Home//Gramophone Magazine/February 2020/In This Issue
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020The importance of open-minded artistsWhen writing about musicians, it’s usual to see a familiar career path – the opportunities offered, the progressive filling of a familiar-looking CV. In the case of conductors, for example, it usually involves a journey through established orchestras or ensembles, each post gaining in responsibility and prestige; for pianists a competition win perhaps, followed by city-hopping recitals; for a singer, a progress through the route of roles that suit a certain voice type. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But neither is it the only way – or, for some artists, the right one.Take this month’s cover artist, the conductor John Wilson, whose journey continues to defy predictability. I first encountered him in relation to his vibrant performances of MGM scores, followed by equally fine recordings of Elgar, Copland and…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020FOR THE RECORDFarewell to Peter SchreierGerman lyric tenor Peter Schreier has died aged 84. During a long career, he graduated from singing treble in the Dresdner Kreuzchor to becoming one of the world’s leading tenors, embracing song, oratorio and opera and performing alongside some of the greatest artists of the day.Raised by a musical family in Meissen, Saxony, Schreier was spotted by Rudolf Mauersberger, the Dresdner Kreuzchor’s conductor; when Schreier’s voice broke, he joined the city’s Musikhochschule.He made his debut in 1957 as the First Prisoner in Beethoven’s Fidelio. In 1962 he took on larger roles such as Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) and Tamino (Die Zauberflöte). He joined the Berlin State Opera and also sang with the Vienna State Opera. In 1966 he made his debut at Bayreuth, singing the…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020GRAMOPHONE GUIDE TO … Nocturne‘On a poet’s lips I slept / Dreaming of a love-adept.’ No composer chose poetry more carefully than did Britten, and the lines by Percy Bysshe Shelley that open his Op 60 Nocturne (1958) could sum up the whole genre of the ‘night piece’: a mood of stillness, moonlight, dreams and – of course – love. At least, that’s been the case since the Irish pianist John Field composed his 16 nocturnes for piano, between 1812 and his death in January 1837, and since Chopin elevated the form to canonic status with 21 more composed in the 1830s and ’40s.Liszt summed up Field’s creation, describing the nocturnes as ‘these vague Aeolian harmonies, these half-formed sighs floating through the air, softly lamenting and dissolved in delicious melancholy’. And yet, the 18th-century…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Building a legacyIs there a finer British pianist than Benjamin Grosvenor? We can all play that game, of course, but it’s interesting to note that the only other serious contenders are themselves huge fans of his playing. This might suggest that Grosvenor is a kind of ‘pianists’ pianist’ – someone whose qualities appeal primarily to fellow professionals who will fully appreciate the skills and subtleties of his art. But Grosvenor’s pianism shines more brightly than that. Indeed, the admiration of music lovers and record buyers is only reinforced by the knowledge that his fellow musicians recognise a unique and authentic talent.Grosvenor is now 27, still young and with a long career ahead of him. So long ago did he come to widespread attention, when he won the piano category of the 2004…15 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020OrchestralDavid Threasher listens to some of Mozart’s earliest symphonies:‘Some of the slow movements, especially, display a depth and sensitivity that eluded composers four or five times his age’Richard Whitehouse explores . an album of Raminta Šerkšnyte:‘Mirga Gražinyte . -Tyla relishes the acute contrasts as the music’s earlier anguish becomes progressively diffused’Barber . TchaikovskyBarber Violin Concerto, Op 14 Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Op 35 Johan Dalene vn Norrköping Symphony Orchestra / Daniel BlendulfBIS F BIS2440 (59’ • DDD/DSD)Gramophone has already singled out this young man as One to Watch (8/19) and from the shaping of his solo entrance in the Tchaikovsky alone there’s a ‘presence’ about Johan Dalene’s playing that announces a musician of special sensibilities. It’s amazing how quickly one can tell.I guess the most striking thing about this young Swedish…51 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020ChamberCharlotte Gardner enjoys chamber-scale flute concertos by Quantz:‘There is a hugely sensitive chamber awareness between the Elysium Ensemble and soloist Greg Dikmans’Liam Cagney on some trends in modern music for ensembles:‘Many of these pieces have an admirable clarity that hints at the positive influence of experimental rock’JS BachSix Flute Sonatas, BWV1030-1035 Michala Petri rec Hille Perl va da gamba Mahan Esfahani hpdOUR Recordings F 6 220673 (74’ • DDD/DXD)Mahan Esfahani is characteristically pugnacious in his defence of these six works, in terms of their quality and authenticity, and even the choice of instruments on which he and his colleagues choose to perform them. The quality of any piece of music – especially if the product of one of the great geniuses of the canon – is non-negotiable; but the truth…22 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Vernon HandleyWhen an unsuspecting player innocently prefaced a question at rehearsal with a polite, ‘Mr Handley …?’ there was an impatient interruption: ‘Please call me anything – Tod, Vernon – even Darling – anything but Mr Handley!’ There was, of course, a twinkle in the eye. Born in Enfield in 1930, Handley, it transpires, actually disliked both his given names (Vernon George) with some vehemence and immediately adopted the affectionate nickname ‘Tod’ bestowed on him by his family as a result of his being pigeon-toed, which caused him to ‘toddle’ as he walked. Tod Handley became one of the most distinguished and beloved British conductors of his generation – beloved partly because of his complete lack of any affectation and also in relation to his selfless devotion to the cause of…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Tansy DaviesEarly on there was already something else afoot – an impulse drawn less from the machine age, more from nature’s patternsThe trajectory of Tansy Davies’s music so far has, to the naked ear, been one of migration from the thrilling grubbiness of the city to the verdant abundance of nature. When she came to prominence in the early 2000s, Davies was the ‘urban’ composer par excellence – her music all about the back alleys, scraping and slapping, spraying luminous graffiti on dirty brick walls and forcing alien partners into seedy transactional dances.The disciplined mechanics behind these early mature works combined with their confidence, freshness and almost physical sex appeal to make Davies the talked about composer in a Britain high on post-millennium optimism. Neon (2004) became something of a signature…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020VocalTim Ashley hears American and British songs from Adèle Charvet: ‘Charvet has a warm, appealing mezzo, with a tangy lower register and fine dynamic control at the top’Edward Breen welcomes an album of rarities written for Milan Cathedral: ‘The smooth, honeyed sound of Siglo de Oro is largely due to the soft and clear sheen of their radiant sopranos’JS Bach . Kuhnau . Schelle‘Magnificat – Christmas in Leipzig’ JS Bach Magnificat, BWV243a Kuhnau Magnificat Schelle Machet die Tore weit Solomon’s KnotSony Classical F 19075 99262-2 (75’ • DDD • T/t)On their much-anticipated debut recording, Solomon’s Knot offer, in chronological order, works from three successive Thomaskantors: Johann Schelle (1648-1701), Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The programme is built around Bach’s first Magnificat, the work in E flat, BWV243a,…37 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020OperaMark Pullinger revisits a popular La traviata from Covent Garden: ‘Ermonela Jaho gets inside her character so thoroughly that one cannot help but suffer with her’Mike Ashman welcomes Janowski’s supremely focused Der Freischütz: ‘The cast features the much-discussed new star Lise Davidsen as an Agathe of one’s dreams’BeethovenLeonoreMarlis Petersen sop..................................................LeonoreMaximilian Schmitt ten .......................................FlorestanJohannes Weisser bar...............................................PizarroDimitry Ivashchenko bass ........................................RoccoRobin Johannsen sop.........................................MarzellineJohannes Chum ten .................................................JaquinoTareq Nazmi bass ..........................................Don FernandoFlorian Feth ten................................................First PrisonerJulian Popken bass ................................. Second PrisonerZurich Sing-Akademie; Freiburg Baroque Orchestra / René JacobsHarmonia Mundi F 2 HMM90 2414/15 (140’ • DDD) Includes synopsis, libretto and translation Recorded live at the Philharmonie de Paris, November 2017We recall that Fidelio was first given as Leonore – in Vienna in November 1805, in three acts – before an uncomprehending audience of invading Napoleonic troops.…28 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020BOX-SET Round-upThere’s one thing you can guarantee when listening to recordings by Friedrich Gulda – whether it’s recorded live or in the studio, what you’ll hear will defy expectations. Gulda could be austerely classical, outrageously inventive, deeply poetic, romantic and more; for him, the musical moment was what mattered most, as these frequently inspired Stuttgart solo recitals amply prove. In the present context Bach is principally represented by selections of the ‘48’ played on an electronically magnified clavichord which, while occasionally sounding like ‘Bach meets Blue Hawaii’, finds Gulda on brilliant form, especially in the dramatic A minor Prelude and Fugue, BWV889 (Book II), and a dazzling account of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. At the other end of the spectrum comes half an hour’s worth of zany improvisations with his…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Classics RECONSIDEREDGeraint Lewis The super-intelligent pianist and scholar Charles Rosen had a very mysterious blind-spot (or ‘deaf-patch’) when it came to Haydn’s church music – similar in nature to the common criticisms of the composer’s more cloth-eared contemporaries who found it too ‘cheerful’. I find it fascinating, therefore, that Roger Fiske’s (pre-Rosen) review of the first UK recording of this penultimate Mass – virtually unknown in 1969 – underlines his astonishment at how ‘great’ the music actually is! But then, I’m reminded of what Johann Adam Hiller wrote at the time on the copy he made in 1804 of this so-called Creation Mass: ‘Opus summum viri summi Joseph Haydn’.David Threasher I think that must have been Hiller’s catchphrase – he also wrote it on his manuscript copy of Mozart’s Requiem, of…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020ARCHIVE DOCUMENTARY REVIEW‘The Berliner Philharmoniker and their instruments’If I were asked to name as many players from a single orchestra as possible, I’d almost certainly do best if the ensemble were the Berliner Philharmoniker, not just because so many of its players have thriving solo careers, but also thanks to the Digital Concert Hall. A lovely feature of this enterprising site is the series of little portrait films (free to view), directed by Sibylle Strobel and Torben Jacobsen, each focusing on a different player.Recent additions include the viola player Amihai Grosz, the violinist Laurentius Dinca and the bassoonist Markus Weidmann. Grosz, who joined the orchestra in 2010, recalls his youth in Jerusalem and how, as a hyperactive kid, the minute a violin was placed in his hands, he calmed down and was…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020A famous name revived – and £330k speakersThere’s quite expensive, there’s very expensive and then there’s the Wilson Audio Chronosonic XVX 1 . Just arrived in the UK from its manufacturer in the US, this £330,000-a-pair loudspeaker isn’t even the company’s flagship model: it’s a more affordable version of company founder Dave Wilson’s WAMM Master Chronosonic, which currently sells for $850,000/pr. Daryl Wilson, now carrying on his late father’s work, has developed the XVX version, drawing on the original but implementing some of the technology in a simplified form. The imposing speakers stand 1.87m tall and each weighs over 310kg, using a total of seven drivers per channel including 12.5 and 10.5in woofers, two mid-range units and a pair of tweeters, each in its own enclosure. The whole speaker is adjustable to angle the drivers towards the…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020In-ear comfort and qualityAs those who listen to music on the move will know, there are two kinds of wireless earphones. All connect to a mobile phone, computer or digital music player using Bluetooth – but some are more wireless than others.At the affordable end of the market, the in-ear pieces are often connected to a neckband or other device containing the wireless electronics and the rechargeable battery powering the whole system; true wireless earphones, with nothing but radio signals connecting the earpiece to the player in your pocket, tend to be on the expensive side. Apple’s Airpods, for example, are £159 with their standard charging case or £40 more with the wireless charging version, while Sony’s WF-1000MX3 model will cost you around £200 (although they do include noise-cancelling technology).Inevitably there are a…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020RAYMOND WEIL GENEVEEach Letter of the Month now receives a RAYMOND WEIL toccata classic wristwatch RRP £595RAYMOND WEIL are a Swiss luxury watch brand inspired by horology, music and family. This toccata classic wristwatch features a sleek stainless steel 39mm case, Swiss quartz movement, sophisticated Roman numeral dial with a date window at 3’oclock and complemented by a black leather strap with alligator finish. This elegant and timeless toccata model celebrates the artistic and musical spirit behind the brand’s DNA. Following in the footsteps of the great composers, toccata promotesRAYMOND WEIL’s Swiss horology while respecting the tradition and heritage handed down from generation to generation within the family company.…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORSJAMES JOLLY enjoyed meeting Kate Lindsey this month. ‘Interviewing her in Vienna about Baroque cantatas the morning after the premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando vividly brought home to me her versatility and range, as well as her musical curiosity,’ he recalls. ‘She’s clearly a mezzo to watch!’‘For my money, the conductor John Wilson is the Beecham and Barbirolli of the 21st century, rolled into one’, writes the author of this month’s cover story, RICHARD BRATBY. ‘He’s a joy to talk to – candid, enthusiastic, and always ready to spring some delightful surprise.’‘It’s always stimulating to talk with Benjamin Grosvenor,’ writes TIM PARRY, who has followed his career closely since his early teenage years. ‘He can be reserved, but his good humour is soon apparent, as is his self-effacing modesty and…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020ONE TO WATCHTom Borrow pianoBeing Gramophone, it’s when an exciting young artist is about to appear on a recording that we really start spreading the news. One such is Tom Borrow, a 19-year-old pianist who has just been signed to Hänssler and is soon to make his first recording for the label.Born in 2000 in Tel Aviv (where he now studies), Borrow has for the past four years been regularly mentored by Murray Perahia. Like many virtuosos, his career path has been a series of planned steps and random opportunities. The latter includes being called on to replace Khatia Buniatishvili with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in January last year, performing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G at 36 hours’ notice. Other appearances already confirmed in coming seasons include concerts with the London Philharmonic…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020IN THE STUDIO• In mid-December, the Gramophone Award-winning Sean Shibe was in Crichton, Scotland, to conclude his recording of the Bach Solo Lute Suites on guitar. The recording, for Delphian, is due out in May.• Steven Osborne and Paul Lewis are recording a sumptuous programme of French duets for Hyperion. The two pianists will be at St Silas the Martyr, Kentish Town, in March to set down works by Fauré, Poulenc, Debussy, Stravinsky and Ravel, including Poulenc’s Sonata for Piano Four Hands and Debussy’s Six épigraphes antiques. The recording is due for issue in April 2021.• Again for Hyperion, the London Haydn Quartet is at Potton Hall, Suffolk, from February 27 to March 2 to record Haydn’s String Quartets Nos 1-6. The release is expected in March next year.• Amandine Beyer and…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020FROM WHERE I SITAfter so many years of concert-going – including a time when writing for The Guardian and The Independent newspapers that I was averaging three concerts a week minimum – it’s good to be reminded that I can still be stunned, that a performance can still reveal things about a piece that I hadn’t fully considered before. It happened again a couple of months back when Vladimir Jurowski seemingly excavated and re-evaluated Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the London Philharmonic. I shouldn’t have been surprised – his reading of the Second Symphony (recorded live and reviewed by myself in these pages) threw up similar answers to often-asked questions – but what truly struck home this time was the revelation of how hard it must be to find your own way to a…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020JUMPING between repertoiresAmong the many obituaries for Jessye Norman last autumn, one bon mot by the diva surfaced with remarkable frequency: ‘Pigeonholes are only comfortable for pigeons.’ It’s a sentiment that finds sympathy with many singers, and of those singers I suspect a large number would be mezzos. ‘I wonder whether from a practical standpoint, and especially for lyric mezzos, we have to get creative about what we sing and about where we go,’ reflected Kate Lindsey one morning last December. ‘It’s quite easy to corner ourselves into a very specific repertoire which could become very limiting. So, if we’re able to open ourselves up to other possibilities, and other ways of using the voice, we have lots more opportunities.’ And this possessor of a glorious mezzo voice – warm and glowing…12 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Miguel Harth-BedoyaWhat first drew you to Ginastera’s music?Ginastera is one of the classical composers with music of the highest quality. Not necessarily in the way the Europeans might describe ‘classical’, but he is the first established composer from South America who influenced those South American composers who came after him. The fact that I am Peruvian does not mean that I automatically knew Ginastera well; I spent years studying the various facets of his work.The Harp Concerto is more usually recorded with similar concertos by other composers, so it’s good to have more Ginastera as the coupling – what attracted you to the Variaciones concertantes?We recently celebrated the centenary of Ginastera’s birth (1916), and that anniversary seemed a good reason to celebrate his music in an all-Ginastera recording. Variaciones concertantes is…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020GROUP INNOVATIONDiscussions of music since 1900 tend to be too composer-centric. Recently musicologists have pushed back against this tendency and sought to give due credit to the musicians and institutions. This Collector looks at trends in recent music through some of today’s top ensembles.Cologne-based Ensemble Musikfabrik has a refreshingly unashamed focus on innovation. ‘Fall’ collects three works based on falling. Ferneyhough’s La chute d’Icare (previously recorded by Elision – Kairos, 7/10) is inspired by Bruegel’s famous painting, which inspired Auden’s famous poem. The music begins as an ultra-complex, texturally dense polyphony and ever so gradually thins out to reveal instrumental filigree. Musikfabrik’s performance is wonderfully stylish, and Carl Rosman’s virtuosity on clarinet – trills, multiphonics, registral jumps – is mind-boggling (though given he is also the soloist on the Kairos recording,…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020InstrumentalJed Distler enjoys fine accounts of Stravinsky and Rachmaninov:‘The Shrovetide Fair stands out for Poghosyan’s masterly textural layering and resounding climaxes’Marc Rochester has been listening to a range of recent organ albums:‘Kevin Bowyer has a reputation for disinterring and breathing life into long-forgotten and obscure repertory’Alwyn . CarwithenAlwyn Fantasy-Waltzes. Twelve Preludes Carwithen Sonatina Daniel Grimwood pfEdition Peters F EPS007 (73’ • DDD)This is not the first time that the works of both husband and wife have appeared together on the same disc, nor the first time that the Fantasy-Waltzes have kept company with Doreen Carwithen’s Sonatina: Mark Bebbington’s recording for Somm was well received by Edward Greenfield in 2014. My only other exposure to her piano music, the Piano Concerto (another Bebbington unearthing – 1/15), left me somewhat indifferent. Her…27 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020DAVIES FACTSBorn May 29, 1973, Bristol, UKStudied the horn and composition (with Alan Bullard) at Colchester Institute (1991-94), and composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (1997-98; with Simon Bainbridge) and Royal Holloway, University of London (2000-03; with Simon Holt)Worked as a freelance horn player for two years between university and postgraduate composition studies, mostly working in London’s West EndMost recent work is Soul Canoe (2019) for an ensemble of 10 players, the culmination of her time as composer-in-residence at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the title refers to the soul canoe or wuramon, made by the Asmat tribe of the Indonesian province of West Papua…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020A BAROQUE ADVENTUREA rich abundance of Italian and German Baroque music has recently become available – whether works were intended for liturgical use, courtly performances for patrons or public concerts.Ensemble La Fenice’s 12 favoriti sing with sensitive fluidity in Jean Tubéry’s pseudo-liturgical Monteverdi Vespers. Full passages are reinforced by 31 young choristers from the choir school of Reims Cathedral. Textures have striking opulence and gentle spirituality. Delineation of complex 10-part contrapuntal writing throughout ‘Nisi Dominus’ is smudged by swampy acoustics, and even the transparency of smaller-scale solo pieces is blurred. Nevertheless, the favoriti in ‘Ave maris stella’ produce collective warmth and outstanding beauty, and the diminutions and cantabile phrasing of the instrumentalists in the ‘Sonata sopra Sancta Maria’ are masterful.Countertenor Matthias Lucht sings with poetic tenderness (albeit unsteadiness) in Venetian solo motets…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020REPLAYPaillard and MünchingerJean-François Paillard’s legacy for Erato yields an especially distinctive sound, a solid, vibrant body of tone featuring excellent soloists and fastidiously balanced recordings produced by Michel Garcin. Paillard’s 1968 recording of Pachelbel’s Canon (in his own notably romantic arrangement) was famously used in the 1980 film Ordinary People, eventually reaching the number one position in the Billboard Classical Albums chart – and it still sounds pretty lustrous, as does a slightly swifter 1983 remake which is also included in the set.Paillard’s great skill in (mostly) Baroque repertoire was his ability to generate warmth, allowing the music – whether it be a vigorous dance or something more relaxing – to glow and breathe. In fact, if you fancy jumping waist-deep into the heady orchestral environs of the 17th and…9 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020BooksAndrew Farach-Colton finds much to enjoy in a Gershwin compendium:‘Research on Gershwin’s musical education establishes that he had a deeper background in classical music than had been imagined’David Gutman welcomes a useful, slimline book on Shostakovich:‘We are subtly encouraged to dump the myths; no successful career can be maintained without compromise’The Cambridge Companion to GershwinEdited by Anna Harwell CelenzaCambridge University Press, PB, 334pp, £22.99 ISBN 978-1-108-43764-6Because Gershwin worked so successfully in distinct genres – Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, Hollywood, the concert hall and the nightclub – any reasonably thorough study of his output is going to be complicated. Some especially thorny issues arise, too: in his music’s relationship to jazz, for example, and in the discussions that arise concerning race and prejudice when considering both his career and his legacy.…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 T and Pre Box RS2 DigitalFor most hi-fi enthusiasts, the Pro-Ject name is synonymous with record players. Based in Austria and founded in 1991, the company built itself on its original Pro-Ject 1 turntable and now has models ranging from the £159 Primary E all the way up to the £8000 Signature 12. What’s more, central to the company legend is the factory in which the company’s turntables are made, in Litovel, to the south-east of Prague in the Czech Republic.However, alongside the success of its record player operation – not to mention the sheer scale of both the range and the scale on which it manufactures – the company has developed parallel businesses. This part started when it launched an inexpensive phono pre-amplifier to allow its turntables to be used with amplifiers having only…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020An inspiration for a whole industryWe all have influences – those people who do more than simply inspire but have the ability to change the way we think. Mine were an enthusiastic English teacher who reassured me that I could write for a living, a friend of the family who developed in me an understanding of music – and Ken Ishiwata, who passed away, aged 72, just before the end of 2019.A lot has already been written about Ken, who was born in Japan but played a major part in the development of the European audio industry for more than four decades. His official job description for the latter part of that time was Brand Ambassador for Marantz – a title he took on when someone up the corporate chain decided he really ought to…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020John GilhoolyI was very lucky growing up in Limerick because there was a huge chamber music tradition. I went to a Catholic school, but the headmaster of the local Protestant school was called John Ruddock and he was very friendly with William Lyne [Director of Wigmore Hall for 36 years between 1966 and 2003]. So quite a few major artists, many from Eastern Europe, would come to Limerick to give their warm-up concert. I can remember the original Takács Quartet, András Schiff – when I was 11 – playing Beethoven in Limerick, and later Imogen Cooper and Wolfgang Holzmair. And John Ruddock loved doing chamber music, so I heard a lot of quartets and piano trios during those years when I was on the cusp of being a teenager.We had a…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020GRAMOPHONE Editor's choiceBARBER. TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concertos Johan Dalene vn Norrköping SO / Daniel Belndulf BISJohan Dalene, winner of 2019’s Carl Nielsen competition and a recent ‘One to Watch’, with a superb concerto coupling.REVIEW ON PAGE 32BRAHMS Double Concerto SCHUMANN Violin Concerto Antje Weithaas vn Maximilian Hornung vc NDR Radiophilharmonie / Andrew Manze CPOPerformances of two works which our critic now names his top recommendations.REVIEW ON PAGE 36A NORMAN Sustain Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra / Gustavo Dudamel DGAndrew Norman marks the LA Philharmonic’s centenary by thinking ahead to its 200th, and the questions that raises about our stewardship of our planet.REVIEW ON PAGE 41‘THE LYRICAL CLARINET, VOL 2’ Michael Collins cl Michael McHale pf ChandosYou know a new album by the clarinet virtuoso Michael Collins is going to impress and charm; his programme…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020GRAMOPHONE OnlinePodcastsThe Gramophone podcast series continues with revealing interviews with soprano Louise Alder and pianist Stephen Hough. Alder (pictured) has released her first recording for Chandos, ‘Lines Written During a Sleepless Night: The Russian Connection’, which sees her joined by pianist Joseph Middleton for a fascinating, personal choice of songs by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Rachmaninov. Hough, meanwhile, has been enjoying enormous success with his new solo Brahms album for Hyperion, not least in these pages where it was named January’s Recording of the Month. All podcasts are free and available on most podcasting platforms.BlogsBeethoven’s legendary Academy events presented new music for an audience hungry for novelty. In an engrossing blog, conductor François-Xavier Roth explains how the spirit of these concerts has inspired his concert at London’s Southbank Centre on February 21…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020ORCHESTRA Insight … The Philadelphia OrchestraFounded 1900First recording 1917Home Kimmel CenterMusic Director Yannick Nézet-SéguinIf ever there was an orchestra defined by its string sound, it was the Philadelphia Orchestra. Can that level of definition remain, in an age of orchestras as chameleons? To understand this ensemble’s sonic DNA you have to go back to 1912, when Leopold Stokowski took over as Music Director and started to engender a forthright mode of string playing that would be more easily picked up by the primitive recording equipment that so fascinated him.No orchestra can boast a recording career like the one that followed. Under Stokowski it became the first to make electrical recordings, and under his successor Eugene Ormandy it was the first to perform on television. More recently, it became the first American orchestra to broadcast on…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020MUSIC manEric Coates knew how to get things done. ‘A flat on a top floor in the heart of London with a writing-room looking across the city far away to the Surrey hills and the sounds of traffic coming up to me from way down below … this was my recipe for composing,’ he writes in his memoir Suite in Four Movements (1953). ‘I have tried both ways of living and, even to-day, I feel that the country is for dreaming and the town for work.’ I don’t know if John Wilson has any hankering for the country – and his high-rise apartment near Bankside is a good tube ride away from Coates’s flat above Baker Street Station. But the view is every bit as lively, and it’s easy to believe…14 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020GRAMOPHONE RECORDING OF THE MONTH‘The enthusiasm Wilson elicits from his orchestra is apparent on every track, though what really impresses is the finesse’‘Escales’‘French Orchestral Works’ Chabrier España Debussy Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune Duruflé Trois Danses, Op 6 Ibert Escales … Massenet Thaïs – Méditation Ravel Rapsodie espagnole Saint-Saëns Le rouet d’Omphale, Op 31 Sinfonia of London / John Wilson Chandos F CHSA5252 (79’ • DDD/DSD)‘Let’s hope it’s not a one-off’, wrote Richard Bratby at the close of his review (10/19) of John Wilson’s recording of Korngold’s Symphony in F, with the Sinfonia of London, which takes it name from the much-admired 1950s recording orchestra, and which Wilson, long keen on its revival, effectively re-founded in 2018, hand-picking its members from among the UK’s best musicians. Those concerned that it genuinely might be a…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Liszt ‘Dante’ SonataLiszt sketched a two-movement work in 1839 called Fragment after Dante, premiering it that year in Vienna at a benefit concert to raise funds for erecting a statue of Beethoven in Bonn. The work went through several revisions before attaining its final one-movement form in 1849, with a new title inspired by Victor Hugo: Après une lecture du Dante (fantasia quasi sonata). Most pianists and music lovers conveniently refer to it simply as the Dante Sonata.At first, Alessio Bax, who has just recorded the work for Signum, harboured mixed feelings about it. ‘As I heard Dante played more and more at the conservatory where I studied, and in competitions, I got tired of it,’ the Italian pianist tells me when we meet at my studio in New York. ‘I always…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020DEFINING MOMENTS•1958 – Meets his mentorStarts to work with Sir Adrian Boult as pupil and assistant•1965 – Makes his first recordingsWith the Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra he makes the world premiere recording of Bax’s Symphony No 4•1974 – Classics for Pleasure debutBegins a fruitful partnership with both EMI and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in works by Vaughan Williams•1983 – A major London appointmentBecomes Associate Conductor of the LPO•1984 – An iconic recordingWith Nigel Kennedy and the LPO he records Elgar’s Violin Concerto for EMI – a benchmark for the modern age to stand with Menuhin’s conducted by Elgar himself•1986 – Recognition abroadAppointed Chief Conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra in Sweden – one of several partnerships outside the UK•2003 – Recognition for recording achievementsGramophone gives him a Special Achievement Award; in 2007…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020CHAMBER-SCALE WORKS ON DISCPatterningComposers Ensemble / Peter WiegoldNMC (1/02)Davies was adopted early by the Composers Ensemble, and her relatively early score Patterning (2000) is revealing – structured initially as a two-part invention based on the idea of a single line played at two speeds. The combination induces both frenetic movement and calming stasis, a process that would be developed in later works. There are 12 other interesting composers for company on this well-played snapshot of the ‘Hoxton 13’.‘Spine’BCMG; Azalea; Concordia / Christopher AustinNMC (11/12)There are plenty of gems among the heartfelt performances on this all-Davies disc: the manic, grooving energy of the petite saxophone concerto Iris (2004), the exhaling and capering Spine (2005), the above-mentioned Loopholes and Lynchpins and This Love, and the riotous yet tender tapestry of textures that is Falling Angel…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020WHAT NEXT?Beethoven’s Symphony No 6, ‘Pastoral’ (1808)‘No one can love the country as much as I do,’ wrote Beethoven to Therese Malfatti in 1810. ‘For surely woods, trees and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.’ That last idea may tell us more about the Pastoral Symphony than the composer’s often-quoted but potentially misleading direction to his listeners that the symphony is ‘more the expression of feeling than painting in sounds’.Rooted in the key of F, ‘pastoral’ by convention and pragmatism, there the symphony moves and rests, to a degree unprecedented for Beethoven’s music and his time. He uses texture more than tonality to vary the landscape, radically prefiguring 20th-century minimalism and so much else. The narrative paints a picture of the composer within that landscape, on a walk,…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Beethoven boxedA little under 15 years ago, BBC Radio 3 cleared the schedules for a fortnight to broadcast Beethoven, morning, noon and night. My son had been born a few days earlier and so, at untimely hours, I sat with him in my arms while the Cantata on the Accession of Leopold II or the grave and lovely little C minor Mandolin Sonatina comforted us both (or at least me). Now, in a less sleep-deprived state, I’m even more struck than before by a distinct personality – not always but more often than not touched by genius – running like a watermark through every note he wrote, and not only the familiar masterpieces occupying perhaps a third of his output (still, what a hit-rate – much higher than Mozart or Schubert,…15 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Haydn‘Creation’ MassSoloists; Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge; ASMF / George GuestArgo/DeccaThis record completes Argo’s long-term venture of recording all the late Haydn Masses, and they are to be congratulated on making this magnificent but all-too-little-known music available.No doubt the St John’s choir is as big as the one at Eisenstadt for which Haydn wrote, but there is sometimes a tendency for choral detail to be covered by the violins. Also the boys sound a little breathy here and there. But their innocent quality is attractive, and the singing in general is very good. The balance may favour the orchestra, but it allows us to hear a great deal of beautifully played instrumental detail, and as Haydn was wonderfully inventive over his accompaniments in his last years, there is little…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Mahler’s Fourth SymphonyIn the early 1950s the ever-sceptical Record Guide of Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor already understood that at his best Mahler had ‘achieved a final precision in the expression of nostalgia for the low ceilings, the wavering nightlight, the fields and woods, the unambiguous affections, the stilled terrors and the sharp, fleeting raptures of childhood’. Unlike most Mahler symphonies, his fin de siècle Fourth did not take decades to secure a place in the repertoire. Its comparative brevity and relatively modest orchestration seem to have emboldened colleagues, acolytes and their disciples to parade their insights in concert and preserve them for posterity.Today’s discography contains few significant gaps. We can only guess how Henry Wood and his first wife dealt with the British premiere at the Proms on October 25, 1905…14 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020ARCHIVE OPERA REVIEWBjarnasonDaníel Bjarnason’s opera based on Susanne Bier’s film Brothers was commissioned and first produced, in this production by Kasper Holten, at Den Jyske Opera in Aarhus, Denmark. It was immediately picked up by the opera company in Bjarnason’s home country (as seen here, the first run conducted by the composer) and is already being staged elsewhere.As with Bier’s film, it’s best watched without prior knowledge of the plot. Suffice it to say, it’s a very Nordic emotional affair in which past trauma wreaks present havoc. We see little of the war in Afghanistan, but much of domestic family life in Denmark for a soldier who was sent there, witnessed unimaginable horrors and made it home alive (just).‘Protect yourself with forgetfulness’ sings Bjarnason’s ever-present chorus, which is used fully and thrillingly…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Or you could try …Audiolab 6000CDTTwo-box CD players have somewhat fallen out of fashion, at least in the mass market, but Audiolab has bucked that trend with its latest 6000 series. Making use of the digital conversion in its integrated amplifiers, it offers the 6000CDT, a pure digital transport, enabling it to keep the price down and avoid duplication of circuitry. For more information see audiolab.co.uk.Quad ArteraQuad takes a different approach for its Artera range, with its Play+ model combining the functions of CD player, DAC and pre-amp, complete with a USB input able to handle files at up to 384kHz/32-bit and DSD256. Matching the striking styling of the Play+, the Artera Stereo power amplifier allows a compact two-box playback/amplification system to be assembled. See more at quad-hifi.co.uk.Marantz ND8006Finally, if you want an affordable…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020Letter of the MonthMichelle Assay’s insightful article ‘Horowitz: Our Contemporary’ (December, page 14) was brilliant, engaging and invaluable for her survey of the criticism to date on Horowitz and one of few such articles I have read.While I did not have the opportunity to hear Horowitz in concert, what I feel – at least from the recordings – was that Horowitz’s greatest contribution to the art of piano playing was his thoughtful and incredibly varied programming for each of his recitals. His uncanny ability to both educate and entertain is evident in Sony Classical’s two sets of Horowitz’s complete recitals (‘Horowitz Live at Carnegie Hall’ and ‘Horowitz: The Unreleased Recitals 1966-83’). Listening through each of the recitals complete gives one a sense both of the entertainment and high artistic experience Horowitz’s audiences must…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020OBITUARYABBEY SIMONPianist and teacher Born January 20, 1920 Died December 18, 2019A pupil, alongside Jorge Bolet and Sidney Foster, of Josef Hofmann at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute (which he entered on a scholarship aged eight), Abbey Simon also studied with Leopold Godowksy and Harold Bauer. In 1940 he won the Naumberg International Piano Competition which brought with it a recital at New York’s Town Hall. It launched an impressive career, heralded by the public and critics alike. Simon was known for his formidable virtuosity, but he was also elegant in the music of Chopin; reviewing a Vox-Turnabout recording of the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, Joan Chissell concluded: ‘In sum I would call it an American virtuoso’s Chopin, but a virtuoso with a generous heart.’Following a successful European tour in 1949,…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020GRAMOPHONE SOUNDS OF AMERICAJS Bach . Schumann . Shaw‘Resonance’ JS Bach Keyboard Partita No 4, BWV828 Schumann Davidsbündlertänze, Op 6 Shaw Gustave Le Gray Amy Yang pf MSR Classics F MS1655 (76’ • DDD)On paper, the idea of Bach’s Fourth Partita and Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze bookending the recorded premiere of Caroline Shaw’s 14-minute Gustave Le Gray might seem bizarre. In reality, the programme concept is absolutely inspired, for each of these three works, though stylistically divergent, embodies wide contrasts of mood.Since Shaw’s piece is new to disc, it makes sense to discuss it first. The composer sets off on her ‘multi-layered portrait’ of Chopin’s A minor Mazurka, Op 17 No 4, with soft repeated chords that eventually grow louder and more petulant. Chopin’s Mazurka rears its head at the 3'38" mark and, at around…9 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2020A LETTER FROM Kansas CityWith a metropolitan population of 2.1 million straddling two states, Kansas and Missouri, Kansas City’s musical scene has gone from doughty persistence to thriving and ambitious in the course of several decades.An eye-catching venue in a prominent position overlooking Kansas City, Missouri, the Kauffman Center opened to great fanfare in 2011. It has radically transformed the entire performing arts scene, making the city more attractive to performers and audiences alike, and allowing the Resident Arts Organizations, the Symphony, Lyric Opera and Ballet, to conceive of themselves on a far larger scale. It is a city in which a new cultural energy is palpable, an energy that the RAOs and other musical organisations and ensembles are determined to harness. From the point of view of a performer who might make the…4 min
