Awards,
BBC Music Magazine Awards 2016: Shortlist
The nominations are just in for this year's BBC Music Magazine Awards, with a potential long-list of over 200 five-star recordings from the past twelve months now whittled down to 21 finalists (three contenders in seven categories).
You can browse the short-list and listen to snippets of the discs below; to place your vote (and, if you're a UK customer, to be entered into the prize-draw) visit the magazine's website here (voting closes 19th February). The winners will be announced in a ceremony in London on 5th of April.
Instrumental
'It’s very hard to put into words why this recording is so special. One of the finest Baroque cellists at last commits to disc great works he’s lived with for many years, knowing as he does so that these are his last recordings (Watkin suffers from a chronic skin condition relating to his fingers, preventing him from playing). This is inspirational solo Bach of the highest order, intimate and exalted, and it’s a profoundly moving achievement.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
'András Schiff’s Schubert has always been revelatory: the Hungarian pianist’s Central European instinct for Schubert’s language and, especially, for the song elements within his piano writing, has always provided rich insight. But, turning to Schubert’s sonatas on the fortepiano has liberated Schiff into a new lightness of being, opening up compelling areas of fantasy in the composer’s work.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chamber
'The Pavel Haas Quartet have already set new standards with their Janácek and Dvorák. Now it’s the turn of fellow countryman Smetana, and once again the results are outstanding. Playing of real intensity and vivid detail brings out the drama and intimacy of these two highly personal quartets, and the musicians’ innate understanding for the Czech composer’s idiom shapes every nuance. It’s hard to imagine these recordings being bettered.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
'Grażyna Bacewicz is the great unsung heroine of post-war Polish music, a brilliant, individual composer who kept the art of the string quartet vividly alive during the bleakest years of Communist rule. The brilliant young Lutosławskis are captivating in the dancing wistfulness of her first, folk-inflected quartet, the questing, inventive grace of the 1960s works and the irresistible vivacity of No. 3.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Charles I’s favourite composer, William Lawes, killed at the siege of Chester, shows us why the monarch thought so well of him. The music contains adventurous harmonies, infectious dances, humorous twists and captivating colours, and it’s all brought brilliantly to life by the ensemble Phantasm, their sumptuous playing framed by an effortlessly revealing recording. Lawes thoroughly deserves it; this is essential and revelatory.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Concerto
Prokofiev & Shostakovich: Cello Concertos
Steven Isserlis (cello), Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Paavo Järvi
'Prokofiev’s Cello Concerto, completed during the height of Stalin’s Terror in 1938, is here revealed as a great and much underestimated masterpiece. Steven Isserlis is the compelling soloist in this powerful performance, with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the ever-attentive Paavo Järvi, realising the striking inventiveness of Prokofiev’s orchestration.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Tchaikovsky & Prokofiev: Piano Concertos
Kirill Gerstein (piano), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, James Gaffigan
'This recording of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto replaces the inauthentic bombast of the familiar final-published score with the composer’s favoured version. From the soloist’s first entry, sensitively performed by Kirill Gerstein, we discover a lyrical, intimate work, belying its reputation as a hackneyed warhorse.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Brecon Baroque, founded by Rachel Podger in 2007, illuminates Vivaldi’s score in a benchmark performance. In its day, L’estro armonico (‘Harmonic Inspiration’) took Europe by storm, showing how string players could outbid opera singers in their expressiveness. To listen to this recording is to enter a brilliant, delicate dialogue between the finest artists.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Orchestral
'It can sometimes take a Finnish musician to hear afresh, and to bring new insight into German repertoire. The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and Sakari Oramo have renewed the sheer surprise factor in these wonderful little 18th-century symphonies, unleashing the ‘bold and imaginative’ character which struck their early listeners so forcibly.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
'Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s excellent Nielsen symphony cycle shines with particular lustre in their account of the two least-known works. Both are performed with compelling symphonic purpose, No. 1 with a spring in its step and considerable charm and grandeur, while No. 3 has vigour and atmosphere.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Richard Strauss: Symphonia Domestica & Die Tageszeiten
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Choir, Marek Janowski
'There are revelations aplenty in this pairing of Strauss’s often overlooked Symphonia Domestica with the virtually unknown Die Tageszeiten. Janowski’s fresh approach brings out the detail and the drama of the Symphonia, while the Berlin Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra are in sublime form for the gorgeous Die Tageszeiten.'
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Choral
Anne Boleyn’s Songbook
Clare Wilkinson (voice), Jacob Heringman (lute) & Kirsty Whatley (harp) Alamire, David Skinner
'This inspired project reveals a world of public splendour and private melancholy. In the ill-fated queen’s personal playlist are English songs, French chansons, intimate instrumental gems and glorious polyphony from Josquin and Mouton. Alamire achieve a warm, robust sound, while Clare Wilkinson sings the final 'O Deathe rock me asleep' with haunting pathos.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Brahms & Bruckner: Motets
Mark Templeton (trombone), Helen Vollam (trombone), Patrick Jackman (trombone), Alexander Mason (organ), Tenebrae, Nigel Short
'Don’t be fooled by the compact dimensions of Bruckner’s motets. They have lofty symphonic ambitions, and Tenebrae and its enterprising conductor Nigel Short match their demands with an ease and economy that’s rarely heard, from the deepest bass to the soaring sopranos. Majestic Brahms, too, with immense power, huge dynamic range and ringing intonation.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
'Be dazzled by Taverner’s astonishing festal mass featuring stratospheric trebles in this recording from Arundel Castle. The Tallis sopranos capture the bright transparency of boys’ voices with impressive precision, creating ethereal effects above a flexible cantus firmus. In Phillips’s hands the mass unfolds with slow, radiant grandeur: a celestial feast for the ears.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res+ FLAC
Vocal
'As a subject for an opera, Agrippina was the Carmen of the 18th century – beautiful, ruthless, bewitching and power-hungry, her story inspired composers from Handel to Sammartini. Embracing this music, much of it recorded for the first time, the riveting Ann Hallenberg brings Agrippina to gripping life.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Green - Melodies françaises on Verlaine’s poems
Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor), Jerome Ducros (piano) & Nathalie Stutzmann (contralto) Quatuor Ebène
'This labour of love from Philippe Jaroussky is a beautifully conceived and wonderfully sung collection. Jaroussky collates song settings of Verlaine, that most musical of poets, from composers as diverse as Debussy, Massenet, Charles Trenet and Varèse, along with charming rarities in an enticing treasure-trove.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Beethoven: Lieder & Bagatellen
Christoph Berner (fortepiano J. B. Streicher, 1847), Werner Güra (tenor)
'Beethoven’s heart and mind is uncovered as his song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte is put within the context of an interleaving of the composer’s songs and bagatelles. Werner Güra’s beautifully enunciated tenor recreates the spiritual struggle in Beethoven’s songs, and Christoph Berner’s fearless playing, as accompanist and soloist, sets the songs into new and thrilling relief.'
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Opera
Barry, G: The Importance of Being Earnest
Barbara Hannigan (Cecily), Peter Tantsits (Jack Worthing), Joshua Bloom (Algernon), Katalin Károlyi (Gwendoline), Hilary Summers (Miss Prism), Alan Ewing (Lady Bracknell), Benjamin Bevan (Lane/Merriman), Joshua Hart (Dr Chasuble) BCMG, Thomas Adès
'It’s impossible to resist Gerald Barry’s riotous adaptation of Wilde’s comic play, especially with these performers. By throwing everything in the air, with a dizzyingly sequence of musical styles, borrowings and invention, Barry captures and enhances the essence of this perfect farce to create an inspired opera.'
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame
Misha Didyk (Herman), Tatiana Serjan (Lisa), Larissa Diadkova (Countess), Alexey Shishlyaev (Tomskij and Plutus), Alexey Markov (Yeletzki) Kinderchor der Bayerischen Staatsoper & Chor and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons
'This is a supremely skilful recording of an exciting live performance. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is beautifully shaped and pin-sharp and the singers are vivid and characterful. The chorus is impressive, too, with a sophisticated sound that oozes drama.'
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
