Composers conducting other composers’ work always adds a layer to our understanding of the music, perhaps because they are perfectly capable of taking the score apart and reworking it, rather like a formula one car designer. They rarely do, of course, when they are conducting unless they are making new arrangements, but they seem to have a way of emphasising different details and pointing to undiscovered aspects of orchestration than conductors who don’t write their own stuff…
Listening to this complete survey of Berkeley’s piano music, I am struck by how much more French it sounds than English; hardly surprising, given that he studied in Paris with Boulanger and that one of his strongest friendships was with Francis Poulenc. He could be part of that group that also included Françaix and Dutilleux. He was a staunch Catholic too and so the cross-channel identity ran deep. Berkeley composed at the piano, indeed one day in about 1980 he allowed me to sit with him in his house in Warwick Avenue, Maida Vale, while he did so. He was no virtuoso public performer, though, and his music reflects his essentially private and domestic nature…
In the early 1990s the Australian conductor Geoffrey Simon, resident in London, was bold enough to start his own label, Cala, and book the established London orchestras to make a series of recordings, mainly of well known repertoire. At the time he came in for a lot of press flack; partly for his temerity in doing it all himself (vanity publishing, they muttered), partly for ignoring the artists’ contract system of the big labels like EMI and Philips…
This completes Elizabeth Sombart’s three disc cycle of the Beethoven piano concertos recorded in the superb acoustic of London’s Cadogan Hall, which allows the balance between the piano and orchestra to remain natural. It also emphasises that, despite the grandiosity of the Emperor, the orchestra is large chamber rather than heavy-weight symphonic size, giving an intimacy that Vallet exploits well…
This must be the ultimate choral concept album, over two hours of music divided into a quartet of roughly equal sections, dealing with four aspects of spiritual life and each containing one substantial work surrounded by complementary shorter ones. The styles range from the sixteenth century till now. Only the Bach and Mahler works have instrumental accompaniment but these never outnumber the eight voices of the group’s title…
All great 19th century instrumental virtuosi were expected to write ‘novelties’ to play at their concerts. Often amateurs were good enough to play the serious works at home and the ‘stars’ gave their recitals as much to show how much better than average they were, as to provide insights into the great works of composers. The operatic fantasy was much beloved by Liszt for the piano and flautists made similar arrangements…