top
Icon
Magazine
website
Podcast
Digital Edition
Awards

March 2010

  • share

Exclusive interview: Jean-Yves Thibaudet
The brilliant French pianist gets rhapsodic as he tells Jeremy Pound about his passion for Gershwin

A guide to Gustav
Ten of the world's greatest conductors explain the magic of Mahler's ten symphonies

Only the good die young…
But what, we ask, might the likes of Schubert and Berg have achieved if they'd grown old

Lang Lang
As the Chinese pianist shapes up for a date at the Royal Albert Hall, he talks to Rebecca Franks

Plus on your free CD:
An American Adventure
From Grofé's Mississippi to Ellington's Harlem, by way of Gershwin's Second Rhapsody and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, we travel across the richly varied landscape that is musical America

 

On Sale Date: 
15/02/2010
Issue Number: 
7
You do not have flash installed

On the Cover Disc

Gershwin • Bernstein

America's pre-eminent status as a cultural melting pot is well demonstrated by the four works on this month's cover disc, which presents a heady mix of jazz, late-Romantic classical and the use of bold, elemental musical ideas to represent the nation's epic landscapes. Bernstein's Chichester Psalms opens the CD, before pianist Peter Jablonski takes centre stage for Gershwin's musical portrait of New York, the Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra. Grofé's Mississippi Suite, inspired by the great North American river, and Ellington's Harlem, an evocation of Sunday morning in the area of New York which was the centre of Black American culture between the wars, complete the disc.

Audio clip: Grofé's Mississippi Suite – finale: 'Mardi Gras'

 

Download Cover Disc Inlay Here
Subscribe to BBC Music Magazine

This issue's BBC Music choices

RLPO/Vasily Petrenko
RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances; The Isle of the Dead; The Rock
Royal Liverpool PO/Vasily Petrenko
 'Vasily Petrenko's nose for atmosphere even excels that of Neeme Järvi'

Play RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Shostakovich and Schnittke
CHAMBER

Shostakovich • Schnittke:
Piano Trios
Kempf Trio
 'This is the first CD to show Schnittke truly on a level with Shostakovich'

Play CHAMBER
Mahler: Lieder recital
CHORAL & SONG

Mahler: Lieder recital
Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Gerold Huber (piano)
'Christian Gerhaher presents a masterful programme of Mahler song'

Play CHORAL & SONG
Das Rheingold
DVD

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
Valencia Community Orchestra/Zubin Mehta
'This is the most exciting staging of Wagner's Ring cycle I have seen'

Play DVD
Paul Crossley
INSTRUMENTAL

Takemitsu: Complete works for solo piano
Paul Crossley (piano)
'Paul Crossley seems an ideal interpreter of Takemitsu's music'

Play INSTRUMENTAL
Artist Name
JAZZ

Spiritual Dimensions
Wadada Leo Smith (trumpet)
'Wadada Leo Smith's music is both invigorating and enjoyable'

Play JAZZ
Mozart: Piano Concertos
ORCHESTRAL

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos 24 & 25
Valerie Tryon (piano); London Symphony Orchestra/Robert Trory
'Valerie Tryon is extremely impressive in Mozart's concertos'

Play ORCHESTRAL
Wagner: arias and duets
OPERA

Wagner: Arias and duets from Lohengrin, Tannhäuser & Die Walküre
Petra Maria Schnitzer (soprano), Peter Seiffert (tenor)
'Seiffert and Schnitzer are among today's finest Wagnerians'

Play OPERA