Gramophone Classical Music Podcast

For this week's Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by soprano Nardus Williams and Director of the Dunedin Consort John Butt to talk about their new album exploring the music Handel wrote during his years in Rome, a young composer still in the early stages of his creativity. 'Handel in Rome' is released on Linn Records, and available now. 

For this week's Podcast, Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by Rafael Payare, Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal to talk about the music of Schoenberg in the year that marks the composer's 150th anniversary. The focus is his beautiful new recording of Pelleas und Melisande and Verklärte Nacht, which is available today on the Pentatone label.

The 2024 Gramophone Classical Music Awards were revealed on Wednesday October 2, and for this week's edition of the Podcast Editor Emeritus James Jolly, Editor and Publisher Martin Cullingford, and Deputy Editor – and Editor of International Piano – Tim Parry, gathered in the studio to discuss the winners. From Instrumental to Opera, and from Early to Contemporary, join us as we discuss and celebrate the finest albums of the past year. 

Claire Booth speaks to Hattie Butterworth about her new album with Ensemble 360, 'Pierrot Portraits', focussed around Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and looking at other composer's interpretations of the character of Pierrot across time. All audio clips come from Pierrot Portraits by Claire Booth and Ensemble 360 out now on Onyx Classics 

Editor Martin Cullingford is this week joined by violinist Joshua Bell, pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis to talk about their new recording for Sony Classical of Mendelssohn piano trios. 

Huw Montague Rendall is a singer who is making waves in the musical world, and he has just released his debut album with orchestra, 'Contemplation'. Signed to Erato by Alain Lanceron, Rendall gives us a superb showcase of his talents with a programme that ranges widely, and reveals many different facets of this fine young artist. Huw's partners for the album are the Opéra Orchestre Normandie Rouen and conductor Ben Glassberg. The son of two distinguished singers – the mezzo Diana Montague and the tenor David Rendall – Huw talks to James Jolly about 'Contemplation'.

On October 2, the Swedish label BIS will hand over its Label of the Year Award to another company. So, to celebrate its 2023 Award, Gramophone’s James Jolly sat down to talk with BIS’s founder and guiding spirit for past 50 years, Robert von Bahr. In this second of two podcasts, Robert discusses some of the outstanding artists who have recorded for BIS, including Bach Collegium Japan, Johan Dalene (who appears on the cover of the October issue of Gramophone), Yevgeny Sudbin, Carolyn Sampson and Sharon Bezaly, Robert's wife. This podcast was made in association with BIS.

In this week's Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by the conductor Semyon Bychkov to talk about his new recording with the Czech Philharmonic for the Pentatone label of the music of Dvořák - the composer's last three symphonies, Nos 7, 8 and 9, along with three concert overtures, In Nature’s Realm, Carnival and Othello. 

In almost exactly one month’s time, the Swedish label BIS will hand over its Label of the Year status to another company. So, to celebrate its 2023 Award, Gramophone’s James Jolly sat down to talk with BIS’s founder and guiding spirit for past 50 years, Robert von Bahr. In this first of two podcasts, James and Robert discuss the label’s beginnings, some of its milestone projects and Robert shares some anecdotes as only he can. This podcast was made in association with BIS.

Composer Bryce Dessner joins Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford for this week's podcast to talk about his new album for Sony Classical, featuring solo works performed by a superb line-up of star soloists.

A new album mapping 10 years of string writing, Anna Clyne's Shorthand takes its name from a concerto for cello and strings, performed on the album by Yo Yo Ma. Hattie Butterworth meets Anna to speak about this new project, as well as her BBC Proms commission and the impact of words, poetry and spirituality on her writing. 

This week on the Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford meets pianist Alexandra Dariescu who has recorded the piano concertos of Clara Schumann and Edvard Grieg for Signum with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Tianyi Lu. Dariescu talks about her passion for Clara Schumann's concerto, and why she thinks it should be much more widely performed than it has been historically. 

Leonard Bernstein (1918-90) was perhaps the most ‘complete’ classical musician of the last century, as composer (covering everything from Broadway musicals to serial orchestral works), conductor (one of the 20th century’s most admired), teacher or pianist. Edward Seckerson interviewed Bernstein for Gramophone in December 1989, but his admiration went back much further, as he reveals to James Jolly in this next instalment in our occasional series focusing on major composers. The music is drawn from Bernstein’s extensive CBS catalogue, now available from Sony Classical.

The great Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89) was fascinated with technology from an early age, and, from the early 1960s onward, he filmed many of his performances. Deutsche Grammophon’s streaming service Stage+ has a huge archive of Karajan’s films including his Telemondial legacy – recorded with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics during the 1980s, the conductor's last decade. Karajan’s biographer, and long-serving Gramophone critic, Richard Osborne, discusses Karajan’s video legacy with James Jolly, and they pick some favourites from the Stage+ catalogue. This podcast is sponsored by STAGE+, the streaming service for classical music by Deutsche Grammophon, hosting concerts, operas, documentaries, albums and much more, including 50 live streams per year. With a special summer offer, you can get 2 months of STAGE+ for just 1€ with access to the entire content library and live broadcasts from some of this year’s finest summer festivals. Visit stage-plus.com/summer before August 16 to find out more.

As we step into the summer holiday period, this week we thought we’d revisit one of our special longer-length episodes from last year featuring one of our writers, our historical recording expert Rob Cowan on what we can gain from listening to recordings from the past. Why should we listen to historic recordings? What can we learn from them, and which artists, many decades on, still offer listeners such extraordinary joy and insight? Across more than 45 fascinating minutes Rob addresses these questions, and we play excerpts from some absolute highlights from the archives. 

Hattie Butterworth meets soprano Sophie Bevan ahead of her appearance at the First Night of the Proms. Moving through Sophie's early life and career, they speak about her experience navigating a diagnosis of bowel cancer, the importance of her faith and family, and what she wishes audiences knew about the life of a singer.  Music included in the epsiode: 'Take the Heart' from Jephtha Act I, Scene 3: George Friderich Handel · The Sixteen · Harry Christophers on CORO (2014) 'Perché, se tanti siete' from Scena di Berenic on Perfido!  · Sophie Bevan · Franz Joseph Haydn · Ian Page · Classical Opera / The Mozartists on Signum Classics (2017) 'Ferma l'ali' from Pt. 1 Scene 2 from Handel's La Resurrezione · The English Concert · Harry Bicket · Sophie Bevan on Linn Records (2023) 'Beati Quorum Via' by Charles Villiers Stanford from Vidi Speciosam: Sacred Choral Music · Graham Ross · The Bevan Family Consort  on Signum Records (2023)    

In April, Dalia Stasevska, Chief Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, launched a new project, ‘Dalia’s Mixtape’, for Platoon. Leading her BBC orchestra, she has recorded ten works by ten modern composers, each shedding a new and different light on the symphony orchestra and what it can do. And, breaking with tradition, the project will unfold piece by piece over the next half year. And each work will be accompanied by a podcast focusing on the music. In this latest episode, hosted by Gramophone’s Andrew Mellor, Dalia’s guest is the Master of the King's Music, Dame Judith Weir whose orchestral work Still, Glowing features on the 'Mixtape'. Composer and conductor discuss this haunting piece.

Conductor and founder of The Sixteen Harry Christophers speaks to Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford about his new album, ‘70: A Life in Music’, which features 39 carefully selected recordings from the conductor's career so far, spanning periods from the renaissance to contemporary music. Reflecting on his 45-year career, Christophers' talks about his introduction to music, the formation of The Sixteen and the future of young composers today.  ‘70: A Life in Music’ is out now on CORO.  

Soprano and composer Héloïse Werner speaks to Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford about her new album, ‘Close-ups’, which features composers Barbara Strozzi, Julie Pinel and Hildegard of Bingen as well as compositions by Werner herself. Her second album sees her collaborating with fellow musicians Colin Alexander, Julian Azkoul, Max Baillie, Kit Downes, Ruth Gibson and Marianne Schofield.  ‘Close-ups’ is out now on Delphian.  

For their debut Harmonia Mundi release as a duo, pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy have recorded two works by Schubert, the great Fantasy in F minor and the Divertissement à la Hongroise, and, in between, a work they commissioned, Trompe-l’oeil by the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov (b1955), who has said of his piece, ‘You can envisage it as the follow-up, or the rough draft of Schubert’s Fantasy. Something incomplete. Like a study for a composition that’s been abandoned en route.’ James Jolly went to visit Pavel and Samson, partners both off stage and on, at their home in North London recently to talk about the art of piano four-hands …