Home//Gramophone Magazine/February 2021/In This Issue
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Travel and touring in a post-pandemic worldIt’s either escapist or depressing to think about travel at a time of lockdown. But musicians will travel again, just as they always have. Sometimes such moves are permanent: Gerard Schwarz’s feature this issue remembers composers who fled fascism to settle in America, finding freedom and safety from persecution, and indelibly enriching their adoptive home’s life. As with his article on American composers for us in 2019, there is much music to discover, and I urge you to do so.More generally, though, today’s artists recall the enriching experience of collaborating with colleagues in corners of the world far removed from one’s own. But as we contemplate a post-pandemic world, how might the nature of such activity change? All artists are desperate to work again, but the enforced pause is leading…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021FOR THE RECORDSir Simon Rattle has been appointed Chief Conductor of the Munich-based Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and its Chorus with effect from the 2023-24 season. The initial contract is for five years. He will step down from his role as Music Director of the LSO in 2023 and assume the title of Conductor Emeritus.Rattle has enjoyed a close relationship with the BRSO since 2010, and together they’ve given many concerts including Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre as well as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, recordings of which have been released on the BR-Klassik label.In a statement issued by the LSO, the Berlin-based Rattle said that ‘my reasons for accepting the role of Chief Conductor in Munich are entirely personal, enabling me to better manage the balance of my work…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021ARTISTS & their INSTRUMENTSBack in 1989, when I was 19, I had won a couple of competitions and with the money I’d gathered I was able to reserve a 14-carat gold Brannen-Cooper flute. When it was ready a year later I went to Boston to pick it up, and while I was there I tried out some headjoints; I decided to bring back one by Dana Sheridan.Since then, I’ve acquired a few more flutes: a Braun wooden flute; a Louis Lot which belonged to one of my first teachers, François Binet; and a Haynes from 2013 with a Faulisi headjoint. I’ll sometimes alternate flutes from one recording to another but, unless it’s being repaired, my Brannen-Cooper is still the instrument I feel most comfortable on, especially when I’m performing as a concert soloist.…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Piano lessonsJust out from DG is a 16-CD set called ‘Christoph Eschenbach: Piano Lessons’ which contains many of the piano pieces young players encounter when they start learning the instrument. Like Lang Lang’s recent ‘Piano Book’, ‘Piano Lessons’ gives piano beginners the chance to hear these pieces, often used for teaching, played by a major performing artist.Recorded mainly in 1974 and ’75, the 16 CDs – many of which are being made available internationally for the first time – contain the key works of the pedagogical repertoire, from JFF Burgmüller’s 25 Studies to Carl Czerny’s The School of Velocity, from Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias to sonatas by Clementi, Diabelli, Dussek and Kuhlau, from easier works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to the gems that are Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words.‘Piano Lessons’ will…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021FROM PARIS with loveIt was the best of timing, it was the worst of timing. In September 2019, Hilary Hahn laid down her violin and started what should have been a year-long sabbatical. The idea was to withdraw from the hubbub of work and concert life; to find space for thought and reflection; to ‘look at how things are, what I really want to do going forward, and then remerge’, in the violinist’s own words.Watching in horror as the classical music sector imploded hadn’t been part of the plan. ‘It was a scramble, as it was for everyone,’ Hahn says of March to May, when the Covid-19 pandemic halted life as we know it. ‘At first I went into grief mode – there goes the sabbatical I’ve been planning for 10 years. As…13 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021AND THEN THERE WERE MORE …There are so many other wonderful composers who emigrated to the US from Europe and elsewhere in the first half of the 20th century, and happily, many of them have found a place in the orchestral/choral repertoire of orchestras around the world. Among those of great note who should be mentioned are Joseph Achron, Samuel Adler, Lukas Foss, Astor Piazzolla, André Previn, Karol Rathaus, Robert Starer, Hugo Weisgall, Chou Wen-Chung, Erich Zeisl. In the second half of the 20th century there were several from outside Europe, such as Tania León, who was born in Cuba; Shulamit Ran, born in Israel; Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, Tan Dun and Zhou Long, all born in China; HeyKyung Lee from Korea, Osvaldo Golijov from Argentina, and so on.CREATIVE ARTISTS NEED A HOMEAmerica has always…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Christian LindbergHow does Petterson’s Symphony No 12 – his only choral symphony – compare with the rest of his symphonic output?I believe it is surprisingly similar to the other symphonies, but with the addition of some fantastic composing for choir. It’s beautiful! The orchestral writing is as usual very well crafted, with lots of challenging passages for all instruments. It is quite impressive that on top of that Pettersson creates a full eight-part choral realisation of this beautiful text by Pablo Neruda. For me this is possibly Pettersson’s greatest work, full of colours, beautiful melodies, and powerful C major chords mixed with some very complicated atonal dissonances in the choir.The choral writing sounds very demanding. Was this a challenge to record, and how easy is it for you to balance the…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021DEFINING MOMENTS• 1948 – Recital debut aged 17In Graz, recital entitled the Fugue in Piano Literature• 1951 – First recordingProkofiev’s Fifth Piano Concerto – learnt in under a month• 1969 – Signs with major record labelExclusive contract with Philips, with whom he remains for the rest of his career• 1976 – Publishes first bookMusical Thoughts and Afterthoughts – collection of writings on music• 1978 – Wins first Gramophone AwardFor a disc featuring Liszt’s Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen Variations• 1982–3 – Tours Beethoven complete piano sonatasGives 77 recitals in 11 cities around Europe and US; becomes first pianist since Artur Schnabel to play complete cycle at Carnegie Hall• 1998 – Poetry published in EnglishPublication of the English translation (from German) of his first volume of absurdist poetry, One Finger Too Many• 2008…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021HEININEN FACTSBorn Helsinki, January 13, 1938Studied composition in Helsinki (1956-60), Cologne (1960-61), New York (1961-62) and Warsaw (mid-’60s); musicology at University of HelsinkiExtracurricular activities as a pianist and an essayist; has written analytical essays on the works of colleagues Erik Bergman, Joonas Kokkonen and Einar EnglundKey quote ‘The composer is just as free as the visual artist to place his stimuli in the order of his choice, as the recipient will, in any case, learn the course of the work by heart and thus experience every part as simultaneously present’ (‘Freedom and Conformity to Laws in Music’: 1983)…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021VocalIvan Moody welcomes a delightful and quirky programme from Paul Hillier:‘This album should be listened to from beginning to end, the contemporary works interspersed with the medieval laude’ REVIEW ON PAGE 69Alexandra Coghlan on an album that ranges from Lotti to Lauridsen:‘With professional men and extensively trained boys, this isn’t your average state comprehensive school choir’ REVIEW ON PAGE 70Ayres‘Sacred Ayres’ The angel Gabriel. Be thou my vision. Crimond (The Lord’s my shepherd). Deep river. Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel?. God be in my head. Go down Moses. Go tell it on the mountain. Grant O God thy protection. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. Let all mortal flesh keep silence. The Lord my pasture shall prepare. The Lord my shepherd is. Motherless child. A new commandment. On this mountain.…22 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021BOX-SET Round-upAccording to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, once known as ‘Queen Elizabeth I’s Virginal Book’, is one of the most important treasures in the music collection bequeathed by Viscount Fitzwilliam (1745-1816), and the richest anthology of 16th- and early 17th-century English keyboard music in existence. Its first complete recording appears from Brilliant Classics at budget price on 15 CDs played on various early instruments by Pieter-Jan Belder, one of the world’s most respected and prolific harpsichordists, whose recording (also on Brilliant) of Scarlatti’s complete keyboard sonatas is ranked by many to be the best available (‘Belder’s Scarlatti survey offers hours upon hours of listening pleasure, and unquestionably constitutes a major achievement’, according to Jed Distler writing in Classics Today). Here the standard of playing is consistently…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021BooksFabrice Fitch reads a monograph on the life and works of Thomas Tallis:‘McCarthy successfully brings home the uncertainty and chaos of an epochal crisis visited on an individual community’Liam Cagney enjoys an overview of 20th-century British music:‘Whittall has a way of making Ferneyhough’s music clear, even straightforward – a welcome riposte to frequent obscurantism’TallisBy Kerry McCarthyOUP, HB, 288pp, £25.99 ISBN 978-0-190-63521-3Given Tallis’s place among Tudor composers (second only to Byrd), a successor to Paul Doe’s ultra-compact survey of 1976 has been overdue for some time. Like Kerry McCarthy’s previous monograph, devoted to Byrd, this is billed as a ‘biography’, a claim that is harder to make for Tallis (or, for that matter, most Renaissance composers) than for his younger colleague. McCarthy makes a strong case for a Kentish origin (specifically…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021iFi AUDIO NEO iDSDType DAC/headphone amp/pre-amplifierPrice £699Inputs Optical/coaxial digital, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 5.0Outputs Unbalanced headphones on 6.3mm socket, balance headphones on 4.4mm Pentaconn socket, fixed/variable level analogue on RCAs and balanced XLRsFile formats PCM up to 768kHz/32-bit, DSD up to DSD512, DXD/DXDx2, Bluetooth with aptX/aptX HD/Adaptive/Low Latency, LDAC, LHDC, AAC and SBCAccessories supplied Stand for ‘vertical’ use, iPower power supply, remote control, RCA analogue interconnect, USB type B cable, 3.5-6.35mm headphone, Bluetooth antennaDimensions (WxHxD) 21.4×4.1×14.6cm ifi-audio.com…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Letter of the MonthI so enjoyed Rob Cowan’s rave review of Supraphon’s ‘Portrait’ of the wonderful Czech pianist Ivan Moravec (January, page 95). It brought back two memories of him during my time as General Manager of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1980s.The first was of an evening spent in his Prague home with his good friend the conductor Libor Pešek, when after dinner we all had to descend to his hallway in order to listen to his latest recording ‘because it sounds so much more atmospheric down there’!The other occasion was of an unforgettable performance, in more ways than one, of the Brahms Piano Concerto No 2 at the Halifax Civic Theatre. Following the second-movement Scherzo, much to the consternation of the audience, he suddenly left the platform, returning a…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021NEXT MONTHMARCH 2021Renaud Capuçon champions ElgarTo record two English masterworks with none other than Sir Simon Rattle and Stephen Hough is a dream come true for this French violinist, as Charlotte Gardner discoversDanny Driver explores LigetiThe British pianist has recorded the 18 Études – a cycle both feared and celebrated for its technical demands. He talks to Harriet Smith about his approachSzymanowski surveyDavid Threasher chooses his top recording of the Stabat mater, a work which has recently found new admirers in the WestGRAMOPHONEON SALE FEBRUARY 24DON’T MISS IT!…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021GRAMOPHONE SOUNDS OF AMERICABrahmsPiano Pieces – Op 117; Op 118; Op 119 Victor Rosenbaum pf Bridge F BRIDGE9545 (65’ • DDD)Victor Rosenbaum begins the first of Brahms’s Op 117 Intermezzos at a brisk pace, bringing cross-rhythmic lines to the fore. However, expressive emendations assiduously add up like extra kilos over the holidays, resulting in the main theme recapitulating nearly twice as slowly. The pianist similarly probes No 2 for detail, yet falls short of Arthur Rubinstein’s centred focus and directness. By contrast, No 3’s dark undercurrents absorb Rosenbaum’s propensity for wiggle room.If you share my view that Op 118 No 1’s main theme is one of Brahms’s most annoying creations, Rosenbaum’s inflated rhetoric will turn you off as well. Yet subtle variations in touch and nuance keep the pianist’s slow tempo in No…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS‘I had a good feeling Hilary Hahn would know how to operate Zoom, given she’s been using the internet longer than most of us,’ says ANDREW MELLOR . ‘It was fascinating to chat with an artist whose pre-planned time out had unwittingly coincided with the world’s, and become something different as a result.’‘As the son of two Austrian immigrants, I’m fascinated by the cultural impact of immigrants coming to the US,’ says the author of our fascinating feature, conductor GERARD SCHWARZ. ‘What did moving here mean to composers? Shedding light on those mid-20th-century artists has been hugely enjoyable.’‘Alfred Brendel has been in my life since I was seven and first discovered an LP of his Mozart concertos,’ recalls Icons author HARRIET SMITH. ‘It was a pleasure to revisit his life…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021ONE TO WATCHHiyoli Togawa ViolaHiyoli Togawa has Japanese and Australian roots but grew up in Germany, and received a master’s degree from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich in 2014. As a child she played the violin, but switched to the viola and studied with Rainer Moog and Antoine Tamestit. Various awards and a budding solo career led to associations with composers including Kalevi Aho, who in 2017 composed a solo work for her (Solo XII – In memoriam EJR, in memory of Einojuhani Rautavaara who died in 2016). Togawa has recorded this work for BIS, which will be issued in May.Before then, we can look forward to Togawa’s debut recording for BIS, out in April: ‘Songs of Solitude’ is an album born out of the seclusion of lockdown, and…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021GRAMOPHONE GUIDE TO … Piano QuartetThe definition of a piano quartet has never been as simple as just three string instruments plus keyboard. Any number of Baroque trio sonatas can be played by two violins, a cello and a keyboard, but the clue’s in the name. The cello acts as an extension of the harpsichord; there are four players, but they speak with three voices. Only with the evolution of the more powerful pianoforte could a string trio of violin, viola and cello meet their keyboard colleague on equal terms as a piano quartet.Mozart’s two piano quartets K 478 and 493 (1785 and 1787) set the standard for the form: a conversation between four players who nonetheless belong to two distinct sub-groups. It wasn’t as easy as he made it sound. The very same year,…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Arthur Grumiaux boxTo mark the centenary of the birth of the violinist Arthur Grumiaux (he was born on March 21, 1921), Decca is issuing a 74-CD set of all the recordings he made for Philips. The set includes a first release for Mozart’s Adagio, K261, and Rondo, K373, made with the LSO and Colin Davis in 1964.The centenary box contains a 100-page booklet with notes by Tully Potter who, writing an Icons article about Grumiaux for Gramophone in June 2020, claimed that ‘Arthur Grumiaux was the greatest post-war Belgian violinist and one of the “perfect five” of the 1950s and ’60s, with Heifetz, Milstein, Oistrakh and Kogan. He was the fiddler for those who think they dislike the violin: his immaculate playing and supple tone won him millions of friends.’ The set…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021THE EUROPEAN GIANTS OF AMERICAN MUSICFor the July 2019 issue of Gramophone, I wrote about some of my favourite neglected American works from the middle of the 20th century and was so happy to receive many comments and ideas of other works and composers to include. Most were certainly worthy and I was excited to see such a lively discussion. Now I am endeavouring to tackle what is, in some ways, a more difficult article – about composers from the same period who emigrated to the United States during the first half of that century. Many of these emigrants came to the US to escape the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s. Some of their music had been banned by the National Socialists, others faced religious persecution or were seen as unsupportive of the direction…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021GRAMOPHONE RECORDING OF THE MONTH‘Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s account of the troubled First Symphony is as surprising and as thrilling as any since Ormandy’RachmaninovSymphony No 1, Op 13a . Symphonic Dances, Op 45b The Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin DG F 483 9839 (81’ • DDD) Recorded live at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Verizon Hall, Philadelphia, b September 2018;a June 2019There can be no underestimating the extraordinary legacy surrounding Rachmaninov and Philadelphia. That he composed the Third Symphony and Symphonic Dances with the city’s great orchestra in mind is testament to how their sound intoxicated him. The string sound in particular played into not just the precision and opulence of his writing but more importantly its obsessiveness and inherent darkness. Among Rachmaninov cognoscenti and collectors alike, the Eugene Ormandy recordings of the two…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2Bach’s keyboard works hold a key position in Piotr Anderszewski’s repertoire. His first commercial solo CD, released in 1999 as part of Harmonia Mundi’s Les Nouveaux Interprètes series, featured the French Overture and Fifth French Suite. For Warner Classics and its affiliated labels the pianist has recorded four English Suites and three Partitas. If anything, Anderszewski’s thoughtful musicianship and high pianistic craft operates at even fuller capacity in a selection of 12 Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, his new release on Warner.Speaking from his Paris home via Zoom, Anderszewski discussed how his way with Bach reflects a wide gamut of influences. ‘As a teenager I was under the spell of Glenn Gould; I mean, who wasn’t? Yet when I tried emulating his dry style with almost…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Alfred BrendelAlfred Brendel celebrated his 90th birthday on January 5 and for me his icon status goes back to my childhood. Among my parents’ sparse record collection was a Turnabout recording of Mozart concertos – K453 in G being my preferred side over K459 in F. I suspect I was as enchanted by the LP’s cover of an elegant woman seated at a keyboard wearing the most fabulously flowery hat as I was by the performance itself, in which Brendel was partnered by the Orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper and Paul Angerer. Nevertheless, it played an important part in my own short-lived dreams of being a pianist, as K453 was the first concerto I ever played in public. I digress …There’s a sense of absolute engagement in his performances, which continued…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Paavo HeininenThe Swedish composer Anders Eliasson told a well-worn story about the day in 1993 when he pitched up at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, reporting for duty as a guest professor. The Academy’s composition chair met him with an outstretched hand: ‘I’m Paavo Heininen, modernist.’Schools and ‘isms’ were already on their way out in the ’90s, but even if Heininen knew it, he didn’t much care. He is the most uncompromising Finnish composer of his generation and perhaps of the last 70 years (‘Finland’s doughtiest modernist’, for Gramophone’s Guy Rickards) – a creator and pedagogue who cleaves to his serialist methods even when he appears to be concealing them.Heininen was the last pupil of Aarre Merikanto, and reconstructed a number of his old teacher’s self-vandalised or unfinished pieces. In 1993,…6 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021WHAT NEXT?Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Op 14 (1830)His encounter with Beethoven’s symphonies in the mid-1820s was a revelation for Berlioz as to what a nominally abstract medium could express, grounded as he was in French choral and operatic music. Going further than had any predecessor in mapping a scenario – as inherently personal as it is increasingly graphic – onto its content, Symphonie fantastique is radical in the degree to which this scenario evolves through musical rather than pictorial or even evocative means. From here the concept of a ‘programme symphony’ was assured for almost a century. Combining a tangible atmosphere with an unforced awareness of authentic practice, François-Xavier Roth’s account is very much one for these times.• Les Siècles / Roth (Harmonia Mundi, 12/19)1 Historical precedentsKnecht Le portrait musical de la…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021REPLAYEduard van Beinum: a stylistic link from Mengelberg to HaitinkFew commentators these days tend to speak of the Dutch conductor and pedagogue Eduard van Beinum (1900-59). He was an exceptional musician by any standards, who in my younger years was a strong presence in the record catalogues, principally through his many recordings for Philips and Decca, most of which are gathered together in Scribendum’s well-presented but as ever annotation-free collection. First, though, a gentle word of warning. Not everything that you’d expect to hear is actually included – for example an enjoyable quartet of Rossini overtures, Reger’s Mozart Variations, a number of live recordings and various concertos with Clifford Curzon, Arthur Grumiaux and Anthony Pini. But what we do have is both musically rewarding and indicative of a stylistic curve…9 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Grieg’s HaugtussaIt wasn’t just Finland that had to grapple with ‘the language issue’ as it sought internal unification as a prerequisite to external recognition as an independent nation. Norway, too, was divided by a complex linguistic legacy with colonial roots, one that rose to the fore as the country looked, like Finland would after it, to liberate itself from successive rule by neighbours first from the west and then from the east. Norway had set its sights on complete independence from Sweden in the late 19th century but it was the Danish language that dominated the country in urban areas.Those urban areas were seen by nationalists as contaminated by foreign rule and bureaucracy, which lay behind the push for rural themes and materials in art that found such a strong exponent…15 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Or you could try …Marantz SA-12SE player and PM-12SE integrated amplifierAs mentioned in the main review, stablemate Marantz puts up a strong challenge with its ‘special edition’ SA-12SE player and PM-12SE integrated amplifier. They’re a little more expensive than the Denons and take a different approach, the SA-12SE having what Marantz calls ‘DAC mode’ – ie multiple digital inputs – while the 100Wpc PM-12SE amplifier is an all-analogue design.Marantz SACD30n and Model 30From the same stable comes an even more aff ordable alternative, and another twist on the facilities front. The Marantz Model 30 amplifier is another analogue-only design but the SACD30n SACD/CD player also has network audio capability, not to mention including the Denon-developed HEOS multiroom capability. Add in a new look for the brand and you have a very appealing pairing.Naim ND5…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Everything will go back to normal at some point …Lead times are consistently unsettling. I’m writing this on the day the UK came out of the late-autumn lockdown and moved into the ‘tiers before Christmas’ phase, complete with drinks only with substantial meals, and some high-street retailers moving to 24-hour opening while others entered their ‘everything must go’ final sales. It’s also the day when we learnt that vaccines against Covid-19 had been approved and would be rolled out.All of which makes it a fool’s errand to try to predict what the shape of the world will be by the time you read this, making the only safe bet that it will be different from what we’ve been used to – it’s just not clear how different. For example, we’ve got used to paying for everything, however small, with…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Bing Concert Hall, Stanford University, CaliforniaYear opened 2013Architect Richard Olcott / Ennead ArchitectsCapacity 842-932If democracy itself seems to be facing unexpected perils of late, a resonant, reaffirming metaphor for democratic ideals can be found in the design concept that has found favour especially over the past decade. This concept, known as ‘vineyard style’, is embodied by Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall. Other structures of similar vintage include Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center in Kansas City, the New World Center in Miami and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin (the most recent of these, which opened in 2017).Vineyard style replaces the hierarchical classifications accentuated by traditional opera house and concert hall architecture with a more equitably distributed experience. A primary model for the vineyard concept overall has been…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Israel Philharmonic OrchestraFounded 1936Home Charles R Bonfman Auditorium, Tel AvivMusic Director Lahav ShaniFounding Music Director William SteinbergAs Jewish musicians were fired from European orchestras in the early 1930s, the violinist Bronislaw Huberman saw the writing on the wall. By 1933 he was laying plans for an orchestra of immigrants in Palestine, arranging safe passage for them and their families. His project saw the relocation of 1000 souls, 75 of them musicians from Germany, Poland, France, Greece, Latvia and Italy. For the Palestine Symphony Orchestra’s first performance in Tel Aviv on December 26, 1936, Arturo Toscanini led the orchestra, fulfilling a promise to ‘render paternal care to the newly born’ and make a powerful point to the Nazis he so detested. Mendelssohn had pride of place on the programme.The renamed Israel Philharmonic Orchestra…2 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021FROM WHERE I SITWhen it was first proposed, some years ago, that we expand the musical theatre reviews content in Gramophone to include musicals and other less-easily definable forms of music drama, the question arose as to where they should be placed: ‘Opera’ or ‘Vocal’? I opted for ‘Vocal’: opera by its very nature has lofty connotations and I for one wouldn’t want to endorse the popular notion that calling something an opera elevates its status.It is still nigh on impossible to define what makes opera opera and musicals musicals. Or indeed any other form or style within the genre. It has nothing to do with being ‘through-sung’ or in the ‘book and song’ format. Bizet’s Carmen or Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, to name but two classic titles, fall into the latter category, but…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021COMPOSER FOCUS: FIVE PROFILESErno Dohnányi 1877-1960Dohnányi is the first of five composers I’d like to give greater attention to here because I believe their work is so worthy. He was, after Liszt, the leader of Hungarian composers. As well as being a great composer and pianist, he was a conductor and music director who championed the music of Kodály, Bartók and Leó Weiner. From 1939, he spent much time fighting against the growing Nazi influences. In 1941, he resigned from the Budapest Academy to avoid following its anti-Jewish legislation. He left Hungary in 1944, after the German occupation, and in 1949 he went to the US to take up the post of pianist- and composer-in-residence at Florida State University in Tallahassee, becoming a US citizen in 1955. His chamber music is widely performed,…11 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021OrchestralRichard Osborne hails a New Year’s Concert that leaves a deep impression: ‘Rarely have I heard the melancholy, majesty and many-layered beauties of these wonderful pieces so movingly revealed’Peter Quantrill enjoys a journey through a transfigured night: ‘The naturalistic touches of moonlit rapture come over with a delicacy missed by deeper-piled orchestral recordings’Barry . BeethovenBarry The Conquest of Irelanda . Viola Concertob Beethoven Symphonies – No 4, Op 60c ; No 5, Op 67c ; No 6, ‘Pastoral’, Op 68d a Joshua Bloom bassb Lawrence Power va Britten Sinfonia / Thomas Adès Signum M 2 SIGCD639 (139’ • DDD • T) Recorded live at the Barbican, London, Mayc 22 &ad 24, 2018;b May 21, 2019I found Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia’s interpretations in the first volume of their Beethoven…38 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021ChamberRichard Bratby welcomes an album of string quintets by Stanford:‘What strikes me is the freshness, spontaneity and instinctive “rightness” of Stanford’s writing for strings’ REVIEW ON PAGE 50Andrew Farach-Colton enjoys an engaging tribute to Nadia Boulanger:‘In Carter’s Cello Sonata, instead of pummelling, Siranossian and Gouin make the music dance’ REVIEW ON PAGE 50Beach . Clarke . IvesBeach Piano Trio, Op 150 Clarke Piano Trio Ives Piano Trio The Gould Piano Trio Resonus F RES10264 (61’ • DDD)A welcome release from The Gould Piano Trio, now into its third decade, whose repertoire stretches right across this medium. It opens with the Piano Trio (1938) by Amy Beach – its concise movements taking in a wistful ‘song without words’, a deft amalgam of intermezzo and scherzo, then an animated finale which, as…23 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021InstrumentalDavid Fanning listens to supple Prokofiev from Nicholas Angelich:‘In the Visions fugitives his rubato is subtle and appropriate to the atmosphere, especially the moments of wistful lyricism’ REVIEW ON PAGE 57Charlotte Gardner is enchanted by the varied riches of ‘Cello 360’:‘Dido’s Lament is followed by Ligeti’s Solo Cello Sonata, whose opening has a similarly sombre, early-music flavour’ REVIEW ON PAGE 60JS BachDas wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 2 – selections Piotr Anderszewski pf Warner Classics F 9029 51187-5 (77’ • DDD)Piotr Anderszewski here poses a most intriguing question: what happens when you take a group of 12 Preludes and Fugues from Book 2 of the ‘48’ and intermingle them? To my knowledge it hasn’t been done before (I’m excluding recitals that include only one or two) and the result – as you…25 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021EXPLORE HEININEN ON RECORDArioso. Piano Concerto No 2. Symphony No 2Ilmo Ranta pf Helsinki PO / Ulf SöderblomFinlandia (12/90)This is the perfect introduction to Heininen, opening with his impassioned Arioso, continuing with a meticulous performance of his neoclassical Piano Concerto No 2 and concluding with his most user-friendly symphony.String Quartet No 1, Op 32cAvanti! QuartetOndineHeininen’s first string quartet forms part of his Op 32 – a confection of works built on the same note row. It is broad in duration and in scope, an exploration as much of harmonic timbre as it is of systems, and gets a well-marinated performance here from a quartet with Sakari Oramo on first violin.Flute Concerto, ‘Autrefois’Mikael Helasvuo fl Saimaa Sinfonietta / Tibor BogányiAlba (10/13)Guy Rickards suggested Heininen’s Yesteryears Flute Concerto may have been an attempt by the…1 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021OperaDavid Vickers on a reconstruction of Vivaldi’s lost Argippo:‘Delphine Galou is a vociferous tour de force as the embittered Zanaida and her singing also has masterful subtlety’Mark Pullinger listens to Italian arias from soprano Linda Richardson:‘Of the 10 roles represented here, Richardson has sung most of them on stage, so she brings plenty of experience’BeethovenLeonoreNathalie Paulin sop...................................................LeonoreJean-Michel Richer ten........................................FlorestanMatthew Scollin bass-bar.........................................PizarroStephen Hegedus bass-bar .......................................RoccoPascale Beaudin sop...........................................MarzellineKeven Geddes ten .....................................................JaquinoAlexandre Sylvestre bass-bar.................Don FernandoOpera Lafayette Chorus and Orchestra / Ryan Brown Stage director Oriol Tomas Video director Jason Starr Naxos F 2 110674; F NBD0121V (148’ • NTSC • 16:9 • 1080i • PCM stereo • 0 • s) Recorded live at the Kaye Playhouse, Hunter College, New York, March 2-4, 2020 Includes synopsisBeethovenFidelio (1806 version)Nicole Chevalier sop ................................................LeonoreEric Cutler ten ...........................................................FlorestanGábor…22 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Classics RECONSIDEREDMascagni. LeoncavalloCavalleria rusticana. PagliacciSoloists; Teatro alla Scala / Herbert von KarajanDGKarajan gives the twins of opera a real face-lift. Traditionalists will jib at some of his calculated effects, saying that the performance lacks Italianate warmth or that the speeds are too slow, but the result could hardly be more refreshing. It goes without saying that he is constantly on the alert to make the most of dramatic points. The dynamic contrasts at the end of both operas are hair-raising. In Cav there is the sharp string tremolo leading into Turiddu’s solo ‘Mama, quel vino’, and the fortissimo outburst as Lucia and Santuzza embrace. I had never realized until hearing Karajan just how effective the strokes on the tam-tam are before and after the off-stage scream, followed by a fortissimo bang…8 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021A well-known British brand reinvents itselfThe look may be familiar, but while the new Cyrus XR range shares the company’s long-running ‘shoebox’ casework and innovative internal construction, this new premium range comes in ‘Phantom Black’ finish and contains much new engineering, made possible by a recent update of the manufacturing processes involved. Among the claims for the new six-strong range, which starts with the £1995 CDi-XR CD player and goes all the way up to the Pre-XR pre-amplifier at £3995, is ‘substantially increased dynamic range, allowing every layer and nuance of the music to shine through’ thanks to new components and power-supply design. That CD player also has a new transport mechanism and transformers, plus a new version of the company’s QXR DAC optimised to the 44.1kHz/16-bit CD standard, and fed from a re-clocking circuit…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021UK company iFi strikes hi-fi goldBritish-based company iFi Audio seems to have the Midas touch at the moment. The little Zen DAC, with its budget price, proved something of a revelation for the money (4/20), and the models from the same range designed for Bluetooth users and headphone enthusiasts were just as persuasive. Now, with the NEO iDSD, the company has further upped its game, creating a £699 unit that combines all the company’s strengths, and will be just as at home in the hi-fi rack as it will for the travelling user who doesn’t want to compromise on quality or a student looking for a high-quality headphone-based system for their study desk.The NEO iDSD comes in slender casework, just over 21cm wide and a shade over 4cm tall, with the main control set into…5 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021OBITUARIESIVRY GITLISViolinistBorn August 22, 1922 Died December 24, 2020The Israeli violinist, who was very much a musician’s musician, has died aged 98, in Paris, where he studied and later lived. His name is not so well known to music lovers in general perhaps because he was never signed by a major record label and his art was focused on live music-making. His deeply personal, idiosyncratic interpretations, though, won him numerous admirers, particularly fellow violinists.Born in Haifa, Gitlis studied with Mira Ben-Ami before travelling to France where he studied with Marcel Chailley, and then, at the Paris Conservatoire, with Jules Boucherit. Later, he’d work with George Enescu, Jacques Thibaud and Carl Flesch.After the war, which he spent in London, he moved to the United States where he undertook a number of…3 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021Sally ClarkeOne of my earliest memories at school was Jacqueline du Pré coming to play for us – I was probably eight or nine. I was at Guildford High School and loved every day. My music teacher – who I’m still in touch with even now, that’s the thing about inspiring teachers – was very involved in the Guildford Philharmonic when Vernon Handley was conducting, and du Pré was presumably doing a concert with them and so was invited to the school to play after assembly. I can still see her now sitting on the little wooden stage. She looked so young, she had this sort of vivacity – the hair everywhere – with a child-like enthusiasm and excitement about what she was doing, but with a focus and incredible concentration…4 min
Gramophone Magazine|February 2021A LETTER FROM New YorkIn the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray wakes up every morning to learn that it’s February 2 all over again. And again. Likewise, I wake day after day and we’re still on pause. Yes, New York is doing infinitely better pandemic-wise than most other states, and we’re on the cusp of the vaccine. But live-music limbo persists.I reported in April how sheltering-in-place changed mundane routines into monumental events, which now have become paradigm shifts and new habits. A casual retooling of my music studio evolved into a complete overhaul. We installed new shelves in my studio, where I laboriously organised and alphabetised my music and score libraries for maximum efficiency and minimum clutter. When my gym closed in March, I half-heartedly embraced yoga via Zoom sessions. Now I’m addicted and…4 min
