Bach's Musical Offering, from Bratislava

J.S. Bach's Musikalisches Opfer BWV 1079 is a bit of a strange beast. A collection of canons and fugues on a Ricerar theme, Bach left no order for the pieces, nor any indication of instrumentation. The whole lasts for just under one hour and makes for delightful listening. I listened to it by the Czech group Capella Istropolitana, a small breakaway group from the Czech Philharmonic directed from the cello by Christian Benda with a flute and violin also playing. A harpsichord is listed but, fortunately, rarely seems to be audible. The recording dates from distant 1993 and is still excellent listening. Company is Naxos, of course, and the recording was made in Bratislava. It was in Bratislava, long ago, that I ate in a restaurant offering wild boar in game sauce. Only the menu translated it as “savage pig in wild custard”. I ate the savage pig, none the less.

 

Ning Feng and the Paganini Caprices

I appear to have some eighteen different recordings of the 24 Capricci by Niccolò Paganini. I added a new one by the Chinese violinist, Ning Feng, since I greatly admire his playing. Feng is a top virtuoso on the violin and, of course, the Paganini caprices come out note-perfect. I admired Feng's virtuosity, but also his wide dynamic range and his ability to make the caprices interesting musically, as well as extreme virtuosic. There is a wide dynamic range in both playing and recording. The tricky sixth caprice is whispered as is the first theme of the twentieth. Solo violins can be tricky to record, but the Dutch engineers here have done well, with the violin at an intelligent distance from the recording microphones. So far, so excellent.

My only negative thought with Feng's superb playing is with his violin on this recording. There are some truly excellent modern violins around, but the violin by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (2017) is not one of them. It sounds scrawny at times, and lacks sonority throughout the range, sounding a bit new and unbroken-in, needing another decade or so of daily exercise. Feng might even have done better had he borrowed my violin.

Well, eighteen different recordings of the Capricci is probably quite enough, though if the rumour that Alina Ibragimova is also recording them is true, I might have to stop at nineteen. I recently admired the versions by two more young violinists, Augustin Hadelich, and Sueye Park. Enough is enough!

Bach's "48" with Edwin Fischer

I have just completed a journey of nearly four hours through Bach's 48 Preludes & Fugues. Music that is endlessly fascinating, endlessly varied, and endlessly satisfying. Bach knew what he was doing when he wrote the 48 so they fitted comfortably on four CDs; apart from anything else, this enables the listener to approach the music in four chunks of around one hour each. The 48 do not fit well into live concert performances, which is probably why pianists play just a small selection of the total. The works show Bach's love of fugues, polyphony, counterpoint, and sheer inventiveness. After I had finished listening to the 48^th Prelude and Fugue, my reaction was to cry “More! More!”

My guide throughout the four hours was Edwin Fischer, recorded in 1933-4. A rough calculation shows that in those days, the whole work would have required around 50 sides of 78 rpm disks. Fischer had a lovely touch on the keyboard, and brought a wide range of dynamics to the set. For me, it's an all-time classic for satisfying listening, and I do not contemplate finding a competitive performance.

Nearly 90 years on, the sound of Fischer's playing is still perfectly acceptable in the Naxos transfers I was listening to. Where would we music lovers be without Naxos? Bravo Johann Sebastian Bach, Edwin Fischer, and Naxos!

The Grumiaux Trio in Beethoven and Mozart

“Civilised” is the only appropriate adjective for the latest CD plucked from my archives, where the Grumiaux Trio is recorded at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1966 by the SWR radio station in Stuttgart. The music is eminently civilised: early Beethoven (the string trio opus 9 number 1 by early Beethoven, the duo for violin and viola K 423 by Mozart, and the divertimento K563 by Mozart). Each one of the high points of the 18^th classical tradition.

For me, Arthur Grumiaux was one of the three great violinists of the 20^th century (on the podium with Kreisler and Heifetz). A suave, meticulous violinist with an immaculate virtuoso technique that enabled him to play anything and everything, Grumiaux carried the flame of the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing. Never a constantly-touring virtuoso, Grumiaux travelled little outside Europe and appears to have rejoiced especially in playing chamber music with chosen colleagues.

This current CD comes from SWR Music, distributed by Hänssler Classic. As I have remarked before, Grumiaux live is often even better than Grumiaux in the studio. In the current world, it's a rare and necessary treat to be able to bask in 18^th musical civilisation for an hour or so. Musically, I appear to be stuck for the time being in the 18^th century. There are worse places to be.

Joyce DiDonato, Sandrine Piau, and Handel

I have hundreds of recordings of the music of Handel and Bach. During the current long Covid lockdown, they are a great comfort. They include an immense library of recordings of Handel's music – duets, cantatas, operas, and oratorios, as well as many recordings of excerpts, particularly of opera arias. Ditto a library of Bach recordings, plus many others of 18th-century music (including that of Purcell who died in 1695 at the age of 36). The 18^th century with Bach, Handel, Pergolesi, Vivaldi, the Scarlattis, Rameau, Haydn and Mozart has become, at the moment, my listening period of choice. A pity about all those 19^th and 20th-century composers for the moment, until my tastes change again and the wind swings round to the 19^th century.

Stars of my listening have been Sandrine Piau and Joyce DiDonato. Piau has an angelic voice (although her diction isn't great). DiDonato has a highly dramatic mezzo-soprano voice, with excellent diction. Together they make a fine pair of contrasted listening, even in much of the same music. Is there any more heartbreaking air in the whole of music than Purcell's “Dido's Lament”? Joyce DiDonato (with Il Pomo d'Oro) sings it most movingly, as she does Handel's “Lascia ch'io pianga” from Rinaldo. Sandrine Piau in arias from Handel's Opera Seria (Naïve, 2004 with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset) gives us twelve Handel arias to complement her previous Handel CD “Between Heaven and Earth” that I wrote about enthusiastically a short while ago. DiDonato's CD of “In War and Peace”, an Erato CD from 2016, recorded in the South Tyrol, makes for over an hour of happy listening. Bach and Handel spent a lot of care over their accompanying orchestras, featuring different colours. Since singers can be a pretty unreliable lot, subject to colds and sniffles, it made sense to ensure that the band could always play up with interesting music to distract from vocal foibles. The band members would have been a pretty known quantity, whilst singers varied according to the season. It is important in a performance, then, that the band be given equal prominence with the singers. Too many recording producers, on the evidence of many I have been listening to, follow the pop music norm of lead singer with a big microphone up-front, whilst the “backing group” shares a small microphone towards the back. Not good, in Bach and Handel. Joyce DiDonato's recording of “In War and Peace” shows how it should be done. Airs and arias by Handel, Purcell and a few others are beautifully sung, beautifully accompanied, and beautifully balanced by the recording engineers.

To end this enthusiastic write-up on a scowling note: A burst of crass American commercialism by Erato (Warner). The makers of DiDonato's dress, jewellery, and make-up are all listed. On a CD liner note! No one tells us where Maxim Emelyanychev (the conductor) bought his shoes, nor to which barber he reported. Not a word about who made Handel's and Purcell's wigs. We need to know these things.

Beethoven's Violin Concerto -- and Antje Weithaas

Ludwig van Beethoven's one and only concerto for violin and orchestra is something of a strange beast. Written in 1806, it is stranded between classical, 18^th century concertos, and the romantic, 19^th century. Beethoven was not a violinist, and his concerto is very much for violin and orchestra. It can be played as a left-over from the 18^th century, or as a precursor of the 19^th. For me, it makes sense as a concerto written in 1799 + 7, which may be why I almost always prefer it played by classical German violinists such as: Erich Röhn, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Georg Kulenkampff, Adolf Busch, Katrin Scholz ... and a few others among the 87 on my shelf.

I currently have 87 recordings of the concerto, having evicted many. Violinists on my shelves begin, alphabetically, with Kristof Barati, and end with Frank Peter Zimmermann. Today I listened to it played by Antje Weithaas, a classical German violinist, if ever there were one. The Sinfonieorchester Leipzig was conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, and the performance (off-air) took place in the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 10^th February 2019. The first movement was played as a true allegro (ma non troppo). The balance between violin and orchestra was excellent, and this was a concerto for violin and orchestra (such as the one with Erich Röhn and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Furtwängler). All kudos to Mäkelä and the Leipzigers. The performance would have earned my three stars, were it not for the cadenzas throughout (including the first movement). After Beethoven, composers learned to supervise cadenzas (Mendelssohn with David, Brahms with Joachim, Khachaturian and Shostakovich with Oistrakh). Beethoven left no violin cadenzas, so we are at the mercy of fashion, novelty, and notoriety. If I had the energy, I'd re-burn the Weithaas CD to put the cadenzas on separate tracks so I could press “skip” each time.

Andras Schiff: "Music Comes Out Of Silence"

Books about music by eminent musicians are rare. Books about music are usually written by amateurs, journalists, critics, or academic musicologists. A refreshing glass of water from an eminent musician is the book “Music comes out of Silence” by the Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff. Schiff is a celebrated pianist, but I know his playing only from a recording in a Brahms piano quintet (with the Takacs Quartet). No views on his playing, but I loved his book and find it engrossing reading. Excellent ideas on cadenzas, “original instruments”, pianos versus harpsichords and clavichords. On most pages he has me nodding in agreement. The book is interspersed, interestingly, with his views on modern Hungarian politics, and on growing up in a Jewish community in Hungary during the 1950s and 60s, and in the communist state for many years thereafter.

Schiff, born in Budapest in 1953, is roughly of my generation (albeit a decade or so younger) so we share many of the same experiences and views as to conductors and instrumentalists. Schiff is a devotee, above all, of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (with a few oddities such as Schumann, Mendelssohn and Bartok). His views are stimulating and thoughtful and we usually agree: “does anyone really enjoy 75 minutes of harpsichord playing?” when discussing Bach's Goldberg Variations. Many of his youthful heroes such as the Busch String Quartet, and Otto Klemperer, are also my youthful heroes, and I was interested to read that he, like me, grew up in the 1950s with a 78 rpm set of the Mendelssohn violin concerto played by Yehudi Menuhin (with George Enescu conducting). Halfway through reading his book, I looked out Edwin Fischer's recording of Bach's 48 Preludes & Fugues, and they will be next in my CD player. Interesting books get you thinking and reminiscing. My interest piqued by Schiff's thoughts on Bach's Goldberg Variation, I have ordered a CD of the work recorded by him and I'll see how it checks out against my current favourite (Beatrice Rana). Reading between the lines, I sense that Schiff and I agree on thumbs down concerning Glenn Gould in the Goldbergs. We both appear to agree, however, on the absolute pre-eminence of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is a little more pro-Beethoven than I am, but that may be down to him being a pianist. We both agree on Mozart and Schubert though, again as a pianist, Georg Frideric Händel does not get much space in Schiff's reminiscing, and we have to disagree on Bela Bartok (but Schiff is a Hungarian, after all). He appears to be a less enamoured of the music of Rachmaninov and Shostakovich than I am, but maybe again that's because he is Hungarian and they were Russians.

As I started off by saying: stimulating and thoughtful books by practising musicians are rare. “Music comes out of Silence” by Andras Schiff is a laudable exception and makes stimulating reading for music lovers, as well as for pianists and keyboard players.

Sandrine Piau in Handel: "Between Heaven and Earth"

My long-serving Marantz CD Player went kaput when the CD tray refused consistently to open, and I was left during lockdown with around 1000 CDs and no means of listening to them. Utter frustration. Ebay supplied a replacement Marantz within two days; removing the old player, and installing the new, was easy but both needed me to lie on the floor on my stomach: and then to get to my feet again afterwards. Easy when you are 18 years old; perilous when you are 80.

 I celebrated the new player with Handel; a superb CD titled “Between Heaven and Earth”, with arias and recitatives in English sung by the wonderful honeyed soprano of Sandrine Piau, one of my all-time favourite singers. The Accademia Bizanta supplied the accompaniments, with some orchestral interludes. Excellent recording by Naïve. Gold-standard music for 77 minutes, with wonderful melodies, wonderful singing, and excellent instrumentalists. Handel's music is still going strong after some 220 years, and deservedly so.

 

Stars of 2020

I became interested in “classical” music at the age of around 10 years old, coming from a musical family. Since then, I have listened to music for around 70 years and now have a current collection of around 1,000 CDs, replacing my previous collection of hundreds of LPs. Most of my listening is to recordings of the past, favourites over many decades, such as the Busch Quartet from the 1930s. But, occasionally, a new classic pops up on my personal radar. My two classics from 2020 were:

Vikingur Olafsson playing short pieces, preludes and fugues by Bach. And Olaffson playing an imaginative selection of short pieces by Rameau and Debussy.

Renaud Capuçon with Bertrand Chamayou and Edgar Moreau in chamber music and sonatas by Saint-Saëns.

Three CDs that have given me immense pleasure, and are never filed away on my shelves with the other 1,000.

The Chamber Music of Camille Saint-Saëns. With Renaud Capuçon and Bertrand Chamayou

The sonata for violin and piano No.1 in D minor Op 75 of Camille Saint-Saëns has long been a favourite of mine (as it was a favourite of Jascha Heifetz). The sonata is beautifully written, passionate and melodic, and it is difficult to understand its comparative neglect by violinists who usually trot out yet more performances of the Franck, Debussy and Ravel sonatas. I have been listening to the sonata on a recent CD by the French violinist Renaud Capuçon, ably partnered by Bertrand Chamayou; a truly excellent performance of a work that benefits greatly from the sophisticated playing of violinists from the Franco-Belgian school of playing. (Heifetz, of course, was a chameleon who could expertly adapt his playing to the French repertoire. He recorded this sonata twice in his career, both recordings excellent, and those are the versions I grew up with).

It is difficult to understand the comparative neglect of the music of Saint-Saëns. His “Organ Symphony” is trotted out from time to time, as is his Carnival of the Animals. He wrote a great deal of music during his long life (1835-1921) and much of it, like this sonata, is truly first class. But one does not come across it often. The CD continues with the better known substantial trio for violin, cello and piano No.2 in E minor Op 92. A lovely work in five movements where Capuçon and Chamayou are joined by the cellist, Edgar Moreau (what happened to Gautier Capuçon?) Also on the 75 minute CD is the sonata for cello and piano No.1 in C minor Op 32, a work I have never heard before in my entire life. I'll save it for later, not being especially partial to cello and piano sonatas.

Like Arthur Grumiaux in the previous century, Renaud Capuçon is a major violinist who really comes into his own in chamber music. This CD (Erato) is expertly recorded and balanced; balancing a violin, cello and piano is not easy. The CD is warmly recommended to lovers of chamber music, fine music, and the playing of three expert instrumentalists. Not a CD that I will file away; I'll keep it near at hand.

More Emile Sauret from Nazrin Rashidova

Emile Sauret is best known for his fiendish cadenza for the Paganini D major violin concerto. His 24 études-caprices Op.64 are little known: until Nazrin Rashidova came along and she has now recorded all 24 in four volumes. Four and a half hours of solo violin playing.

There is a lot of double-stopping in these études-caprices. Each lasts for around 12-15 minutes, and Sauret was obviously a stickler for intonation, and for varied and versatile bowing. Etude 21 lasts for 15 minutes and is double-stopped throughout. The works will fascinate aficionados of violin playing; in general, they are less overtly virtuosic and have less “circus tricks” than comparable pieces by Paganini or Heinrich Ernst. I can think of no criticism of Ms Rashidova's playing. For the current volume, she again plays a Stradivari of around 1685 that once belonged to Sauret.

Congratulations and thanks to Ms Rashidova, and also to courageous Naxos. Where would lovers of classical music be without companies such as Naxos, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, and others. Ms Rashidova wrote the excellent liner notes for this release, and also co-produced the (excellent) recording. Quite a talented young woman; she looks attractive (from the one photo Naxos features) so thank goodness she did not record for Warner or DG where 8-10 photos of her would be plastered throughout the booklet. Naxos's cover features a large picture of .... Emile Sauret.

Christmas 1948

Things would start around October when my mother would assemble the ingredients for The Christmas Pudding. We children were all invited to stir the mixture, into which were incorporated sixpenny pieces (unwashed). The puddings were then boiled overnight for eight hours, with the family on alert to ensure the puddings never boiled dry. On the 24^th December, two chickens were selected from the bottom of the garden to suffer the ultimate penalty. My father tried to kill the two by tying their necks in knots, but the chickens broke free and ran squawking around the room. Mr Pooley, the local butcher, was summoned and dispatched the two fowls with a blow to their necks. My mother then plucked them, decapitated them, and cleaned out their entrails, watched by her appalled children. On 25^th, the family settled down to a Christmas dinner (food, at last!) and devoured the chickens, the vegetables, and the “custard” with the Christmas pudding.

Fast forward to 2020 ......

Sigiswald Kuijken and the Bach Brandenburgs

Having much enjoyed listening to Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande during my traversal of Bach cantatas, I decided to invest in La Bande and Kuijken in the Brandenburgs (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 1993-4). Bach's music needs expert players, and a well-balanced recording so that the many parts of Bach's polyphony can be heard and enjoyed. This Kuijken set conforms to those requirements. In particular, with Kuijken in charge, the frequent important solo violin input (for example, in the 4^th Brandenburg) can be enjoyed. Tempi in this set can be somewhat brisk (for example, in the final movement of the third Brandenburg), but I was never unduly disturbed.

One oddity of the set is that there is no trumpet in the second Brandenburg; a horn is used instead. I can't say I am unduly bothered nor, I suspect would Bach had been; he was always varying instrumentation and vocal parts according to what performers were available for the occasion. And, secretly, I prefer the sound of the horn (“Clarintrompette”) in chamber music, where a traditional trumpet is a bit strident and does not blend well with the other chamber instruments. For the “missing” second movement of the third Brandenburg, where Bach just left just two cadential chords, Kuijken offers a short solo violin flourish before the chords. Personally, I prefer Kati Debretzeni's improvisation in the Pinnock recording, but almost anything is better than just playing the two chords; better to omit them altogether and just go into the last movement unless one is going to insert something tasteful and appropriate. The first and third movements of no.5 dance along impressively and, for once, the harpsichord is well-balanced and not too dominant. The slow movement has some lovely duet playing, particularly the violin playing of Sigiswald himself. Sigiswald is ably aided throughout the set by his extraordinary brothers: Barthold (recorder and flute) and Wieland (cello). An all-star family.

Well, that is probably the end of my Brandenburg listening for a few months. They are, however, eternally enjoyable and I never grow tired of listening to them, particularly if the recording is well played, well-balanced and one can hear all the parts. Nearly 70 years ago when I first met them, the Brandenburgs were the province of large symphony orchestras. At least some things in music are done better nowadays.

Yet More Shostakovich

 Hiding away in lockdown, unable to travel anywhere, I tuck into my favourite (easily available) foods: scallops, mussels, and fresh squid. Forget soles and crabs; England does not boast many venues that sell these two. And my listening choices are narrowing. With many, many hundreds of CDs to choose from on my shelves, I now rarely buy additions – though if someone would like a few hundred cast-offs, please contact me. My current narrowed listening preferences centre increasingly on the music of two composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

The former is self-evident; the latter a bit of a mystery. Why Shostakovich and not, for example, Vaughan Williams, or Prokofiev? Whatever; my two CD additions are Shostakovich's piano quintet (of which I now have eight versions), Shostakovich's Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, and Shostakovich's late violin sonata. Dmitri is raking in the royalties. The Blok Seven Romances appear rarely in recordings, probably because they need a piano trio and a soprano who can sing in Russian. This is totally unjust, since they are meticulously crafted and make engrossing listening even if, like me, one does not speak Russian. The piano quintet is played by the augmented Trio Wanderer; it sounds good (Harmonia Mundi) and is probably at least the equal of my other seven versions. The Blok songs are sung (with members of the trio) by Ekaterina Semenchuk; I have no comparisons to make, but all seems to go well and I listened with great enjoyment. This is late Shostakovich (Opus 127).

More late Shostakovich on my second CD purchase: the late (Opus 134) sonata for violin and piano really well played and recorded. Both the violinist (Natalia Prishepenko) and pianist (the late Dina Ugorskaja) are new to me. They make an excellent duo and, for a change, violin and piano are well balanced. The CD also contains Sergei Prokofiev's first violin and piano sonata, a work understandably much recorded and superior to the Shostakovich sonata; late Shostakovich is often somewhat threadbare and meagre.

Back to this evening's meal: Saucisson de porc de l'Ardèche, and ... scallops (salt, pepper, garlic, and olive oil). My “house wine” is now a red from the region of Carcassonne (where I spent many happy days with two friends in September of this year). And Bach's cantata BWV 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen. Happy lockdown.

Bach's Brandenburg Concertos

A few years ago, I visited Schloss Köthen (not too far from Berlin) with one of my sisters, in a kind of Bach pilgrimage. Bach worked in Köthen from 1717 to 1723 as Hofkapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, and much of his instrumental music, including the six Brandenburg concertos, dates from that era.

I have seven sets of the Brandenburgs on record. Busch and the Busch Chamber Orchestra (1935) and Klemperer and the Philharmonia (1960) are personal favourites, since I greatly respect both Busch and Klemperer in Bach. Menuhin and the Bath Festival Orchestra (1959) have a sentimental value, since I was at a concert in the Festival Hall in London and heard them play all the Brandenburgs (with Menuhin making a real cat's breakfast of the violino piccolo part in the first Brandenburg). Richter and the Munich Bach Orchestra (1968) are good middle-of-the-road recordings. Britten and the English Chamber Orchestra (also 1968) do not greatly appeal to me, neither does Adrian Boult conducting the LPO (1972).

The Brandenburgs are usually described as “orchestral” works, but they sound best when played by a small chamber orchestra. Like septets, octets and nonets, they do not really require a conductor, although someone to organise balance and tempi is often useful. Bach called them six concerts avec plusieurs instruments in his dedication to the Margrave of Brandenburg. In the Festival Hall performances by Menuhin's band, I particularly recall the visual effect in the third Brandenburg of seeing the counterpoint travelling from left (first violins) to right (basso). An example of stereophonic listening.

To succeed on record, the Brandenburgs need a fine set of instrumentalists, a good balance so the polyphony and counterpoint can be heard, and a good recording. My favourites of the six concertos are numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6. I am not over-fond of brass instruments in chamber works (numbers 1 and 2, although David Blackadder's trumpet in no.2 with Pinnock almost converts me). I am currently renewing my acquaintance with these works by listening to my seventh set, the European Brandenburg Ensemble directed by Trevor Pinnock (2006). This is the best of my bunch of seven recordings. For the missing second movement of the third concerto where Bach left only two orchestral chords, almost certainly expecting some kind of improvisation, Pinnock's band inserts a highly appropriate solo violin piece (a superb improvisation by Kati Debretzeni); to me, this is the best solution yet to the (maybe) “missing” music. In the first concerto, the violino piccolo really does not make much of a mark (Menuhin would have been thankful), but what can a violino piccolo do against two horns, three oboes and a bassoon? It's as much Bach's miscalculation as one by the recording engineers. You can combine a violin solo with flute or clarinet, but not with oboe or brass, Herr Bach. For a change in these works, the brass instruments do not give cause for unease concerning intonation where Pinnock's band is concerned. I also do not note one single movement in the whole set where I would disagree with Pinnock's chosen tempo for the music.

Anyway, around 300 years since they were written, the six Brandenburgs make superb listening. Eternal music. Not too much music written today is going to make 300 years, I suspect. I love the intense polyphony of the Brandenburgs; number six sounds positively seventeenth century. Music to keep to hand.

Joseph Haydn's String Quartets

For most of my nearly 70 years of listening to music, I usually passed over the music of Joseph Haydn. I probably thought that a man who wrote 106 symphonies and 30 or so string quartets could not be a serious candidate for anything other than Tafelmusik. My loss; Haydn's music rarely explores the heights and depths of human emotions, but it is highly engaging music to listen to as I am currently discovering exploring Haydn's string quartets in a giant 10-CD box recorded for Naïve by the Quatuor Mosaïques, recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Not being a Haydn fan in the past, I must have bought the box many years ago as an impulse buy.

Haydn was always so bloody cheerful! Not for him the depressions and fears in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert .... and Shostakovich! Haydn is characterised by the inventiveness of his music, his ever-present good humour, and the sheer professionalism of his writing. The recordings by the Quatuor Mosaïques come over well, with only an occasional rasp from the violins to remind us that this is a recording “on original instruments” (as the saying goes). The playing suits Haydn's music. So far I have listened to the three quartets of Op 77, and the six quartets of Op 76. Next up: the six quartets of Opus 64.

Sabine Devieilhe - Chanson d'Amour

The best song writers come from Germany-Austria, France, and Russia. Not much from the Spaniards, the Italians, or the British (the latter not since the 17^th century). I have been listening to a new CD of French mélodies, sung by Sabine Devieilhe. Titled “Chanson d'Amour” it collects 29 French mélodies by Fauré, Poulenc, Ravel and Debussy. I never tire of Devielhe's voice; it is a young, attractive soprano. Happy listening.

Khachaturian's Violin Concerto, and Antje Weithaas (again)

My taste in music centres on the 18^th and 19^th centuries, plus the first couple of decades of the 20^th. I have little interest in most of the music of the past 100 years (with significant exceptions, such as that of Prokofiev and Shostakovich). Around the middle of the past century, however, appeared four violin concertos that appeal to me greatly: the concerto by Benjamin Britten with a very English flavour, the concerto by Erich Wolfgang Korngold with a very Viennese flavour, the first violin concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich with a very Russian flavour – and the violin concerto by Aram Khachaturian with a very Armenian flavour.

I have been listening to a recording of the Khachaturian concerto played by the German violinist, Antje Weithaas. It is difficult to decide what to admire most about Weithaas's performance: her extraordinary sense of rhythm, her consummate technical expertise, or her exemplary ability to adapt to a music written in a very different idiom. She joins Julian Sitkovetsky (with Niyazi) and Leonid Kogan (with Monteux) on the podium for this concerto, thanks also to excellent and idiomatic support from the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie conducted by Daniel Raiskin. Highly recommended listening to counteract the morbid world of Covid-19.