the Cello Suites. It was Gustav Leonhardt, no less, who transcribed them for harpsichord (recorded by Roberto Loreggian on Brilliant Classics). Viola players, guitarists and gambists have long hugged them close. Like Leonhardt and Kim Kashkashian (ECM, 10/18) before…28 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Poul RudersThe history of Danish music during the post-war era is a distinguished one, with composers such as Vagn Holmboe, Per Nørgård and Hans Abrahamsen all making their mark both at home and abroad. Yet in terms of achieving consistent international acclaim, arguably the most significant figure is Poul Ruders, whose sizeable and wide-ranging output has now been heard across Europe and on both sides of the Atlantic – soloists, ensembles, orchestras and latterly opera companies all have been keen to commission and perform his latest music.Much of this appeal lies in Ruders’s non-dogmatic approach to composition. From the outset of his creativity, in the mid-1960s, he rejected the serial thinking then prevalent in favour of an exploratory and impulsive reaction to what went on around him. This is confirmed by…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019VocalHugo Shirley enjoys Christian Thielemann’s Verdi Requiem:‘All four soloists come together for one of the most touching versions of the “Lacrimosa” I’ve heard in a while’Tim Ashley explores reason in madness with Carolyn Sampson:‘Sampson’s silvery tone suggests fragility from the outset, and she admirably conveys the vagaries of desire, distress and confusion’JS BachSt Mark Passion, BWV247 (reconstr Grychtolik/Savall)David Szigetvári ten Evangelist Konstantin Wolff bass Christus Marta Mathéu sop Raffaele Pé counterten Reinoud Van Mechelen ten La Capella Reial de Catalunya; Le Concert des Nations / Jordi Savall Alia Vox F (two discs for the price of one) AVSA9931 (111’ • DDD/DSD • T/t) Recorded live at the Chapelle Royale, Château de Versailles, March 26, 2018JS BachSt Mark Passion, BWV247 (reconstr Fischer)Matthias Bleidorn ten Evangelist Richard Logiewa bar Christus Katherina Müller…42 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019BOX-SET Round-up‘Small is beautiful’, ‘less is more’, ‘the master manifests himself through restriction’: these and similar pearls of wisdom sit at the hub of the Baroque string specialist Sigiswald Kuijken’s subtle art. Accent’s two sets of Concertos and Chamber Music feature among their voluminous contents Kuijken’s latest thoughts on Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos (two versions preceded them) where he uses the cello da spalla – a small cello played braced against the shoulder – which lends a brighter, more transparent texture at the bass end of the sound spectrum than we often encounter. These performances by La Petite Bande are deft and responsive, and arranged across two discs in the order Nos 3, 5, 1, 4, 6 and 2. The Orchestral Suites are programmed on a 79-minute single CD, in the order…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Classics RECONSIDEREDMark Pullinger Sir Colin Davis’s Les Troyens was announced with a great deal of fanfare: the first complete recording, released for the Berlioz centenary. So JW had the luxury of around 1200 words for his review (hugely cut down in the version above!). That sense of excitement really comes across on the page, doesn’t it?Tim Ashley Yes, and I think it also reflects the excitement generated by the performance itself – that sense of discovery and exploration, of breaking new ground with the first recording of a work that we now acknowledge to be a masterpiece, but which for many was an unknown quantity at the time, and in some quarters was still considered inferior to the rest of Berlioz’s output. That sense of excitement makes it in many ways…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019ARCHIVE OPERA REVIEWHalévyFromental Halévy’s and Eugène Scribe’s La Juive (1835) remains one of the great lost operas, fanatically admired by (and influencing) Verdi, Wagner, Richard Strauss and Mahler, yet absent from the repertoire since the 1920s. Any revivals have been at the wish of tenors from Caruso to Neil Shicoff intrigued by the ambivalence of the role of Éléazar (here Roy Cornelius Smith) – a hard father figure prepared to sacrifice Rachel, the daughter he knows is neither his nor Jewish – and, like this performance, they have always been cut.Musically the opera sounds like an almost perfect bridge between later serious Rossini and early mature Wagner. The arias (like Éléazar’s ‘Rachel quand du Seigneur’) take the form of dramatic scenas rather than display vehicles while the astonishing, ever-evolving love duet of…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Headphones in all shapes and sizes – and moreTHIS MONTH An all-new duo from a British brand become Austrian, a do-it-all disc player – and are we seeing a ‘real hi-fi’ revival?Andrew Everard, Audio EditorExotic headphones are now well established in the market but the Chinese manufacturer Shanling thinks it has a new twist. The company behind the little M0 player, seen in these pages last year, now has a high-quality in-ear headphone design, complete with aluminium housings and detachable cables, selling for a very sensible £99 1 .The ME100 model features a 10mm dynamic driver using a mix of plastics in the diaphragm to deliver a balanced, clean sound and is driven by powerful magnets and a lightweight voice coil. These are mounted in a low-resonance aluminium housing and connected to the outside world via a cable…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Hip hip Blu-rayTwo questions arise when one first encounters the Pioneer UDP-LX800. The first is: who in their right mind would pay £2200 for a machine at first glance offering nothing much you can’t get from a £200 offering from the likes of Sony or LG? The second is even more prosaic: what exactly is a high-end video player doing in these pages?From being a high-end replacement for DVD, offering higher-resolution sound and vision from films on disc, Blu-ray has rapidly become commoditised to the point that there are now players available for less than £100, with the least expensive – an LG capable of 4K high-resolution video and 3D (if anyone remembers that, or cares) – at just a shade over £50. What’s more, LG’s Korean rival, Samsung, has recently announced…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Rachmaninov’s tears at RVW premiereIn 1948, coming from a family with sparse knowledge of, or interest in, music, I won a state scholarship to Dulwich College (Alan Hacker, Anthony Payne and David Greer were among the music naturals of my time).In the 1960s, working with Michael Kaye (later General Manager of the LSO) on the setting up and running of the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, I met André Previn on several occasions.I mentioned to him that my passion for classical music had exploded into life in my first week at school, when we were seated in the music room and told: ‘All you have to do is listen to this gramophone record.’ It was the original recording of Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, and life was never the same again. André smiled beatifically and told…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Cathy MarstonIn my work, I turn to stories for inspiration because I love the drama of them – but if I need peace or resolution, music nearly always provides the answer. That’s true in my own life, too. I’m often on the road, but so long as I have a book to read and music to listen to, I feel like I’m at home.For Snowblind, my piece for San Francisco Ballet which premiered last April, I turned to Edith Wharton’s novella Ethan Frome. It’s essentially a love triangle – there’s a suicide pact, this great crisis – and it could all seem very melodramatic and rather like a horror story. But using Arvo Pärt’s Lamentate at the end enabled me to find a sense of humanity in it all.During my training…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Kimmel Center, PhiladelphiaYear opened 2001Architect Rafael ViñolyCapacity Verizon Hall: 2500 seats; Perelman Theater: 650 seatsResident ensemble Philadelphia OrchestraThe Kimmel Center’s arrival in Philadelphia in 2001 was roundly considered overdue – some might say by a century. The venerable Academy of Music, often said to resemble La Scala in Milan, had continually charmed audiences since its 1857 opening. But its Philadelphia Orchestra-dominated schedule left Opera Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Ballet with disadvantageous dates. Plans for new venues came and went.What Philadelphia needed was ‘wow’ factor, and the architect Rafael Viñoly delivered that: two free-standing concert halls – the 2500-seat Verizon Hall and the 650-seat Perelman Theater – encased under a 150-foot-high glass dome that occupies an entire city block. The building immediately became a signature landmark on the Philadelphia landscape. Inside, the centre’s…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019THE REVIEWERSAndrew Achenbach • Nalen Anthoni • Tim Ashley • Mike Ashman • Michelle Assay Richard Bratby • Edward Breen • Liam Cagney • Alexandra Coghlan • Rob Cowan (consultant reviewer) Jeremy Dibble • Peter Dickinson • Jed Distler • Adrian Edwards • Richard Fairman • David Fallows David Fanning • Andrew Farach-Colton • Iain Fenlon • Neil Fisher • Fabrice Fitch • Jonathan Freeman-Attwood Charlotte Gardner • David Gutman • Christian Hoskins • Lindsay Kemp • Philip Kennicott • Richard Lawrence Andrew Mellor • Ivan Moody • Bryce Morrison • Hannah Nepil • Jeremy Nicholas • Christopher Nickol Geoffrey Norris • Richard Osborne • Stephen Plaistow • Mark Pullinger • Peter Quantrill • Guy Rickards Malcolm Riley • Marc Rochester • Patrick Rucker • Edward Seckerson • Hugo Shirley •…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Vänskä moves to the Seoul PhilharmonicOsmo Vänskä will become the new Music Director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra next year. As reported in our January issue, the Finnish conductor will step down from his current post as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra when his contract expires in 2022. His recording of Sibelius’s Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7 with the American ensemble was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2017, while he has also recorded a well-received Beethoven symphony cycle with them for BIS. Vänskä was also an acclaimed chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra for two decades, winning Gramophone Awards for recordings of Sibelius’s music, including the Violin Concerto (with Leonidas Kavakos, 1991), the Fifth Symphony and En Saga (1996), and a programme of orchestral works called ‘Rondo of the Waves’ (2003).The…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Major labels sign up two young pianistsThe month saw two signings of young pianists by major labels. The first was Isata Kanneh-Mason, who joined Decca Classics – thus also joining her brother, cellist Sheku, on the label – and will begin the partnership with an album devoted to the music of Clara Schumann. The release, marking the composer’s 200th anniversary, will be released in July. As well as the Piano Concerto (recorded with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under the New Zealander Holly Mathieson) the album contains solo piano works, including the G minor Piano Sonata, and the three Romances for violin and piano, Op 22, for which Isata is joined by the former BBC New Generation Artist Elena Urioste.The second signing comes from Warner Classics, which has added Mariam Batsashvili to its prestigious roster of pianists.…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019ORCHESTRA Insight …Cleveland OrchestraFounded 1918Home Severance HallMusic Director Franz Welser-Möst (since 2002)Founding Music Director Nikolai SokoloffAs the youngest of America’s ‘big five’ symphony orchestras, the Cleveland Orchestra was also for many years the least respected. That changed in 1946, when George Szell succeeded Erich Leinsdorf as Music Director and initiated one of the greatest conductor-orchestra partnerships of all time. Szell remained in the post for a quarter of a century, but the effects of his intense stewardship were felt long thereafter. ‘When we do an outstanding concert abroad, George Szell gets a good review,’ observed one of the orchestra’s subsequent directors Christoph von Dohnányi as late as 1990.Szell took clear practical steps when he arrived at the imposing Severance Hall, which was only 15 years old at the time. He hired the acoustician…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Tonio – LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENTLuciano Pavarotti made his debut at Covent Garden in September 1963 when he stepped in at short notice to replace Giuseppe di Stefano in a run of performances of La bohème. He returned in May 1965 for La sonnambula, paired with Joan Sutherland, with whom he toured Australia the same year. In between, aged 28, he sang Idamante in Idomeneo at Glyndebourne under John Pritchard. I saw that production but, concentrating at the time on Richard Lewis and Gundula Janowitz, I fear I have no memory of Pavarotti’s performance; a recording of the Proms broadcast (August 17, 1964) reveals a sensitive account of the role, with a beautiful dying-away in ‘Il padre adorato’. (It was Jani Strasser at Glyndebourne, he said, who taught him to sing piano.) He later recorded…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Rodolfo – LA BOHÈMEMy earliest memory of Pavarotti is in a revival of La bohème at the Royal Opera House. As his Rodolfo leant over Kiri Te Kanawa’s shoulder and offered her ‘un po’ di vino’, he sounded momentarily like a well-spoken waiter in a high-class Italian restaurant. None of the Rodolfos I had seen before had come across half as Italianate as this, or sung words that were so crystal clear (it was fascinating, later in his career, to hear him talk about the daily exercises his teacher set him to achieve this level of clarity).Then, in the love duet, that golden tenor came pouring forth. No strain, no forcing, no unevenness: the voice filled the theatre effortlessly, seeming to envelop those of us in the cheap seats at the top. Here…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Demands, differences & RIVETING RESULTSThe call came at 8am as it did every morning while we were rehearsing and recording in New York: ‘Michael! This is Herbert Breslin. Luciano says he isn’t going to sing tonight if …’ There then followed a litany of caveats: the lights – they shouldn’t be bright enough to allow the audience to follow the libretto (of which Pavarotti disapproved), and the question of when they should actually go up (there was a request for the tenor to enter the stage in pitch darkness so that nobody could see him squeeze past the orchestral players); and the order in which the soloists entered the auditorium – Pavarotti was too large to enter gracefully, and being flanked by more elegant and sprightly singers would only highlight this fact.I was the…10 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019BRUGES the fairy-tale classical music cityThe Flemish city of Bruges needs no introduction. It gave the world some of the most stunning oil paintings ever created. It helped cradle a distinctive polyphonic choral tradition that became one of the most admired in musical history. Perhaps most of all, it is known and loved as a city whose physical beauty never ceases to inspire. Whether carpeted by daffodils in spring or whitened by snow and frost in winter, Bruges is a dream for the eyes, from serene canals and winding cobbled streets to soaring towers.The Concertgebouw Brugge is one of Belgium’s finest modern concert halls, the focus of a lively classical music sceneBut Bruges boasts more than some of the best-preserved medieval architecture in the world. With the Concertgebouw, it contains one of Belgium’s finest modern…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE talks to ... Thierry FischerAlthough the Organ Symphony (No 3) is well known, Saint-Saëns’s other symphonies are rarely heard. Why do you think this is?Saint-Saëns was 51 years old when he wrote the famous Organ Symphony. The other four symphonies are early works, and are invaluable treasures, offering both musical delight and understanding of Saint-Saëns’s utopian music writing. They are a feast of effervescence and fresh ideas.With the Utah Symphony, we decided to perform and record the entire cycle in one season, and so had the privilege – symphony by symphony, month after month – to experience the evolution of Saint-Saëns’s personality. We went from surprise to surprise: from the sparkling A major Symphony and the blazing Symphony No 1, both teenage works, through Urbs Roma and the bright and dramatic Symphony No 2,…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019DEFINING MOMENTS• 1967 – Early doorsFounder member, with David Munrow, of the Early Music Consort of London, in which he plays keyboards and harp• 1973 – A new sound is bornFounds the Academy of Ancient Music, whose first gathering is in September at the recording sessions for a disc of Arne overtures• 1980 – ‘ Like a refiner’s fire’The AAM’s recording of Handel’s Messiah (recorded the previous year) is widely acclaimed for its fresh take on an old favourite• 1984 – Write onHogwood’s typically erudite biography of Handel is published• 1987 – Modern maestroAppointed Music Director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, with whom he records Tippett, Stravinsky and Martinu among others. Further ‘modern’ orchestra posts follow in Australia, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic and Poland• 2008 – Just rewardAn…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019GRAMOPHONE talks to ... Carole CerasiThis is an enormous undertaking. How long did it take to record 10 discs of Couperin?I have always loved playing Couperin’s harpsichord works. Although I find the idea of ‘complete’ anything very daunting, I felt that if I didn’t record Couperin’s works, I would regret it. But because of the magnitude of the project, I put off making a decision until I realised that I had left myself only one year to record the complete works if it stood a chance of coinciding with Couperin’s anniversary in 2018. I underestimated the size of the project, imagining it to be about five CDs, whereas it turned out to be 10! By the time we were ready, the only sensible solution was to release it as a box-set, with one booklet, rather…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019RUDERS FACTS1949 Born Ringsted, Denmark, March 27c1965-70 Trains as organist and studies orchestration with Karl Aage Rasmussen, though essentially self-taught as a composer1980 Four Compositions for chamber ensemble marks start of compositional maturity1985 Manhattan Abstraction premiere, Danish RSO, Copenhagen, February 71996 Concerto in Pieces premiere at Last Night of the Proms, London, September 142000 The Handmaid’s Tale premiere, Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen, March 62002 Listening Earth (2001) premiere, Berlin Philharmonic, Berlin, November 292004 Final Nightshade premiere, New York Philharmonic, New York, June 102005 Kafka’s Trial premiere, Royal Danish Opera, March 122010 Selma Jezková premiere, Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen, September 52011 Symphony No 4 premiere, Dallas SO, January 202019 The Thirteenth Child premiere, Santa Fe Opera, July 27…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019WHAT NEXT?J Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus (1874)Three chords pop like champagne corks, and the operetta of all operettas is off to an uproarious start. It’s hard now to believe that Die Fledermaus had only a modest success when it opened at the Theater an der Wien on April 5, 1874, and that the critic Eduard Hanslick dismissed it as a mere ‘potpourri of waltz and polka motives’. Johann Strauss II didn’t invent operetta, but he gave it its definitive Viennese form – three acts of farcical humour, light-hearted romance and aristocratic glamour, all swept along on a stream of dance tunes as effervescent and intoxicating as the champagne that fuels the plot. The quarter-century that followed Die Fledermaus’s premiere would come to be known as the ‘golden age’ of Viennese operetta,…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Seiji Ozawa’s complete recordings for DGI was born and raised in Boston, so I feel as if I grew up with Seiji Ozawa, musically speaking. Yet reading Absolutely on Music (Harvill Secker: 2016, reviewed in November 2016), Haruki Murakami’s conversations with Ozawa, I was struck by a fresh revelation: the conductor is not a musician who’s driven by deep intellectual curiosity. Indeed, it’s the novelist who comes across as the more musically thoughtful – and voraciously so. There’s no question that Ozawa is immensely gifted but the interviews make clear that his approach to music is essentially of the nuts-and-bolts variety. This perspective kept coming back to me as I listened through this hefty box in which Ozawa’s overarching concern with sound – its clarity, colour and texture – is ever-apparent.Ozawa began recording in the…7 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019REPLAYMostly major maestrosAmong the many first-time releases that excited our senses in the 1960s and ’70s when the Arturo Toscanini Society launched a series of LPs was a February 1941 NBC broadcast of Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben that topped virtually any rival for spirit, intensity, heroic bravura and, in ‘Des Helden Friedenswerke’ and ‘Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung’, an ardently singing line. In short, it was everything one hoped it might be, and Pristine Audio’s newly refurbished transfer reignites that sense of excitement, especially with respect to the percussion in ‘Des Helden Walstatt’, which now sounds clearer than ever before. Another boon is the (uncredited) violinist Mischa Mischakoff’s virtuoso portrayal of ‘Des Helden Gefährtin’: terrific playing by any standards.Ein Heldenleben reappears as part of an all-Strauss set, from which only the…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019BooksHugo Shirley reads a concise introduction to the world of opera:‘Schweitzer’s easy-going, informal prose is nicely gauged to be inviting and unburdened by jargon’Nigel Simeone enjoys sharing the company of Howard Skempton:‘No matter what music by Skempton one might encounter, it is likely to intrigue and ensnare us into its crystalline sound world’A Mad LoveAn Introduction to Opera By Vivien SchweitzerBasic Books, PB, 288pp, £13.99 ISBN 978-0-465-09694-7One imagines several decisions have to be made early in the process of writing a brief introduction to opera, and such books have tended to present various narrative strategies to cover the 400-plus years of this extravagant art form’s history. Vivien Schweitzer’s A Mad Love opts for what’s perhaps the most straightforward – and simultaneously arguably the trickiest. Essentially her new book presents a…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019PERFORMANCES & EVENTSOperaVisionStuart MacRae’s Anthropocene, May 17‘In the frozen Arctic wastelands, an expeditionary team of scientists becomes trapped. Tensions rise and relationships crumble;
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019Musical Fidelity M2si and M2scdEven before you unbox the new entry-level CD player and amplifier from Musical Fidelity, it’s hard not to notice something’s different: a new legend on the boxes declares this to be ‘an Austrian brand’.Yes, what was once a company making great play of its British heritage, and not averse to the odd Union flag here and there in its marketing materials, has, since about this time last year, been part of Vienna-based Audio Tuning Vertriebs GmbH, which for some 20 years had been the Musical Fidelity distributor in Austria.Owned by Heinz Lichtenegger, who arguably single-handedly pioneered the current vinyl revival with his range of turntables, the company is perhaps best known as the parent of the Pro-Ject brand and its little Box Design audio components. Into this world has come…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019‘There are definite signs of a hi-fi separates revival’Call me cautious, but I’m somewhat sceptical when it comes to highly integrated products – must be that old thing about putting all one’s eggs in a single basket or something. Whether it comes to bank accounts, data storage or even my hi-fi system, I’m a firm advocate of more being better, however tempting simplification may seem.A few things of late have focused my mind on this matter, not least of which was a sudden and unexpected – aren’t they always? – drive failure in the NAS unit I use to store my music library. If I hadn’t duplicated my storage – regular readers will know just how ‘belt and braces’ my set-up is – I’d now be looking at a lengthy process of re-downloading and re-ripping my entire collection,…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019OBITUARIESGERALD ENGLISHTenor Born November 6, 1925 Died February 6, 2019The English tenor whose long career embraced working with both Barbirolli and Beecham as well as appearing in Simon Rattle’s Proms debut in 1976, has died at the age of 93.A founder member of the Deller Consort, English’s musical sympathies ranged from the Medieval to the modern, and he took part in numerous premieres by the likes of Richard Rodney Bennett, Tippett and Henze.After studying at the Royal College of Music (where he’d later serve as a professor), he made his operatic debut as Peter Quint in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw under the composer’s direction. He would also sing Pandarus in Walton’s Troilus and Cressida (a role he recorded). His repertoire embraced, too, the roles of Andres and the…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019David ShulerWhat draws you to Palestrina’s music?Late-Renaissance polyphony forms the core of our repertoire, both for concerts and church services. The music of Palestrina, of course, looms large in this canon. In addition to the sheer beauty of his music, I particularly appreciate his many and varied approaches to motet and Mass compositions. He is unquestionably a master of counterpoint.Why did you chose the Missa Tu es Petrus?We performed the Missa Tu es Petrus a couple of years ago, and it immediately became a favourite. There is no mistaking that this is mature Palestrina: it is one of his finest and most ingenious parody Masses, and one of his most luminous compositions. Also, this Mass setting has not been recorded often, unlike, say, the Missa Papae Marcelli.You achieve a gorgeous choral…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|June 2019A LETTER FROM Los AngelesWith the July 9 opening of the Hollywood Bowl on the horizon, LA’s classical music season hurtles to a close, becoming more youth-orientated, more culturally diverse, decentralised and expansive, with a flourishing new music scene.The city also seems to have turned a corner on how to build a classical music community in a city laid out over such vast distances and without robust public transportation. The answer may lie in the many series and home concerts springing up to satisfy and create local demand, whose growth fuels the interest in bigger theatres and performing arts centres.The season started in September with an eight-mile street party entertained by 1800 musicians, artists and dancers, connecting the LA Philharmonic’s two homes: Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown and the Hollywood Bowl eight miles north…5 min
