Welcome to BBC Music Magazine's August issue!
Our cover star is the British-Italian tenor Freddie De Tommaso. He may be taking opera stages across the world by storm but, as Freddie tells Jeremy Pound, he’ll never stray from the music of his ancestral homeland.
Elsewhere this issue
They are among classical music's best-loved works but, as Clifford Hall reveals, without a series of calamitous events, JS Bach’s effervescent Brandenburg Concertos might never have come to be.
From Elgar's Sulphuretted Hydrogen Machine to Ravel's Whirlwind of Death, Rebecca Franks explores how some composers moved beyond music to apply their creativity to all sorts of scientific, practical and sometimes hair-raising inventions.
A spirited adventurer, cellist Gautier Capuçon recently performed while suspended by wires high above the Alps, as Anthony Cheng reports. And, staying with adventures, this month's Travel feature whisks us off to Moominland, I mean Finland. Pore-cleansing saunas and cute Moomins aside, the Finnish Lakeland city of Tampere has a thriving musical identity, writes Claire Jackson.
August's Composer of the Month is Italy's Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948). George Hall explores a greatly underrated composer who united Italian and German influences in a range of colourful operas.
Speaking of Italy... Meandering and often melancholic, the music of Ludovico Einaudi is also extraordinarily popular. So, asks Tom Service, what is its great appeal?
For Building a Library, we're off to a palace and gardens in central Spain. Rob Ainsley basks in the warmth of the Spanish sun as he explores the finest recordings of the Concierto de Aranjuez, Joaquin Rodrigo's iconic piece for guitar and orchestra.
From Beethoven's heroic, monumental Ninth Symphony via Mahler's Second to John Adams' opera Nixon in China, Alexander Shelley explores the pivotal works that reshaped our understanding of humanity.
On this month's cover CD
This month's cover CD features a performance of Carl Nielsen's witty, pastoral and mercurial Flute Concerto, featuring flautist Elizaveta Ivanova with accompaniment from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Jaime Martin. You will also find works by Fauré, Robert Schumann and others.
Click here or on the image below to see the track details for this month's cover CD.
