CONTENTS
Volume 94 Number 1138 EDITORIAL Phone 020 7738 5454 Fax 020 7733 2325 email gramophone@markallengroup.com EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Martin Cullingford DEPUTY EDITOR Sarah Kirkup / 020 7501 6365 REVIEWS EDITOR Hugo Shirley / 020 7501 6367 ONLINE CONTENT EDITOR James McCarthy / 020 7501 6366 SUB-EDITOR David Threasher / 020 7501 6370 ART DIRECTOR Dinah Lone / 020 7501 6689 PICTURE EDITOR Sunita Sharma-Gibson / 020 7501 6369 AUDIO EDITOR Andrew Everard EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Libby McPhee LIBRARIAN Richard Farr THANKS TO Hannah Nepil, Marija �uric´ Speare and Charlotte Gardner EDITOR-IN-CHIEF James Jolly
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The August issue of Gramophone is on sale from July 20; the September issue will be on sale from August 17 (both UK). Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of statements in this magazine but we cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors, or an advertiser not completing his contract. Regarding concert listings, all information is correct at the time of going to press. Letters to the editor requiring a personal reply should be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope. We have made every effort to secure permission to use copyright material. Where material has been used inadvertently or we have been unable to trace the copyright owner, acknowledgement will be made in a future issue. UK subscription rate £62-£103. Printed in England by Southernprint. North American edition (ISSN 0017-310X): Gramophone, USPS 881080, is published monthly with an additional issue in September by MA Business and Leisure Limited, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, United Kingdom. The US annual subscription price is $89. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named Air Business, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to Gramophone, Worldnet Shipping Inc. (see above). Subscription records are maintained at MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, Unit A Buildings 1-5, Dinton Business Park, Catherine Ford Road, Dinton, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 5HZ, UK. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent.
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EDITOR’S CHOICE
The 12 most highly recommended recordings of the month
7
FOR THE RECORD
The latest classical music news
8
RECORDING OF THE MONTH 28 A revelatory new set from the Silesian Quartet of Graz˙yna Bacewicz’s string quartets on Chandos
ORCHESTRAL
30
Janine Jansen in Van der Aa and Midori in Eötvös; Rouse premieres; Benedetti plays Shostakovich and Glazunov; Nelsons’s Shostakovich; Piano concertos by Mozart Jnr; Jansons’s Rachmaninov
CHAMBER
50
Brahms sonatas from Hecker and Helmchen; Minasi in Haydn trios; Mark Simpson’s ‘Night Music’; Vierne rarities; Phantasm’s Dowland
INSTRUMENTAL
62
Peter Donohoe completes his Prokofiev cycle; French theorbo music; Lucille Chung in Poulenc; period Satie from Noriko Ogawa; early Argerich
VOCAL
74
Harnoncourt’s personal Missa solemnis; Machaut from the Orlando Consort; Boesch in Schubert; Braunfels orchestral songs; wonderful Wolf
REISSUES
86
Jeremy Nicholas listens to a piano-concerto box from Brilliant; Mike Ashman on Decca recitals
OPERA
88
Gounod’s Cinq-Mars; a Meyerbeer rarity; Domingo’s Gianni Schicchi; Entführung from Glyndebourne; Handel on DVD
REPLAY
Klemperer in Philadelphia; historic Mahler; Kletzki in Lucerne; Oistrakh plays Elgar
96
BOOKS
A study of eight female composers throughout history; a new critical life of Tchaikovsky
98
GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION 104 David Patrick Stearns surveys the available versions of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron
NEW RELEASES
REVIEWS INDEX
126
128
PIANO CONCERTOS
10
We invite 10 of today’s leading pianists, including Stephen Hough, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Angela Hewitt, each to explore in significant depth one of 10 great piano concertos – from Beethoven’s to Tchaikovsky’s, via Grieg’s, Prokofiev’s and Ravel’s. What’s the key to approaching these masterpieces?
THE MUSICIAN & THE SCORE 48 As Mariss Jansons records Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony for the third time – on this occasion for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s own label - Geoffrey Norris talks to the conductor about reading between the lines
ICONS
60
Jeremy Nicholas explores the life and legacy of the great American pianist Byron Janis, pupil of Vladimir Horowitz and star of the 1950s and ’60s, and celebrating his 88th birthday this year
CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS 72 Andrew Mellor brings us closer to the unique and fascinating sound world of Danish composer Bent Sørensen, whose works seem haunted by music of the past
CLASSICS RECONSIDERED 100 David Willcocks’s 1970 recording of Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi is under the spotlight this month, courtesy of David Threasher and Geraint Lewis
THE SPECIALIST’S GUIDE 102 French dramatist Jean Racine has inspired works from composers as varied as Handel, Mendelssohn and Britten. Tim Ashley chooses his top 10
PLAYLISTS
111
Anglican choral music, and the path of minimalism
PERFORMANCES & EVENTS 112 The best classical music concerts worldwide
HIGH FIDELITY
115
Exploring the market at Munich’s High End show
LETTERS & OBITUARIES 124 MY MUSIC 130 Comedian Barry Humphries’s life of listening
4 GRAMOPHONE AUGUST 2016
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