Music to my Ears Immediate Media

This week, reviews editor Michael Beek sits down with the Russian-British conductor Vasily Petrenko. Vasily recently said farewell as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic and is about to embark on final season as chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
Speaking from his father’s home in St. Petersburg, Vasily talks about returning to the condtuctor’s podium after months in lockdown, saying goodbye to the RLPO and his new appointment with the Royal Philharmonic in 2021.


Recordings featured:
Bernstein: West Side Story – Mambo (New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein)
JS Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I – Prelude No. 1 in C major (Sviatoslav Richter, piano)
Sounds of Nature
Beethoven: Grosse Fuge in B flat major, Op. 133 (arr. string orchestra) (Amsterdam Sinfonietta/Peter Oundjian)
 
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This week, reviews editor Michael Beek sits down with the award-winning British film and television composer Debbie Wiseman OBE (Wolf Hall, Father Brown, Wilde) for a chat about her work. Debbie shares insights into her methods, conducting, her favourite music to listen to and a sneak preview of her latest film score, To Olivia.


Recordings featured:
Chopin: Preludes Op. 28 – No. 4 in E minor
Eric Lu (piano)
Warner Classics 9029529234


Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E flat, K364 – Presto
Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Bruno Giuranna (viola); Academy of St Martin in the Fields/Neville Marriner
Warner Classics 7543022


Messiaen: Turangalîla Symphony – III. Turangalîla I
Mannheim National Theatre Orchestra/Alexander Soddy
Oehms OC472


Joseph Horovitz: Oboe Concerto – Lento Moderato
Nicholas Daniel (oboe); Royal Ballet Sinfonia/Joseph Horovitz
White Line CDWHL2114


Debbie Wiseman: To Olivia – An Everlasting Gobstoppper and a Shivery Smile
National Symphony Orchestra/Debbie Wiseman
Decca
 
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In this episode, BBC Music Magazine’s editor Oliver Condy talks to the former Guardian editor and now principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Alan Rusbridger.
While the editor of a national paper during the Arab Spring, Wikileaks controversies, the newspaper hacking scandal, riots in the UK and more, Alan Rusbridger found time to learn and perform Chopin’s Ballade No. 1, a feat he describes in his book Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible.


Recordings featured:
Chopin: Ballade No. 1
Murray Perahia (piano)
Sony Classical 


Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
Sony Classical 


Bach arr. Busoni: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
Alfred Brendel (piano)
Decca


Beethoven: String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131
Takacs Quartet
Decca 


Schubert: Variations on an Original Theme
Andreas Staier & Alexander Melnikov (piano)
Harmonia Mundi
 
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In this episode of the Music to my Ears podcast, BBC Music Magazine speaks to Karina Canellakis, who is currently chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and has been recently appointed as principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.


Karina was born and brought up in a very musical family in New York. She initially studied and began her career as a violinist and played in a number of the world’s leading orchestras, and it was while she was playing with the Berlin Philharmonic as a member of its Orchester-Akademie that she was encouraged to take up conducting by Sir Simon Rattle. From that moment, she has never looked back, and has since led top ensembles across the globe, including the Dallas Symphony Orchestra where she held her first post, as assistant conductor. She is equally at home in opera, and has conducted major productions of works by composers ranging from Mozart to Maxwell Davies.


Karina talked to BBC Music Magazine’s deputy editor Jeremy Pound over Zoom during the second period of lockdown, and talked to him about the thrill of of working with contemporary composers, the rarity of female role models and the sheer joy of Wagner.


Recordings featured:
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf Op. 67 No. 5
Alexander Armstrong (narrator), Richard Casey, Ian Buckle (piano duet)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko
Warner Classics 9029575952


Wagner: Die Walküre: Prelude
Wolfgang Windgassen (Tristan), Birgit Nilsson (Isolde), Christa Ludwig (Brangäne), Martti Talvela (King Marke), Eberhard Waechter (Kurwenal), Peter Schreier (Seemann Chor und Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Karl Böhm
DG 4497722


Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Act III): 'Denn einer nur freie die Braut'
Vienna Philharmonic/Georg Solti
Decca 4786192


Stephen Sondheim: Sweeney Todd
Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone), Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Paul Daniel
DG 4778554
 
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Poet Wendy Cope joins our editorial assistant Freya Parr over Zoom from her home in Cambridgeshire to discuss how her enduring relationship with classical music has changed throughout the course of her life, with various careers as a primary school teacher, journalist and now poet. Introduced to the piano at the age of five, music has been a constant in Wendy’s life, with many of her poems having now been set by the UK’s leading composers. She tells us all about this fascinating process, and how it feels to hear your words set to music.  


Website: classical-music.com/podcasts


Recordings featured:
Mozart: Serenade No. 13 ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’: I. Allegretto (Vienna Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan Warner Classics 4768762)
Bach: ‘Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’ Cantata BWV 140 (English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir/John Eliot Gardiner Deutsche Grammophon 4807512)
Bach: Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in D minor (2nd movement): Isabelle Faust, Bernhard Forck (violins), Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin Harmonia Mundi HMM90233536)
Schubert: Im Frühling (Ian Bostridge (tenor), Julius Drake (piano) Warner Classics 5563472)
Peter Maxwell Davies: Farewell to Stromness (Peter Maxwell Davies (piano) Naxos 950161)
Tibetan Singing Bowls and Ocean Waves Sounds for Relaxation
 
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Irish soprano Ailish Tynan talks to BBC Music Magazine's editor Oliver Condy about her musical experiences in lockdown, recent streamed performances at the Royal Opera house and at Wigmore Hall and at home with her family, as well as the music that has inspired her throughout the year.


Recordings featured:


Wolf: Ganymed
John McCormack (tenor), Edwin Schneider (piano)
Symposium SYMPCD1164
 
Schubert: Die Forelle
Ailish Tynan (soprano), Iain Burnside (piano)
Delphian DCD34165
 
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn: Ablösung im Sommer
Christiane Karg (soprano), Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Harmonia Mundi HMM905338
 
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