CONTENTS Volume 97 Number 1181 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 Tim Parry / 020 7501 6367 ONLINE CONTENT EDITOR James McCarthy SUB EDITOR David Threasher / 020 7501 6370 SUB EDITOR Marija uric´ Speare ART DIRECTOR Dinah Lone / 020 7501 6689 PICTURE EDITOR Sunita Sharma-Gibson AUDIO EDITOR Andrew Everard EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Libby McPhee THANKS TO Hannah Nepilova and Charlotte Gardner EDITOR IN CHIEF James Jolly
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GRAMOPHONE is published by MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, United Kingdom. gramophone.co.uk email gramophone@markallengroup.com or subscriptions@markallengroup.com ISSN 0017 310X.
The November 2019 issue of Gramophone is on sale from November 6; the December issue will be on sale from December 4 (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 £70. Printed in England by Southernprint. North American edition (ISSN 0017-310X): Gramophone, USPS 881080, is published monthly with an additional issue in October by MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, 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 WN Shipping USA, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to Gramophone, WN Shipping USA, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. 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. © MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, 2019. All rights reserved. No part of the Gramophone may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the Publishing Director. Please read our privacy policy, by visiting privacypolicy.markallengroup.com. This will explain how we process, use & safeguard your data. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the editor or Gramophone. Advertisements in the journal do not imply endorsement of the products or services advertised.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
The 12 most highly recommended recordings reviewed in this issue
RECORDING OF THE MONTH David Vickers relishes a charming and affectionate account of Purcell’s King Arthur from the Gabrieli Consort & Players under Paul McCreesh, with superbly characterful soloists and immaculate presentation
ORCHESTRAL
Andris Nelsons conducts Beethoven’s symphonies; a new Eric Coates series begins; the conclusion of Daniil Trifonov’s Rachmaninov concertos
CHAMBER
Quatuor Ébène start their Beethoven journey; Argerich and friends in festival mode; violinist Tessa Lark’s highly anticipated debut disc
INSTRUMENTAL
Haydn from Leon McCawley; Volodos plays Schubert; Alexander Melnikov’s Prokofiev
VOCAL
Palestrina from The Sixteen; Jennifer Johnston’s ode to the city of Liverpool; songs by Judith Weir
OPERA
Mozart from tenor Daniel Behle; a major Stanford milestone; Weber’s Euryanthe, both old and new
JAZZ & WORLD MUSIC Reviews from our sister titles Jazzwise and Songlines
REISSUES
Two repackaged Bruckner symphony cycles
BOX-SET ROUND-UP
REPLAY
The Ernst Haefliger Edition; Josef Krips’s Mahler
CLASSICS RECONSIDERED Richard Whitehouse and David Threasher on the Zehetmair Quartet’s Award-winning Schumann
BOOKS
A study of Henry Wood’s promotion of Bach; the Cambridge Haydn Encyclopedia appraised
GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4 – which to own?
REVIEWS INDEX
FOR THE RECORD
All the latest classical music news, plus a tribute to Jessye Norman who has died at the age of 74
RANA’S JOURNEY CONTINUES The prodigiously talented Italian pianist Beatrice Rana has recorded solo Ravel and Stravinsky, fulfilling her fascination with early 20th-century piano music, she tells Hugo Shirley
BUTT EXPLORES SAMSON The Dunedin Consort’s Music Director has recorded Handel’s longest oratorio in the version the composer himself would have heard, he tells Gramophone’s David Vickers
THE ‘RUSSIAN’ PAVEL HAAS The close-knit Czech quartet have stepped out of their comfort zone to record Shostakovich – and, as they relate to Richard Bratby, it’s been a joy
MUSICIAN AND THE SCORE Following on from their momentous Les Troyens, conductor John Nelson and Michael Spyres, tenor, talk to Neil Fisher about the challenges of another Berlioz work, La damnation de Faust
ICONS
Jeremy Nicholas recalls the unique sound of US pianist Michael Ponti, both in concert and on countless recordings of (mostly) obscure repertoire
CONTEMPORARY COMPOSER Andrew Farach-Colton on George Tsontakis whose works already sound like ‘classics’
WHAT NEXT?
Fauré’s Requiem leads to Duruflé and Rutter
PERFORMANCES AND EVENTS HIGH FIDELITY NOTES AND LETTERS NEW RELEASES MY MUSIC Bookshop founder Tim Waterstone on singing along to The Lark Ascending on a car journey
4 GRAMOPHONE NOVEMBER 2019
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