BBC Music Magazine

The World's Best Selling Classical Music Magazine

BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Welcome
How do you plan the perfect Proms season? It’s that unenviable question that each year faces the organisers of the world’s greatest festival of classical music – a chance to showcase the talent and creativity of our collective isles, and to extend th
BBC Music Magazine1 min readMusic
This Month’s Contributors
Illustrator and designer ‘Though a challenge to illustrate, Berio’s Sinfonia is an abstract, powerful masterpiece, a collage that incorporates musical quotations and cultural references showing his need to challenge history and music itself.’ Page 20
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
BBC Music Magazine
Plus our favourite recordings by conductor Otto Klemperer (see p42) Editor Charlotte Smith Bruckner Symphony No. 6 (1965) Deputy editor Jeremy Pound Beethoven Symphony No. 5 (1955) Reviews editor Michael Beek Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (1962) Multi-p
BBC Music Magazine5 min read
Have Your Say…
Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: [email protected] Social media: contact us on Facebook and Twitter I was sorry to read of the death of Christopher Gunning (Farewell to…, June). As you rightly say
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
LETTER Of The MONTH
I remember attending and enjoying the potato shed concert described by Richard Morrison in his column discussing unusual performance venues (June). Recently, I was lucky to see the wonderful Zeffirelli production of La bohème in Milan, and while the
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
How To Make A Million
Another ensemble to lose all its Arts Council England funding, the Britten Sinfonia (above) has responded by launching Play On, an appeal to raise £1m. In early March, the likes of composer Steve Reich, trumpeter Alison Balsom and pianist Benjamin Gr
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Psappha To Close Following Arts Council Funding Cut
Our pick of the month’s news, views and interviews Psappha, the leading contemporary music ensemble, has announced that it is to close after having had its entire Arts Council England (ACE) funding cut last November. In a statement, the Manchester-ba
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Windsors And Losers On A Mixed Eurovision Night For GB
An unexpected star turn at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest came from Catherine, Princess of Wales, no less. Filmed in the Crimson Drawing Room at Windsor Castle (above), the Princess elegantly played a few bars which were incorporated into the ev
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
The Month In Numbers
… years of the history of Vilnius (below) marked by seven new works, performed as part of the Lithuanian capital’s Music for Vilnius project. … weeks for Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man (left) in the UK Official Classical Artist Albums Chart, a record s
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
SoundBites
What to do when, midway through the UK premiere of Glière’s Violin Concerto, your £24,000 bow breaks? If you are US violinist Stefan Jackiw (above), playing the work at the Lighthouse in Poole, you simply lean over to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchest
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
RisingStars
Born: Osaka, Japan Career highlight: Conducting Elgar’s Enigma Variations with the Hallé at the finals of the Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition was unforgettable – especially considering the orchestra’s rich history with the composer
BBC Music Magazine3 min read
Striking Musicians Reduce The BBC Proms To Silence
‘At 7:30 last night, nothing happened in the Royal Albert Hall.’ Thus wrote the London correspondent of the New York Times, in an article dated Saturday 19 July, 1980. What should have happened the previous evening was the opening event of that year’
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Also in July 1980…
2nd: Following its world premiere on Broadway the previous year, Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens in the West End. Featuring Denis Quilley in the title role and Sheila Hancock as Mrs Lovett, the production runs at the T
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Japan Gets Tough On Rogue Platform Pianists
In Japan, rules are rules. Authorities in Kakogawa have decided to remove a ‘play me, I’m yours’ piano from a platform in the city’s railway station after continually poor behaviour by members of the public – repeat offences included playing too loud
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Does Composer’s Moustache Hide A Royal Secret?
When Sir Karl Jenkins received his invitation to attend the Coronation of Charles III, little did he expect the conspiracy theories that would follow. Soon after the event, the esteemed Welsh composer went onto TikTok to set the record straight – no,
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Emily Hall
Emily Hall has made her name by taking an often unconventional approach as a composer. With five mould-breaking operas and numerous song cycles under her belt, composing for Onyx Brass has been a fresh challenge. Two works, Eternity and Blackcurrant
BBC Music Magazine3 min read
Rewind
This month: MADELEINE MITCHELL Violinist Violin Concerto ‘Soft Stillness’ Madeleine Mitchell (violin); BBC NOW/Edwin Outwater Divine Art DDA25160 (2017) This album is all premiere recordings, but this piece, in a live performance with the BBC Nationa
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
We Reveal Who’s Recording What And Where…
Ever the champions of lesser-known gems, Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset will record Louise-Angélique Bertin’s opera Fausto at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June. The work, which premiered in 1831 and enjoyed just three performances, w
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
MyHero
A pianist, composer and conductor, Anton Rubinstein had a huge and underappreciated impact on the development of Russian music. Perhaps most obviously, he founded the St Petersburg Conservatory – he was its first director and recruited many of its ea
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Berio’s Gift For Listening
What piece, composed in 1968, connects all of the following: the death of Martin Luther King, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony and a cavalcade of music quotations from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to Be
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Farewell To…
In a career that spanned some six decades, Menahem Pressler was truly one of the world’s finest and most distinguished pianists. Revered as a soloist and in demand as a chamber musician, he founded the great Beaux Arts Trio and remained its pianist f
BBC Music Magazine5 min read
Music To My Ears
Magdalena Loth-Hill (violin): I have been listening to the album The Goat Rodeo Sessions, featuring violinist Stuart Duncan, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, double-bassist Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile on the mandolin. It’s such a clever and addictive mix of classic
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Our Choices
This year’s Proms launch in Soho featured a surprise appearance from members of the Chineke! Orchestra, including founder and artistic director Chi-chi Nwanoku on the double bass. The group of just five string players performed a stripped-down arrang
BBC Music Magazine3 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Richard Morrison
Every few months I get a message from an excited reporter at the newspaper where I pretend to work. Scientists in Japan (it’s usually Japan or California) have used a computer to complete Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony! Or the machine has written a
BBC Music Magazine9 min read
Welcome To The Proms
RAH = Royal Albert Hall CH = Cadogan Hall = Television broadcast = Radio broadcast 7pm RAH First Night of the Proms: Sibelius Finlandia, Bohdana Frolyak new work (BBC commission: world premiere), Grieg Piano Concerto, Sibelius Snöfrid, Britten The Yo
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
BBC Music Magazine’s Proms Picks
I’ve gone for the evening Prom at Sage Gateshead on Saturday 22 July, featuring the Royal Northern Sinfonia and its principal conductor Dinis Sousa. The programme is a very tasty one: it pairs possibly my favourite Brahms symphony (the sunny No. 2) w
BBC Music Magazine1 min readMusic
Away From The Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall regularly appears on BBC Music Magazine’s July cover as the iconic symbol of the BBC Proms, but London does not hog all the fun – this year sees 12 concerts staged in various towns around the UK. Indeed, the Proms first travelle
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
It’s ‘Leb Wohl!’ From Him…
The time has finally come for Simon Rattle to step down from the LSO podium and head to Munich and the open arms of the Bavarian Radio Symphony. He’ll make his last appearances as music director with two concerts at this year’s Proms. The first, Schu
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Rite From The Heart
Nicholas Collon’s Aurora Orchestra is no stranger to The Proms, having given several memorable performances from memory, including Stravinsky’s The Firebird in 2021. But the composer’s Rite of Spring presents hitherto untested challenges. ‘This type
BBC Music Magazine5 min read
Once A Prom A Time…
‘Children are welcome at the Proms, but in consideration of our audience and performer, children under the age of five are not allowed in the auditorium,’ stated the 1996 edition of the BBC Proms prospectus, firmly. These days the wording is gentler:
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
About Last Night…
Marin Alsop is excited to be conducting this year’s Last Night of the Proms. Excited, but not overawed. It will, in fact, be her third time leading the Proms’ traditional closing extravaganza: the first came exactly a decade ago, when she made histor
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Tales From The Past
The first Horrible Histories Family Prom took place in 2011, inspired by the CBBC television series which itself is based on the books by Terry Deary (text) and Martin Brown (illustrations). Composer Richie Webb’s songs from the TV show were interspe
BBC Music Magazine6 min read
Eric Whitacre
It’s not really the done thing to go into fan mode during an interview. You’re there to do a job, so keep it professional – no autograph requests, no selfies. On this occasion, however, I’m going to make an exception. Midlife Choirsis, the choir I si
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Sweet Singing In The Choir
Take a look through Eric Whitacre’s published works, and you won’t find much that isn’t composed for choirs. ‘I’ve done some orchestral pieces and some pieces for concert band, but that’s pretty much it,’ he agrees. ‘I can’t imagine not spending most
BBC Music Magazine7 min read
A Titan Without Ego
Do you scowl, as I do, at the phrase ‘Based on a True Story’? So, the movie or TV company warmed to a real-life narrative sufficiently to want to bring it to the screen, but only if ‘enhanced’ by made-up stuff? Well, if any musical life-story offers
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Otto Klemperer live
I caught Klemperer near the end of his career, when he had become the wise Old Testament prophet of his latter days. I attended 36 of his London visits to the concert hall and opera house between 1963 and his last concert in 1971. On a good night, th
BBC Music Magazine6 min read
The Fight To Be Heard
‘Afghanistan has a very rich musical heritage and with music we can tell stories that not many people are brave enough to talk about,’ says Afghan cellist-composer Meena Karimi. In March 2021, she premiered Dawn, her piece for cello and orchestra, wi
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Instrument Of Evil
After their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban once again announced a ban on music in public because it was ‘un-Islamic’. Despite what the Taliban say, there’s nothing in the Quran that explicitly forbids music. There are sophisticated Islam
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Lost In Translation
So, you have settled upon an unusual opera to spring upon an unsuspecting audience. Will you perform it in its original language or in a translation? In 1982, when I was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood, I remember Erich Leinsdorf insisting you shou
BBC Music Magazine6 min read
Hidden treasures
Between 2001 and ’22, I was tasked with finding a ‘rarely performed’ opera on an annual basis for University College Opera’s yearly production in March. The invitation to take down a piece from the shelf that few, if any, had ever seen, then putting
BBC Music Magazine5 min read
Making Tracks
Late at night, who hasn’t found themselves struggling to put aside the stresses of the day? Forget about whale song, falling rain and white noise – sometimes what your tired mind needs is an adventure. That is what Hannah Peel offers as a presenter o
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Rawness And Drama
‘In England, everything you hear about Northern Ireland is about politics, which gives you no sense of how big the contemporary music scene is,’ Hannah Peel says of the nation she moved back to in 2018. It should take inspiration from Iceland, she su
BBC Music Magazine3 min read
San Diego United States
How best to describe the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park? We’ll begin with those names. The ‘Rady’ – rhymes with ‘lady’ – and ‘Jacobs’ refer to local philanthropists who led the way in enabling construction of the $85m venue to be 99 per cent privately fun
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
‘I Don’t Like Mondays’
In 1979, one of San Diego’s darkest moments left its mark on musical history. On the morning of 29 January, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on those waiting to get into Grover Cleveland Elementary opposite her h
BBC Music Magazine6 min read
Gustav Mahler
Composer of the Week is broadcast on Radio 3 at 12pm, Monday to Friday. Programmes in July are: 3-7 July Byrd 10-14 July Jaëll 17-21 July Barber 24-28 July Tailleferre 31 July – 4 August Anniversary Special: Composers in Conversation Sometimes the mu
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Mahler’s Style
Themes and Developments For Mahler, a symphony’s theme is its hero, whose developments are life experiences. An upward-straining three-note motif in the Fifth Symphony sounds a cry of anguish, leads an impassioned but doomed quest for transfiguration
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
MAHLER Life&Times
LIFE: Gustav Mahler is born on 7 May in Kalischt (now Kaliště, in the Czech Republic). His father, an innkeeper, supports Gustav’s musical activities. TIMES: With a force of 1,000 redshirt volunteers, the Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi captures S
BBC Music Magazine3 min read
Béla Bartók Concerto for Orchestra
When Béla Bartók and his wife, the pianist Ditta Pásztory, left Hungary for the US in 1940, it was not a moment too soon. The composer was horrified by the Hungarian government’s alignment with Nazi Germany, and his outspoken stance seemed increasing
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
The Composer
Having shown prodigious musical talent from a very early age, Bartók studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. In 1903, aged 21, he wrote his first major work, the symphonic poem Kossuth. Richard Strauss, Debussy and St
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Refreshingly Zestful And Idiomatic
Budapest Festival Orchestra Philips 476 7255 The Budapest Festival Orchestra recorded the Concerto for Orchestra under its founder and chief conductor Iván Fischer in 2005, and if any contemporary account has it all, it’s this one. First, Fischer obs
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Three Other Great Recordings
Georg Solti and the LSO give the BFO a run for their money in a splendidly played recording from 1965 that has rightly become a classic. Solti pulls no punches, but there’s subtlety too: for the first movement’s oboe-focused second subject, he offers
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Continue The Journey…
Another work by Bartók that highlights individual instruments within the context of an ensemble is 1936’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The opening movement may be marked Andante tranquillo but still has a distinctly sinister feel to it,
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Minnesota’s Mahler Is A Fitting Milestone
Symphony No. 9 Minnesota Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä BIS BIS-2476 (CD/SACD) 81:32 mins Towards the end of their lives, some of the great composers seemed to develop a sixth sense that allowed them to gaze onto otherworldly vistas of imagination – a kind of
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Welcome
I’m sure you’ll be poring over the BBC Proms listings, making plans to attend or wishing you could. This month’s reviews pages feature a good many artists paying a visit to the Royal Albert Hall this season, so why not whet your appetite and dive int
BBC Music Magazine8 min read
Orchestral
Concerto for Orchestra; Four Orchestral Pieces Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Karina Canellakis Pentatone PTC 5187 027 63:15 mins This enticing and brilliantly engineered release, celebrating the debut recording partnership between the Neth
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Performer’s notes Osmo Vänskä
Tell us about your approach to Mahler… We want to play well, and we want to lead with all the emotions which are written there. I think my way of working, and how I understand the music, is very much to go for the detail, and I think Mahler is the be
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
A Voiceless Tristan Which Still Manages To Sing Loudly
Tristan und Isolde – An Orchestral Passion (arr. Henk de Vlieger) Staatskapelle Weimar/Hansjörg Albrecht Oehms Classics OC 1729 58:02 mins Wagner reductions for orchestra are now almost commonplace. A few months ago in these columns, I praised Andrew
BBC Music Magazine9 min read
Concerto
Piano Concertos Nos 3 & 4 Elisabeth Leonskaja (piano); Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse/Tugan Sokhiev Warner Classics 5419726309 72:44 mins One of the last surviving Russian-born pianists in the line of Richter and Gilels, Elisabeth Leonska
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Energy And Excitement In This Bounty Of Bacewicz
Piano Concerto; Concerto for Two Pianos*; Overture; Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion Peter Jablonski, *Elisabeth Brauss (piano); Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon Ondine ODE 1427-2 62:27 mins The bustling orchestral Overture
BBC Music Magazine6 min read
Opera
Ariane et Bacchus Véronique Gens, David Tricou, Mathias Vidal, Judith van Wanroij; Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles; Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet Alpha Classics ALPHA 926 126:25 mins (2 discs) Now remembered mainly as a ma
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
A Ravishing Revival From Rizzi And Co.
Il Proscritto Ramón Vargas, Irene Roberts, Iván Ayón-Rivas, Sally Matthews, Goderdzi Janelidze; Opera Rara Chorus; Britten Sinfonia/Carlo Rizzi Opera Rara 9293800622 124:04 mins (2 discs) It’s a mystery why Mercadante’s Il Proscritto from the 1840s s
BBC Music Magazine10 min read
Choral & Song
Cantatas, BWV 47, 60 & 78; Trio Sonata No. 2 in C minor, BWV526; Prelude, BWV546 Céline Scheen (soprano), Thomas Hobbs (tenor), Benoît Arnould (bass); Le Banquet Céleste/Damien Guillon; Maude Gratton (organ) Alpha Classics ALPHA945 73:58 mins Flanked
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Nothing To Fear In This Magnificent Set
Lieder and arias by JS Bach, Eisler, Mahler, Pfitzner, Schubert, Schumann, R Strauss and Weill Christopher Purves (bass-baritone), Simon Lepper (piano) King’s College KGS0067 55:54 mins Christopher Purves and Simon Lepper have designed an admirably a
BBC Music Magazine8 min read
Chamber
Sonatas for Keyboard and Violin Rachel Podger (violin), Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano) Channel Classics CCSSA41523 (CD/SACD) 73:01 mins Had JS Bach lived another 15 years what would he have made of his son CPE’s four sonatas for keyboard and viol
BBC Music Magazine2 min readMusic
Beethoven With Devilment And Delicacy
Violin Sonatas: No. 2 in A, Op. 12 No. 2; No. 4 in A minor, Op. 23; No. 9 in A, Op. 47, ‘Kreutzer’ Antje Weithaas (violin), Dénes Várjon (piano) CAvi-music AVI 8553512 75:45 mins Bizarre as it seems now, there was a time when it used to be said routi
BBC Music Magazine9 min read
Instrumental
Partitas Nos 1, 5 & 6 Nils Anders Mortensen (piano) Lawo Classics LWC1249 70:23 mins Bach’s Six Partitas are the weightiest of his three sets of suites for harpsichord. Published in 1731 with the rather dry-sounding title of ‘Keyboard exercises’ (Cla
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
An Imaginative Keyboard Chronology
Works by CPE Bach, JS Bach, Busoni, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Mozart and Schnittke Alexander Melnikov (harpsichord, fortepiano, tangent piano, piano) Harmonia Mundi HMM 902702 68:24 mins Alexander Melnikov is a multifaceted artist at the best of times, bu
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
BBC Science Focus HALF PRICE
Get BBC Science Focus delivered direct to your door for half the price when you subscribe! Every issue is packed with news, details of the latest discoveries and the breakthroughs affecting our future, helping you to stay up-to-speed with the fast-mo
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Jazz
View From Above is the debut album from percussionist, session musician and producer Tristan Banks. He’s said he wanted to push the acoustic quartet format to its limits. I’m not sure that he’s quite done that but it’s certainly an arresting session.
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Hope In Troubled Times
Emboldened Steve Banks (guitar), Sam Crockett (sax), Rebecca Nash (piano), Henrik Jensen (bass), Mark Whitlam (drums) Stoney Lane records SLR 1981 Given the abundance of eclectic, exotic and experimental music threaded through this month’s selections
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
One Epic Gospel And Some Jewish Roots
Christopher Tyler Nickel’s The Gospel According to Mark (Avie AV2562) isn’t a box-set collection, but an epic single work spread across seven discs. The Canadian composer has set the entire English text of the gospel from the King James Bible, with t
BBC Music Magazine3 min read
Books
Andrzej Panufnik Toccata Press 300pp (pb) £60 The lively and engaging memoirs of the Polish-born, British-domiciled composer Andrzej Panufnik (1914-91) have long been out of print. So their reappearance under the Toccata Press imprint is welcome, mor
BBC Music Magazine4 min read
Brief Notes
Malta Philharmonic Orchestra/Sergey Smbatyan Navona Records NV6393 For something new, there’s Malta and Rebbieha, two short orchestral works by Maltese composers Vassallo and Joseph Vella that are respectively sunny and dramatic. The Borodin Second S
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Your Buyer’s Guide To The Best In Ear Monitors
The number of different earphones available today is mind boggling, and although wireless active noise cancelling designs steal the headlines, if you’re looking for the very best in pocketable quality, In Ear Monitors (IEMs) could be just the ticket.
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
We Recommend…
Excellent value earbuds that sound significantly better than any wireless options at this price. They lack bells and whistles, but are light (4g each), comfortable and well made, and the 7mm TrueResponse drivers produce a sumptuous clarity. sennheise
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
From The Archives
Thomas Beecham recorded little Richard Strauss, despite their long musical relationship, so it’s good to have his live 1955 performances of Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan. The RPO is on top form, although Beechamesque elegance is sometimes tempered b
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Triumphant Pianists
Works by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Ravel, Rachmaninov and Liszt Boris Giltburg, Mateusz Borowiak, Lukáš Vondráček, Alberto Ferro (piano) et al Queen Elisabeth Competition QEC-DUO 21 273:36 mins (4 discs) You can see video of these winners on the Queen
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Unboxed
‘For me, it is simply a question of moving ever towards a truth, a freshness of interpretation.’ It’s been an extraordinary career on record, and when John Eliot Gardiner’s complete Archiv and DG recordings were released in a glamorous box a couple o
BBC Music Magazine4 min read
Live Choice
Lewes, Sussex, 1 July – 22 August Web: glyndebourne.com Set in an Arthur Rackham-inspired fantasyscape, Peter Hall’s veteran production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream wears its years lightly. Dalia Stasevska conducts the latest incarnation in
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
Backstage With…
Anthony Marwood and you are performing Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending at the Petworth Festival. What makes it a suitable work for arrangement for violin and accordion? There is already the version for piano and violin, which I took as my templ
BBC Music Magazine7 min read
TV&Radio
Schedules may be subject to alteration. For up-to-date listings see Radio Times 7-9am Breakfast 9-11.45am Record Review 11.45am-12.30pm Music Matters 12.30-1pm This Classical Life 1-3pm Inside Music 3-4pm Sound of Cinema 4-5pm Music Planet 5-6.30pm J
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Three To Look Out For
Sam Jackson, the controller of BBC Radio 3, picks out three great moments to tune into this July Cédric Tiberghien treats us to some superb pianism live from Wigmore Hall. The captivating programme includes George Benjamin’s Shadowlines and Mozart’s
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
TV CHOICE Top picks for July
This month brings another chance to catch the iconic 2016 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream from Shakespeare’s Globe. Fusing music, dance and some serious comedy, Emma Rice’s first production as artistic director features a cast including Ncuti
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
LOVE SPRING WATCH? LOVE BBC wildlife
Scan the QR code to download your digital edition straight away or visit try.discoverwildlife.com/springwatch2023 Alternatively, subscribe today and GET YOUR FIRST 6 ISSUES FOR JUST £9.99!* Visit buysubscriptions.com/WLSP23HA or call 03330 162 114† Q
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
The BBC Music Magazine PRIZE CROSSWORD NO. 387
The first correct solution of our crossword picked at random will win a copy of The Oxford Companion to Music. A runner-up will win Who Knew? Answers to Questions about Classical Music (see oup.co.uk). Send answers to: BBC Music Magazine, Crossword 3
BBC Music Magazine2 min read
The Quiz
1. The fate of which lothario inspired an opera by Mozart, a ballet by Gluck, a tone poem by Strauss and the second movement of Sibelius’s Second Symphony? 2. Which piano work of 1874 did Sir Henry Wood orchestrate and partly record in 1920, only to
BBC Music Magazine1 min read
Great British Composers
Works by a selection of our favourite British composers Performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra PLUS! Mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly looks back over her career with Amanda Holloway; Stephen Johnson investigates how foreign conductors approach
BBC Music Magazine3 min readMusic
Paul Lewis
Paul Lewis CBE is known worldwide for his epic performances of Beethoven’s sonata cycles and concertos, as well as for playing Haydn, Liszt, Brahms and Schubert. His recordings have received numerous awards, and he finds time to play chamber music an

BBC Music Magazine

More Issues From BBC Music Magazine