Reviews
4 Index to reviews 54 Orchestral 72 Chamber 78 Instrumental 84 Choral and song 98 Opera and video 118 Collectors' corner 120 Audiobooks
Features
14 Esa-Pekka Salonen
The Finnish conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra offers a very varied diet this month: music by Gyorgy Ligeti, Bernard Herrmann and Bela Bartok. He shares some observations with Stephen Johnson about living and working in California. To complement the launch of Sony Classical's Ligeti project, Stephen Plaistow introduces the composer's music
Regulars
6 Letters
The music publishers reply to last month's assault from the record companies and more thoughts on the state of the industry
32 What next?
Guy Rick a rds goes on an awayday to explore ten pieces of music that take the theme of trains (or mechanization) as their starting point. His platform of departure is Honegger's Pacific 231
A2 North American retrospect Philip Kennicott has been listening to some of the recent releases of instrumental and chamber music and offers a second opinion (follows page 32, only in the North American edition)
36 Quarterly retrospect
John Steane catches up with some of Roberto Alagna 's new recordings, including La boheme, Don Carlos and Les contes d'Hoffmann. He has also been enjoying so me di scs of song from Hyperion featuring the pianist Graham Johnson
40 Collection
Beethoven 's only opera, Fidelio, is the subject of Alan Blyth 's survey of available recordings: he finds much to enjoy in Birgit Nilsson's performance of the title-role whilst paying tribute to such classics as Otto Klemperer's celebrated recording
192 New releases
Our listing of the month's releases
196 Index to advertisers
200 Hindsight
Alan Sanders looks back through issues of Gramophone from 70, 50 and 30 years ago
News
10 For the record
News of some seasonal offers from Warner Classics, new figures on the state of the classical record industry (is there light at the end of the tunnel?) and memories of the late Berthold Goldschmidt.
20 Passing notes
The cellist Tim Hugh talks about his project to record a series of British cello concertos, and the conductor Paavo Berglund renects on recording the Sibelius symphonies for the third time. David Gutman reviews the latest batch of Phaidon's " 20th-Century Composers" biographies, and conductor Bobby McFerrin reveals how he approaches an eighteenth-century composer. Marie-Claire Alain talks about her career in the organ loft as she celebrates her seventieth birthday and the Florestan Trio talk about their debut recording
Paavo Berglund Photo Finlnn.dial
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33 Soundings
Esa-Pekka Salonen Photo Gramvphol1f:/Sayer
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We like the performance, but how does it souna! Ivor
HumPhreys has been listening to some recent releases with his ears open to the technical success of the sessions
48 Into 97
As a new year starts, we offer a sneak preview of some of the recordings promised by the companies for 1997
120 Audiobooks
Mark Walker asks an actor, John Sessions, and an author, Colin Dexter, about the idea of reading novels for the increasingly popular medium of books on tape 2 Gramophone January 1997
The 1992 production of Beethoven's Fidelio at the
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
PholU Ro.vuf Opero HOIm'IBardil
50 Replay
"Welcome back" is the theme of Robert Cowan's monthly column - a survey of the month's reissues both recent and historic. He looks through the new list from MCA drawing on the old Westminster catalogue
69
Gramophone Concert -going The directory for concert promoters to advertise their forthcoming plans to Gramophone readers
183 UK label distribution directory
Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea
Photo Sony/Katz ellstein
