Giovanni Gabrieli at 400 - celebrated by the Academy Symphonic Brass

It has been quite a year for musical anniversaries, but the 400th of Giovanni Gabrieli was the focus of this well planned concert from the Royal Academy of Music Symphonic Brass and their conductors, Elgar Howarth and Mark David. Howarth took the opportunity to compose a tribute not just to Giovanni Gabrieli but to his uncle, Andrea, and the city of Venice itself.

The concert took as its focal point the Canzona, the form perfected by the family as a piece of about five minutes sowing the seeds for development of tonal centres in music. Often written for two or more brass 'choirs', and using anything from four to twenty two players, they are striking pieces, taking distinctive musical motifs and working them in to a tapestry of melody and constantly moving harmony that must have worked incredibly well in St Marks's Venice, the place for which much of the Gabrielis' music was written.

The Royal Academy brass kept a consistently high standard throughout the first piece, Canzoni Duodecimi Toni 10 a 2, from Giovanni's celebrated volume of sacred works with and without voices, the Sacrae Symphoniae. This was in four parts, the ideas exchanged between the two pairs with some enthusiasm.

Howarth's piece was next, conducted by the composer in typically unassuming manner. Written for four singers in the traditional SATB form, and two brass choirs, situated either side of the stage facing each other, it was a striking piece that was cleverly structured to include two interludes around the text, a simple but effective roll call of the city's artistic heritage. Imaginatively Howarth included two specially written Canzonas himself, written in more obviously contemporary harmonic language but paying clear homage to the older composers. It was an affectionate and heartfelt tribute, as was the distinctive motif that was repeated over and over, a melody that stacked up on itself to create a sonorous but lightly dissonant chord, hanging in the air.

There was then a piece from each of the Gabrielis, Giovanni's Canzona per sonare no.1 (La Spiritata), a bright piece for four instruments with a distinctive episode in triple time. This was preceded by Andrea's Ricercar del Duodecimo Tuono, exploring sonic variations and overlaps between his two choirs of two.

Howarth stepped up once more to conduct the brief but vividly descriptive Charles Ives piece for brass and percussion, From The Steeples and the Mountains, which pits a descending sequence of bells against a depiction of the vast mountains beyond. Before long the two elements occupy the same viewpoint, Ives' favourite technique of juxtaposing two very different styles of music to make a third in evidence. The eight students in this performance concentrated fiercely to secure a strong interpretation, notable for its striking sonic pictures.

Then it was time for perhaps Giovanni Gabrieli's best known piece, the Sonate pian e forte from the Sacrae Symphoniae. This is one of the first known instances of dynamic control in music, exploring the architecture of St Mark's through the sound of two brass choirs. Here a characterful interpretation could perhaps have done with being a bit slower, for some of the quicker counterpoint became a little rushed and lost its definition. That said the brass put plenty of verve in to their performance.

Elgar Howarth was the dedicatee of the next piece, Kenneth Herbert's Music for an Idle Moment, written in 1956 when the two were studying together at Manchester University. This was an arranged version that the composer had travelled from Switzerland to see, and with three pairs of trumpet and trombone the Academy brass enjoyed the exchange of ideas and motifs, almost as if engaged in light banter on the school yard. The charming piece had all six players as winners!

Finally the coup de grace in the form of Giovanni Gabrieli's Canzon XX, a late work for no fewer than 22 brass instruments. Here they performed in six choirs, their counterpoint busy but still distinguishable, so that the ear could latch on to any number of melodic fragments and follow their progress. The Academy Brass were superb here, David conducting clearly and varying the dynamics just enough to get a sense of rise and fall in the intensity, before all 22 went through a crescendo in the final chord, which rang across the hall. In doing so the Academy Symphonic Brass completed a very fine concert, and as a footnote Alison Balsom was on hand to present a trust award to fellow trumpeter Imogen Hancock. That Balsom should feel move to express her delight at the concert on Twitter afterwards said it all – a wonderful hour's music that did full justice to one of the true greats of the Renaissance age.

YMSO - From Death To Life

The Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra is for players who are on the threshold of a professional career, and its ranks include musicians likely to move on to play for the UK's leading orchestras. To run properly it has to exist in a state of almost perpetual fundraising – but anybody who has attended one of the concerts at their base in St John's Smith Square can be left in no doubt as to the worthiness of the cause.

This autumn concert showed all that is good about the organisation, and more besides. Conductor James Blair has been associated with the YMSO for more than forty years now and his commitment to and passion for the orchestra is abundantly clear. For this program he had devised a typically imaginative transition from darkness to light – the first half consisting of two pieces dancing with the devil, while the second allowed itself an indulgence in rich Italian flair.

The devil first, though – and a fine performance of Franck's Le Chausseur Maudit, which floated in serenely on the back of its attractive cello theme, but which swiftly began to move over to the dark side. With darkly coloured brass, incisive strings and sour woodwind at his disposal Blair wrung out a passionate performance, leaving us in no doubt as to who was the victor – the prognosis wasn't good!

Things turned ever more devilish for Liszt's Totentanz, a darker forbear of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. It even predates Rachmaninov's near-obsession with the Dies Irae chant in a series of fiendish variations, played with flair and imagination by pianist Ashley Fripp. Together with incisive orchestral contributions Fripp brought fire and brimstone to the piano writing, delighting in the virtuoso passages but not forgetting the use of expressive pauses between each variation.

The second half began with a Puccini rarity, the attractive Capriccio Sinfonico, completed when the composer was 25. This surged with lyrical themes, which Blair clearly enjoyed, and there was a nice sense of ebb and flow to the woodwind contributions in particular.

This was, though, an up beat to the main event, Respighi's orchestral spectacular the Pines Of Rome. It never fails to amaze that this, the first of the composer's Roman trilogy of symphonic poems, was written in 1924. Many a film score since has tried and failed to better Respighi's dazzling orchestration and wonderful sense of picture painting, here on vivid display thanks to the enthusiasm and virtuosity of the YMSO players.

Blair made good use of the venue, with the offstage brass up in the gallery, the organ turned up at the back of the church and the piano tucked away far left, so that when the rippling arpeggios rose up at the end of the 'Pines of the Janiculum', the effect was one of surprise. There were many wonderful solo contributions from the orchestra, but Cosima Yu's clarinet solo in the same movement deserves a special mention.

Respighi keeps a tight control on the piece and its expression, so that when the 'Pines of the Appian Way' reached its apex there was a massive sense of exhilaration, and the final pages, layer upon layer added to the sound until the goose bumps arrive, were utterly thrilling. So good was this performance that many a professional orchestra would have been proud to put their names on it – and yet those regulars at St John's were not surprised, for this is the standard the orchestra regularly reach.

This was, then, an extremely uplifting night – but a reminder, too, that organisations such as the YMSO hold a vital role in our musical and cultural society. It is important to give them the support that they deserve.

Julietta at ENO

English National Opera are well known for their willingness to try something new, but inevitably that approach is a risky one and sometimes does not come off. In the case of Richard Jones' new production of Martinů's Julietta, however, the investment has paid off handsomely, rewarded with a production that is as vivid in musical colour as it is in striking imagery on stage.

Julietta is in three acts, and the decision to have an interval between each seems odd at first but is shown to be correct as the storyline develops. The story is not centred around the female character who gives the opera its name – rather it is the Parisian Michel, played and sung here by Peter Hoare. Michel experiences a number of dream sequences that lead to him pursuing the girl of his, er, dreams, Julietta, played by Julia Sporsén, who I interviewed for Classical Source here.

Michel is centre stage for almost all of the action, though there are a number of characters who pop up time and again in his dreams in surreal ways – much like they might for you and me. There is a tuxedoed horn player, a beggar, a young sailor and an accordion player, who directly influences the imaginative choice of set. After a while the action feels like it is going around in circles. Martinů's own libretto is initially slow of pace, with a large amount of scene setting in the village of the first act before things start to get going.

The plot was helped immeasurably in this respect by Ricardo Pardo's breathtaking sets and Matthew Richardson’s perceptive lighting. The forest scenes of the second act are beautifully done, silvery lights complementing the detailed characterisation of Martinů's music; while the stage is dwarfed by the bellows of the giant accordion for act one, then the keyboard for act three. This is the most concentrated of the three, set mostly in the 'Bureau Of Dreams' – not a progressive rock album title but rather a fictitious place where dreams are bought and sold, the contents of each to an extent pre-determined by such available props as Buffalo Bill and . As I said, it is a touch surreal!

Another key element to raise this production to the heights is Martinů's music, and more particularly the way in which Ed Gardner and his excellent orchestra bring every fibre of it to life. This is not necessarily music where you would sing the tune on the way home, but there are so many pieces of subtle invention, either in texture, melody or in harmonies on which the composer alights, that the ear and eye are drawn this way and that, able to admire fragments or extended passages here and there.

The singing is vibrant too, with Hoare outstanding as Michel, who by the end is considerably put-upon in his attempts to see and talk with Julietta. The final scene takes place in front of the curtain, on which the images of seven sleeping people spell out J-U-L-I-E-T-T, with Michel eventually taking the 'A' – until once again he wakes and is transported towards the land of dreams.

Was it all one big dream? Will he eventually wake up? We are not fully clear. But Martinů cleverly plants the question to make his audience question the possibility of life being but a dream, as the song says. His music, often dreamlike itself in the symphonies and orchestral works, is used to its full potential here, and every shimmering chord and whirring set of sound effects serves its purpose.

Put simply, Julietta is that rare thing, an opera that gains in dramatic and expressive weight as it progresses, and whose spell is cast for long after it finishes. Do catch it if you can.

September Symphonies takes on Beethoven

Having enjoyed the wit and imagination of Haydn and the sophistication of Mozart, September Symphonies has recently alighted at the best known canon of work of them all, that of Ludwig van Beethoven.

The symphony came alive with Beethoven at the helm, shedding some of its functional design to become a living, breathing organism that reflected an increased musical daring on the part of early 19th century composers. Few were more daring than Beethoven of course, and once he had signed off with the 'Choral' in 1824 he did so having performed a complete overhaul on what the symphony meant to composers and public alike.

Prior to the 'Choral' the longest symphony was probably Haydn's 'Drum Roll' or Mozart's 'Prague' – but this took everything to a new level, thinking nothing of introducing the choir and vocal soloists in to the last movement.

To start with, though, Beethoven was picking up where Mozart and Haydn left off, though even in the first symphony there were strong hints that departures from the norm would be frequent and adventurous. The piece, set in C major, does not imply that key for a while, its introduction deliberately toying with the listener and moving the harmony away towards F, then A minor. The effect, coming after the 'safety first' approach, can be unsettling.

Such formal and harmonic innovations occur frequently throughout the cycle, but what of the impression of the music itself? I chose the recordings carefully to try and give an equal representation of 'period' and 'modern' performance, whatever we take those to mean, for there are so many ways in which people interpret Beethoven symphonies and communicate them to their listeners. Yet what came through time and time again was the driving energy behind this music. The scherzos are incredibly vital, their rhythms driving them forward, while the slow movements explore emotional depths new to the symphony. For the former the First and Seventh are good examples, the Seventh especially flying along in the version I chose from Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic. By contrast the slow movement is sombre and inward looking, whereas in the Fifth it was at times pure passion in Leonard Bernstein's interpretation, the fuller harmonies tugging at the heartstrings.

Just for a while in the cycle it feels like Beethoven might be moving full circle, for the Eighth is more similar to the First and the Second in spirit and classical design, but the Ninth blows all of these thoughts clear out of the water. Here I was listening to Herbert von Karajan conduct a Scherzo of frightening power, but when he gets to the famous choral finale the music is so incredibly affirmative and defiant as to be almost overwhelming.

While the 'Eroica', a landmark in symphonic architecture and design, the Fifth and the Seventh are three of the obvious Beethoven innovators, a major surprise to me was the Fourth. Much of this doubtless related to the energy secured by Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music, but there was a freshness and wit in the music that was immediately appealing, despite the clouds of the introduction and the uncertainties of the first movement. It was proof that Beethoven needs good performances to make a maximum impact, but also that no matter how many times you listen to this amazing music, something new is likely to jump out and hit you without prior warning.

The influence of Beethoven would make itself felt in future September Symphonies that I listened to, but by this point I could have stopped and gone home easily!

Symphonies and recordings listened to:

Beethoven - Symphony no.1 in C major Op.21 (1800) NBC Symphony Orchestra / Arturo Toscanini (BMG)

Beethoven - Symphony no.2 in D major Op.36 (1802) Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec)

Beethoven - Symphony no.3 in E flat major Op.55 'Eroica' (1804) London Classical Players / Sir Roger Norrington (EMI)

Beethoven - Symphony no.4 in B flat major Op.60 (1806) Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood (L'Oiseau-Lyre)

Beethoven - Symphony no.5 in C minor Op.67 (1808) New York Philharmonic Orchestra / Leonard Bernstein (Sony)

Beethoven - Symphony no.6 in F major Op.68, 'Pastoral' (1808) Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra / Riccardo Chailly (Decca)

Beethoven - Symphony no.7 in A major Op.92 (1812) Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Carlos Kleiber (DG)

Beethoven - Symphony no.8 in F major Op.93 (1812) Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Teldec)

Beethoven - Symphony no.9 in D minor Op.125 (1824) Anna Tomowa-Sintow (soprano), Agnes Baltsa (mezzo-soprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Jose van Dam (bass), Wiener Singverein, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Herbert von Karajan (DG)

Contrasts and A Soldier's Tale at Kings Place Festival

Kings Place has now been open for four years, so this was the fifth festival in which 100+ concerts take place over a long weekend. It is an imaginative, ambitious idea, but one that rewards creative programming, for each concert offers 45 minutes of repertoire – but often the artists extend these to take in two or three recitals.

On the Friday afternoon The London Sinfonietta used these possibilities to the maximum with an intelligent link between two concerts of short and lively works for solo instrument, ending each with a masterpiece for clarinet, violin and piano – not the primary combination of 20th century chamber music but one which proved highly effective.

It helps to have artists of the calibre of clarinettist Mark van de Wiel, violinist Jonathan Morton – newly announced as the Sinfonietta's principal violin – and pianist John Constable, an ever-present on the ensemble’s roll call since they were formed in 1968. Each performer had a hand in the introduction of the pieces they were about to play, which helped immensely with works not often heard. We learned that the first of Simon Holt's Brief Candles, for solo clarinet, was written for his bank manager – but not played. Van de Wiel's command of the clarinet here was total, and the third piece – art project – took the instrument to the borders of inaudibility, the sound literally coming in from nothing but maintaining an incredibly quiet dynamic throughout.

Constable joined the action for a spiky performance of Lutoslawski's Dance Preludes, which served both to highlight the composer’s melodic craft but also to whet the appetite for his forthcoming centenary year. Morton was then added for Bartók's Contrasts, where the three performers kept an impressively high level of tension through the slow movement, seemingly suspended in space, but also in the more raucous ensemble passages. This was music of grit and determination, but also with a jazzy swing, the wishes of clarinettist Benny Goodman taken in to account and freely expressed here by van de Wiel.

The second concert began with the clarinet once more, though this was one of the first compositions for the instrument alone, Stravinsky's 3 Pieces. Students of the instrument know that these are something of a Mount Everest, but van de Wiel's technique was beyond reproach, his tonal quality exquisite in the quieter parts of the first piece, but with an impressive penetration in the third.

Morton then gave us the strangely moving Secret Psalm of Oliver Knussen, the piece dedicated to the memory of the London Sinfonietta's former artistic director, Michael Vyner. The secret is held in the piece's frequent references to and quotations from one of Vyner’s favourite violin concertos, but Knussen somehow disguises these lingering glances, with none of them obvious. My guess was that the concerto was by Sibelius, but the privacy of the dedication and the musical workings was reflected in the intimate nature of the piece, the legato notes in particular beautifully played by Morton.

There was little room for lyricism in the closing piece, the suite from Stravinsky's musical theatre piece The Soldier's Tale. The acoustics of Hall 2 at Kings Place came in to their own here, the dry sound ideal for the scratchy sound of the double stopped violin used almost entirely for rhythmic purposes. That, combined with the punchy clarinet and often caustic piano chords, made for a performance of grit and determination, though the dance of the devil at the end, celebrating his duping of a soldier in to selling his soul, still managed to have a smile on its face.

Top class performances all – and an auspicious start to a festival that is starting to establish itself firmly in the concert calendar. It deserves its place, for there is nothing else like it in the musical year – and to be able to say it was well worth taking a half day from work for it tells you all you need to know!

September Symphonies Week One - The Bach sons to Haydn and Mozart

So the first week of September Symphonies is complete, and I have so far listened to 16 relatively early examples in the form, travelling from the work of Boyce and C.P.E.Bach to Haydn's final output in 1794. What has really come through so far is the largely positive nature of emotions shown in the writing, though in Haydn's case in particular these have been allowed to darken considerably.

What has really been impressed on me so far is the upbeat nature of the fast movements, of J.C.Bach, Stamitz and Dittersdorf in particular, which have been very energetic. Brief though they are, the pieces are concentrated and full of melodic invention. At this stage they follow convention relatively closely, though are not afraid in the case of Arne and Boyce's minor key works to throw in some scrunchy harmonies now and then.

Where Haydn is concerned, I could easily have selected any one of about 30 symphonies to listen to for September Symphonies – and even then that is bearing in mind that I still don’t know around half of his symphonic output. With such a large canon it helps to have nicknames, though it is worth pointing out that some of the very best have no nicknames at all. One of my favourites, Symphony no.87 in A, is packed full of the customary Haydn wit, as were two of my selections for the project, the 'Oxford' and 'Clock' symphonies.

There are much darker moments in Haydn though, and it seems many of the symphonies have subtle inventions that had not been tried before – drums in the slow movement, virtuosic writing for horns, sudden deviations or harmony or key. The 'Sturm und Drang' period is rightly celebrated for its fiery emotions and occasional leave-taking of tradition, so with that in mind I listened to the 44th symphony, 'Trauer', for the first time in years. A 'big band' performance conducted by Ferenc Fricsay, it was emotive and yet kept a kind of serenity, an observation that could be levelled at other high points in the output such as no.49, 'La Passione'.

Mozart I find harder to warm to as instinctively as Haydn, yet there is no doubting the near perfection of the architecture of his last three symphonies. No.39 is my personal favourite, though it was interesting to discover H.C. Robbins Landon's suggestion, made in Robert Layton's A Guide To The Symphony - one of my companion books for this series – that it was set as a 'masonic' work. Whatever, it is a wonderfully affirmative piece – as is the 41st, whose 'Jupiter' nickname is curiously earned and relates to nothing in particular. The finale of the 'Jupiter' is one of the high points of 18th century symphonic writing, a perfect fusion of form, melody, harmony and counterpoint – with Mozart introducing the same melodic subject over and over again in a wide variety of ways and means. In the performance I listened to, with Claudio Abbado conducting the Mozart Orchestra, perfection was indeed attained.

Another big personal plus of the first week of symphonies has been that they are all easy to work to, rewarding both background and foreground listening. As I journey further in to the 19th century I know this will not always be the case, so expect some wringing of hands by the time I reach week three! For now, though, an air of relative serenity persists – and next it's Beethoven!

Symphonies and recordings listened to so far:

1. Boyce - Symphony no.8 (1737) English Concert / Trevor Pinnock (DG Archiv)

2. Monn - Symphony in B flat major (c1740) Camerata Bern / Thomas Furi (DG Archiv)

3. C.P.E.Bach - Symphony in G major Wq 173 (1741) Les Amis de Philippe / Ludger Remy (CPO)

4. Haydn - Symphony no.6 in D major (Le Matin) (1761) English Concert / Trevor Pinnock (DG Archiv)

5. J.C.Bach - Symphony in D major Op.3/1 (1765) Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields / Sir Neville Marriner (Philips)

6. Arne - Symphony no.4 in C minor (1767) The Hanover Band / Graham Lea-Cox (Gaudeamus)

7. Haydn - Symphony no.44 in E minor (Trauer) (1772) RIAS Symphony Orchestra Berlin / Ferenc Fricsay (DG)

8. Mozart - Symphony no.29 in A major K201 (1774) Orchestra of the 18th Century / Frans Bruggen (Philips)

9. Dittersdorf - Sinfonia in A minor (c1775) Camerata Bern / Thomas Furi (DG Archiv)

10. Stamitz - Symphony in F major Op.24/3 (1784) London Mozart Players / Matthias Bamert (Chandos)

11. Haydn - Symphony no.85 in B flat major (La Reine) (1785) Concentus Musicus Wien / Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)

12. Mozart - Symphony no.39 in E flat major K543 (1788) Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Karl Bohm (DG)

13. Mozart - Symphony no.40 in G minor K550 (1788) Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields / Sir Neville Marriner (Philips)

14. Mozart - Symphony no.41 in C major K551 (Jupiter) (1788) Mozart Orchestra / Claudio Abbado (DG)

15. Haydn - Symphony no.92 in G major (Oxford) (1789) Orchestra of the 18th Century / Frans Bruggen (Philips)

16. Haydn - Symphony no.101 in D major (Clock) (1794) Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Claudio Abbado (DG)

An introduction to September Symphonies

So, why September Symphonies?

Well if you follow me on Twitter or read this blog you might remember an equivalent month-long project called April Albums, whose aim was to cover one hundred new albums in a month. This new idea is directly inspired by that but is also an attempt to trace the evolution and development of the symphony in the course of one hundred works, from its beginnings in Central Europe in the 18th century through its all-encompassing emotional sweep in the 20th century, to an examination of where it stands now as a musical form. For how long will it remain the principal mode of expression in orchestral music?

But has it stopped being that already? Did some composers write symphonies because they felt they had to? It is after all interesting to note that some of the greatest composers in classical music made only minor contributions to the symphony's canon at best. Wagner wrote just one, Verdi none at all, Debussy a student effort, and we had nothing at all from Ravel, Bartók, Schoenberg or Gershwin.

My listening odyssey will take me chronologically from the sons of Bach and their contemporaries through a complete cycle of the greatest symphonist of them all, Beethoven, to those for whom the form meant everything and gave their whole means of musical expression – Bruckner and Mahler among them. Then onwards, to the present day.

Some works will be new to me, others ultra familiar, but one thing is for sure – this will be an intriguing and enlightening journey through one of classical music's flagship forms. I hope you find it an interesting one!

In from the cold: Howells and the Hymnus Paradisi

It is remarkable to think that a work of the stature of Herbert Howells' Hymnus Paradisi, described in the Proms programme notes as having 'raised the perception of him as a major voice in British music', should only receive its Proms premiere in the 2012 season. The oversight does not reflect particularly well on previous directors, but its restoration, in a similar vein to last year's Gothic Symphony of Havergal Brian, adds a feather in the cap of current Proms director Roger Wright. Not only that, it uncannily reflects the work's performance history.

So personal was the work to the composer that it did not see the light of day from the year of completion, 1938, until 1950, when Vaughan Williams insisted it should be performed at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral. The reason for this delay, apart from Howells' reluctance to see his work performed in any sphere for fear of negative criticism, was its standing as a memorial to his son Michael, who tragically died of polio aged nine. The composer's words, recorded in Christopher Palmer's short biography, put the work in perspective. "The sudden loss in 1935 of an only son, a loss essentially profound, and, in its very nature, beyond argument, might naturally impel a composer, after a time, to seek release and consolation in language and terms most personal to him. Music may well have power beyond any other medium to offer that release and comfort. It did so in my case, and became a personal, private document."

With this in mind the performance, coming as it did after a number of tragic infant deaths in the UK recently, felt incredibly close to home. It helped, too, that the combined forces of the BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Philharmonic Choir – about 230 singers in all – were incredibly well drilled in their performance, marshalled by British music specialist Martyn Brabbins, who also conducted the Gothic last year.

The text is a hybrid of the composer's choosing, using parts of the Requiem at start and finish but including psalms and poems that take light as their central theme. The impact was clearly heard and felt, for the composer's response is extremely personal and emotionally direct. Howells uses modal harmonies in a way that reminds the listener of Vaughan Williams and Ravel, but which remains individual and subtly inventive.

Complementing this is his orchestration. Howells uses the organ but at no point does it dominate, instead supporting the overall sound, often underpinning with wonderfully sonorous bass note foundations. The last of these notes, with which the piece ends, is a low 'E flat', which in this performance had the effect of blowing a calming breeze across the auditorium. Before this the music seemed to be floating above the ground, thanks to the composer's skilful manipulation of his vocal lines, and while we could not fully hear the soloists, Miah Persson and Andrew Kennedy having to battle against the huge choral forces in an unhelpful acoustic, the effect of this writing was still pertinent.

The biggest compliment that can be paid to Howells is that the audience fell silent for a full 30 seconds when the music had finished – proof that the music and its keenly felt emotion had made an incredibly powerful impact. With that in mind it is surely time to reappraise the composer's output and program his music – orchestral, chamber, vocal or otherwise – more frequently.

After the interval Brabbins conducted an enthusiastic performance of Elgar's Symphony no.1, an interpretation that kept a firm hand on the tiller and left little room for sentiment. This gave a fresh dimension to the stately theme, which was light on its feet, though meant some of the more stormy arguments in the faster music were a little rushed at times. That said the symphony – first performed at the Proms 104 years before Hymnus Paradisi - proved an ideal complement to the Howells, while reminding us what a wonderful piece it is in its own right. Howells – who met Elgar a number of times before finally making an impact on the older composer – would surely have approved of the dual programming, with his emotional outpouring finally thrown into a spotlight it should have been occupying for many a year.

New Czech delights from Harmonia Mundi

Every so often a new recording comes along that hits a gap in your music knowledge of a composer or country so completely that it forces a reappraisal. Harmonia Mundi are particularly good at exploiting these opportunities, and in two very persuasive new discs of Czech vocal repertoire, they reveal the inner workings of two of the country’s flagship composers, Dvořák and Janáček. Both releases are handsomely designed, as you will see from the accompanying pictures, with beautiful artwork that accurately reflects the music on offer. Full text and background information only adds to the enjoyment. So what of the music itself?

The Dvořák first, given by the clear, ringing soprano of Genia Kühmeier and the slightly huskier mezzo of Bernarda Fink. There is an attractive edge to Kühmeier's sound in the Gypsy Melodies, settings of the poet Alfred Heyduk which are folksy round the edges, as might be expected, wearing their emotion close to the surface. The piano parts are scrunchy, with a nice tone in staccato from Christoph Berner. 'Kdyz mne stará matka' ('Songs My Mother Taught Me') has the most obviously appealing melody, which has given it a more exalted status in Dvořák's output, but in truth there are memorable tunes throughout.

The Moravian Duets are beautifully done here. Like the Gypsy Melodies they are earthy, and quite jaunty in places, but because of the slight difference in tone between the two singers they get just the right projection. The outdoorsy feel is helped by Harmonia Mundi's natural recording, and the three performers get a natural rise and fall to the music.

The Biblical Songs are later in Dvořák's output, and are more serious and thoughtful, as might reflect a later work. 'Skrýse má a paveza má Ty jsi' ('Thou art my defence and shield') is profound, 'Slys, ó Boze! Slys modlitbu mou' ('Hear my prayer, O God') more stern and questioning, while the more familiar 'Boze! Boze! Písen novou zpívati budu' ('Lord! Lord! I will sing a new song') and 'Zpívejte Hospodinu písen novou' ('O sing unto the Lord a new song') are really well done. These are fresh, insightful readings from Fink and Berner, and moving, too – and there is a slight husk to the tone that often brings a tear to the eye.

Listening to the Janáček straight after the Dvořák is a tactic that works really well, because this disc – now with choral forces – picks up with arrangements for voices of six of the same Moravian Duets. These are faithful reproductions, performed with the same natural enthusiasm and impressive empathy for the text from the Cappella Amsterdam, well schooled by Daniel Reuss.

Janáček often gives his music evocative titles that make you want to listen immediately, and that is the case here with the hunting songs The Wild Duck and The Wolf's Tail. His vocal writing, as with much of his music overall, is more stretched out, with greater emphasis on treble and bass but with less going on in between. This pulls at the tension and gives a greater air of foreboding, but there is a harsh and very expressive beauty too.

Especially striking is the composer's use of the harmonium for 'Our Evenings', bringing some voluminous colour to an already vividly shaded disc. Our Father, meanwhile, shows that the composer's grasp of religious music had an essentially secular side to it, as it did in the Glagolitic Mass. Here some of the more sacred writing is self conscious, but continues to be deeply emotional.

The Nursery Rhymes are especially descriptive and vivid, being essentially more modern counterparts of Dvořák's Gipsy Songs. 'The beetroot got married' is brightly coloured and crisply delivered, while there is a nice, clear tenor solo in 'There’s nothing better than springtime', both in Janáček's favourite tonal centre of A flat. Both these discs are collections that will surprise and delight those who think they already know the composers well. Beautifully sung and played, they are a credit to their performers, and one can only hope Harmonia Mundi extends their explorations to composers such as Smetana, Suk and Martinů. As it is they already have here two thoroughly invigorating exposés of Czech vocal music, and its many hidden gems.

April albums

If you follow me on Twitter (@benjammin22) you'll have noticed me chart a course through 100 albums in the course of April, and this blog aims to reveal the results and discoveries of the quest, which has proved rewarding and sometimes insightful. The idea for it came from a musicOMH writer Gareth Ware (whose own odyssey can be tracked at @musicismyradar) and from John Murphy (@john_murphy1) who personalized the exercise by listening to 100 albums that he either loved or which had pertinent lifelong memories.

Albums are like that, I suppose, and if they're good or meaningful have the potential to conjure up whole lifetimes in one listen. They act as vivid reminders like any good photo album, only with extra – for often the emotional link between the music and the life event is impossible to ignore. Either that or a good album acts as that alone, a marker of quality in an art form overrun with attempts to achieve legendary status in the form.

For my own quest through 100 April albums I decided that each should be new to me, and that each artist or composer could only be represented once in the exercise. I chose them pretty much as the mood took me, and didn’t include compilations or albums I heard that had already passed my ears before. It was a chance to catch up with some of 2012’s new releases, to try out completely new things on the strength of cover or reviews alone, or to take a lucky dip in to the CD collection and haul out something I'd not listened to before. And there are far too many of those examples!

The other rule was the once started, the album had to be completed there and then, and this wasn’t always as easy as it sounded. Sometimes when an ambient album was selected late at night it was easy, but when busy techno threatened to take over my head on a flight to Budapest (thanks to u-ziq), some flurries of instrumentation nearly compromised our neighbour relations (Au) or some particularly dark and vigorous vocal beat boxing marred my preparation for a suited and booted dinner one Saturday night, the exercise became one of endurance not enjoyment.

It showed me too that there are times – even in London – where silence, the music that has no sound or pitch, is underrated and even totally necessary. It reminded me of the need to actually step away from music now and again – which I will do when on holiday next week – so that the reacquaintance is fresh and involving once again.

So, enough of the personal aspects – what and who were the winners in the hundred? A difficult one to summarise, but there have been some wonderful moments which I will try and capture. The first was Lovelock's 'Burning Feeling', the massive and anthemic first track from his first album of the same name, booming through the headphones on my walk down the hill at 7am on a Monday morning. I had expected something far more chilled, but arrived at the bus stop with a smile on my face.

Secondly, in the middle of a busy office, the sleights of electronic instrumentation forming Pole's '1' – beautifully crafted techno that proved very easy to work to. Then the thrill of Van Halen rediscovering what made them so good in the 1970s, returning to their original sound and singer, closely followed by Whitesnake achieving something equally thrilling.

Classical music was embraced by April Albums too, and took up its familiar position in my life either at each end of the day or when seeking something to keep me alert at work. For some reason Czech music played a big part in the month, perhaps for the spring like qualities of the Novak, Dvorak, Janacek and Stamitz that I ended up listening to.

There were some forgettable albums too, but those tended to be the ones that were OK but didn't inspire a reaction. I’m afraid these included the new Best Coast album, We Have Band, Ellen and the Escapades and Neil Finn. But the beauty of this is that not all albums make their mark on first listen, and my favourite of all – Super Furry Animals' Guerrilla – was a grower that I didn't like to begin with. That experience has told me never to write off a long player on first listen, so I haven't dismissed those offerings yet.

April albums - the full list

The April albums list in full:

1. Lightships - Electric Cables
2. Lovelock - Burning Feeling (Internasjonal)
3. A Tribute to Erling Blondal Bengtsson (Danacord)
4. Popular Computer - Lite
5. Krazy Baldhead - The Noise In The Sky (Ed Banger)
6. Brian Eno - Discreet Music
7. Kasper Bjorke - Fool (hfn)
8. Simian Ghost - Youth
9. Gotye - Making Mirrors
10. Moby - Animal Rights (Mute)
11. Stamitz - Symphonies conducted by Matthias Bamert (Chandos)
12. Stravinsky - Miniature Masterpieces (Sony)
13. Diefenbach - Run Trip Fall ()
14. Neil Finn - One Nil
15. Yeti Boombox - Maplewood
16. Mendelssohn - Concerto for violin & piano played by Kremer, Argerich & Orpheus CO (DG)
17. Talking Heads - Little Creatures
18. Weber: Overtures conducted by Neeme Jarvi (Chandos)
19. Schubert: Piano Sonatas D845 & D894 played by Radu Lupu (Decca)
20. Villa-Lobos: Choros 1, 4, 6, 8 & 9 (BIS)
21. Mojave 3: Out Of Time (4AD)
22. Manuel Tur: Swans Reflecting Elephants (Freerange)
23. The Draymin: Should've Known Better
24. Pole: 1
25. Blockhead: Interludes At Midnight (Ninja Tune)
26. Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down (Nonesuch)
27. Battles: Dross Glop (Warp)
28. Fila Brazillia: Black Market Gardening ()
29. Killing Joke: Absolute Dissent
30. Au: Verbs
31. Julianna Barwick: Sanguine
32. Britten, Bach & Ligeti: Works for solo cello - Miklos Perenyi (ECM)
33. Van Halen: A Different Kind Of Truth
34. Whitesnake: Forevermore
35. Takemitsu: Complete Piano Works - Roger Woodward
36. Chopin: Waltzes - Zoltan Kocsis (Philips)
37. Ellen and the Escapades: All The Crooked Scenes
38. John Daly: Sunburst (Drumpoet Community)
39. Claro Intelecto: Reform Club
40. Barber, Nielsen & Hindemith: Chamber Works - Marlboro Festival Players (Sony)
41. Dave Aju: Heirlooms
42. Bill Ryder-Jones: If...
43. She & Him: Volume One
44. We Have Band: Ternion
45. The Cocteau Twins: Treasure (4AD)
46. Etienne de Crecy: My Contribution To The Global Warming
47. Ryan Teague: Field Drawings
48. Breton: Other People's Problems
49. Hayden: Moving Careful ()
50. Ambarchi & Brinkmann - The Mortimer Trap
51. Faith No More - Angel Dust
52. µ-Ziq - Lunatic Harness
53. Schumann - Piano Works played by Ronald Brautigam (Olympia)
54. Fat Jon The Ample Soul Physician - Lightweight Heavy
55. Kelley Polar - Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens
56. Morgan Geist - The Driving Memoirs
57. Brahms - Violin Sonatas played by Anthony Marwood and Alexander Madzar (Wigmore Hall Live)
58. Schoenberg - Complete Piano Works played by Maurizio Pollini (DG)
59. Jay Haze - Love For A Strange World
60. Schulhoff - Chamber Works played by Prazak Quartet and friends (Praga)
61. Tippett - Songs with Martyn Hill, Andrew Ball and Craig Ogden (Hyperion)
62. Szymanowski - Symphonies 2 & 4, Concert Overture conducted by Witold Rowicki
63. Stacey Pullen - Today Was The Tomorrow We Were Promised Yesterday
64. TJ Kong & Modular K - Dream Cargoes
65. Orkney - Symphony of The Magnetic North (Full Time Hobby)
66. The Shins - Port Of Morrow
67. Berg - Chamber Concerto, Clarinet Pieces & Clarinet Sonata - Boulez & Barenboim, Ensemble Intercontemporain (DG)
68. Schubert - Symphonies 8 & 9 - Berlin Philharmonic / Karl Bohm (DG)
69. Electric Guest - Mondo
70. Last Days of 1984 - Wake Up To The Waves
71. Dead Mellotron - Glitter (Sonic Cathedral)
72. Toro Y Moi - June 2009 (Car Park)
73. Tom Jones - Spirit In The Room (Island)
74. Dvorak - Zigeunerlieder - Songs & Duets with Genia Kuhmeier, Bernarda Fink and Christoph Berner (Harmonia Mundi)
75. Janacek - Choral Works inc Moravian Choruses - Cappella Amsterdam and Daniel Reuss (Harmonia Mundi)
76. Saint Etienne - Words And Music by Saint Etienne
77. Damon Albarn - Dr. Dee (EMI)
78. Jack White - Blunderbuss (4AD)
79. Slugabed - Time Team (Ninja Tune)
80. 2econd Class Citizen - The Small Minority
81. The Futureheads - Rant
82. Barber - Knoxville, Essays for Orchestra, Adagio with the Atlanta SO conducted by Yoel Levi (Telarc)
83. Best Coast - The Only Place
84. Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood Of Colour
85. Modern Jazz Quartet - Pyramid
86. Howells - Concerto for Strings, 3 Dances, Piano Concerto No.2 - Kathryn Stott, Malcolm Stewart, RLPO / Handley (Hyperion)
87. Danger In Paradise - General Strike
88. Pinch & Shackleton - Pinch & Shackleton (Honest Jons)
89. Beethoven - Bagatelles - Steven Osborne (Hyperion)
90. Purcell - Hail, Bright Cecilia! - Gabrieli Consort & Players / Paul McCreesh (Arkiv)
91. Joubert - String Quartets - Brodsky Quartet (Somm)
92. Nielsen - Symphonies 1 & 2 - Gothenburg SO / Neeme Jarvi (DG)
93. Rolf Hind - Country Dance (Factory)
94. Sidewinder - Resolution (Fenetik)
95. It Hugs Back - Laughing Party
96. Fennesz - Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56' 37 Minus Sixteen Degrees 51'08
97. Foulds - Indian Suite and other orchestral works - BBC Concert Orchestra / Ronald Corp (Dutton)
98. Ives - New England Holidays, Three Places In New England - Baltimore SO & Chorus / David Zinman (Argo)
99. Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
100. Shostakovich - Symphonies 9 & 15 - SWR Symphony Orchestra / Andrey Boreyko (Hanssler)

On the Spirit of Schubert

BBC Radio 3 have just completed another of their music marathons, where they concentrate on the output of one composer alone for a week, maybe more. Previously I have blogged about the 'Genius of Mozart', but now Franz Schubert has had his ten days in the spotlight, with 'The Spirit of Schubert' showing precisely why he is an ideal figure to put under the spotlight.

It bears repeating that Schubert seems to have lived several musical lives in one. His published catalogue by Otto Deutsch runs to nearly a thousand, and the mature examples could almost have been written by a 70-year old, not one who died at the tragically young age of 31 as Schubert did.

Perhaps Schubert's biggest contribution to classical music lies in the world of song, or 'Lied', to name it correctly – yet that is not the focus of this blog, for those works received great advocacy morning, noon and night on the radio. Nor will this piece focus on other hugely important canons such as the symphonies, the string quartets and the choral music – again, music bordering on the revolutionary. No, for me at least, the works making most impact over the ten days were those for piano.

Even within that illustrious list the stars were not the acknowledged mature masterworks, though the last three sonatas once again made their case for being the equal of any Beethoven wrote in the genre. No, the surprise elements were those 'middle' piano sonatas, not often performed in the concert hall, but revealed in the ten days as works possessing great emotion, invention and often humour.

They also showed Schubert's harmonic cunning. Never has a composer shown the aptitude for blurring the distinction between major and minor keys as much as him. A great example can be found not just in the piano sonatas but in the first of the 'Moments Musicaux', a strange utterance that daydreams in its opening melody in C major, but adds a darker afterthought in the minor key, unable to decide which one is the more conclusive. It's that sort of writing that kept Schubert as a composer capable of both darkness and light in the same sentence, leading sometimes to contradiction but often to incisive and balanced thought.

In the later works these thoughts become more outlandish and manic, perhaps nowhere more so than in the second movement of the penultimate piano sonata in A major D959. It helped that BBC Radio 3 had such distinguished pianists as Imogen Cooper and Paul Lewis to help illustrate these points in live events, but the studio recordings were equally well chosen, communicating just what a remarkable composer for the piano Schubert was. Those are the overwhelming memories I shall take with me from the ten day festival, following which I have visited a number of these works again. And who next for Radio 3? Might I suggest a trio of English composers who died in the same year, namely Elgar, Delius and Holst?

A Schubert Spotify playlist, with my highlights from a week's listening, can be found here:

Dvořák string quintets from Berlin

The grainy sound of the double bass makes for a briefly mysterious start to Dvořák’s Op.77 String Quintet. This is a form that the composer mastered, the first to do so since Mendelssohn, and his first mature work in the form predates that of Brahms by seven years. Not only that, but Dvořák was able to work the possibilities of using five stringed instruments, using the conventional instrumenatation of two violins, two violas and cello in his first published work, the A minor quartet Op.1, and also in his later Op.97 work, shot through as it is with old American-inspired melodies.

Op.77, however, is more radical for its inclusion of a double bass, and this new recording from Berlin does it proud. It has all the attributes a successful Dvořák interpretation should have – vibrant rhythms, feeling but not too much sentiment in the slow movement, and a rugged texture in the first movement in particular, with the extra weight offered by the bass section fully exploited. It also inflects Dvořák’s melodies with authentic charm and resoluteness, meaning the performance carries some real substance.

As with much of this composer’s output, the melodies are the strong point, a facet the Berliners never fail to bring home. The motif of two chords that determines the music’s direction in the first movement is well played on each occurrence, the key to each of the sections that follow, while there are some beautiful moments of duet playing between the violinists Thomas Timm and Romano Tommasini. There is a nice heft to the chords in the Scherzo, too, though this is in part checked by a heavy pull on the breaks before the trio, which itself feels a bit slow to start with.

The accompanying pieces include the Nocturne, more often heard for string orchestra. Here it has a lovely weight and poise, not too much on the schmaltz but still beautifully romantic, with softly murmuring inner parts. It is well caught by the engineers, too – close but not too personal.

The only regret is that the quintet miss an opportunity to include Dvořák’s other masterpiece in the form, the Op.97 Quintet in E flat major. Instead we get the Scherzo which makes for a nice complement on the back of the Nocturne in the same key, but feels like short change indeed when the disc ends at just over 45 minutes. There would have been plenty of room to include the full work, despite its different instrumentation – but here the Scherzo is rather pointlessly arranged for the quintet with the bass. Well performed as it is, it feels like a loose end.

Hopefully the Berlin Philharmonic Quintet will redress this balance with a disc of that work and the Op.1 – both of which provide illustrations of an aptitude for string writing that served Dvořák well throughout his compositional career. All the quintets deserve more air time – so this new recording helps that cause!

All about chemistry - Borodin's String Quartets

Borodin is one of those composers whose body of work is small, but whose best known works have deserved status as repertoire staples for decades. That he managed to write at all remains a point of wonder, given his profession as a chemist, but the concert hall is richer every time the symphonies are performed, the opera house likewise in the case of 'Prince Igor' and the chamber music similarly for each hearing of his two string quartets.

Yet there is a real danger that his music could fall unless it is performed more often. In the 1970s and 1980s the Second Symphony was ubiquitous, but now it barely gets a look-in, and its charming companion the First, full of melodic joie de vivre, gets lesser still exposure.
The second string quartet now enjoys a position right at the top of the list, and if anything is now programmed too much by quartets in Britain. This is understandable, for there are so many richly rewarding melodies within its bars – not least for cellists – but it is a shame that the
First is overlooked at its expense, for this too is a rich mine of attractive music.

The lovely way that the Fitzwilliam Quartet captures the slightly demure opening on this reissue from Eloquence sets the tone, the music blossoming into a more assured first movement. Once the transition is made the musical outlook is a sunny, one, with not much weight applied by the Fitzwilliam at all, until the second theme comes in, the cello digging in a bit to its double stopped accompaniment. The theme is one of Borodin's most attractive, moving with chromatic subtleties in the way he is able to do.

The second movement is nearly as successful, though there is quite an uncomfortable noise at 5'19", with a pretty harsh outburst that sounds stretched, even if it does follow the directed ff dynamic. The quartet redeem this in the Scherzo's trio section with a lovely use of the harmonics in the trio, another great example of Borodin's imaginative writing for stringed instruments. The open textures of the finale’s introduction are nicely done too, appropriately rustic.

The second quartet is very well performed, and the balance keen between the players, an important aspect of this work, is secure. Only the recorded sound can compromise enjoyment, the 25 year old recording benefitting from the remastering process but not fully removing the surface area coarseness. Borodin's humour could perhaps come through here more, in the finale in particular where the stop-start nature is a little business like. The famous Notturno, mind, is ideally judged.

For a relatively modest outlay this is a useful pairing to acquire, especially for the first
Borodin quartet, which is a fine and underrated work indeed. While the Borodin Quartet, named after the composer, remain the last word in interpretations of these wonderful works, the Fitzwilliam slot in close behind.

A sight reading app for sore eyes

Picture the scene. You're taking your Grade 5 piano and the exam is going OK so far. You've played one baroque piece fairly monotonously, but probably well enough to pass. You've given the classical piano sonata movement a bit more flair but there were some quite nasty mistakes in the upper right hand. Then you've dashed off the final 20th century piece with an air of celebration totally missing from the first two pieces.

The pass or fail hangs in the balance, then – as it does after some frankly patchy scales and arpeggios. It's time for the bit we all hate – the sight reading. With piano for some reason sight reading is even worse, it being over two staves, and sure enough you're struggling early on and wanting to go back and correct things. How to improve this examination banana skin?

The answer, at long last, appears to have been found. Previously sight reading practice was restricted to a one minute glare at something on paper from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, followed by an attempt to get the two hands playing together in something you might call rhythm. But suddenly that sort of practice has become far more attractive due to a rather clever iPad app. You put the iPad on its side, on the piano music stand, cue up a piece of music according to your standard, set the metronome for the tempo you want to try and perform the music at – and then it counts you in.

Suddenly it all makes sense. The music disappears from the screen as you play it, which makes you think forward as a performer, a notion helped by the priceless Daniel Barenboim quote that "by definition, sight reading means playing bar one with your eyes while your brain is on bar five". The only disadvantage with this is not being able to go back at all and correct anything – naturally – but it means that over a few practice sessions that notion will probably be removed.

The man responsible for this innovation is Dr Christopher Wiltshire, who owns Wessar, the company releasing the app. Himself a former examiner, Wiltshire jokes that he initially developed the app to relieve the pain experienced by his colleagues in test conditions, but the benefits to pupils are obvious and immense, beyond the obvious short term gain of passing your exam.

Wessar will soon develop the app for other, 'single line' instruments, and can claim a comfortable victory with its first instrumental instalment. It's surprisingly involving, and sight reading – which was easily bottom of the class in the six exam 'movements' – moves strongly towards the top. It's an example of how music and technology can be used together for good – and those painful sight reading parts of the exam, which, as you may have guessed, was my own, could soon be consigned to the memory dump.

The Richest of 3-course Meals

For the second time, David McVicar's production of Richard Strauss's three act comedy Der Rosenkavalier comes to London and the ENO, bringing with it fantastically opulent sets, beautiful soprano singing and a grade one rogue in John Tomlinson. But what of the music itself, presented to London audiences for the first time a mere 99 years ago?

One thing is for certain - Der Rosenkavalier is one of the composer's most popular works, even when taking into account the symphonic poems. Its frequent use of the waltz is ironic, given the unrelated Strauss family and their unprecedented success with the form in 1860s Vienna, but here Richard works it very cleverly so that each use of the distinctive rhythmic form is incorporated into his own style.

For Der Rosenkavalier is musically rich, so rich that many people at last Saturday's first night were mentally exhausted by the time the three sopranos, Sarah Connelly, Sophie Bevan and Amanda Roocroft, floated in to the trio with which the opera closes. The reason for this is wholly down to Strauss, who fills his musical box of chocolates almost to saturation point. Often there will be two very different melodies going on at once, interweaving within the same range – so following them using the libretto proves very difficult as the similar voice types get tangled up. It's a mark of the composer's genius that he can work several tunes simultaneously without losing track of any of them, and even then if you were to remove the lines for voices altogether the writing for orchestra would suffice.

This, too, is rich, tapping in to the extravagance of the symphonic poems Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel. But although Der Rosenkavalier is seen as a light, frothy comedy, and the treble rich music bears that out, there is a certain heaviness to it, the sort that comes from too much champagne or an overindulgence on the cherry brandy liquors. The horns – brilliantly played on this occasion by the members of the ENO orchestra – have a lot of the best tunes, as they do in the symphonic poems – but Strauss's very particular kind of orchestral colouring means they are brought through at the top of the pile.

The only trouble with this densely packed music is listening to it for four hours – as the title of this post suggests, it is akin to eating the richest of three course meals in a fine hotel, and having chocolates afterwards. The head can only take so much – yet there is much to savour and recall at length afterwards. Moments such as when Sophie Bevan hits the high 'B' when the rose is presented to her – a floated note worth the evening's outing alone – or when Sarah Connolly and Amanda Roocroft declare their various passions in the opening act.

It's the first act this proves the most difficult where the movement of the plot is concerned, the story slow to catch fire, but the second act gathers pace and interest. The waltz scenes are delightful, helped by Tomlinson's ham-fisted dancing as the rogue, the Baron Ochs of Lerchenau, and the presentation of the rose itself from Connolly's Octavian to Bevan's Sophie is the most obviously, truly beautiful music here. For sure, Der Rosenkavalier is well worth seeing, but should come with a health warning of what musical overindulgence can bring. You'll be craving bread and water afterwards!

Prokofiev - Man of the People?

So runs the title of a two week festival dedicated to the composer and headed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, using the South Bank as its hub. The question posed is a pertinent one, as festival director Vladimir Jurowski looks in to Prokofiev;s output in fine detail, largely shunning the crowd pleasers in favour of some of the more supposedly 'difficult' corners of his published works.

Jurowski's point is a valid one, that the composer of Romeo and Juliet (recently encountered for the first time by viewers of The Apprentice!) has a lot more up his sleeve than the strongly melodic style we already know and love. Whether public exposure to works such as the Second Symphony or the music to Chout will change consciousness remains to be seen, but the attendance for the second of four orchestral concerts in the Royal Festival Hall indicated a keen interest.

Topping the bill for this work was the Sixth Symphony, of which more later, but first there was the relatively awkward lyricism of the Symphonic Song. This 15-minute work seemed to fall between forms, a lettercard rather than a postcard, one whose most attractive moments were sweet but also one whose section of conflict was more industrial and discordant. The final 'achievement' rang rather hollow as a result, but the feeling remained that this was a work Prokofiev needed to write to ease his transition from the avant-garde works of 1920s Paris to red blooded ballet scores such as Romeo & Juliet and Cinderella.

Formally the Fifth Piano Concerto was stranger still, cast in five movements and possessing some oddly oblique melodies, ones that shouldn't work – but which somehow remained in the head throughout the interval. The balance between piano and orchestra worked well here, with Steven Osborne an undemonstrative soloist while the barbed dialogue between piano, woodwind and percussion was at its height. The final Toccata summed things up succinctly, a helter-skelter dash to the finish that crashed in to a wall at the same time as the harmony reached G major. It was a strange but effective end, the sort of signing off Prokofiev does rather well, yet on this occasion it was one that puzzled and pleased the audience in equal measure.

After this slightly uncomfortable but strangely uplifting exuberance we entered a completely different emotional world for the Sixth Symphony, a work written in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. This is arguably Prokofiev's finest symphonic achievement, even with the carefree Classical and resilient Fifth symphonies taken into account.

The chilly disposition of the opening is slightly melted by a theme whose roots appear to be in chant, inviting parallels with Rachmaninov's almost obsessive use of the Dies Irae melody but making a strongly elegiac impression. Around this the colouring of brass and wind in particular are highly original, and the London Philharmonic trombones and tubas were superb, conveying their lines as if they were anguished cries of torment. The piano, too, lends a sharper edge to the music, adding extra punch to the rhythms.

Jurowski was rather cool in the first two movements, especially in the Largo second movement where some freedom with the tempo would have heightened the expression of what is already a powerful, fraught melody. The finale however carried maximum impact, its opening theme one of Prokofiev’s delightful flights of fancy but one that finally turns sour. When it did the full power of the orchestra could be unleashed, the impact a sudden slap in the face for the earlier forced jollity. In this single gesture, the culmination of a pot boiling over with repressed feeling, Prokofiev shows himself to be a man of the people indeed, expressing in full the torment felt in the immediate aftermath of war.

William Steinberg – The Disciplined Maestro Conductor

William Steinberg is one of the understated conductors of the 20th century,, known principally nowadays for an outstanding version of The Planets he recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon in 1970. Of the non-English interpretations of the piece it stands as a remarkable achievement, and his understanding of the music and orchestration almost without parallel.

So it comes as a welcome change to be talking about the conductor's other achievements, with a substantial body of recorded work for EMI that has just been remastered and released in a box of 20 CDs, much of it made available for the first time. It explores Steinberg's relationship with another American orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, begun in the early 1950s and maintained for nigh on 20 years.

The revealing booklet note, penned by Mark Kluge, reveals Steinberg as a relatively introverted soul, yet one who had the ultimate respect of his orchestra, as they regularly played their hearts out for him and formed a strong reputation of their own. Steinberg gained a reputation as someone who concentrated on the music alone, which sounds an obvious point to make, but where a lot of conductors of that time sought to impose their own personalities on the music, it is a value that Steinberg should communicate the music in a very human way.

As a result his Beethoven speaks very directly, and is helped on this set by recordings that are impressively clear despite their age of almost 60 years. The Eroica is lean and muscular, the Eighth is performed with a smile and the Violin Concerto and Emperor match their soloists Nathan Milstein and Rudolf Firkusny respectively. Milstein's sweet tone is an ideal complement to the orchestra’s earthy sound in concertos from Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Glazunov, while the forthright Firkusny teams up for a magisterial account of Brahms' First Piano Concerto.

Two of Steinberg's favourite composers, the Richards Strauss and Wagner, are well represented, the former by sparkling renditions of Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, the latter in a disc of finely judged operatic excerpts. Earlier recordings of classical works also feature, with early 1950s Schubert, Haydn and Mozart performed in a 'big band' style that nevertheless allows plenty of room for grace. Mahler's daughter expressed her preference for Steinberg's account of the First Symphony over Bruno Walter – and here we get to find out why, with an exuberant reading full of lust for life, the composer's sense of the outdoors fully realised.

Steinberg, as is evident from his Planets recording, held great affinity with English music, and tucked away in this set are unusual recordings of Vaughan Williams' Five Tudor Portraits and the Tallis Fantasia, not to mention an account of Elgar's Enigma Variations. Another composer Steinberg went against the grain to champion was Paul Hindemith, and though his best recordings remain for DG the version of the Mathis der Maler symphony here is a treat. Bloch's punchy Concerto Grosso no.1 and Toch’s experimental Third Symphony are other standout points.

It is completely fitting, then, that a conductor respected by Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwangler and Leonard Bernstein should finally get his own chance to shine, proper recognition at last for one of the 20th century's finest and most reverential conductors.