Igor Levit has just released a set, on Sony Classical, of the 32 piano sonatas, an early and very impressive contribution to the Beethoven 250 commemorations. James Jolly met him at Steinway's London showroom to talk about the sonatas, and also to find out how the pianist approached this colossal project.
2020 is Beethoven Year - he was born 250th years ago, in 1770 – and the record industry is lining up a vast number of releases in celebration. Berlin-based Deutsche Grammophon, not surprisingly, is spearheading the campaign with a huge Beethoven Edition and one of the earliest releses is a new set of the five piano concertos. The young Polish-Canadian pianist, Jan Lisiecki, joined the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for a tour which ended up in Berlin with a live recording. Lisiecki spoke to ...
In the third and final of our three podcasts exploring the Gramophone Awards 2019 shortlist, Editor-in-Chief James Jolly, Editor Martin Cullingford and Reviews Editor Tim Parry discuss the Contemporary, Opera, Recital and Solo Vocal Awards.
The 2019 Gramophone Classical Music Awards are just over one month away. In the second of our three podcasts exploring the shortlist, Editor Martin Cullingford and Reviews Editor Tim Parry discuss the Early, Choral and Chamber categories.
The 2019 Gramophone Classical Music Awards are just over one month away, and in the latest issue of Gramophone we reveal the shortlist of the top three albums in each category. Over the next few weeks, the Gramophone Podcast will be devoted to exploring that shortlist. We start this week with the Editor-in-Chief James Jolly and Reviews Editor Tim Parry discussing the Orchestral, Concerto and Instrumental categories.
Jasper Parrott talks to Gramophone 's James Jolly about the role of recording in an artist's professional and artistic life, and how it has changed during the 50 years that HarrisonParrott has been one of the world's leading artist management companies.
Georgian London was a glorious and artistically rich era, with a dynamic musical life, whether in concert halls, opera houses, churches or pleasure gardens. On his new album, From Palaces to Pleasure Gardens, released on the Regent label, organist Thomas Trotter celebrates this period with a programme of music performed on the newly restored 1735 Richard Bridge organ of Christ Church, Spitalfields. In this week's Gramophone podcast he talks to Editor Martin Cullingford about the works he's chose...
Danny Elfman is known to millions for his scores for over 100 movies, including many collaborations with the director Tim Burton, not to mention his inimitable title music for The Simpsons . This summer he released a new album on Sony Classical containing his Violin Concerto and Piano Quartet. The concerto, written for and played by Sandy Cameron, joined by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by John Mauceri, was the subject of a conversation Gramophone 's James Jolly had with Elfman...
In this third, and final, Orchestra of the Year Award podcast, James Jolly is joined once again by Rob Cowan to talk about the last quartet of orchestras competing for this prestigious award: Les Siècles, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. To listen to the contenders for the Orchestra of the Year Award, presented with Apple Music, go to our Awards page, sign up for a free three-month Apple Music trial subscription, listen to the p...
Gramophone 's Orchestra of the Year Award is the only one offered as a public vote. Our editorial team has produced a short list of ten ensembles which have particularly impressed for their work on record over the past 12 months and, with Apple Music, has created ten playlists featuring each of the orchestras' work (as well as an 11th which includes all ten ensembles and which is updated regularly). In this, the second of three podcasts dedicted to the Award, Gramophone 's Contributing Editor, t...
Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award is the only one offered as a public vote. Our editorial team has produced a short list of ten ensembles which have particularly impressed for their work on record over the past 12 months and, with Apple Music, has created ten playlists featuring each of the orchestras' work (as well as an 11th which includes all ten ensembles and which is updated regularly). In this, the first of three weekly podcasts, Gramophone's Contributing Editor, the critic and broa...
The tenor Nicky Spence, with Julius Drake at the piano, has just released a new recording of Janáček's 'The diary of one who disappeared' on Hyperion - Gramophone's Recording of the Month in its August issue. Almost simultaneously, Resonus has released on CD for the first time, Mark Anthony Turnage's cycle 'A Constant Obsession'. The Scottish singer talks to James Jolly about these fascinating projects.
Isata Kanneh-Mason has chosen to explore the music of Clara Schumann - whose bicentenary is marked this year - for her debut disc on Decca. Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford met with her, to talk about the life of one of the 19th century's most acclaimed virtuosos, and her often neglected music.
Edward Gardner has just released another instalment in his City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Mendelssohn cycle, a collection of overtures, and a new Brahms symphony cycle with the Bergen Philharmonic starts this autumn – both for the Chandos label. Editor-in-Chief James Jolly caught up with him to talk about recording complete series of works, how he approaches such well-know repertoire as the Brahms symphonies, and how he seeks a different sound for each composer.
For his new Signum Classics album, Hugo Ticciati and his ensemble O/Modernt have explored the ground, or chaconne, down the years. James Jolly caught up with him when O/Modernt were in London recently to talk about the album.
Sir John Tavener's The Protecting Veil was premiered at the BBC Proms 30 years ago. To coincide with the anniversary, a new recording has been issued by Signum Classics which finds Matthew Barley directing Sinfonietta Riga from the cello - James Jolly meets him.
The latest recording from King's College Cambridge explores the music of Herbert Howells, featuring choral music (including An English Mass), organ works, and a newly completed Cello Concerto. Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford met with Music Director Stephen Cleobury to talk about the album - and, as Cleobury prepares to retire from the position this summer, to look back over 37 years of extraordinary music-making.
Gramophone 's current Young Artist of the Year is Lise Davidsen, a singer with a huge future ahead of her. May 31 sees the release of her much-anticipated Decca debut album, opera arias and orchestral songs by Wagner and Richard Strauss, for which she's joined by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen. James Jolly went to see her at her home in Copenhagen for a 'Musician and the Score' article on Strauss's Four Last Songs (you can read it in Gramophone 's June issue), but he also took ...
Michael Fabiano, recently in London to sing the title-role in Gounod's Faust at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, has recorded an album of arias by Donizetti and Verdi. He was joined for the Pentatone sessions by the London Philharmonic Orchestra - with whom he'd worked at Glyndebourne – and Enrique Mazzola. James Jolly caught up with Michal Fabiano during rehearsals at Covent Garden to talk about the programme of the recital, and his interest in the operatic music of this period....
The latest recording from the choir of St John's College, Cambridge celebrates the 150th anniversary of the consecration of its chapel, and its 100th recording. Director of Music Andrew Nethsingha talks to Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford about the album - titled Locus Iste - and about how the extraordinary building shapes the choir's sound.
Kaija Saariaho has written a song-cycle, True Fire , for the baritone Gerald Finley, and which he has now recorded with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu, for Ondine. James Jolly paid Gerald Finley a visit to talk about the score, its challenges and how he and Saariaho first encountered each other.
'Colin Currie and Steve Reich. Live at Fondation Louis Vuitton' is the third album to be released on Colin Currie's own label and captures five performances, taken live, at a Steve Reich presentation in Paris. The music ranges from Clapping Music of 1972 to Pulse of 2015. James Jolly met up with Colin to talk about his long association with Reich's music, the approach needed to perform music of mathematical precision yet at the same surprising emotional weight, and performing Clapping Music with...
German-American violinist Augustin Hadelich talks to James Jolly about the challenge of Brahms's great Violin Concerto, which he has twinned with György Ligeti's Violin Concerto of some 110 years later for his new recording on Warner Classics.
Carolyn Sampson talks to Editor-in-Chief James Jolly about 'Reason in Madness', her new recording from BIS performed with pianist Joseph Middleton, which focuses on some of literature's heroines whose mental state has been unbalanced by sadness or tragedy, drawing on some glorious, and unsettling, music from composers including Brahms, Schumann, Richard Strauss, Chausson, Saint-Saëns and Poulenc.
Isabelle Faust, the multi-Gramophone Award-winning violinist, has recorded an album of Bach concertos, sinfonias and trio sonatas with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin on the Harmonia Mundi label. She talks about the new recording with Editor-in-Chief James Jolly.
Grace Williams (1906-77) was one of Wales's finest composers - she left a sizeable body of work, her best-known piece being the orchestral tone-poem Penillion, as well as a lot of chamber music, much of it as yet unpublished. Madeleine Mitchell and friends have just released a recording for Naxos of her chamber music, and Editor-in-Chief James Jolly caught up with the violinist to talk about it.
The Berlin Philharmonic clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer talks to Gramophone's Editor-in-Chief James Jolly about recording Weber's First Clarinet Concerto, and music by Brahms and Mendelssohn, for Deutsch Grammophon.
